Postdocly Progression

This is how I recently summed up my postdoc experience to a fellow postdoc who is a few months behind me on this journey. I thought I’d share with y’all:

0-6 months: Everything going swimmingly. Everyone loves you. You love you! You are a rock star. And so is your mentor. Opportunities and data abound!!

6-9 months: Big. Depressing. Slump. You are a failure. This place and everyone here is soooo full of sh*t!

9-12 months: Insane productivity. Big ideas. Accessible data. Successful models. Promising results. Accepted grant applications. You are COCKY AS HELL.

*12-16 months: Pregnancy brain. Cannot complete a single task in an entire day. But you don’t really care. You just want to sleep. And pick out baby clothes. (“Those little sleepers are SOOOO cute! Why are my cankles so huge? Is it time for lunch?”)

Future predictions as to how the rest of my postdoc will go:

16+ months: You are now officially a breeder. All bets on scientific success and productivity are off. But who cares, because someone will be there to always love you even if you are a giant failure (at least until s/he turns about 13).

*I’m at 14 months into this postdoc. It’s definitely too long of a gestation. G-d help me.

On Being Preggo and Productive

I never knew how much I'd learn just by having a fetus growing inside me. For example, today I learned that it just isn't old, really fat, or really uncoordinated people who can't put on their shoes while standing. It's also pregnant people! Wow, go figure!

Being pregnant is such a public thing. As a pretty private person (yeah I know I have a blog and you might be thinking, what kind of blogger is private?, but I don't tell you people anything about my personal life here really, so accept it, yes I am a pretty private person. Even my friends tell me so.) I don't really love this part of being preggo. Everybody looks at you and stares at you when you are drinking coffee. For example. It is none of your business, people! You even get random strangers who touch your belly. WTF?!

On the postdoc front, I'm progressing pretty well with pubs and such. I've got 1 new one under review, 1 revision under review, 1 about to go out the door next week, and more in the pipeline. Truth is, though, that the only one that is really compelling to me is the one that is so complex I can't find a statistician who knows how to analyze it. I need to work on meeting more statisticians. And then finding some money so I can pay one to do this for me.

Good News: My Postdocly Life isn't only about Neverending, Tedious Analyses

Postdocly bullets of the good and the bad and the research proposal:

I just got word that I was approved for a NIH loan repayment program. No word yet on the amount of the award, but I just wanted to thank myself and the rest of yous guys. Thank you, American Tax Payers! Yay! This is awesome.

More good news, a 2-times revised article has just been finally, officially accepted for publication in a high impact journal. Bad news, they are very very picky about editorial issues. Bah!

Another article, dating from my very first job as a graduate student--yes, this was years ago will be submitted in a few days, or whenever I get to it.

I am applying for an institutional career development award (75% salary support + some research support.) I so don't feel ready for this yet as I'm not even done with my first year of postdoc life. But it's an annual cycle and it's due at the end of September, marking my one year anniversary. So in some ways, it's good timing. Anyway, the good news here is I finally have an idea for what to propose. Still trying to figure out if it's feasible though.

The only bad news in the hopper (besides my recent family-of-origin drama that would make you cry if I told you more about it), I can't seem to run the analyses I need to present at a meeting next Monday. This might entail weekend work. :( Super lame, except that I have been keeping really limited hours lately due to pregnancy-related exhaustion and food requirements (which require me to spend more time eating and sleeping than working.) So I owe the postdocly Gods some more time, for sure.

Any of you female post-docs or grads in science/medicine/psychology who will be applying for faculty positions in the next year? (Not that there are any openings.) There is a great program at Rice University in Houston designed to help you find the ideal faculty position. Although I might be increasing my competition by doing this(!), I do think it's a great opportunity. Check it Out, the deadline for applying is mid-August.

Happy Research!

Quitting Graduate School

Recently, fabio from orgtheory posted Grad School Rulz #21 on a topic of interest to 99% of all graduate students: quitting graduate school. It provides a good look at reasons to stay or quit the Academy.

I know this is of interest to my readers as it's probably the #3 reason search string that brings people to this site. For example, I get these a lot (insert various spelling errors): "graduate school cult" or "quitting graduate school". Even a good friend of mine (T-2 days from his defense) just posted on his FB that, following his advisor's criticisms at the 11th hour, he was planning to drop out.

Clearly, it's too late for me to drop out. BUT YOU MIGHT STILL HAVE A CHANCE!

Graduate school and the academy are quite cultish and as such, frank discussions about "quitting" are few and far between. Just this weekend I attended the National Postdoctoral Association annual meeting in Houston. For those of you unfamiliar with the organization, be sure to check out their website but do keep in mind the fact that the organization is heavily geared toward biomedical/science postdocs. Anywho, this meeting did a wonderful job presenting career development, networking, goal-setting, and job-landing opportunities OUTSIDE the Ivory Tower. My favorite part is when a group of recruiters from the [INSERT BIG FEDERAL RESEARCH INSTITUTION HERE] asked, "Why on earth do you people do this to yourselves? For Christ's sake, I pay my secretary more than you make!"

