Pendulum swing and balance

It's so odd. Suddenly I can get deeply motivated by science again - and not just half-heartedly. For a while there I felt a loss in fulfillment and meaning from my research. The only motivation to get it done was that it was my job. I wasn't even sure if I wanted it to be my passion again.

I'm very relieved to have the pendulum swing back in this more satisfying direction - but I'm also wondering why the heck it keeps going back and forth. Does this happen to all scientists (but maybe to a lesser degree)?

What is additionally strange (but I'm not complaining) is my shift in work/life balance attitude. Where I previously envied my friend who could take a year off for maternity leave, and then return to work without missing a beat (she's an ER nurse) - now I'm pretty sure that I would miss doing my research, and that I'd want to get back sooner (much sooner) than a year. In fact, I could even see myself enjoying my work enough to pull those strange hours that I used to think were crazy (like working again at night once the kids are in bed) - as long as I had quality time with the hubby and family too. I used to think that type of lifestyle was unbalanced. Now it seems pretty nice - but only with the major caveat that I really loved what I was doing.

Impostor syndrome

I have impostor syndrome. I know that I test well, and that I've got an impressive academic CV, but I still have serious doubts about my ability to succeed further in academia. I think this is one of the main reasons why I'm hesitant to continue (and yet, not desperately searching for other careers - because I'm averse to change). I'm so worried that I won't be able to meet the expectations that my performance so far has produced.

However, I don't want to give up. But I also don't want to take on a career that simply stresses me out without providing enough fulfillment in return.

I have been feeling this way for some time - but it was particularly sharpened after getting back from the conference. I wasn't pumped and excited to get back to work. Normally conferences stimulate. There were loads of fascinating talks, and stimulating ideas at this conference, but it just didn't have the desired effect on me this time. When I arrived home after the conference it felt much the same as the time I realized I no longer got a rush from roller coasters anymore. It made me a little sad.

Then I show up to the lab and find mail on my desk announcing that I have been chosen to receive this really awesome, and prestigious award by Hugest Society of My Country - because I am, according to them, a postdoc "with outstanding qualifications in scholarship and research" and they made my research sound so amazing and groundbreakingly important. I was deeply honored.

And yet I still feel as though I've unintentionally fooled them all.

disenheartened

Things are going really well at the conference, despite the title of this post. My talk, for instance, seemed to be a great success. I wasn't nearly as anxious as I thought I'd be leading up to the talk - although I was counting down the hours from the time I woke up. But overall, it was a pretty fantastic experience. Biggest crowd I've spoken in front of - a little under 1000 people. And my phD advisor, who was also in attendance (PA was not at this conference), had the nicest and most rewarding words for me afterwards. He was very proud.

And there have been plenty of really fascinating symposia topics so far (that has helped to keep me from obsessing before my talk - too interested in the other talks).

So with all these interesting symposia, and my talk going as well as I could have hoped, why am I feeling so disenheartened? I think it is because this is the first conference where I've noticed "the club."

I used to get almost star-struck when I finally caught a glimpse of any big name scientist in person. But now I guess I've been around the block enough to finally notice the subtle snubbing during talks, and the political ego boosting that goes on too. I understand that science is full of some very peculiar personalities, but I just wish success didn't have to depend on who likes who and other silly ego dependent games.

Maybe I would feel differently if I was in "the club" with all the other big names. But seeing as how the work of my former labmate (from my phD lab) was completely snubbed during some talks, despite the speakers having cited his work in their publications (which means they are award of it!), if my friends/academic siblings are not in the club, I doubt that I am either.

It's all just very disenheartening to think you can work so hard, and produce great work, but still not be recognized as successful because you're not best friends with the big names. That is also why I generally think less of PNAS as a journal - I've seen some people crap on paper and get it published simply because they were a member or close with a member of the academy. But that is a subject better left for a post of its own.

Ah well. I don't want to sound whiny. I'm just sad that this conference hasn't made me feel pumped about science like they usually do. I hope they're not all going to have this effect from now on.

