Consistency, or a lack thereof

For the past month or so, I have had very little stability as I have been in a state of flux and unknowing. Will I get the job I interviewed for and finally get to officially settle down and start a permanent life? Finally live together with the Grackle and all of our little fur faces and have a consistent life instead of the temporary one I’ve been in for most, if not all of my adult life?

Well, although I don’t have official confirmation, I am 98% sure that isn’t happening. It has been pretty difficult to deal with and pretty depressing. All of my 1 out of 200 rejections are accepted almost as a given but to be 1 out of 5 and get rejected after they meet me, hear about my research and enjoy my sparking personality (to say nothing of my cute shoes) is getting me down about my prospects in academia altogether*

In addition to the soul crushing job market, the snowstorms in my area and a faulty transmission in Grackle’s car have conspired to keep us apart for most of February. I was able to get home this weekend for the first time since Feb 3^rd…. but am leaving for field-work on Friday so it will be at least 6 weeks till we see each other again. The whole point of taking a geographically close postdoc was so that we didn’t have to go 3 months without seeing each other!

Given all this, it doesn’t really seem like anything is consistent these days. Who knows what I will be working on come next year, where I might be in 18 months, if I will ever get a job, etc etc. But then as I contemplated just how much of a pity party my writing about continuity really was turning out to be, I thought about what it was we did this weekend.

We sat around our house and were completely boring. We watched sports and worked and played backgammon. The most exciting part of the trip was a visit to the antique mall where we found a three-faced dog planter (see below). Despite the snooze factor, the weekend was exactly like most weekends and has shown just how much consistency/continuity there can be in the mundane aspects of everyday life. This is actually quite comforting. The pets will always provide entertainment, Grackle will always do something sweet** and we will never get as much cleaning done as we plan.

This perspective is helping me accept the results of this years job search and remember that nothing is really so bad. It is fine I didn’t get what I thought was the perfect job and it is fine that weather and work and cars all seem to be working against me. The fundamental aspects of my life remain consistent and that is more than enough.

*I know that on my first year on the market that I am very lucky to have even gotten an interview and am grateful for the experience. Also know that search committees make decisions for all sorts of reasons and it shouldn’t be taken personally. Rejection still stinks, though.

**While out for dog food, he bought me an office chair so we can both sit comfortably while working/watching tv.

back to blogging

So, it has been a while hasn't it. My absence was much longer than planned but I think I am ready to get back.

When I left, I had just returned from a conference. There was a big focus on my new work there and I didn't feel like I kept up or fit in or was well received whenever I tried to get my foot in the door or talk to bigwigs about my project. On top of that, I was in this competition and my talk didn't go very well. It was important for me to talk to some of the judges about my new work and I couldn't shake the feeling that they were judging me about everything. Because they were! Personally, it was a wonderful time catching up with good friends but professionally, eh.

Upon returning, I went into the field. It was a productive trip with a lot of pressure. It was on a new system that Rt-H hadn't worked on before. New places to work, with a different combination of students. There was one major blowout, which was due to my own leadership failings. 10 hours in the field + 7 hours driving + no food = unhappy Albatross. I got pissed at the actions of one student and the other had a compete breakdown. We worked through things and moved on with the trip and the work once we returned, but one of the students is still harboring some resentment about it all which makes it hard to learn from our mistakes and move forward.

After that trip (in July), with the students working away in the lab on our side project, I was supposed to visit to a lab for training related to the next portion of my project. This fell through and after a bit of floundering, I finally visited a different lab this past week to do the training. Things are starting to get back on track, some unbloggable situations have resolved themselves and life is becoming a bit more manageable again.

While catching up on my 1000+ posts in my reader, please feel free to let me know major happenings that I've missed in the comments. If anyone is still here reading, that is!

Odds and ends

Since I am still transitioning into my new position, I am still transitioning out of my old lab. In order to really do this, I need to finish up some things and get them off my desk. In particular order...

• Final touches/Letter to Editor/Submit very old, small manuscript
• Format/Submit MS 1 from dissertation
• Final edits/Format/Submit MS 2 from dissertation

It would be nice if these were all finished by the time I return to the lab next week. The tasks themselves are small but they seem big in the greater sense of things. 

2008 ended up being a good year for getting papers accepted and these are the next round. This will be the first submission for each of these projects which almost certainly means rejections, lots of revisions, resubmissions, the whole cycle. I know it is good to have data and be getting it out and all but when working on these, part of me can't help but think 'Geez, here we go again...'

Back to reality

Thanks to a neighbor with an unprotected wireless network and the Grackle's old, but functional laptop I am back! I moved and start my postdoc tomorrow. More on those later. More pressing is where I've been.

After our holiday trip to the Midwest, we jetted off to a lovely Caribbean island for vacation. VACATION! No work*, no futons, no standing commitments. I haven't been on such a trip since my last graduation and Grackle and I have never taken this type of trip together in 5+ years. Given the lack of work, family and the tropical nature of it, this might have been our honeymoon. We didn't plan it that way, but that is how folks at school interpreted it.

It was fabulous.

7 days of snorkeling, great beaches, hiking in the rain forest, kayaking, exploring an old city, good food and lots of rum. Fa-bu-lous. As a younger grad student, I balked at a labmate who took vacations at least once a year. Think of the missed experiments! The data! Now, I see why they did it. I doubt we will be able to take yearly trips, but hopefully it will not be 5 years till our next adventure. At least one long weekend away to a new, not necessarily far or exotic destination should be feasible for us and will be a good compromise between work and fun. The data will just have to wait**.

I'll add a few more later but for now, here is the only picture that would upload: Grackle on the beach.

*The only books Grackle brought were textbooks. While I worked my way through Middlesex he practically memorized all 3 of our island guidebooks.

**Alright, I say this now...let's see what I say when it is actually time to take another trip! I'm sure the exams, proposals, defenses, experiments and field seasons that have kept us from vacationing in the past will probably do so in the future....just..hopefully not as much...