The meeting was great and I encourage you all to look into it. Let me know if you want more info on it, and I'll be happy to share some of the things I learned. Basically, I was newly inspired, filled with big thoughts and dreams, until I got back to my cube on Monday, and I realized I don't know how to do anything else.

What do you guys think about the re-entering the "Real World?" Worth it? Not? What about telling your mentor? (Now that would not be a discussion I would look forward to!)

Random Postdocly Updates

I recently attended my university's postdoc association holiday party. It was more fun that I thought it would be. You get a bunch of primarily lab scientists together and...well things can get boring fast.

After 2 days of endless data cleaning, my back and right wrist are starting to hurt. Ugh, RSIs.

I forgot my lunch today. Since it was in the teens today I didn't really feel motivated to leave my building. We do have a small diner/lunch spot in my building. But every time I go there I wonder just what "vegetarian beef barley soup" is really made of. Being primarily concerned with the "vegetarian" part, and less interested in the "beef" side of things, I have yet to try it out.

I am annoyed at my university for not providing enough holidays. What's up with that? We don't even get Christmas Eve off, or the day after Christmas. Sure we get a decent package of vacation days for a research-only environment, but it's not like people actually use them.

My new puppy, Fiona, is adorable.

Postdocly Life- It's Not So Bad

Here I am, 6 weeks into the rest of my life (real employment at a different university post- PhD).

Some might say a postdoc still isn't a "real" job. To that I say: It's as real as I can handle post-PhD.

My long-term readers will all remember my extended periods of moaning and complaining about graduate school. It was horrible, it was a cult, it was soul-sucking, blah, blah, blah.

Well today I'd like to sing another tune about post-doc life. Surprisingly, it's not a tune about high-powered R1 research institutions and the ego-mania they engender, the anxiety caused by living a purely grant-funded existence, the inherent problems of being, yet again, at the bottom of a strongly hierarchical system, or the difficulties in balancing a mentor's work with your own ideas.

The tune is thus: POSTDOCLY LIFE TOTALLY AWESOME AND I LOVE IT!

The Invisible Postdoc

I'm a ghost. In a cubicle! Actually, fortunately, my life is not so grim at New University but I know that it very well could have been ghostly, indeed.



copyright Jorge Cham, PhD Comics

Postdocly

Well, I am now back in the States and am officially a post-doc at New University. I have lots of thoughts and observations to share about this but I am also just a little bit busy and overwhelmed with thoughts and obligations and reflections about my move, my new job, my recent international travel, The Spider Bite, and so on. I need to think and process a lot and hopefully will post some laterz this week, espeically some thoughts about the transition from student to pseudo-not-student/postdoc, what it's like to finally work in a Collegial Environment, and some thoughts about how I am to go about Identifying My Research Agenda.

Meanwhile, I am trying to catch up with the blogosphere and noticed that Maude PhD has been preoccuped with quizziness and the implications of Radical Classist Revolution and inspired me to take a feminism quiz, with possibly suprising results below. I'll have to mull this over.

Your result for The Feminism Test...

Gender-Liberal

You scored 83% Gender-Abolitionist, 100% Sexually Liberal, and 40 % Socialist

You are the Gender-Liberal. This means that you share qualities with both Liberal Feminists and Gender Abolitionists. Like the Liberal Feminist, you feel political change needs to be done on a small-scale level through legislative change, not necessarily through a massive destruction of class society through the adoption of an extremist socialist stance. You are also very concerned with sexual liberation, and feel that women should be free to do what they please sexually without criticism, just as men should be free to do. However, you differ from the Liberal Feminist culturally, because you see gender as a social construction that needs to be destroyed. Like the Gender Abolitionist, you realize that gender is often perceived as one's identity, when it should only be perceived as a small, insignificant part of that person. We shouldn't be able to say "This person IS a woman". Rather one should say something more akin to "This person HAS the physical traits of a woman". This way, we wouldn't be assuming someone's physical traits are a part of their identity, and we couldn't use this difference to oppress them or categorize them. In short, you advocate extreme cultural change through the destruction of gender roles, but politically you are less extreme, instead focusing on individual or legislative change as opposed to a massive change of ideology.

The other feminist types:

The Housewife

The Marxist

The Liberal

The Liberal Extremist

The Gender Abolitionist

The Radical

The Gender-Liberal

The Revisionist

Take The Feminism Test at HelloQuizzy

More on the Job and Upcoming Roadtrip

So yes I swear I actually have been offered a job. I walked in graduation last week and it was a big relief to be able to finally have an answer to everybody who asked, "So what's next?"

I've been offered a post-doc in a decent sized Midwest town. Yes it looks like I'm relocating to a landlocked corn-fed city. I'm really excited about the opportunity and sort of ambivalent about the location....it could definitely be worse but it could totally be better. Of course anything better would have a much higher cost of living, something I wouldn't be able to swing on a post-doc salary.