Feeling connected

It has been almost a full year since I started this postdoc, and I am just now beginning to feel connected to the people here. I had been at my previous university for nearly a decade (undergrad + phD). I had grown so accustomed to knowing everybody and was quite adept at finding virtually all the ins and outs that it was quite shocking to be transplanted to another country, a new school, and a new lab, where I suddenly felt like the newbie.

When I first started here I was lucky enough to have a former grad school friend show me the ropes (she had started her postdoc here a year before me). I'm sure that I would have been even more distraught if I hadn't had her as my guide. It has taken me a long time to start to feel comfortable here - it didn't help that when I first arrived there was no physical space for me in the lab, so I was all by myself on another floor, in an "overflow" lab. For a brief period of time within the first few weeks there was a brand new grad student in that empty lab with me. We became friends quite quickly, but she soon started her rotations and I was once again alone. I spent the first four months in that overflow lab until a space opened up in the main lab.

On the plus side, however, I was able to do loads of martial art practice in that big empty lab with no one around to see me. AND I had a pretty sweet window right by my desk.

But I gave it all up to have some interaction with my lab mates and be in closer physical proximity to PA's office. It's amazing how reluctant I was to just "pop by" PA's office as he had suggested during the months that I was up in the overflow lab. I didn't want to waste my time to walk down a flight of stairs and into the main lab only to find out PA wasn't around.

I should mention that I was offered a space in the lab next door to the main lab. But the space was quite cramped, and I was warned by a few people that it might be better just to hold out for a proper desk in my lab. Since I knew when the person who was occupying my space in the main lab was leaving I decided to tough it out in the overflow lab. I did end up getting a lot of work done there for my first manuscript with PA. So I guess it wasn't a complete waste.

But now that I am in a the main lab I no longer have my swank window with a view. I don't have a window at all. There are four of us crammed into quite a small space (we are the computational folks in the lab) while the bench jockeys take up the rest of the seats (including all the window seats) in the main space of the lab. Sometimes I'm envious of the postdocs at my old university who got their own offices (typically 2 postdocs per office), with windows and everything, in addition to desk space in the main labs. They were really treated like pseudo-faculty which I thought was pretty cool.

But back to the point of this post. I've been immersed in this lab fully now for almost 6 months and am starting to feel like people finally know who I am. The computational folks I feel very comfortable with now - as I did with the people in my old lab. So that is fantastic! I've also been told that they were relieved to have me here, since the person who sat at my desk before me wasn't the easiest to get along with.

I'm even starting to feel less anxious around PA (I'm still a little concerned that I haven't proven myself to him yet) - but PA told me that my manuscript was the only one from this batch (that he has been involved with) that had made it through review! AND yesterday I had a meeting with him where I ended up suggesting a technique to use for an analysis he wanted to do, and he said excitedly "That's an excellent idea! I hadn't thought to use that technique!" to which I replied "Woohoo!" whilst shaking a celebratory fist in the air.

random update

I am SO close to finishing all the revisions for my latest manuscript. Just a few more edits after which I'll send the revised version to PA. Then hopefully we can send it back to the associate editor for publication! That would be delightful.

Then I have to start worrying about an upcoming conference and the talk I'll be giving there. When I registered for the conference and requested to give a talk, I also decided to try for one of those sort of "prestige" talks that they offer for recent phD students and new postdocs - a small number of the applicants are selected to give talks to the entire mass of conference attendees (no concurrent sessions). I guess I jazzed up my abstract enough to catch their attention and got myself selected! Woohoo! But also, "OH CRAP!"

I was so nervous preparing for my talk at the smallish conference I attended earlier this year - I just know I'll be more nervous for this one, and I don't look forward to that part. I really hope I get over this quickly. I've given plenty of talks to audiences throughout my academic life - but conferences still get to me. Well at least my talk will be during the first few days of the conference, rather than at the very end.

Aside from that I've been extremely happy to have Mr. Daybyday back home with me. He brought home with him some amazing stories and pictures from his adventure. Maybe next time I will be able to go with him.

