Happy Holidays!

One more day of pretending to work and then E-L-E-V-E-N continuous days of mandatory and very happy holidays! :) Now only if the rain stops.

Lost all wisdom and totally bored now

I got all my wisdom teeth extracted on Monday, yes, all 4 of them gone for good. No more pain!!

I have been sitting at home this entire week, swollen and drugged, and I am soooooo bored. I finished all things saved on the DVR. Live TV is so lame during daytime. Looks like American channels assume that only weird people watch TV during daytime! How long can one surf the net randomly or watch youtube videos? I guess I can read a book, but don't really have any easy-read books around. It's hard to focus on serious stuff on all the painkillers.

What do stay-at-home people do keep themselves entertained? Need some easy ideas.

Can some new directions come out of my haphazard thoughts?

I still don't have that Eureka moment. Did lots of reading in last few days. Have come up with a slightly different roundabout approach of solving my problem. Not the best solution, but hope these new experiments work and at least give me some direction.

I should start writing in the meantime. 2 years completed in this post-doc. Time to write down some real papers!

Time to start thinking of jobs hunts too!!!!

The problem is that the current situation works little too well for me. Academically, my current project fits my interests and qualifications perfectly. Personally, the location of my job lets me have a regular life with J. The thought of changing the situation is not very motivating.

What if the job I like and manage to get takes me away from J? I don't want to do long distance relationship again. I have already done my share of that and more!

I know J will move with me, if we have to. But it will be a shame to ask him to do so. Silicon Valley is the best place to be for any software engineer, and he has spent so much of his life establishing himself and forming connections here. How can I ask him to start all over again?

I don't like taking up just any job. I have spent a lot of time and energy on my career too. Will I find something I like here again?

Among all these uncertainties, Mrs. M has already mentioned the baby thing twice. Bah. How can I tell a relatively stranger elderly person that the way she looks at life is not the same way I look at it? I am only used to communicating with my mother who mostly understands me (after all she made me the way I am), or I can yell at her if she even remotely acts like Mrs. Bennet. Does anyone have any suggestions on communicating with mother-in-laws, without being rude?

Stuck

Going in loops trying to solve the same basic problem.

Need an 'Eureka moment'.

BADLY.

Let me talk about some good times now..

Last 2 weeks have been so much fun that I am almost forgetting all my ailments and problematic co-workers mentioned in the last 2 posts. Here are some things I would probably remember forever from past few days:

1. My first trip to Canada. It felt very foreign because I landed first in Montreal (Quebec) and everything was very different from US and even other parts of Canada. Language, people, architecture, street designs, food....everything was French or French-inspired. I so want to learn French now.

2. Presenting my work at a great conference and listening to some great talks from some of the pioneers and upcoming stars in my field. It got even better when some of these people showed interest in my work.

When Dr. R came by my poster I was totally star-stuck and I think I was acting somewhat goofy too :D But after all this is the guy whose book has been my main to-go book for last 5 years and this guy thought my work is cool!!!

And when Prof. M asked me a question after my talk, I didn't even know that it was 'The Prof. M'...the first person to give us the basics in my field in the 1990s. I even explained some basics to her in answer of her question as I would do for any regular audience! :D But she was really sweet and she came up to me after the talk, congratulated me on my work and gave some great input. I am still re-living that moment everyday.

3. Meeting my old labmate and good friend U after 2 years, roaming around in Montreal, and having good pure girlie time. Rooming together, chatting till late hours, sharing fun and horror stories about our respective big fat crazy inter-state Indian weddings in the past year, our new families and of course our new 'husbands'. Sharing stories about our new labs and remembering our times at our old lab, discussing our other friends and of course, our good old advisor man.

4. Meeting some other people from grad school, including one of my favorite prof. He was very formal back in grad school, but now he acted like a senior friend. Gave me a big hug, told me that he is happy to see I'm doing well (he even knew about my recent publications!), had silly conversations about facebook, tracking ex-es and such :) and then just before my talk when I was most nervous he came up to give me encouragement. Made me very happy.

