I write blogs to find some outlet for what I think about science and my on going struggle with what my life will be. Pretty typical blog topics I'm sad to say.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
I’ve always believed no matter how many shots I miss, I’m going to make the next one
Jonathan Swift
I Guess I Made My Choice: Back to Science (?)
I got stuck late at my temp job and missed class. I was really pretty mad since we don’t have a lot of class left but I really didn’t have a choice.
I applied for more jobs today which I guess means that I have cemented the fact that I want to go work in science and not putter around in this silly liberal arts MS program. I will just leave as much of the bad stuff that happened in my old program behind and take the good that I learned. I acknoledge that I made mistakes also. It was not all my advisor, he helped the bad situation become worse, but I was still at the helm and am responsible for much of what happened to me. He did things that were inexcusable and I did made bad choices. I feel like I’ve wasted so much time. I think when you haven’t even turned 25 you are allowed to spend some time trying things out and mistakes are going to happen no matter what and bad things are going to happen no matter what. Now I won’t be able to bitch about how I never tried out this or that since I have had some more experiences with some different career choices. I also learned a lot about economics and the WWII Pacific theatre that I never knew before.
Waiting is the hardest part of the job hunt.
So about a week or so ago I got contacted by an agency that finds people for large corporations about a job that would be perfect for me. I got all my paperwork in, my CV, my transcripts, even copies of my publications. The headhunter called me back and said that now we just have to wait and see. It is really and truely hard to do. I want to get out of this town and move somewhere new and if my MS credits don’t transfer that’s okay. I think I need break from schooling in general. I have been hitting the books like a madman since high school and never really taking a break. Then I added on scientific research without slowing down the pace of my academc course work. I never took a college course just for fun like yoga or pottery. I spent every hour of every day until now throwing myself into my scientific work and school. It’s time to see if I can change. I will still throw myself into my work because I love science but I want to be able to take home a little money and try having a life with real relationships, plus I want to do these things doing work that has an effect on people…work that isn’t so far removed from people’s everyday lives. I think it’s time for a change.
There is the fear that we shan’t prove worthy in the eyes of someone who knows us at least as well as we know ourselves. That is the fear of God. And there is the fear of Man —fear that men won’t understand us and we shall be cut off from them.
Robert Frost
It Wasn’t that my Friends Left me I Left Them
So for about a year after I left my PhD program all the people that I thought that were friends had decided to leave me since I was leaving under a cloud. Truth be told I didn’t make an effort to see them very much. I stopped going to our weekly brunch, stopped going to dinner or parties that they threw. I was still there if things went bad for them but it was just like a reverse-fair weather friend. I only showed up to be a comfort when things went badly. That’s better than fair weather attitudes that some people adopt.
Here is a great picture from a hike in one of my favorite spots back home.
Beyond here lies boring…
Well I told no lie. A thrilling blog this isn’t and I can’t say why I decided to start it anyway. Frankly the idea of telling God knows who my business is still weird but I love to read other people’s blogs.
So I am a microbiologist and a chemist. I say that in the same way people say they are artists when they begin their conversations. That is how I feel about science no matter how much I have tried to run from it lately. See I got into a great grad school for a PhD program in Biochemistry. So I packed up my things and moved from my tiny, bible thumping, weird town to what I believed would be a new brighter future in a new town in New York. It turned out to be a series of misfortunes and missed opportunities. Thanks to my advisor I learned that some people are just terrible and nothing can be done to change that. I believed that somehow my dear advisor and I would be able to move beyond this barrier we had. And we did when I resigned out of frustration. Having pissed off a very important professor I found it hard to find a new lab. A connection? Perhaps.
