Should I apply?

I'm really stressed about some unbloggable issues in my personal life. Like, really stressed. It's making it difficult to deal with run-of-the-mill stressors like the hassle of getting license plate for my new car. And even more difficult to make more important decisions. So I turn to you, dear readers.

This post will probably self-destruct pretty soon. Sorry it's so long. I wrote it mostly so I could clear my head.

Ok, so I've been in my postdoc for a year and nine months. I made a rather big change in what I do and the new stuff is VERY sexy. It's also extremely interdisciplinary, to the degree that I would never learn the other parts well enough to do them myself (no one would). There have been quite a few job ads aimed at someone with my postdoc skills, including one in my PhD department. However, I decided not to apply for jobs this year for four reasons. 1) despite being in this lab for over a year, I have acquired very few of the skills someone would expect me to have coming out of a postdoc like this. Instead of learning the lab techniques, I have been designing experiments, writing proposals, and analyzing/interpreting already-collected data, all of which rely on the skills I acquired through my PhD. There's hope, though. One of my projects should start to bear data soon, and that will teach me screeds. Another should provide an opportunity to learn some of the lab skills, and a third will be cool as hell. So I should learn a lot in the next 6-12 months. 2) My publishing record sucks. The second paper from my PhD is now in press and I"m working on the third. The first paper from my postdoc has been rejected twice and we've been sitting on it. However, I expect the next year to be extremely productive in terms of papers. 3) My postdoc advisor suggested I wait, since next year my application would be SO much better and I don't want people to associate me with this year's weak application. 4) EGM is still not finished with his thesis. The date just keeps getting pushed back and he's feeling awful about it. I feel like he will feel terribly trapped, left behind, and like a failure if I get a permanent position and he has to go where I go. Like it would do permanent damage to our relationship.

My grad advisor has encouraged me to apply for the position in his department. In addition to the factors listed above, there are other reasons not to apply. 1) I don't think I'm competitive. 2) I have lots of friends among the grad students, and it would be a bit weird. 3) I have absolutely no business teaching the topic of my postdoc as a basic undergrad course. I simply do not have the background for it. 4) I'm still not convinced I want to be  professor. 5) I don't have the skills to launch a lab in the area of my postdoc research. 6) My negative feelings about the department have not yet entirely abated. 7) If on the off-off chance that I got this job, how annoyed would I be that I didn't apply elsewhere, like someplace in a better climate? 8) Given all this, I don't want to spend the time and effort on an application.

So, why would I even consider applying for it? 1) My institution really doesn't like to keep postdocs for more than three years, so applying for jobs next year is potentially going to leave me with a gap. 2) It's flattering to have someone encourage you to apply. 3) We know we mostly like this city 4) EGM could likely find something here, even though it would probably not be what he really wants 5) My contacts on the hiring committee might improve my chances 6) Would a man ever hold back in a situation like this? 7) This job is written for me, inasmuch as it's written for what I do now. I might be able to negotiate a later start date and by that point I would probably be qualified for the job. 8) My research is SO interdisciplinary that I would never be able to do it on my own. Thus, being close to my current postdoc lab would mean I could continue to collaborate with them. It might be one of the only ways to do this type of work long-term.

So, what should I do? I had decided not to apply, but then I got an email from grad advisor saying I should. The application is due Friday, and if I do it I think it will take me most of the week to put together something decent.

Nuggets

I bought myself a big bag of Hershey's Nuggets to use as rewards for work done. Read a paper? Get a nugget. Do a set of statistical tests? Get a nugget. Write a paragraph? Get a nugget.

One of the papers from my PhD needs to get submitted very soon. It's perhaps the most interesting of my thesis chapters, but also the most complex. My grad adviser and I sent samples from the project to one group of collaborators so they could make some measurements for an independent project and we sent data to another group so they could use it in a new model, and both groups will be ready to start writing soon. In addition, my postdoc adviser and I finally figured out how to revamp a paper that has been rejected twice, and I have substantial responsibilities for making that happen.

I don't care if I eat 25 nuggets a day if it means getting these two papers moving.