5. J joining me after the conference to go on our second mini-honeymoon. We never had time to go on a real honeymoon after our wedding. So we have recently started going on belated mini ones :) Fun times (including the numerous fights) exploring Montreal, Toronto and Niagara from the other side together.

7. The perfect last day of a perfect trip: Waking up to see sunrise over Niagara Falls from our 28th floor window. Few hours later, crossing a country border via road for the first time. Few more hours, and we get to see an aerial view of the Atlantic Ocean, entire Manhattan island including Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty. Late in the night the very same day, we see a more familiar aerial view...the Pacific Ocean, San Francisco city and the Golden Gate bridge. Finally coming back to own own comfy bed around midnight and falling asleep instantly :)

However, next day we had to get up and go back to work. :( But I am looking forward to the weekend. It is my birthday!!

My bad time continues...

If having weird work problems were not enough, my health is also suddenly failing me from all sides :(

- I have cough and cold since last week.

- I keep having bad back pains. It got really worse when I stupidly tried to do some simple exercises. Now I have to go through physio therapy for next few weeks!!

- My doctor also did a full physical check up on me. Turns out I have hypothyroidism, tendency of diabetes (both run in my family) and low Vit D!!!

I am only 30. I don't want to feel like I am 60. Boo hoo hoo hoo000.

Only positive things I can think about right now are:

- I have been prescribed to spend more time outside, to soak up some Vit D enriched sunlight (=less of dark microscopy labs?)

- Eating lots of fish is recommended (yes I am a Bengali and I love my fish)

- Finally, maybe I can tell the Boss man my sob story highlighting the need for back rest and sunshine and get some 'work from home' days sanctioned.

Hmm..positive thinking really works! I already feel little less depressed :)

Publication personalities

Based on my few years in science research, I can now divide other researchers in the following categories:

The Elites: They have novel ideas, they do (or hire people to do) high quality work to test these ideas, take their time to make it a powerful story and only when they are thoroughly convinced, they send these papers for publication. They usually prefer to publish only in high impact journals. Being at their position (they are usually reputed and established in their field by now), also aids in getting accepted in these high impact journals. They are idols for newbies like me (except when they are being little snobbish).

Quality lovers: They do good science (may not always be the cutting edge ones), they do it honestly and thoroughly, also take their time to make a convincing case. Their goal is to get these papers accepted in high impact journals. Some times they succeed, some times they have to be satisfied with medium level, but still respected journals.

Rapid communicators: They want to publish after every new experiment they do. They are usually not concerned much about the quality, but their research is honest. They do not mind settling for low impact journals. Some times they consciously search for low impact journals so that their paper gets accepted rapidly.

Free riders: They want all the good things, but they don't like paying any price for it. They want to publish sensational papers (that maybe way out of their area of expertise) in high impact journals and they want to publish fast. They want others to do all the hard work and sometimes they take all the credit without acknowledging anyone who actually did the grind work. Some of their practices are borderline unethical. They are not ashamed of their ways. On the contrary they are very bossy with everyone around them.

I believe I fall in the second group.

I dream of becoming a member of the first group some day.

I am fine to co-exist with the third group.

I detest the fourth group, but I am stuck with one of them as an important collaborator for my project!!!!!! Luckily, my boss man is an almost-Elite and has been backing me up throughout. I am highly frustrated, seriously angry and want to hit someone real bad. Instead, I blog :)

Power of positive thinking

"I double my salary by working* half of the time."

- A fellow postdoc, during one of our frequent discussions on the frustratingly low salaries we get in academics.

*=working on the research project, as opposed to sitting in front of the computer pretending to work :)

It's official..I am old

Found my first gray hair today :(

Now the question is 'Chod diya jay ki maar diya jay?'