6 Months of Limbo and now a PhD

Now that I’ve been back in New Zealand for 6+ months, here are some reflections about our trip. I’m so glad we did it, but it has been nice to be back somewhere stable since then.

• Seeing friends and family was so nice, and the worst part of living in New Zealand is that some of the people I am closest to live so far away.
• European food is great – if only it could be that affordable and high quality everywhere in the world.
• Europe has so many people. It is nearly impossible to get away from humans or human infrastructure in a meaningful way (at least in western Europe) – this is the main reason I don’t think I’ll ever be able to live there long-term.
• The US has some incredible landscapes – the southwest especially will always have my heart (and Travis really enjoyed it too).
• American towns and cities have very little character; some have a nice downtown area but the fringes are almost always made up of the same chain stores, no matter where you are. The car-centric nature of American cities also ruins much of their appeal.
• American food is not great, and both Travis and I struggled with some stomach issues in the US. While it might be possible to eat well there it is very difficult, especially when traveling. Also, I missed burritos but the thought of eating another cold bean and cheese burrito fills me with sadness.
• Insurance in America seems to be the bane of nearly every American’s existence. I can’t wait to get residency in New Zealand so I never have to think about it again.
• The politics in America are quite scary at the moment. There are people meaningfully resisting, though, which gives me hope. As with any fascist government resistance can be dangerous, however, so there is a constant question of “how much can I do without putting myself in danger”, a line that seems to be moving every day.

All in all, I’m glad to not be living in the US at the moment. It is nice to visit and so nice to see the people, but I think quite a lot would need to change before I would seriously consider moving back.

The house Travis and I moved into when we got back from travelling turned out to be a wonderfully modern and insulated house – a godsend for our third winter. Travis and I are sharing a large room with our own bathroom and a walk-in closet. The room is north-facing and gets sun most of the day which heats it up nicely (summer might be very warm though). There is a large and well-furnished kitchen, a lounge with comfortable couches and a gas fireplace, and an established garden (more on that later). There is also a large garage which is perfectly set up for bikes and gear storage, including a ski/tent drying rack and an attic to store seldom-used equipment. Our flatmates are three women ages 22, 27, and 32, two of which we get along with well and one of which doesn’t really talk to anyone of us. There is also a cat named Smokey who has declared our house is his home. He is ~14 years old, lives at a house (way) down the street, and seems to spend every minute begging to be let in to our house. One of the flatmates is allergic so he is not allowed in common spaces, but we do allow him to sleep on our bed some nights – it seems to make him very happy.

The past 6 months have been a weird limbo period, and I’m finally starting to move myself towards something substantial, but I’ll outline one month at a time.

April

I decided job hunting should begin not with applications, but with coffee chats. I chatted with as many people as I could muster while caffeinated. None of them lead to anything. I started submitting job applications for cool jobs I saw pop up. Travis officially graduated.

May

I did Twalk again. My friend Nicole came to visit from Santa Barbara. The visit was the disaster. We had a few good days and then she got horribly sick with the flu and spent the rest of her visit on an air mattress in our living room. Not quite what we’d imagined. As she was leaving, I started getting sick. I got horribly sick and was in bed for nearly 2 weeks. Somewhere in there I had an interview with Untouched World Foundation (right before I got sick). I didn’t get the job.

June

I kept applying for jobs, now in earnest. Towards the end of June Untouched World Foundation contacted me about doing a short-term contract with them to promote a professional development programme they were recruiting participants for. I said yes (obviously). Noah went back to the US 🙁

July

I worked for Untouched World Foundation during the week, and Travis and I went skiing on the weekends. We also took a trip down to Wānaka and Queenstown and did more skiing. That was fun. I got rejected from lots of jobs, and applied for my second partner work visa. Travis and I started sport climbing indoors to give us something active to do on cold winter evenings.

August

I finished up my contract with Untouched World Foundation. I had not succeeded in filling the course with participants, because it turns out in this economy nobody wants to spend thousands of dollars on their early-career employees. I wrote a report detailing all my suggestions moving forward.

I was issued an interim visa before my work visa expired. I was rejected from lots of jobs because I didn’t have a long-term visa (not that they directly told me, but I figured it out). Travis and I did more skiing. I started seedlings for the garden. Mestre Roxinho from Brazil came to visit and we had three evening workshops.

September

I got hired on to work for the 2026 New Zealand election as an issuing officer. If I’m lucky it could be about 4 weeks of full-time work. After receiving around 50 rejections for full-time roles and internships (because I graduated too long ago – evidently there is no sympathy for people whose life is not perfectly linear), I decided no one was going to hire me and I should go back to uni. A masters is 2 years and a PhD is 3 years here, so why not go for a PhD. Also, I can be paid. I decided on a topic and found an advisor, and, miraculously, he agreed to supervise me after one conversation.