And I'm still very much on the fence about this whole academic career thing. I think I'm just too scared to make an actual decision. I should probably start contacting some of the people I know who do research in government labs to set up some informational interviews. I just don't feel like I've done enough to prepare for those yet. Damn, I'm good at procrastinating.

Getting some perspective

This little gem is courtesy of Charles over at Everyday Scientist.
I'll be thinking about this next time I hear a lavish introduction for a speaker which includes the number of citations their ground breaking paper has had!

Certainty

Maybe it was the line about smart people being good at rationalizing (and how that can lead to many hours of chasing our own tails), or maybe it is my training in mathematics - but this lovely comic courtesy of the very talented Randall Munroe at xkcd made me smile.


I think it may also be irony of how so many of us feel in the pursuit of knowledge and truth.

But it's still not enough to make me abandon science just yet.

Five lives

Another one of those "self exploration" exercises has really got me thinking. You're supposed to imagine that you could have 5 lives in which you could explore 5 different careers, lifestyles, the whole sha-bang! So far I have only come up with 3.

The first one that popped into my mind was, of course, to be a martial artist. It's funny how I sort of view this as my secret little quirky passion. Almost like I am a little embarrassed about it. I think it is more because I'm not the greatest martial artist - I just happen to be good enough at some of the styles I've tried to get enough positive feedback to make me want to learn more. I can imagine myself learning lots of different styles, and becoming an instructor. There is just something so intrinsically rewarding about practicing a martial art and passing on that knowledge. It is almost spiritual. It makes me feel at peace, even though most practices leave me sweaty and out of breath. So yeah, if I had 5 lives, I'd probably spend at least one of them exploring martial arts whole-heartedly.

The next one that I decided was to be a research scientist (talk about imagination!). I guess it is a either a good sign that I would spend at least one of my 5 lives doing what I am on the path to doing now - OR a bad sign that this life of science has sapped all of my creative juices so that I cannot even think of much else to do with my life. But I'll try and stay positive and take it as a good sign. I don't imagine myself as a professor - but that could also be because I've been resisting that particular "flavor" of research at the moment. I can imagine working in either a big (maybe even top secret!) government lab, or maybe some other large organization. I picture myself working along side very bright people towards a common goal. I'd like to think that the research would be of the utmost importance and of benefit to humanity. And it would tickle the little kid in me to be using or pushing the advancement of some really cool technology too. It just seems so much more exciting and rewarding than what I do right now (which seems sterile and obscure in comparison).

The third career/lifestyle that I could come up with was to be an advocate or somehow involved in policy change and revolution. Again the major theme would be to benefit humanity and make a positive difference in the world. Maybe I would act as a liaison between the scientists and politicians to prevent silly political whims from pulling the plug on otherwise revolutionary and potentially ground breaking research. Or maybe I would be an advocate for diversity - be it special needs issues, gender issues, racial issues - I think there is a lot to be said for a proper training in genetics in allowing folks to understand what difference and diversity actually mean. The world is becoming more and more of a global venture - it is about time we started helping people utilize diversity for good rather than ... well rather than for what it seems to be used for now, which is bad.

Anyway, I'm still working on what to do with the other two lives. I know I'd love to travel - but I've got to pay the bills somehow, and I've always sort of known that I want to love my career. We spend so much time at our jobs that it just never made sense to me to choose a career that you don't love if you have any say in the matter. But for some people the trade off is worth it - the job only takes up their 9-5 lives, and doesn't get to touch the rest. Maybe I would spend one of my 5 lives like that, just to see what I'm missing.

Priorities

In evaluating my career goals (this is supposed to be one of the first steps if you're searching for that elusive dream job), I think I have discovered a few things about myself that I hadn't acknowledged previously.

First, money does matter. I don't need incredible amounts of money (but it wouldn't hurt!) to feel satisfied, but there is a real connection in my mind between pay and recognition for doing a good job or something of value. If I were to earn more than a professor, I think I could more easily get rid of the notion that leaving academia is a "step down." However, the more I read about careers outside the ivory tower, the more that notion is evaporating on its own.

