Ok, it's been way, way too long since I last posted, but now I'm back.
For those of you out there who've hardly been able to contain yourselves in my absence, here's a real quick update:
The SGP Calcium and Disease meeting was great. It was one of the first small meetings I had ever been to, and though I am definitely a fan of one of the biggest of the big scientific meetings, namely the SfN meeting, I can see the benefits of a small meeting. Especially as just randomly chatting and conversing with new people is not one of my strengths, the forced interactions in a small meeting really facilitate that (more discussion on optimal meeting size was had over at DM's tree). So I was able to meet and chat with people ranging from other postdocs, to new faculty, to some bigwigs. At this stage, that's important for me. I'll be making it a point to try to go to more of these small meetings.
Overall my talk went well, but it occurred to me that while it was a good post-doc talk, clearly it was not job talk level. Now that criterion can't be the sole guide for what I'm doing science wise, but it has to enter the equation at some point. That I've at times willfully ignored this fact in the past is clear, to my own detriment. But I'm working on altering my approach to a lot of things, while still working within my own set of values. I'm currently in the midst of a lot of self evaluation, which I'll likely post more about later.
The other reasons for light blogging include the work on our paper, which is nearly complete, as well as a combination of moving spaces within the lab (which everyone thought was crazy, to my utter amusement), and the wife's semi-annual hospital service time, which kept mommy at work longer than usual.
But all of those things are done or in the home stretch. So in the immortal words of Optimus Prime, "LET'S ROLL!"
5 comments:
Dude, are you on the job market now, or are you waiting until next year?
My thought was that I'd be in a much stronger position next year.
But whatever patented ComradePP wisdom you're sharing, I'm listening.
Based on what I see of your publications on PubMed, unless you've got something high-profile in press, it makes sense to wait until next year.
I'll be interested to see that future post; what makes a talk "job level" ?
@CPP: Exactly. Frankly, I need to get a lot of things done in the next year, to put myself in a decent position to apply for jobs.
@unbalanced rxn: Maybe that is something I'll post on, as it would definitely be a good discussion to open up. I fear my perspective is likely to be skewed by spending so much time at Harvard. Perhaps a reality check is in order.
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