Hm. What next? Part VI

In my resolutions post I mentioned some changes underfoot, and one of those changes is my job!  In September a took a job with the same instrument company that I post-doc-ed with.

[Side bar.  I verbally use "post-doc" as a verb all the time, and I know I'm not alone.  My problem is the past tense of post-doc.  Post-doc-ed?  Post-doced?  Post-docked?  Should it even have a hyphen between post and doc?  Everything I come up with looks dumb.]

So as a post-doc I worked for an instrument company in Delaware, but I was primarily based in a lab at BFU (Big Fancy University).  It was definitely a non-traditional post doc, even by industry standards.  This lab is a joint project of sorts between my company and BFU.  While there are faculty chairs technically associated with the lab, I was pretty much the only staff person making things happen on a day to day basis.  Everything from prepping and running samples, caring for the instruments, data analysis, training users on various software programs, tracking down supplies, coming up with content for a lab handbook and website, to communicating guidelines and results with lab users.  I did my best to stay out of BFU administrative and political nonsense.  It was an insane job to say the least.

Since I got hired for real my responsibilities have gradually been transitioning away from this lab at BFU.  Supposedly there's a replacement for me... he's real and I've met him...but I'll believe it all when I see it.  (Let's say BFU has known since August that I was going to step down my time but not a whole lot has happened administratively to hire a replacement.)  In November I dropped to 50% time in Baltimore, with most of the other 50% of my time spent in California at another company location.  Since then I've been working a couple weeks in Baltimore then a couple weeks in California.  After February I'll do a couple months at 25% time in Baltimore, until finally dropping down to just a day or two every now and then.

In California I've been training and working on a new instrument that we've just put out.  I had experience on another instrument with similar technology in grad school, making me a good candidate ti work on this project.  I'll continue to spend lots of time in California for a few more months (hello frequent flyer miles and Marriott points!) before being based primarily in Delaware.  I'm sure I'll still travel quite a bit, though not as often, far, or for so long at once.

I'm pretty excited about the changing job.  There are a lot of less than polite things I could say to explain this, but in this venue it's going to have to rest with this: I'm ready to be done with Baltimore (both in terms of living and working there) and the work in California is pretty fun.  I think in the long term this will be have a lot more of what I want in a job than this post doc has had.  The post doc was in a lot of ways closer to the facility job I thought I wanted than this job will be, but there were a few things that made this not the best match for me that wouldn't necessarily be true everywhere.  If I ever did take a facility type of job (funnily enough I've been hearing rumors that there may be exactly such a job available quite soon), it would definitely have to be in a very different type of academic setting that BFU, where I'm preferably not starting from scratch and not the only person working in the lab.

P.S.  My other/older What Next posts are here, here, and here.

Thursday means it's almost Friday

Nothing big, just some random thoughts while I wait for 20 minute LC runs...

Samosas make me really happy.  I'd say the most redeeming thing about BFU are the delicious samosas at the cafe on the same floor as my lab.  Considering that more days than not I desperately want a glass (or three) of wine when I get home from BFU, I'm very grateful for the samosas.  And the delightful Indian man who staffs the cafe, who's always excited when anybody gets the samosas.  Today when he saw my samosas and coke zero he told me how as a kid growing up they always had samosas and coke at the movie theater instead of popcorn and coke!

I ran 5 miles this morning!  Not gonna lie, pretty proud of myself.  There's a 5 mile road race in about a month that Boyfriend has done before that I plan to join him for this year.  It's still irritatingly cold out more often than not, so I haven't run outside much in several months.  Tuesday it was nice and still light out when I got home from work, so I ran a 3.9 mile route from home and survived, so this morning I tried 5 at the gym.  One weird/annoying thing is the treadmills at the Y cut you off after 30 minutes.  So I either have to restart the treadmill or start running 6 minute miles.  Which is pretty much never going to happen.

