Just the other day I told you I'd like to run a mass spec facility when I grow up. Before I can do that, or post doc, or anything else for that matter, I have to graduate. I'm planning/hoping to write my dissertation and defend next spring, walk in May, and then next summer hanging around working (doing corrections, writing papers, training younger students etc) about half the time and traveling about half the time. More than one late night at school has been spent mapping out a ridiculous fantasy post-graduation roadtrip all over the country. So theoretically/ideally I'd start a job/post-doc during the fall of next year. If I found something I really liked that really wanted me sooner, I'd certainly try to make that happen.
In some ways, graduating and leaving Tucson in 10-14 months sounds really far away. (Please, please, please just let graduate school be over!) In the scope of graduate school, and in terms of lining up whatever I do next, it's really not that far away. Which scares the crap out of me.
While you may be under the impression that I have a pretty good idea what I want to do, nothing is set in stone. I have no idea where my life is going to be in a year, or even 6 months, and only a hazy idea what it might look like two weeks from now. I used to be a huuuge planner. Let's face it. At my core I'm a type-A, perfectionist, eldest daughter. I like to be in control and know what's going on and when. I'm also the super weird kid who, with M.D. and Ph.D. parents, grew up thinking it was totally normal to be in school into your late 20s and assumed that I, too, would go to graduate school. The older I've gotten the more I've been able to let go of some of this, and better at realizing that while I can certainly work for almost anything I want, a lot of things just aren't up to me. Some of the things I want out of life inherently require giving up control. Sure, I can plan my experiments for the week, I'm excited to make plans for the weekend or for a trip 3 months away, but I'm no longer eager to make decisions and solid plans for 6, 12, or 18 months from now. Actually at this point I'm dreading most of the decisions that will have to be made sooner than I'd like. It's not that I don't have exciting opportunities for after graduation, because I do. I'm very lucky to have the options that already appear to be open. I guess the decisions coming up just seem more important, with more significant consequences that may affect more than myself than previous decisions. Sticking my head in the sand as long as possible is looking really good.
Unfortunately not all the pressure to figure out what I'm doing is internal. Talking to a friend and former labmate who is in industry, it sounds like I can wait til next spring to look seriously for an industry position. I'm ok with that. I think that by then I might have some idea where the rest of my life is headed, or at least be ready to figure that out. What scares the crap out of me is that if I want to post-doc, especially overseas, that I need to figure that out much sooner. One of the professors I talked to at ASMS (this on in Switzerland!) made it quite clear that the best post-docs are the ones that plan far ahead. Ok, so I get that it's a the-sooner-the-better situation, but how far ahead do I have to decide? I understand that it can take quite a while for the advisor-student-funding-project stars to all align, and that with enough lead time funding can be obtained to pay a post-doc to work on an appealing project. And a lot of fellowships have application deadlines quite far (easily a year) in advance of when they would start paying. My committee members have also started asking what my post-graduation plans are.
I could certainly continue to pursue all of these options, apply for every position of possible interest, and go ahead and write fellowship applications. Fellowship applications are an enormous amount of work though, and it's not like I don't have enough regular work to do, so it would be incredibly frustrating to apply for fellowships that I may not even take if I got them. I'd feel really bad wasting lots of other people's time, too - fellowship applications also require knowing what lab I plan to go to, and having the support, assistance, and letters from that advisor, department chair, etc.
Sigh. I have decent ideas about what I'd like to do, and some ideas how to get there. At this point though I'm still really uncertain as to the best route to get there, or what the rest of my life will look like or what I'll want a year (plus or minus) from now. It's getting somewhat stressful that I just don't know and that I may have to make decisions before I'm really in a good position to do so. I have a meeting with The Queen in a couple weeks to quiz her about time frames for all this, but I think I'm going to stick my head in the stand and ignore it as long as possible.
I used to be a grad student. And now I'm not (thank goodness). I spent a year as a post doc in industry in Baltimore before starting a "real" job with the same company. These are my tales of science, food, travel, and life.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Fail
A vendor just showed up in my office completely unannounced. This happens from time to time, especially when they can't find The Queen. I totally had to stand up to talk to him only to realize I wasn't wearing any shoes. And I hadn't worn flip flops that I could quickly slide on unnoticed before standing. I just had to suck it up and stand there barefoot talking to him for like 5 minutes. Hopefully people don't actually expect graduate students to be professional when they just drop in on them unannounced.
Hm. What next? Part V
Ok, so hypothetically, let's say I take that post-doc in Europe. Then what? I've told you why I don't want to be a professor, what I want in a job, and some other types of jobs that are out there. So now I'm finally to the point of spilling the beans as to what I think would be a great career choice for me.