As I continue my day to day activities as a postdoc here at fantastic U, I can recognize many things I would miss about leaving academia (virtually no dress code, very flexible hours, so much opportunity for leisure activities through campus groups/clubs/teams, a sense of community, some notion that I have the time and encouragement to continue learning new topics and skills, and travelling the world to attend conferences). But some of these things are not guaranteed at all institutions. And some of these could possibly be found outside of academia. But because my experience is so limited (and confined to only two very great universities), it is hard to know what aspects of an academic career are rigidly imposed everywhere, and which ones are variable.

If I were to pursue a tenure track faculty position, in the country where I am from (and where I will return after this postdoc) virtually all universities appear to have a 45:45:10 ratio for research, teaching and service requirements. Although research tends to be emphasized more than teaching. But as much as I would like to be a role model and mentor for students, I really have no passion for teaching. I have been told that I am a good teacher - but I was also good in math, and I didn't pursue that beyond undergrad either. Being good at something is not always enough.

I feel that if I really dedicated myself to teaching I could do a good job. But I do not think that being a tenure track faculty member would allow me the time I would need to prepare the way I would want to for teaching. So either my research would suffer, or I would never feel adequately prepared for teaching. From my experience most professors chose research over teaching, maybe not even deliberately, and the students end up with mediocre classes - that is just not good enough! They are paying a lot of money for their education, they at least deserve passionate teachers! But far too often in academia teaching is undervalued, and research seems to be the only universal measure of success. This just seems so wrong to me.

I really enjoy being a mentor - in fact I am passionate about helping people. I enjoy the one-on-one time I have spent with undergrads and fellow grad students. But it seems that to get such a balance (research, mentoring, and little to no-classroom teaching) you have to leave the ivory tower of my country.

A research career in a national lab, rather than at a university might resolve this issue for me. But I still have a lot to investigate about what the day to day work is like. And I still feel like I'm abandonning all my potential future students if I turn away from teaching. This academic career has become so ingrained that it makes me feel guilty about imaginary students from the future!

If I were at my old university, this would be the perfect time to head over to the on campus pub for a drink on the patio. Instead I will sit at my desk and read a review paper. Because that's what we do at fantastic U.

Musings and martial arts

I'll start off with a quick update on my academic life. I finished writing up a script for my talk this weekend. I don't expect to memorize it, but I just find that once I've taken the time to write down the major points I want to make sure I remember to say, I feel more relaxed, and organized. I use my slides more for a visual cue, and to give the audience something to look at while I'm speaking. I don't like putting too much text on my slides, because I figure either the audience won't bother reading it anyway, or will have a hard time concentrating on either my voice, or the text on the slide while both are being projected to them at once. I try to emulate speakers I enjoy listening to. But I'm sure that I've still got a lot to learn. It is my hope that I will never, EVER, go over-time. It is the one thing that will almost always ruin a talk for me, and therefore, I wouldn't want to make my audience stay longer than they have to either.

Also on the academic front, while I was reading PhD Mom's extremely helpful post on how to write a faculty package I had a project idea jump into my head! So I emailed PA (who is out of town for a conference) about said idea, and was quite proud of myself. The project might not be feasible in the end, but I was just so pleased that a novel idea came to me - one that is quite different from the projects I am used to thinking about. Yay! I may just be able to do this academia thing afterall.

And if not, I could always become a martial arts instructor. This is being a little presumptuous, seeing as I have yet to achieve instructor rank in any of the martial arts I have studied thus far. However, this is the first time that I've gotten back into martial arts as an adult. I took some martial arts classes before I went to highschool (and yes, I am being vague on purpose) - for a few years even. My instructors told me that I had a beautiful punch. And the head instructor would always ask me to go to competitions and represent our club for the forms competition (where you perform the choreographed moves for each rank). I never went. I think I was too shy, or scared or something. Hell, I remember in the very first class I was so scared and nervous that my knees were literally shaking, and I was so worried the other kids in the class were going to notice my pants jittering at the knees. Thank goodness my parents got me into those classes. I can only imagine what a passive wreck I'd be if I didn't have the self-confidence I learned there.

