I’ve been taking a break from all things post-doc because I’ve found the whole situation too depressing to think about. I’ve been here two years. I’ve published a few papers, watched the job market tank, funding dry up, and gotten new wrinkles on my face. I look old, I feel old, and I still don’t have a job. I live thousands of kilometres away from my whole life; and the whole time I feel that I am on the cusp of a break though.
In fact, I know I am. But I just don’t know if I can do it. And the straw wasn’t my entire lack of personal life (and sex for that matter), but a realisation that I was leaving behind research I wanted to continue with just to be employable. Yes kids, it stopped being fun. And that was the whole reason I did it.
I used to love my job. Now I’m writing review papers about plant-pollination system for botany journals (note: this is NOT what I do).
The only solace I have is a PhD student in my lab who wants to be a film maker. I’m trying to get him to drop out.
Part of what I need to reconcile with are my expectations of success. If I’m not happy personally, am I successful? Not really. Especially since the catalyst for my academic career was fear of being trapped in a job I hated. I can’t call myself a failure, so why do I feel like one? maybe because this is a weird, weird profession where the bar is always higher than you will ever jump because it’s attached to the top of your head.
Funding runs out in May. Something will happen then.
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