I think it'd be really neat to run a mass spec facility. Many large universities have such a facility, and some large pharmaceutical or manufacturing companies do as well. We have a fantastic mass spec facility in our department, and while the majority of existing facilities don't operate the same way that ours do, a lot of the aspects that I like about our director's job would still exist. Our facility has a PhD-level director, a PhD-level staff scientist, 2 grad student workers (who work in the facility rather than TA), and an engineer to help keep instruments up and running. There is an enormous variety of instrumentation - all the way from "low-end," fairly simple instrumentation (costing say around $75k) to very sophisticated "high-end" instrumentation (worth over $1 million). They run a huge variety of samples (from small molecules of all sorts to large things like synthetic and biological polymers) from other researchers in the department, in other labs on campus, and even off-campus users from other universities.
I really like the idea of still being able to be very hands-on - using instruments, deciding how to run samples, trouble shooting instrument or sample complications. The vast majority of facility samples are routine - a synthetic chemist wanting to confirm that they made the molecule they think they did, for example. However a facility at a research institution can get plenty of research-oriented samples and questions where an experienced mass spectrometrist would be a huge advantage. I could still be involved in research, and frankly be involved in a much wider variety of research problems than I can be as a graduate student. The idea of working on a wide variety of projects is really appealing, with the huge, huge benefit of being able to go home at the end of the day.
I'm sure there would still be some stress, some writing to do (mostly for grants to acquire new instrumentation), and deadlines to meet. But at the end of the day, it's a facility with set hours, and none of the research projects are mine, so I could go home at the end of the day. I'm really looking forward to the day when I can shake this perpetual feeling of grad-student-guilt and enjoy my evenings and spent time with family and friends.
When I TA'd as an undergrad I really enjoyed it, and I wouldn't mind teaching full-time in some venue in the future, but frankly I'd like to make more money for the nearer future. :) One perk of a facility job, especially one in an academic setting, is that I could still have the opportunity to teach. There would be one-on-one situations - teaching graduate students or researchers about the instrumentation and experiments that answer their questions - guest-lecturing in courses, and teaching short-courses specifically on mass spec.
Facilities like the one here aren't super common. There are a lot of facilities that have mostly low-end instrumentation that are for "walk-up" use - i.e. researchers run their own samples. The only time grad students use facility instrumentation themselves is when they have a long-term project requiring heavy usage. In this case they get trained by the facility director before being allowed to run their own samples. Even at an institution where the facility is limited to lower-end user-oriented instrumentation, there will probably be potential for me to expand and grow a facility to include research-oriented mass spectrometry. Mass spec can be used to address such a wide variety of research questions for all sorts of samples. With effort to educate other scientists as to the benefits and power of mass spec, and lots of grant writing to obtain funding for new instrumentation a facility can be "built" or expanded. It could be fun to build a facility from the ground up to benefit a research community.
Even though I don't want to be a professor or run a research program, I do like the laid-back atmosphere of academia. I could be ok with being able to wear jeans to work 95% of the time. :) Although dressing up for a "real grown-up" job would be fun too. For a little while at least...
Ok, so while I don't have my heart set 100% on it, all that pretty much sums up why I think running a facility could be a great job, particularly for me.
I think it'd be really neat to run a mass spec facility. Many large universities have such a facility, and some large pharmaceutical or manufacturing companies do as well. We have a fantastic mass spec facility in our department, and while the majority of existing facilities don't operate the same way that ours do, a lot of the aspects that I like about our director's job would still exist. Our facility has a PhD-level director, a PhD-level staff scientist, 2 grad student workers (who work in the facility rather than TA), and an engineer to help keep instruments up and running. There is an enormous variety of instrumentation - all the way from "low-end," fairly simple instrumentation (costing say around $75k) to very sophisticated "high-end" instrumentation (worth over $1 million). They run a huge variety of samples (from small molecules of all sorts to large things like synthetic and biological polymers) from other researchers in the department, in other labs on campus, and even off-campus users from other universities.
I really like the idea of still being able to be very hands-on - using instruments, deciding how to run samples, trouble shooting instrument or sample complications. The vast majority of facility samples are routine - a synthetic chemist wanting to confirm that they made the molecule they think they did, for example. However a facility at a research institution can get plenty of research-oriented samples and questions where an experienced mass spectrometrist would be a huge advantage. I could still be involved in research, and frankly be involved in a much wider variety of research problems than I can be as a graduate student. The idea of working on a wide variety of projects is really appealing, with the huge, huge benefit of being able to go home at the end of the day.