Eventually we started sparring in class. I went undefeated, and yet, I remember having so much anxiety before every match. I think that is ultimately what made me stop going. That and I was starting highschool. Lots of transitions. But I think I would have wanted to continue if I wasn't so worried about having to spar again.

Fast forward about 15 years. I joined a martial arts group here at fantastic university - a different style from my previous training. I joined because the group came highly recommended from a friend, it was convenient, and I missed being involved in a martial art. I didn't realize how much I had missed it until I was back in the fold. I really really missed it. Because of my previous experience I was able to master the basics of this new style fairly quick, and have gone up a few ranks in this group. I am at roughly an equivalent level now to the one I was at when I left my old club. But the biggest difference is I no longer have anxiety about sparring! I don't know if it's just that I'm no longer the lone girl always sparring with a bunch of immature boys, or if I'm just less anxious in general now that I'm older. But I'm actually learning about sparring strategies for people of my stature, and having a really great time. I also really enjoy being able to teach fellow students. Even though I don't often out-rank them by much (or at all), I think because of my previous experience in another martial art, I can see the technical qualities of what we are being taught and therefore am better able to help the newer students figure out how to do the techniques as well. I enjoy it so much that I often wonder if I could follow in the footsteps of my current instructors and become a teacher myself - or even run my own club/school someday! ha! All of these day dreams and I'm still only about half way up the rank system.

What I really enjoy about these thoughts is the fact that I seem to have found a passion again - and a lost passion at that! It gives me hope - hope that I have something I'm good at and enjoy enough that if this academia thing doesn't work out for me, I know that there is something else out there that makes me happy and wouldn't feel like a step down. It may look like a step down to other people, but it wouldn't feel like one to me.

During the last year of my PhD I read Po Bronson's book "What Should I Do With My Life?" and at the end I was pretty dismayed by the fact that I really didn't have a passion. Sure I enjoyed science, but at the time I was feeling pretty overwhelmed and under-enthusiastic. So many of the happy stories in Bronson's book revealed that the person in question had been able to identify a latent or novel passion, and then ran with it. I was still searching.

But I think I may have stumbled back into mine.

The first post

My phd advisor told me once that we scientists should spend some quality time writing every day. That is, we should find time to practice putting our thoughts into coherent sentences beyond the fragments that come to us only in our own heads.

At the time I didn't really understand why. I usually didn't have much on my mind worth writing down. Or so I thought. In reality, I had too much on my mind that finding the clarity to pick any single thing to write down was the hurdle. So with a few sporadic attempts I mostly failed and have not written, for the sake of writing, every day.

I hope to change this, starting now.

I think things have come to a head. I wish I had one of those penseives they have in the Harry Potter universe. Then I could put my thoughts in safe place outside of my head and not worry about never finding them again.

I want to put some thoughts down here so that I can avoid the hours I spend laying awake in bed at night thinking about things. Maybe then I'll wake up when the alarm goes off, instead of an hour later.

I am in the first year of my first postdoc. At an arguably fantastic school, in a top notch lab. My advisor is well respected, and a terrific person to boot. However, this advisor (who shall be henceforth referred to as PA - postdoc advisor) is often away at meetings, or otherwise terribly busy, and I rarely even have interactions with them. I sometimes wonder if I will have made enough of an impression on PA when it comes time to ask for a reference letter.

I have been thinking about the next step in my career. I was told that hiring season for faculty posistions begins roughly in August. I don't think I'll have a strong enough application this year (as I said, I'm still in my first postdoc year) to be really competitive, though I am pretty good on paper. But the main reason I've been thinking so much about this is because my husband and I might want to have a baby. We are not actively trying just yet, and I'm not even sure if I ever want to for sure. But the thought of being 8 months pregnant and having to schedule interviews for faculty positions is enough to scare me into trying to plan for better timing if we do end up getting pregnant.

Sigh.