Options or not; things will change

This year has more jobs than I've seen in the last three, and already I am long-listing it.
I feel really good about getting a job this year, which means when I don't, I'll be devastated!

As the stress builds again this year, I am reminded of the horrors I went through last year. Nose bleeds, chest pains, cat dying... And I feel myself getting closer to that stressed out state... but this year, I know it will end. I am pretty certain that come end-of-funding I will have options.

It's the options that both excite and terrify me. Some of these options may include going home, or very far away. I'm very conflicted about home. I'm sure anyone from a small town can relate. It's home; I miss it: I have life-long friends, it feels so comfortable - and that terrifies me. I am both drawn and repulsed by the idea of returning. It's kinda like government work; solid hours and funding, but somehow soul-sucking. To return would feel like failure. But how could that be?

I just don't know. It's best not to think about things. Just do.

So I started a new experiment. It's going to be way more involved than I first thought. It's only the first week and I am already exhausted. Too much on the To Do list and not enough time. My back hurts. Can't shut the brain down at night. I can tell my stress levels are up because my brain-voice is swearing a lot.

You know that crappy saying about the journey? It's about the journey, not the destination? I've always hated rollercoasters.

Ac-anaemia

There have been mornings, lying in bed, unable to fully wake up, with a slow but panicked voice in my head:

“Wake up!” “Wake up! – you’re not breathing!” “Are you breathing?” “You have to move, I don’t think your heart is beating” “Wake-up, you’re dying!”

Then my hair started to fall out. And the headaches, and chest pains. I thought it was stress. I’m sure the nosebleeds didn’t help.

So, I’m on iron pills. Getting ready to go home for a month. Major decisions have already been made, but will take time to play out. More jobs are being posted each day, but nothing I want to do, nor in places I want to live. But in my new realisations comes a weight lifted from my shoulders. I’m no longer going to worry about getting the academic job. I no longer care. I’ll apply for a few things that come up; but not sure I’d take them if they were offered. I’ll plan my experiments for the fall – the plan is to stock-pile a tonne of data, and then if nothing interesting comes along next May when my funding runs out, I’ll just go home.

I’ll write. I’ll run. I’ll take care of myself. Get healthy. Recover from the last 12 years of stress and hard work. Yes, I’m taking a sabbatical.

If I live cheaply, I figure I can survive for at least a year on my savings. In the mean time, I might pick up some contract or consulting work. I’ll live with my partner (I’ll tell him about this plan later), I’ll grow tomatoes, I’ll write my novel. I’ll write some grants with people around my home town, I’ll see my friends, I’ll do something. I don’t know what, but I’m not worried anymore. This feeling I’ve had for the past two years is slowly fading – and I wonder how much of it has been my career stress and how much has been anaemia. What if it was all just anaemia?

Life goes on (3)

New blog post. Finally.
Well, it took a while to move through the emotional state I was in after my pet died. I realised that I had been well entrenched in this mindset even before she died; that I had been experiencing grief, guilt, anxiety and loss for my old life since I’ve arrived here.

The job market has closed for the season (save one last posting), and I have nothing but two long lists and a phone interview to show for it. The last posting actually has the most promise for me, but whether I want it or not is another question. I want a job, of course, but, well, I guess I’m just scared. I know that regardless of the job, I need to apply; that an interview is a good thing for the CV, and that an offer is even better. Will I be able to do what I want within the context of this particular (or any) position, is up to me. What I am afraid of is not being able to live up to their expectations.

A while back I made a decision, based on comments on a job wiki, that it would be better for me to move onto another postdoc rather than a job I didn’t want, provided that the postdoc would produce high quality publications. But recent financial issues have cropped up, and I simply don’t think I can continue to postdoc. So, with that, I really want this new position, regardless of the location and their expectations. I can learn to teach anything they want me to teach. I can accept responsibilities that I have little experience for, and I can do it all while developing a strong research program.

I’m back to being excited about the future, but we’ll see how long that lasts. Today I’m up, but tomorrow…In the mean time, I’ll try to blog with a little more regularity.

Life goes on (2)

Things have been good and bad this past while.

I finally got two manuscripts out the door, and two more on the wing about to be submitted.
I applied for five jobs, and have a phone interview for one at the end of the month.
I’m not doing the science I want to do, but I know why I came here, and what I have to do to move on, so I’m doing okay.

On the down side, I’ve been living on the edge of sanity with only moments of clarity. My beloved pet died yesterday, and I feel like I’m floating through life with nothing to ground me.
The dynamics of the lab have shifted, and I’m excited to be there for it. I feel strangely calm.

Life will go on. I never thought I would be here, so I know my life is something I can’t plan.
It’ll be okay.
I’ll be okay.