I'm sure there would still be some stress, some writing to do (mostly for grants to acquire new instrumentation), and deadlines to meet. But at the end of the day, it's a facility with set hours, and none of the research projects are mine, so I could go home at the end of the day. I'm really looking forward to the day when I can shake this perpetual feeling of grad-student-guilt and enjoy my evenings and spent time with family and friends.
When I TA'd as an undergrad I really enjoyed it, and I wouldn't mind teaching full-time in some venue in the future, but frankly I'd like to make more money for the nearer future. :) One perk of a facility job, especially one in an academic setting, is that I could still have the opportunity to teach. There would be one-on-one situations - teaching graduate students or researchers about the instrumentation and experiments that answer their questions - guest-lecturing in courses, and teaching short-courses specifically on mass spec.
Facilities like the one here aren't super common. There are a lot of facilities that have mostly low-end instrumentation that are for "walk-up" use - i.e. researchers run their own samples. The only time grad students use facility instrumentation themselves is when they have a long-term project requiring heavy usage. In this case they get trained by the facility director before being allowed to run their own samples. Even at an institution where the facility is limited to lower-end user-oriented instrumentation, there will probably be potential for me to expand and grow a facility to include research-oriented mass spectrometry. Mass spec can be used to address such a wide variety of research questions for all sorts of samples. With effort to educate other scientists as to the benefits and power of mass spec, and lots of grant writing to obtain funding for new instrumentation a facility can be "built" or expanded. It could be fun to build a facility from the ground up to benefit a research community.
Even though I don't want to be a professor or run a research program, I do like the laid-back atmosphere of academia. I could be ok with being able to wear jeans to work 95% of the time. :) Although dressing up for a "real grown-up" job would be fun too. For a little while at least...
Ok, so while I don't have my heart set 100% on it, all that pretty much sums up why I think running a facility could be a great job, particularly for me.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
The Craziest Cake I've Ever Made
So there's this cake that I saw online a while ago, that I've been dying for an excuse to try. Normally it's a flavor or combination thereof that I get all excited to try, but in this case, it was a decorating idea and a badass assembly idea. This is the cake I originally saw - with the beautiful rose frosting and vertical layers inside.
A friend's baby shower this weekend was the opportunity I've been looking for to try out this cake. Since she's having a boy, I thought it would be fun to try a blue velvet cake (as opposed to red velvet cake) as one of the cake flavors.
If you're interested, i am baker, the blogger responsible for this (and other!) fantastic looking cakes has tutorials for both the frosting roses and assembly of the vertical layers. The only commentary I have is don't ignore her when she says to freeze the cakes before trying to layer them! I made a practice cake early in the week, but because I just threw it together without being remotely careful, I got a fairly heavy cake. In this case, refrigerating overnight was sufficient to produce a cake that was sturdy enough for this sort of manipulation. When I made the actual cakes I was of course much more careful and make the cakes much more quickly, so I got much lighter, airier, and more fragile cakes. After a night in the refrigerator it was still extremely challenging to abuse the cakes like this without them completely falling apart.
A friend's baby shower this weekend was the opportunity I've been looking for to try out this cake. Since she's having a boy, I thought it would be fun to try a blue velvet cake (as opposed to red velvet cake) as one of the cake flavors.
If you're interested, i am baker, the blogger responsible for this (and other!) fantastic looking cakes has tutorials for both the frosting roses and assembly of the vertical layers. The only commentary I have is don't ignore her when she says to freeze the cakes before trying to layer them! I made a practice cake early in the week, but because I just threw it together without being remotely careful, I got a fairly heavy cake. In this case, refrigerating overnight was sufficient to produce a cake that was sturdy enough for this sort of manipulation. When I made the actual cakes I was of course much more careful and make the cakes much more quickly, so I got much lighter, airier, and more fragile cakes. After a night in the refrigerator it was still extremely challenging to abuse the cakes like this without them completely falling apart.
Blue velvet cake is VERY blue!
The final product wasn't nearly as pretty as my inspiration, but not shabby for a first attempt.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Uf.
I do remember thinking last summer didn't feel so bad, and assuming I had finally adapted to the desert heat. Now I'm thinking it was actually a cooler-than-average summer, because it feels really flipping hot out now...
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Cherry Limeade
Saturday afternoon we had a pool party for two friends' birthdays. I was debating between Cherry Limeade Cupcakes and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes, but with the 100+ degrees we've had every day for a while now, the Cherry Limeade won out. They were delicious and adorable.
P.S. I can't wait to make cupcakes when it's not so hot that my frosting melts everywhere!
P.S. I can't wait to make cupcakes when it's not so hot that my frosting melts everywhere!
