Too depressed to blog – it must be bad

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.

Waiting for NSERC

This is the month that we all hear about funding. The whole academic scientific community across the country holds it’s breath in wait. Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic. But here it is regardless. My last chance for PDF funding. If I get it, great, on many levels. If I don’t, there are some serious decisions that need to be made. I don’t want to think about it.

I’m actually the only person I know, other than my advisor, who takes the funding situation really seriously. I talk to other PDF friends who have this laissez faire attitude. They say, “Oh well, if I don’t get it, something will come through”. And I agree, something will, but I feel like my whole academic future is riding on whether I get funding. And whether I get funding is riding on my whole past scientific career. And I have done everything possible to make myself as competitive as possible, yet it will never be enough to appease the queasy-stomach gods.

Okay, that’s not true. I chose to do research that’s cool over research that’s topical and fundable. I’ve worked in places I wanted to live rather than with people who would get me Science papers. I’ve actually made some bad choices in my career, always playing for the underdog and wanting to be the rebel. And I’ve paid the price in not winning scholarships before.
But not anymore. That’s why I live across the country from my family and friends, sacrificing the last years of my cat’s life, without possessions or a stable home. I’m here to get competitive. I’m here to get the big publications and eventually the faculty position. I know I won’t get that by standing aside and saying, “oh well, something will happen”.