Untouched World Foundation invited me to attend their Advanced Leadership Programme over a weekend – it was good fun but I left feeling a bit like all the stories we’re told about the world being our oyster aren’t actually true once you face the realities of the job market.

October

I applied for my residency visa ($$$, and takes 6-7 months to process). I applied for the PhD at the University of Canterbury. I applied for PhD Scholarships. I started working on my paper again, hoping to publish it before I start my PhD.

Here’s what the next few months look like going forward:

November

Work for the election (the actual election day is November 7^th). Once that finishes, I’m heading up to Motueka (top of the South Island) for 4 weeks to do some apple thinning until right before Christmas.

December

Work in Motueka until just before Christmas. Spend Christmas with Travis’s family in Hanmer Springs. Then go tramping in Fiordland with Travis.

January

Tramping for the first half, back to working on my paper for the second.

February

Work on my paper. Hopefully get residency.

March

If I have residency, start my PhD. If not, wait another month (and unofficially start with learning on my own).

Job hunting is a uniquely demoralising process, especially at the moment, where every job receives hundreds of applications and the unemployment rate is the highest its been in years in New Zealand. AI has enabled people to apply for more jobs more quickly, resulting in recruiters needing to use AI to sort through all the applications they’re receiving – as a result, you’re lucky if a human ever lays eyes on your application. Now is the first time I have able to apply for permanent roles here, and I targeted career-relevant roles in Christchurch which I would actually enjoy doing. I still wrote my own cover letters, because I want my application to reflect me – I have heard that AI filters prefer cover letters written by AI, so I may be shooting myself in the foot. So many of the jobs want experience in that same field – an administration job wants 4 years of administration experience, a compliance job wants 2 years of compliance experience, etc… I’m not sure how they ever expect people to get that experience if they’re unwilling to give people a chance at getting it. Hence the PhD.

My PhD will be in the development of the biodiversity credit market in New Zealand. Restoration of native forests and wetlands is very necessary, but the question is always, “where does the money come from?” Government funding and grants are often limited and depend heavily on who is running the government. Biodiversity credits allow a private funder to bankroll a large-scale restoration effort. The outcomes (increase in biodiversity, eg numbers and species of animals and plants) are measured and certified by a third party, and then those outcomes are turned into credits which can be bought, and the profits go back to the original funder – effectively making nature something you can invest in. Sometimes these credits are bundled or stacked with carbon credits. Companies may want to buy these credits to show that they support biodiversity or that their profits are going to a good cause. They are not (as of right now) sold as offsets – purchasing them is voluntary and does not allow a company to say they had less of an impact. The biodiversity market is in its infancy both in New Zealand and globally, with governments defining new guidelines all the time. There is one project up and running in New Zealand that is selling credits successfully, and the government is piloting their own series. Recently, it was announced that public conservation land was being up for biodiversity credit schemes. The development of the carbon credit market was done in what seems like the “wild west”, and as a result, there are some significant issues with carbon credits. From my understanding (limited, but growing all the time) there is much more care being put into the development of the biodiversity credit market, with international standards being developed and certification bodies that are recognised by governments doing the auditing.

I am especially interested in where Māori fit into this picture. The advisor I chose, Dr. John Reid, is Māori, works with the Ngāi Tahu Research Center at the University of Canterbury, and is very well-connected outside the university as well. He has recently been looking at the scalability of biodiversity credits and how remote sensing can be used to measure and certify outcomes on a large scale. From what I know so far, there are several Māori groups working on projects – I’m keen to learn more.

Everything I have done with my career so far – the Environmental Studies degree, Indigenous Studies minor, scientific research, tree planting, working for a hapū (subtribe) – I did with the goal of one day moving to the next level of strategy and having impacts on a large scale. I thought it would be policy (and it might still be, someday), but a PhD in biodiversity credits seems like the perfect next step that brings all those things together. Different people have pushed me towards a PhD before, but I always knew that one day there would be a situation in which it felt right to take on a PhD, and that I shouldn’t rush into it before then. I think this is the time. In my conversation with Dr. Reid, he said (after saying he’d be happy to supervise me) that he rejects around two requests for him to supervise a PhD each week. I walked out of that conversation realising that I’d just succeeded in a high-stakes interview I didn’t know I was having, with further confirmation that this is the right step to be taking. After receiving so many job rejections (which aren’t personal but definitely feel like it sometimes), I felt like someone had finally looked at me and seen potential to learn and grow instead of lacking knowledge and experience.

With the development of this market, it’s also a strategic step to be taking, career-wise. There will be people looking for experts in this in 3-4 years when I finish, and I have high hopes that I will be able to find a job in this field afterwards. Additionally, with a PhD the academia path is always there, and although it isn’t what I’m planning on, it’s an option.

Although starting the PhD is still 5 or 6 months away, I now have a clear plan and goal to work towards. I will make some money in between now and then. I will do some cool tramping. I will (hopefully, finally) publish my paper. Good things are coming.