New Digs

This is to officially announce my new blogging gig:

The Women in Astronomy blog, part of the CSWA's efforts to bring itself into the 21st century. Come on by!

Blogoversary Bye Bye

One year ago today, I started this blog. I subsequently moved it elsewhere, for a number of reasons, but then moved it back here for a number of different reasons. If you managed to follow me this far, congratulations! Are you willing to follow me still further?

I've never really been able to find my voice on this blog. Part of it has to do with blogging non-anonymously. I feel like I can't be as candid as I would like about issues in my life, particularly the deep soul searching that I would like to be able to share with people, because I know I personally get a lot out of honest, difficult discussions about juggling science and family and life. But given that I'll be frantically applying for jobs over the next couple of years, I don't think it's wise to post about self-doubt and indecision in a place where search committee members might stumble over it.

So, where do I go from here?

Well, I think the archived posts will stick around for a little bit, anyway. Some of them may disappear without warning, however.

I do plan to keep blogging, but elsewhere. I will continue to update my livejournal blog, which has the convenient feature of locking posts away from prying eyes, and does not have my real name associated with it. I also have plans in the works for blogging about women in astronomy under my full real name elsewhere. If you want more updates, comment here or send me email, and I'll tell you exactly what's up.

Anyway, it's been fun, but I'm moving on. Happy Solstice, everyone!

I should stop taking everything so personally, I know

Today, the universe is telling me I can't print anything.  Or maybe the printers just hate me.  Okay, to be fair, they seem to hate everyone in the lab today.

Perhaps today's message is one of environmentalism.

Soul-searching

Ever get the feeling that the universe is trying to tell you something?

Lately, it's been telling me the following:

You don't have to keeping doing what you've been doing.
You don't have to follow the narrow trajectory that's been laid out before you.
Follow your desires.
Remember what's important in life.
The time for change is now.
Don't be afraid.

I feel like I'm gathering myself now for something big, but I'm not sure yet what it is.


Also: an apt metaphor for leaving academia, from Bitch, PhD

JFOS day 2

One of yesterday's talk was talking about cell sheets and their medical uses. One of the slides compared cell sheets to traditional grafts with an illustration of shabu-shabu versus a hunk of steak. Urk. A few minutes later, he showed us a movie of eye surgery that was much too graphic for all of us non-clinical scientists. Double Urk.

I've had a number of interesting conversations with people here, ranging from social science to particle physics to general career advice. The message I'm getting from this meeting is that being well-versed in a number of subjects is intrinsically good, and maybe it's okay for me to go for breadth of knowledge rather than depth. Maybe I should be so afraid of making the leap to studying a different topic, and in the end it might well be good for me.

JFOS day 1 addendum

My favorite comment from dinner last night: "This meeting is a lot like reading an issue of Science cover-to-cover, regardless of subject."

JFOS day 1

They keep us pretty busy at this meeting. They bussed us over to the conference center at 8:30 this morning, and bussed us back after dinner at around 8pm. And there's some kind of informal interaction session going on right now, that I'm playing hookey from. Tomorrow, the busses come at 7:30am. Sheesh!

I estimate that there are about 80-90 participants at this meeting. Going through the participant roster, I counted 17 women. That sounds about par for the course. Apparently they did consider gender when inviting participants, at any rate.

All the literature seems to be going out of their way to emphasize how bright and promising we young scientists here at the meeting are. But instead of making me feel pleased with myself, it's making me feel disgruntled. If I'm so brilliant, why don't I have a faculty job yet? I've sent out a decent number of applications over the years, so what's up? Why won't anybody hire me? I tell people what I work on, and most of them say, ooh, that's a hot topic right now. But when I look at the job listings, I don't seem to fall neatly into any of the categories. It's as if I were a cat herder, and all anyone wants is cat groomers or sheep herders. I just can't win.

Bah. This unexpectedly turned into a rant. Sorry about that.