I talked Boyfriend into doing this 6-pack March workout plan, and it is so. much. harder. when you do it after running 5 miles.  It's not easy fully rested either, but definitely way easier.  Even though the workout keeps increasing, I can tell that I'm getting better.  I had never in my life even considered doing the quantities of sit-ups or push-ups, or that long of a plank.  I'm pretty sure the last day will kill me, but it does seem to be accomplishing something...

In other workout related news, I'm only 1 lb above the lowest weight I hit last year!  Which means I'm only about 3 lbs away from my ultimate goal weight, but already at a point I'd be ok with long term.  Which is the hard part.  Making it long term.  Bonus, and maybe Boyfriend would disagree, but I think I've really been pretty good at the not-complaining about my weight in the meantime goal.

My alma mater is in the NCAA tournament!  Both of them actually.  My undergrad played (and won!) this afternoon and the gradual school alma mater plays tonight.  I generally like March Madness - though I'm not nearly as obsessed as some people - but it does irritate me that Big Bang Theory won't be on for a while! >:/

Last weekend I bought a bottle of wine because the previous week, more nights that not I'd really wanted a glass (or three) of wine after working at BFU.  Go figure, Monday and Tuesday this week were fine, but yesterday, holy cow.  I was ready for the whole bottle.  But then I got an email from Old Navy informing me that dresses were on sale...so I went shopping instead... And now I have quite the collection of casual summer dresses.  If only it would be warm!

Speaking of warm, I am so, so tired of winter.  It hasn't been a particularly bad winter, but after 5 years in the desert, 4 months of perpetual cold, rain, and bitter winds is more than enough!  I'm wearing a heavy sweater today (acquired on clearance last night :P ), and wore my winter coat, scarf, and gloves to come down to BFU today.  Daffodils have started to appear, but it's still way too cold to consider it spring...

Ok, my initial runs are done, a worklist is queued up for the night, so I'm out.  Gotta get home in time for Glee even if there's no Big Bang to watch beforehand... Goodnight!

Good Riddance

A few weeks ago Tiff (of dissertation date fame) asked if I missed Tucson at all, and while I do miss somethings about Tucson, I DO NOT AT ALL miss grad school.  She was pretty surprised that I felt that way.  Another friend from grad school has said the traumatic grad school memories faded really quickly, and while I don't completely cringe when I recall grad school at this point (not quite 6 months out), I still don't miss being a grad student.  Not even the tiniest bit.

Friends who finished a few year ahead of me said I'd miss the flexible schedule and the ability to do work of my choosing.  Honestly I haven't had this problem.  This probably depends upon one's actual job, but I have enough flexibility that things like getting to the post office or the doctor's isn't a problem.  As far as being able to do whatever work interests you, I think this may only be an issue if you actually enjoy research in the first place.  By the end of grad school, I HATED research.  So much of it is so obscure that its only significance is in the mind of the researcher, and I absolutely despised the never-ending nature of research.  I hate that a project is never actually done, even after years - there is always something else to do, some other direction in which to take the research.  I am so glad to have work with a much shorter time frame for completion, and the ability to work on something different often!  If I don't actually like that project, it really doesn't matter, because it's short-lived.  I've written plenty about the crappy aspects of grad school, and frankly the perks (flexibility, ability to work on what you like - which is actually not entirely true) don't come close to making up for them.

The biggest thing I miss about Tucson and grad school are the people.  I miss cooking with E, hiking with Dallas, procrastinating/chit chatting with people in the group downstairs.  I was very lucky to already know a couple of people in/near Baltimore when I moved here, so there are a few people to go explore and hang out and celebrate stuff with, but I still miss my friends from Tucson.  There are a few other, relatively trivial things I miss, but the biggest thing is the people I spent the past 5 years with.  My co-workers at my actual employer are great, I like almost all of them a lot, and the people at BFU are mostly nice though totally insane.  (Seriously, getting out of academia = good decision.)  Anyways, I mostly like the people I work with, but they're not friends the way my grad school classmates were/are, and probably won't be even with time.


Aside from missing friends, the short-term nature of my job (both the actual work and the fact that it's only a 2 year position), the normal hours, and significantly improved salary all contribute to my not missing grad school in the slightest.