Monday, June 20, 2011
Coors Field
Before ASMS actually began, I went to the Waters Users' Meeting - where they essentially make all their big announcements as far as new instrumentation, have some internal and external research presentations, and some discussion panels. At the end of the event, they took all the attendees to Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies. In addition to all the free food and booze, and cheesy sports games (yep, mass spectrometrists in batting cages), we could wander down to the field. We could walk the warning track behind the infield, hang out in both dugouts, and even check out the visitors clubhouse. It was pretty cool to say the least. :)
View from the visiting dugout bench
View from behind homeplate
Steps down to the field - the spacing of stadium steps is always so terrible! Too short for two strides, too long for one!
The purple row of seats is at 1 mile above sea level.
View from the visiting dugout bench
Bullpen phone
There were even super cheesy, sports-themed ads on the jumbo tron.
The visiting clubhouse - I've always been curious to see what the clubhouse really looks like...
How many hangers does a guy need??
They had away jerseys for all the NL teams, but clearly only this one matters.
I guess we already knew Major League baseball players were freaking babies, but holy cow look at all those toiletries that they provide for them!
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Procrastination
A couple of cool videos came my way this afternoon.
First, a couple guys get stuck overnight at DFW - hi jinx and hilarity ensues.
Second, I don't watch American Idol, but these guys are really talented and super adorable (and not contestants, so my reputation is safe). I'm smitten. Maybe it's a consequence of going to an all-girls high school, but a rich bass will get me every time.
First, a couple guys get stuck overnight at DFW - hi jinx and hilarity ensues.
STUCK from Joe Ayala on Vimeo.
Second, I don't watch American Idol, but these guys are really talented and super adorable (and not contestants, so my reputation is safe). I'm smitten. Maybe it's a consequence of going to an all-girls high school, but a rich bass will get me every time.
The Cruise Room
My last night in Denver I went out with a friend and his advisor to this super neat art-deco styled bar called The Cruise Room. His advisor did her post-doc in Denver, during which she was a frequent patron of this awesome bar. It opened the day after Prohibition was repealed in 1933. If I lived in Denver I'd go here all the time if the drinks weren't $10-15 each, or perhaps if I had a bad ass job that paid me lots.
The coloring on these photos is pretty true. The lighting was super red, much redder than when they took the picture on the website.
The website says that everything in the bar is original, however our bartender told us otherwise. Apparently the panel in the photo below is the only one that is not original. Each of the panels on the wall are more or less "Cheers/To Your Health," etc in various languages, with representative imagery from that country. While it is now Irish, originally it was the German panel, paying tribute to none other than Hitler, and was torn out (understandably) by angry GIs during WWII.
A very, very cool bar, with fun (although super expensive for this grad student) and potent mixed drinks.
The coloring on these photos is pretty true. The lighting was super red, much redder than when they took the picture on the website.
The website says that everything in the bar is original, however our bartender told us otherwise. Apparently the panel in the photo below is the only one that is not original. Each of the panels on the wall are more or less "Cheers/To Your Health," etc in various languages, with representative imagery from that country. While it is now Irish, originally it was the German panel, paying tribute to none other than Hitler, and was torn out (understandably) by angry GIs during WWII.
A very, very cool bar, with fun (although super expensive for this grad student) and potent mixed drinks.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Denver
I mentioned that I was going to Denver for ASMS this year. I very quickly decided that I loved Denver. Really, it only took about 2 hours to be completely sold on the city.
When I got in on Friday night, I went to meet my labmate who was already out with a bunch of his college friends. During the cabride across town to the restaurant, a lot of the neighborhoods we passed through reminded me of the Central West End in St Louis (another neighborhood and city that I dearly love) - cute, older brick houses, lots of fun and quirky looking shops and restaurants.
Sunday morning was my only substantial chunk of free time, and I spent it walking around downtown. The city was clean, it's got great public transportation, professional sports and theater type stuff, and nice city parks and running/biking paths along the creek and river that go through downtown. There are seasons too! Fancy that! Winter, spring, summer, and fall - what a novel idea! The weather seems fairly decent too - not terribly extreme in any season, and not nearly as humid as most other places with seasons. Not to mention the Rockies are absolutely gorgeous and not far. I seriously think my only gripe with the city was the fact that the airport was an hour outside of the city.
Not that these photos really illustrate why I think Denver is so great, but here's a smattering of the photos I took in my wanderings.
When I got in on Friday night, I went to meet my labmate who was already out with a bunch of his college friends. During the cabride across town to the restaurant, a lot of the neighborhoods we passed through reminded me of the Central West End in St Louis (another neighborhood and city that I dearly love) - cute, older brick houses, lots of fun and quirky looking shops and restaurants.