My website

Chall asked what I meant when I said I established a professional website. It's just going to be a typical university-style set of pages describing my research interests with stuff from my cv. It will also have a blog that I intend to update maybe 1-3 times a month with personal updates (e.g. when a paper gets accepted), commentary on cool papers, or observations from meetings.

The website for our recent conference was powered by Wordpress via my institution. At first I was all, "why are you giving me a blog when I asked for webpages?" But it turned out to be super easy to manage and it looked really slick. The content were all in "pages" and I used the blog part for "news". I plan to do something similar with my own site.

A cool feature of Wordpress (maybe Blogger or other platforms too) is that you can pay to have your own domain name but still use all the structure, templates, everything from Wordpress. So my page is ecogeofemme.com rather than ecogeofemme.wordpress.com which is kind of neat. Probably most of you already knew about that, but I didn't before this weekend.

I've been meaning to establish a website for my professional self for a long, long time. I simply don't have enough presence on the web, especially now that it's nearing the time when I'll be looking for jobs and I have all this exposure from the conference. I think I finally found a way to do it that's easy enough that I'll actually do it!

A bust, or just what I needed

This weekend was kind of a bust. I didn't manage to get my license plates, although I did try. I guess I need something from the dealer first. Also, there is some confusion about the sequence of events leading to me acquiring the correct permanent plates since I bought the car in a different state from where I live.

I started my own professional website using wordpress. It doesn't have a lick of content yet, but I did get the domain name and template established. I had some other light work in mind, but I didn't even touch it.

We did spend a bunch of time with friends this weekend, which was glorious. We really haven't gotten to see much of our friends for the last month+ since EGM's parents were here. I also vegged out a bunch. Although that is not so satisfying afterwards, I think I needed some intense down time. Unfortunately, I'm still feeling a little floppy today. I packed gym clothes. Maybe a workout after work will revive me.

One thing sort of off the list

Ok, so today was a little better than the past several days. I drafted a report summarizing last month's conference for our funding officers. It will need some revision, but it's close. I also made a decision about the next step in my experiment that won't work and figured out what part I need to buy for that. And...that's about it.

This weekend I need to get license plates and a parking permit for my new car. It will feel good to get those things done before the 11th hour.

Worn out

In the past 6 weeks I have

• Convened the 150-person conference for which I was the lead organizer.
• Hosted Ecogeoman's parents for a month. In our one-bedroom apartment.
• Coordinated the local travel of EGM's friends and family who were all visiting from overseas, including three of his friends (one with his baby), his brother + wife (who had different itineraries), his sister + wife + toddler.
• Traveled to my hometown.
• Had my car break down as soon as we got there.
• Bought a new car the next day.
• Had our wedding.

EGM's parents just left yesterday. It was an awful goodbye, despite the fact that we were all more than ready for some elbow room. Now I'm feeling guilty for being so terribly distracted from work.

Today I went to a seminar, had lunch with the speaker, read part of a paper that I am refereeing, downloaded the guide to authors for a journal we are targeting for a paper that's already been reviewed at two other journals, and read a few of the autism-related articles in the special feature of Nature (or was it Science? Doesn't matter, this is utterly unrelated to anything at all that I do). And looked at Facebook a whole lot.

I have something due-ish tomorrow, so hopefully that will spur greater productivity than today.

Hey

I haven't posted in a long time.

But the blog hasn't died. Although I haven't had much motivation to write, I've been keeping up on lots of other blogs and held this one in the back of my mind. I've wanted to write about many things about my postdoc that were puzzling or interesting, but I felt weird about sharing that stuff here for whatever reasons. Furthermore, I don't think I've needed this as an outlet in quite the same way since I defended.

However, I've been missing the blog lately. I have been pining for the intense period of productivity I had in the months before I defended. Obviously that was largely motivated by the looming deadline of my defense, but the accountability and support I got from blogging was really helpful.

So I think I'm going to make an effort to post somewhat regularly again. But instead of writing essays on how I think life as a scientist should be, I'm just going to write short updates about what I've been up to at work. We'll see how that goes.