Making even harder to miss grad school is actually being able to see Boyfriend more than every 6-8 weeks.  I see him almost every weekend now, and it doesn't involve hundreds of dollars or spending all day on a plane!  It's wonderful.  It (and he) makes me incredibly happy.  That alone makes it hard to miss grad school.

It's Wednesday

I just got back from a quick work trip to Chicago this afternoon.  A few of the other people in my group and my boss were going to give a couple presentations to another division at work and at the last minute last week my boss said I was welcome to come if I wanted.  Essentially my lab at Big Fancy University (BFU) has been taking longer to get going than anticipated, so I've found myself scrounging for things to do to keep busy (due to things out of my control, like construction not really being done when they say it is and instruments taking forever to ship and then nobody actually telling me that they've shipped/arrived).  I'm actually going back to Chicago again next week, though as much for my own training as to have something to do.

Last night in my hotel room I caught the end of Miracle on TV.  Seriously it's got to be the best sports movie ever.  It's about the US hockey team at the 1980 Olympics at Lake Placid, and unless you've been living under a rock, you know what happened.  You know the US beat the "unbeatable" Russian team and went on to win gold.  But the movie is SO GOOD.  It leaves you hanging on the edge of your seat in total anxious suspense and excitement even though you know they're going to win.  I grew up in a baseball household, I love baseball, and there are loads of great baseball movies (A League of Their Own and 61* are my two favorite baseball movies, but there are loads more really good ones!), but Miracle still takes the prize as the best sports movie ever in my book.

I've got one more resolution to add to last week's list - I'm going to use my cookbooks more.  The vast majority of my cookbooks have only 1-2 recipes that I've made (although some of those I make regularly and/or they're my go-to recipe for a certain thing), which is a shame.  I was lucky enough to receive a copy of Smitten Kitchen's new book for Christmas, and while the book is beautiful enough to own for the pictures alone, it seems ridiculous and kinda tragic (in a shallow, first-world problem sort of way of course) that it should join the pile of rarely used cookbooks.  I've added ingredients for plum & poppy seed muffins to my grocery list.  I'm still browsing possibilities for dinner this weekend... 

Resolutions

Last year my resolutions were mostly related to escaping from gradual school.  This year they're a little more stereotypical health and financial stuff.  But I'm telling you, the internet, about them so hopefully I'll feel more accountable.

My first goal is to pay off my student loans this year.  I'm down to about 1/4 of what I had when I graduated from college, and I make more than a grad student stipend now, so this shouldn't be too hard. But the sooner it gets done the better.

My next goal is to accumulate 6 months worth of living expenses in my savings.  I'm not particularly worried about losing my job - well, post-doc...and in fact it seems my boss/co-workers would be happy to keep me around if a position exists/can be created when this post-doc is up...so that's good :) - but moving across the country and furnishing an apartment (even with a moving allowance from work) wiped me out, and it makes me anxious not to have much savings.  This might take more than a year, but that's the ultimate goal.

Now my most stereotypical resolution is to lose some weight.  I have a particular number in mind, one I won't share here, but I'm about 7 lbs away.  I lost a fair amount of weight during the first half of last year, most of which I've maintained, but once I hit my first goal last year I set a second that I never quite reached.

There are a couple of corollaries to the previous goal.  The first is that I will try not to complain about my current weight/size.  This does not include complaining about the way every single pair of pants gaps in the back at the waist.  It's incredibly irritating.  The second is to approach weight loss more slowly this year.  I used an app called MyFitnessPal with a lot of success last year, with a fairly aggressive approach, but I think I need to take it slower this time.  I've tried resuming the same approach I used last year about 4 times over the past couple of months, but after about 4 days all I want to do is sit and eat cheetos and ice cream.  Even with the app it's a lot harder to stay motivated when I don't have E to cook with and motivate me.

