Summertime

Wow, it has been a while since I put some thoughts on here. I've been pretty busy in the last month. I finished off the postdoc grant in mid-June, a couple of days before it was due. It felt great to get it done - a nice milestone in my career: the first grant submitted. At the same time it was like a weight around my shoulders as I seriously considered a new postdoc lab while working on a grant that my heart wasn't fully into.

So, right after that I escaped on a fantastic two-week vacation. I did a solo drive out to Yellowstone, camping at different places along the way and seeing all kinds of fantastic things in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Nebraska along with a little family time on either end and hanging out for a few hours with some friends from college at the start. It was a liberating experience, doing everything at my own pace in a new place. I like exploring the outdoors, and I had many opportunities on this trip. For the most part my mind was free of work/research/postdoc thoughts, and it was cleansing. After I got back, I noticed that my shoulders weren't stiff, for the first time in a long time.

When I returned, I knew I wanted to take the new postdoc position. At the end of June, I talked with my postdoc mentor. He was expecting this decision based on a conversation we had before my trip - I had told him I was leaning towards leaving, but hadn't made up my mind 100%, later in the conversation he noted it sounded like I had made up my mind. He was very supportive, saying there were no hard feelings, and talking about some way to maintain some sort of collaboration. On July 1st I talked to my future postdoc advisor and gave him the news, which he liked, of course. And, from there the ball was rolling for an August 1st (or 3rd for Monday) start.

Coming off the vacation and decision to leave, my motivation for doing "real" work was pretty low. At about that time I FINALLY got back reviews on my 3rd manuscript, over 3 months after submitting it. The time delay was pretty annoying - I could tell from the journal website that two potential reviewers had sat on the paper for 3+ weeks before deciding to not review it. oh well. The paper was neither accepted or rejected outright, which I guess is good (especially compared to lab-mate who was rejected by this journal, for the 2nd rejection of his paper). One reviewer was generally positive while the other was fairly criticial...but the critical comments weren't as bad as implied, and really seem to be written by a postdoc in a 'competing' lab that we don't care for how they do science. I'm not sure why they feel the need to compete with us instead of collaborate. They know I'm doing some of the same stuff, and yet they published a nearly identical paper to my second one 4 months after the fact without citing anything from our lab. Oh well. Nothing that can't be addressed in the review...if only my motivation for working on it was higher.

Shortly thereafter, I took another vacation (ha). My girlfriend found cheap tickets for a weekend cruise in the Bahamas, and so I was off again, even if it was for a short time. The cruise was fun, different from most vacations I take. Of course, after returning, I had to go through the "post-vacation" motivation slump again. Adding to the mini-escapes, last weekend my PhD lab had a get-together at my advisor's new lake house an hour outside of town. It was a lot of fun for everyone.

And, I have found an awesome apartment in my new city. Lots of space, all the amenities I'd want, close to campus and things, solid neighborhood, on the bus line. Thankfully the new city is only a few hours away, so it has been easy to drive over in a day-trip. I've got the keys and have already moved in a car-load of things. Next week is the big trip with all my furniture.

It is an exciting time where I'm not getting a lot of "real" work done, but I've been pretty active driving all over the place. I'm looking forward to starting the new position, which hopefully will be challenging (but not over my head) and will have minimal lulls. I'm hoping to be an author on two publications a year, which may be overly optimistic. We'll see!

Now, it is time for a lunch meeting with my PhD advisor, which will serve as an exit interview, especially as he'll be out 4 of the next 7 business days.

My time here is short...