At this point all I can say is that it's very very weird to be finally facing change after...years, years, years of the same.

So spousal unit and I are going to go check out the city and a bunch of other cities on our.... Four Dollar a Gallon Gas Roadtrip Tour 08! Wooohooo! Based on my lack of planning and a quick glance as a U.S. map it looks like we'll be driving through at least 13 states including our own! We'll be stopping to visit friends and family in MO, IN, NC, and FL. Holy crap. It's a good thing we're able to borrow a Prius for this ridiculous adventure.

More later...and hopefully some updates from the road.

The Post Doc Search Continues, Also I Don't Know What I'm Doing

The search continues... I had a phone interview yesterday for a post-doc position with a professor who actually understands my dissertation research (Whoa.) I will be traveling to his boring landlocked Midwest city to interview and give a job talk in late April. It could be a perfect fit. It could be a boring city.

Meanwhile in the dissertation realm, I have encountered multiple statistical and software roadblocks. Naturally, this led me to request help from my statistician as well as the statisticians affiliated with the software that I'm using. In response from the first, "I really don't understand it either." Um, ok. When pressed, I am told to do it every which way and hope that the results are the same. When further pressed for conceptual rationale for these odd methods, I am told, "Well...you are really the expert here." Um, what?! From the software statisticians, my plea for help results in this reply, "At present, we do not any general suggestion in the case of [complicated crap] with [more complicated crap]."

Great.

Just a prediction here people: I will do basically whatever I want. Later I will be told by my committee it is wrong and will have to re-do it all. Then, when peer review comes up, I will probably have to re do it all over, again.

The joys of dissertating.

Dream postdoc hopes dashed!

Well, I now know for sure that I did not get the dream postdoc. No big suprise even though I was overwhelmed with anxiety at the very prospect of imagining that I was actually waiting for an offer.

Perhaps I should find another method for job searching.Why apply to them when they should be applying to me? This guy definately has the right idea.

Those Pesky Letters of Recommendation

Today I sent off 3 more requests for letters of recommendation for post-doc fellowships. Each time I do this I feel like a needy, greedy, over-reaching self-centered begger. But I have always wondered in the back of my mind what the letters say. Although, after seeing this letter below from Angry Professor, I am not so curious anymore.

Good news though, these endless letters and applications have paid off with another interview in Very Cold Midatlantic State in late January. So I suppose my profs haven't called me a sycophant....yet.

clipped from gentlemansc.blogspot.com Dear Admissions Committee, Mr. Bronze Malheur has asked me to write a letter in support of his application to your graduate program. I am dumbfounded: not only am I astonished that he has asked me to write this letter, but also that he has any intention of going to graduate school or that he believes he could possibly be successful. He is a groveling toady, a sycophant. In sum, I can think of no one with a college diploma less qualified for graduate work than Mr. Malheur. I suggest you burn his application materials and return his application fee. If you admit him to your program, you will curse the day you were born. Sincerely, Angry Professor

Update After Long Hiatus

I apologize to my loyal readers, all 3 of you, for the long hiatus from blogging. Things have been a little hectic.

First, the diss. It sucks. No data.

Second, the possible post-doc and "real job". I had an interview for a government post-doc a few weeks ago. It was pretty grueling but I think I handled it well. I sat at the head of a table filled with 12 scientists who acted in concert like a firing squad, asking question after question. I flubbed one question big time. In an interview that was about 25 minutes long though, I think my ratio of good answers/bad answers was still pretty good. Honestly, I didn't understand what the guy was asking me and I should have asked him to clarify his question. Actually, from what I could tell, the question was totally irrelevant to my research and even worse, was one of those long, complicated, many-claused sort of questions that ultimately is probably more of an attempt to look smart on the part of the speaker than a real effort to extract information from an interviewee. Anyway, I am still waiting to hear on their decision.

Third, I also went to a conference and presented a poster last week. The poster went well. I managed to do some great scheduling and arranged to have an interview with a non-profit organization during the conference trip. This was a fantastic interview in which I was basically being told how great the job would be...it's really an research position with a ton of self-directed research only....not in academia! I was told at the end of the interview that they wanted me back to interview with the higher-ups and to present a job talk. Great. Plans proceeded on this front....until I received a weird email telling me that "internal changes" may lead to the position being re-evaluated. WTF?!....although I guess it's better to learn these things now.

Finally, I am progressing on two manuscripts that are "THIS CLOSE" to submission.

Also there has been a lot of fun, including a weekend trip to the lake and an upcoming Renaissance Festival/camping extravaganza. So...............dear loyal readers (n=3), that is what I have been up to.

I'm off!

Tomorrow morning I will venture to DC for my very first post-doc interview. I say first, and in thinking about that, I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not that I'm assuming and/or hoping? there will be multiple interviews...could go either way.

Anyway, this one is definitely at the top of my list, so wish my luck.

One of the things that I will be required to present on and talk about are my dissertation findings.....since there really aren't any yet, I will have work on the spin....