I've decided to do a photo-a-day again this year.  I did it in 2011, and while it was a lot of work, it was also a lot of fun and I loved the random and funny conversation it frequently generated on Facebook.  I still flip through those photos occasionally.  There were a lot of days when I realized it was quarter to midnight and I didn't have a photo yet, but I miss using my camera that much.  I carried it just about everywhere that year.  I'm just afraid that the album is going to be incredibly boring this year or will take a enormous amount of work to make it not boring.  My social circle is much smaller in Baltimore (and none of my friends here have cute kids/babies) and I can't really take my camera into work like I could in grad school.  I suppose I have until it seems time to publish the first batch of photos to bail.  If nothing else it should get me taking more pictures.

That wouldn't happen in grad school.

Best part about having a "real" job (even if it is a post doc)?  When your boss says, "It's 4:30 on a Friday.  I should stop taking up your time and let you go."  Amazing.

Wait, you mean ME?!

I've got a pretty big meeting tomorrow at Big Fancy University with a bunch of people I haven't met before.  It's going to take a concerted effort not to giggle when somebody refers to me as Dr. [My Last Name].  I'm pretty sure the only people who have called me Dr. [My Last Name] are friends or family who are mostly joking.  It doesn't help that Dr. [My Last Name] could also refer to my mother, father, or grandfather.  Which is ridiculous, I know, but you can probably understand now how I grew up thinking it was totally normal to go to graduate school.  Anyways, giggling when somebody addresses me as Dr. (as they should damnit!) probably doesn't do much for my credibility...

We'll see if this spurs me back into blogging.

Days like today I really need a couch.  It's been rainy, windy, and gray all day, and the chairs at my kitchen table (currently the only seating besides my bed) just don't cut it.  However I still find rain fascinating and wonderful a month and a half after leaving Tucson.

This morning I booked a campsite for Assateague Island for this weekend!  Woohoo!

Statistics are unbelievably, painfully boring.  It's taken an extraordinary amount of Cherry Coke Zero (like pre-oral studying quantities) for me to make my way through it.

If you had been walking down my street at approximately 5:00 this morning you would have seen me (though only barely, it was dark still), in a raincoat, hanging out my bedroom window (on the 3rd floor of my building) trying to figure out what was making the murderous-rage-inducing clacking sound.  The culprit was a loose slat of siding/roofing flapping in the wind, that I yanked off the house until a sufficiently large nail to hold it in place can be obtained.  I bought some big nails (I only had little ones for hanging things.) this afternoon and hung out my window some more this evening hopefully fixing the problem.  I couldn't hammer through whatever is behind the slat underneath the problem slat.  There was wood behind the problem slat but further up, but the pre-existing hole in the slat (I have no idea what this thing is made of, it's not wood, not slate, it's easy to put a nail through though.) was bigger than my nails, so I dug out some washers leftover from assembling my Ikea furniture and used those to hold the nail head in front of the slat.  Fingers crossed it doesn't clack on the house whenever it's windy anymore!!

My car payment booklet showed up today.  Sad.  Driving a shiny new car is much more fun than paying for it.

Some idiot managed to hit and knock down a light post down the street.  It's a street with enough traffic that you really can't go very fast.  No clue how they managed to pull it off...

I bought a basket of jalapenos to make green sauce a couple of weeks ago, but well, I only used two in the sauce... So I've been making things with jalapeno... Over the weekend Boyfriend and I made this pizza, and later this week I'm planning to make this pasta and these biscuits.

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The three of you who read this regularly may be wondering why I apparently fell off the face of the planet.  When I last wrote I had just sent my completed dissertation (aside from final revisions) to my committee prior to my defense.  Since then I defended, left Tucson, and slowly worked my way across the country as I moved to Baltimore for a post doc in industry.  It's not that I don't have plenty of material that I could blog about - heck, I took notes throughout the entire drive thinking it could contribute to a fun blog post.  But frankly, I just haven't felt like writing.  I've had plenty of time if I chose to do it.  Maybe getting this post out will motivate me to keep writing, though maybe it won't.  In some ways I miss it, but it's not one of those things that's worth making myself do.  So maybe I'll be back, maybe not, but hopefully.