P got to play..at least a little

It has been 6 months since I last posted here!! I often feel like writing but can't think of anything that does not sound like cribbing and whining. So today I am going to look back on my last post and see what are things I got done on my to-do and want-to-do list to make myself happy :)

I need to:

- Round up all lab work meaningfully.

Nope, not done. Seeing some meaning finally and some hope that I will get done in next 6 months, but definitely nowhere near done yet.

- Publish, publish, publish.

Not really done. Submitted two highly over-due papers. The main ones still need to be written up.

- Start applying for jobs.

Applied to 3 jobs. Got rejection from 1 already. Waiting to hear from the remaining 2. It is just so hard to even find a job one wants to apply when one has very specific ideas of the 'the job' but an average CV and a geographical restriction. Totally frustrating!

- Prepare application package which includes

- updating CV

- coming up with a research proposal

- coming up with course ideas for teaching jobs

- writing up my teaching philosophy

- and maybe thinking of finding some funding options for future too

Done except for the funding part. The job application deadlines forced me to finish this, but the quality of the final product is very questionable. So definitely need to improve all the above for future job applications.

- Prepare for the interview process.

Will do when anyone calls me for one :)

Until now it all sounds so morose :( Next ones should be better.

And all I want to do is:

- Go to India and visit my friends and family.

Yes, did this one!! :D :D It was a really short-trip and it was split in two because now I have to spend time with in-laws too. Still managed to meet almost all family and friends in my hometown and had a great time at in-laws place too :) Maybe short and simple trips to home are the way to go :)

- Go on a long vacation somewhere nice.

No long vacation other than the India trip, but got to see little bit of HongKong on our way back...thanks to a 14 hours long layover, easy immigration protocols in HK, and an over-enthusiastic labmate from HK to give confidence and info. Of course lazy J was against the idea at first as usual, but when I told him that it can count as my anniversary gift, he agreed, and at the end of the day, he actually admitted that he enjoyed the outing very much :)

Since the date of my last post, we actually went on another weekend trip to a nice sea-side place not too far from where we live. It was my birthday gift :)

- Do something fun.

I guess all the trips mentioned above covers this one too. A few specific fun moments:

- The long hikes on my birthday trip was most fun.

- Shopping for India trip was fun. Buying gifts for others is so much more fun than personal shopping!

- Going out for Kolkata sight-seeing, dinner and shopping with J and my parents together for the first time was special.

- Taking J and almost my entire extended family for lunch together was interestingly fun.

- Spending second anniversary with J and his whole family on a house-boat in Kerala was marvelous.

- Spending New Year's eve watching Malayalam and some heavily-accented hindi song and dance performances in a small-town Kerala beach resort was hilarious.

- The never-ending cable car ride to some faraway mountain with gorgeous views all around at HK was breath-taking.

- Read lots of non-work stuff.

Not lots off, but read quite a few books in last 2 months as I came back from India with a new stock of Indian-author books :)

Additional achievement..

Learnt how to make some yummy Kerala food from Mrs. M, and somewhat successfully re-created some of them after returning to US. This made her crazy happy and she praised me so much that my sis-in-law got little jealous and started cooking even more than she normally does..he he. When people have very little expectations from you, they get extra happy with your little efforts and achievements :)

OK now I feel much better. Time to go back to work now....

P wants to play :(

I completed my third year as postdoc last month. Everyone including my conscience tells me I need to wrap up my work here and find a 'real job' within the next year. This means I need to:

- Round up all lab work meaningfully.

- Publish, publish, publish.

- Start applying for jobs.

- Prepare application package which includes

- updating CV

- coming up with a research proposal

- coming up with course ideas for teaching jobs

- writing up my teaching philosophy

- and maybe thinking of finding some funding options for future too

- Prepare for the interview process.

And all I want to do is:

- Go to India and visit my friends and family.

- Go on a long vacation somewhere nice.

- Do something fun.

- Read lots of non-work stuff.

When the movies like Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara tells you to live life and all that, they forget to emphasize the fact that these guys could do all that fun stuff only because they had some really nice jobs to pay for those expensive activities!!! Bah!

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.

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?

Sad

My beloved macbook died on me last week without any notice :((

I have to change the broken hard disk and it should be new again, but unfortunately it will be too new. None of the data can be recovered unless I pay $1-2K!! Thankfully I have not been a total idiot and kept backup of the important stuff that I cannot live without and some more. But still there's so much more one accumulates in 5+ years. Maybe they are not important, maybe I would have never opened most of those files, but still can't get over the sadness of loosing them. Wish I had invested on an automatic backup device. Sigh.

Blocked

Need to write 2 manuscripts, 1 abstract, 1 progress report.
Can't make myself write a single word in spite of sitting at home and getting utterly bored.
Thought will try to break the writer's block by blogging.
Can't think of anything to write here either!
What's wrong with me??