Sunday morning was my only substantial chunk of free time, and I spent it walking around downtown. The city was clean, it's got great public transportation, professional sports and theater type stuff, and nice city parks and running/biking paths along the creek and river that go through downtown. There are seasons too! Fancy that! Winter, spring, summer, and fall - what a novel idea! The weather seems fairly decent too - not terribly extreme in any season, and not nearly as humid as most other places with seasons. Not to mention the Rockies are absolutely gorgeous and not far. I seriously think my only gripe with the city was the fact that the airport was an hour outside of the city.
Not that these photos really illustrate why I think Denver is so great, but here's a smattering of the photos I took in my wanderings.
Yes, I fooled around with the color on this one.
This is where you go to get pot. Legally. There are all sorts of shops all over town, almost all with the word "high" in their name somewhere.
A track to make it easier to get your bike up the stairs to the bridge!
Downtown Denver has so many one way streets that this is completely necessary.
This did a really good job of making me feel super guilty any time I threw anything away.
A bunch of shots from Union Station - the station is really neat, and will be even cooler when all the construction around it is done and it's back in use.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Cross one item off the list!
I can cross one item off the Lancaster bucket list! Actually, 2 items, as we went to Hershey Park this past weekend, but I can also cross off getting a photo of an Amish buggy! I'm highly entertained by her sunglasses...
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Butter
Let this post serve as a record of the fact that I bought 10 lbs of butter at the grocery store the other night (and 4 lbs of strawberries and a box of generic claritin). Like the flour I got about 5 weeks ago now, it was on sale, and I go through a lot of butter... I'm curious to see which I run out of first. I suspect the cake(s) I plan to make next weekend will consume at least 2 lbs of butter... :)
Important Announcement
It's official. Little Sister is coming to visit in August! Can't wait for the ridiculousness...
Strawberry Cake
So I've been dying to make this Strawberry Summer Cake for quite a while now... I found the recipe a couple week before leaving for ASMS, but was way too busy to make it before the conference. E waited for me to come back to make it, and to be fair I refrained from making it this past weekend in PA (we made cherry pie instead). So naturally we made it the same day I got back into town.
Before baking:
After baking, the strawberries sunk into the batter:
The cake was good. Very good. But not quite the mind-blowing goodness I'd worked it up to be in my head. I think the really, really pretty pictures of the shiny, deep-red strawberries in the recipe fooled me. I liked this cake much better the night we made it, when it was still warm from baking, than I did the next day (today). The strawberries become more or less like strawberry jelly, which made the cake soggy. I'd make this again, but probably when I'd be in a position for most/all of it to be consumed quickly. The other thing I might do differently is omit/minimize the sugar sprinkled on top of the strawberries before baking. Smitten Kitchen says not to skimp on it, because that's what will really encourage the strawberries to become/taste strawberry jelly-like, but I think I'd like the cake better and that it would keep better if the strawberries retained their structure better.
Before baking:
After baking, the strawberries sunk into the batter:
The cake was good. Very good. But not quite the mind-blowing goodness I'd worked it up to be in my head. I think the really, really pretty pictures of the shiny, deep-red strawberries in the recipe fooled me. I liked this cake much better the night we made it, when it was still warm from baking, than I did the next day (today). The strawberries become more or less like strawberry jelly, which made the cake soggy. I'd make this again, but probably when I'd be in a position for most/all of it to be consumed quickly. The other thing I might do differently is omit/minimize the sugar sprinkled on top of the strawberries before baking. Smitten Kitchen says not to skimp on it, because that's what will really encourage the strawberries to become/taste strawberry jelly-like, but I think I'd like the cake better and that it would keep better if the strawberries retained their structure better.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Lancaster Bucket List
It was suggested that it would be nice to have a list of ideas for things to do or see in the greater Lancaster area. Since I have love bordering on obsession for lists, here it is. My qualification for "greater Lancaster area" is do-able in a day trip.
Stuff in Philadelphia:
- Central Market
- Valley Forge
- Hershey, PA and Hershey Park
- Get a photo of a horse & buggy out on the road
- Longwood Gardens
- Rickets Glen State Park
- Bethlehem, PA at Christmas time
- Hagley Museum (Wilmington, DE)
Stuff in Philadelphia:
- Franklin Institute
- Independence Hall
- Liberty Bell
- Philly Cheesesteak
- Fairmount Park
- Eastern State Penitentiary
- Franklin Fountain (ice cream parlor)
- Betsy Ross House
- Mutter Museum
- Academy of Natural Sciences Museum
- Philadelphia Zoo
- US Mint tour
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)