i dream of the day when i will like my job.

2009 has come, gone and left me a little worse for wear

at this time last year i was laying out a plan to see 2009 as my great year for contemplation and rejuvenation. HA! while i was finally escorted out of the situation of misery and paranoia that was the better part of 2009, it still does a great job of coloring my view of the past year as well as a number of plans for my future. my experiences in 2009 have culled any desire i ever had to remain a part of academia. I will not be returning to the ivory tower any time soon, i think. All in all, I am mostly just glad this phase of my life has come to a close. In a different environment it might have been different, but as doris day will tell you, "que sera sera, whatever will be, will be..."

Of course there were a number of highlights throughout the year including:

• Visiting Neetu briefly and getting a glimpse of the reality that in the right environment research can still be fun and engaging
• Bethany visiting and reminding me what its like to live in the real world, where people have lives
• teaching science to preschoolers and elementary kids at Epworth's awesome summer camp
• our mini honeymoon/1st anniversary trip to the outer banks ( and running into kati and esther there!)
• spending the last 3 and a half months working in a healthy environment and regaining the little bit of sanity i had to start with

And of course there was my gardening and composting experiments. i did succeed in growing a few things like bush green beans, one mal-formed cucumber and a bush tomato plant that grew 6 feet tall just to try and get a little bit of sun. There was very little sun to be had around the apartment and so the radishes never bulged and i was never able to grow any broccoli. I think the lettuce died more because of the squirrels than lack of sun, but who knows really. I killed many batches of red wigglers in the process of trying to vermicompost. very sad indeed. they did MUCH better when i moved them out from underneath the sink, but in the long run I wiped the final batch out as well. plus, we don't have enough space here to keep enough worms to make it a viable composting option.

So what is there to look forward to in 2010 then? a whole lotta lotta, that's what:

• I am planning to get certified to teach highschool chemistry!
• We are probably gonna be a movin' in the near future
• I have BIG plans for gardening in a new place and rest assured i will be looking for places that actually get some sun!
• once out of academia for good, i am going to find a good and healthy balance for all aspects of my life.

Yes its a short list, but I think the items pack a big punch so that's all I really have. Here's to 2010 having no chance of sucking as bad as 2009. I really can hardly wait for all the changes to start. I may also do a better job of stopping in and blogging more often, now that I'm not in a miserable, non-bloggable situation and I've regained most of my equilibrium. YAY 2010!

i feel like butt

and i'm pretty sure that at least 90% of the fluids i've consumed in the last 2 days have made their way back out of my system through my nose.  yay.

this amused me quite a bit

a heated church debate. i'm particularly fond of the "free dog souls with conversion" part.

good job florida

this is really sad and ridiculous.  i realize we are in an economic crisis, but when the hell are people going to start realizing how many of our social and economic problems stem from our "don't give a shit" mentality to education?!?  

feeling a bit lonely today...

postdocs are in this rather odd place in both the academic system as well as the social structure of the university.  basically, there really is no social network or support system in place for us.  (I imagine that lecturers and research scientists may find themselves in similar neitherlands of the system as well.)  usually i don't think too much about this and just spend my time with the grad students.  its not always the perfect match when you are in need of empathy, but its better than nothing and usually pretty good over all.  So today, for some reason (i like to blame the dreary weather), i am feeling a bit lonely and really wanted someone to have lunch with.  as i already stated, i have no postdoc friends to call upon.  mindi is teaching all day, amy seems to be not coming in at all, and the first years are presently MIA as well.  if it were nice out, i could at least head out to the courtyard to enjoy my lunch in the sun, but alas it is wet and dreary.  so, in my office i sit, along with my (for all practical intents and purposes) mute office mate with a rather dreary bout of midday ennui.  at least i have my chicken and dumplings to keep me warm. yum.

happy 1st PhD anniversary to me!

so where do i stand a year into being a phd?

• recently finished with the last LyonGroup paper (YAY)
• about to start writing the first NewGroup paper 
• have gotten a good taste of grant writing under my belt, for better or for worse
• extremely ready to be done having to answer to somebody else on a daily to bi-daily basis at work (unfortunate, as i will be here for probably another year or so)
• still wondering what i really want to do with my life. i'm pretty sure i'd like to teach.  unfortunately i have NO idea if i will be any good at it.  am hoping to get some small amount of real teaching in before a job search.  not sure if i want to teach at a small four year school where i will have to do research or a two year school (ie community college) where there would be no teaching requirements and it may end up being a very rewarding teaching environment. there are pros and cons to both options as well as personal issues with both options that i need to work out.

4 year college, where i would have to do research and teach upper-level pchem courses: 

pros: small classes = opportunity for good teacher/student interactions

          research = hopefully a great teaching tool to keep students passionate about science (i like this b/c the lack of research, ie all exps done had a known outcome, had a really negative effect on me in my 2nd-3rd years of undergrad and it wasn't until i started my thesis work in my 4th year that i became reinvigorated towards chemistry)

cons: tenure = both teaching and research dependent

          research = grant writing, ugh

issues:  so, i'm not the most confident of my pchem skills.  i know, i have a phd in pchem, BUT hear me out:  we were required to take very few classes in grad school and my advisor was not into letting you take more classes than were required.  the year i took my 3 core pchem classes, i had only one prof from whom we received coherent lectures and i felt i came out of the class having learned at least a little something of stat mech.  flash forward to the pchem department now: the addition of bright young new profs means that the ONE prof that i had that made ANY sense at ALL is considered by the newbie pchem students as the WORST teacher they have had! basically, i feel like i still need to teach myself grad level quantum rather than just having to give myself a refresher before jumping up in front of people and acting like i KNOW the stuff.  so, i'm a little scared of teaching upper-level courses.  

two year college, where i would only have to teach lower level chem courses, no research

pros: small classes

          no research = no grant writing and can focus totally on teaching (when not dealing with committee meetings)

          teaching lower level courses = partially for previously admitted "issue" with upper level courses and partially b/c at the lower levels you still have a chance to impact students' perspectives on chemistry and science in general. maybe they aren't all (or maybe even any) planning a career in chem, but that doesn't mean you can't help them see how cool it can be and how it is all around us.  if a student is taking pchem, they have already been won over. i promise. no one takes pchem for the fun of it and it is not a prereq for anything. this is also why teaching high school seemed attractive to me.

cons: no research = i might miss research if i'm not doing it at all anymore, and as i mentioned above, i like the idea of using it as a tool to keep students interested.

issues: superiority complex = i admit to an elitist intellectual egotism that makes me want to teach at a "good" place, rather than a community college.  like they aren't real profs there or something.  this is sort of funny since i also think i'm not good enough to teach at the "good" places.  i hope to smother out this egotism, even if i don't end up at a community college b/c it's a pretty crappy thing to have.