Long-list

Why do the perfect jobs always seem like they were invented by the writers of Twilight Zone? The old, black & white, Twilight Zone.

Here is the job of your dreams – except the building you would work in smells really bad.
Here is the job of your dreams – except you would have to give up good coffee.
Here is the job of your dreams – except it is the furthest possible distance on the planet from everything you value in your life.

So, I made a long-list. They asked for reference letters. Someone, a group of people actually, found me and my research interesting enough to ask for reference letters.

Huh.

I still find it weird, but I’m oddly okay with it. In fact, I’ve made a break-through on my research (life). I have a direction, and a vision, and I think I’m ready to implement it. I’m ready to have my own lab. I know the equipment I need. I have several projects for students to start on, and for me to write grants on. I once again (Hallelujah) know what I want! It only took one year, to get back on track. Oh, it’s about time! I’m abandoning my advisor's projects, and going rogue. It’s the only way. It’s the only thing I’ve ever done which has made me any progress in life; in fact, I don’t know why I even attempt to work with other people anymore, or see things any other way than my own. (insert Sinatra soundtrack here).
Done.
I’m back.

Sunday was international woman’s day

A week or two ago I attended our departmental meeting. It was a special occasion as we announced the results of a job competition, and also the Dean was visiting.

We had six people short-list and interview for the position: two women and four men. My favorite was number 1 and was offered the job. The women ranked fifth and sixth. I was okay with that, because they truly sucked. Totally unrelated to that event, the Dean wanted to make an announcement about the official position on increasing the number of women hired for faculty positions. To increase the number of women, he was going to facilitate more spousal hires.

(I’ll let that sink in a moment)

WHAT?! What the $%@# does that mean? That’s not a policy to hire more women, that’s a policy to hire men’s wives!

I’m a woman. I need a job. Hire me.

Doesn’t work that way, but if I marry a man with a better career than mine, I’ll get a job.

Wow that sucks!

Shattered and tossed and worn

I haven’t blogged in a while because I’ve been discouraged about my future.

The first position I applied for was cancelled due to the economic downturn, and I personally know about 10 people who applied for the second job; the job I haven’t even been allowing myself to think about because I really want it, and know that I’m not competitive enough to get. It would be “the” job. The job that I would have for the rest of my life because everything could fall into place, and I could live how I’ve always dreamed of. I’m too scared to get my hopes up. I didn’t tell my friends or family about the job because I also don’t want them to get their hopes up for me either.

But, in all that discouragement, I’m almost resolved myself to this current life. I am feeling better about being here. I’m making friends, albeit only from work. I trust my advisor and know that he wants me to succeed. My lab is coming to life, and if I could only get focussed and get back some of my past productivity I could make some good progress. I feel blah and numb most days, other days hopeful, other days kicked. That box full of my dreams for the future is still there, yet no closer after 10 years of working towards it. There are days that I think about giving it up, but the alternative wouldn’t get me any closer to the box of dreams either, so I plug on. I have another month before I find out about funding for the next two years. Between my advisor, and myself I can’t imagine that we won’t get funded, but, if I personally don’t get funded then I have to consider that I’m not going to make it in academia. The question then would be, do I drop out now or do the two years and wait for the random drift towards more uncertainty.

I'm a grown up?

As I finalise my application package for a tenure-track position, what I was so hyped on yesterday, is now becoming a freak-out.
What if I get it?
Can I pull that off?
Why hasn’t someone stopped me already?
Do I want to live there?
Do I want to put that much effort into teaching?
Am I ready to start writing the do-or-die grant proposals?
Grad students sound like a lot of responsibility.
Am I ready for this?
Am I ready to focus on the next big push towards tenure?
Does it ever end???

I am so naïve. I have no idea what I’m doing. My application package is okay, I think. I have the credentials, but I lack the experience – not of doing science, but of making what I do look all glossy and slick.

However, I know I’m not alone. Many successful scientists in my field that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and bonding with over beverages have, at one point or another, beckoned me with crooked finger, leaned in and told me the same secret. They have no idea how they got where they are, and worry that one-day someone will find out that they have no idea what they’re doing.

It’s funny though how you judge yourself over such short time periods. I never felt that I would succeed in my undergraduate, I thought that grad school would be so hard and I might fail, and now I compare myself to profs with 10 years experience and grooming, and think “I suck”. But, then things are put into perspective. I talked with a good friend over the holidays, an old roommate actually, and mentioned I was applying for a position at this University. She asked “what position” and was shocked when I said “prof”. Ha ha. She has no idea what I do for a living, and she thinks that since I still “go to Uni” I must still be going to classes and writing exams and stuff. When I talk to my friends about ‘work’ they always cock their heads and ask “Work? When did you get a job?” I had to ask her “You know I’m a Doctor, right?” Ha, ha. I’m grown-up!

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.