All you can hope for as a postdoc (2)

I’m applying for a position of Assistant Professor at a small university. Like everything else in my life, I have mixed feelings about this. Firstly, being a small university, it seems to lack adequate funding, grad student enrollment and general resources. On the other hand, I’m used to that. Secondly, the university is located in a town I’ve never been to (I had to Google map it), and not sure I would ever want to live in. Huh. Thirdly, there is a small probability that another job I’ve had my eye on will open up around the same time as the proposed start date of this position. But there is no guarantee this other position will be made available, nor that I would be hired for it (but I likely would be, IF it came available). Huh.

But, I am excited about the possibility that I would be competitive for this job and the opportunity to contribute to many aspects of a possibly impoverished Department. Furthermore, being a small university, I wouldn’t be redundant or overly specialised. I can envision the new courses I would develop and teach, summer field programs I could be involved with, and collaborations I could initiate. That’s exciting. I also have a soft spot for being the underdog.

On the personal side, I desire a permanent position and to make more money (ugh, who am I?). I seek an academic position for my own ego’s sake and I am terrified I will never get a real job, have to drop out of research, and will slip into oblivion among my peers (eeew, when did I get like this?). My insecurities kick-in further when I think that maybe I’m not competitive for this position and I really won’t ever get a job in my field. Then, of course my emotions swing over to the other side and I wonder whether I’m selling myself short applying for a position that’s not really very prestigious, and good old EGO tells me to hold off and shoot higher. I finally fall into an emotionally frozen, coma-like, rocking-foetal-position state where I don’t want to think about it, don’t want to deal with it, just want to hide in the lab and generate data. Postdoc'ing sucks.