Thursday, November 12, 2009

Staying in Academia? Why am I always job searching??

I am in the middle of a major slump. I have had these fits regularly throughout the last half of graduate school and throughout my postdoc.

The last few months of my postdoc have been going so well that I thought this phase of my life was over. I always attributed them to general grad student malaise and my love/hate relationship with academia. But now...? I'm not so sure.

I have been spending my time at work writing easy emails, reading random articles unrelated to any specific project, attending lectures, looking online for jobs for Spousal Unit, looking online for dream jobs for me-academic and non-academic, putting together a baby registry, thinking about relocating to a different state, freaking out about money, checking on the status of my manuscripts under review, engaging in email discussions about unsolvable controversial issues, worrying what I will do if I receive the recent career development award I applied for, worrying what I will do if I do not receive the recent career development award I applied for, and generally avoiding real work.

Why do I do this? Why can't I just get started on a new project and make some headway on something new and/or some long-lost project at the bottom of my pile of things I really don't want to do?

Is this ever going to stop? Am I ever going to stop fantasizing about the "perfect" job where I wouldn't face these temptations and these periods of uselessness?

Is this just because my work is so deadline oriented that when I don't have a deadline I can't get anything done? This is definitely part of the reasons my dissertation phase was so looooonng and so horrible.

It's times like this where I convince myself I need to do some real work and start looking at the government and non-profit sector listings.

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

augh. I don't know. But I do understand your pain. And I'm so sorry for it.

5:57 PM  

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