What it's all about....

So I'm starting this blog for several reasons:1) I have been inspired by the online musings of several other science bloggers as they navigate and negotiate the ins and outs of academic research and all the other crap that comes with it. I have been lurking around Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde, DrdrA, Dr. Isis, and FSP for some time and I really appreciate the dialogue (and monologues) there...thought it might be time to join the conversation.2) I've always wanted to be the sort of person that keeps a journal...I've done it in the past in fits and starts but never really stuck with it. In spite of my inability to follow through with journaling long-term, I find that when I have a written forum as an outlet for all the noise in my head, it helps to get it hashed out somewhere so I can really identify the preoccupation and deal with it, table it, and move on to the stuff that requires more attention...like experiments. This is in essence my attempt to get all the non-essential-to-experiments-and-manuscripts noise out of my head and into a forum where other people might find it and engage in what (if any of it) sounds interesting...and if no one reads it, at least I'll have an electronic journal.3) As I'm approaching the transition from student to post-doc, I'm finding it a more nerve-wracking and confusion-riddled move than I originally anticipated. The progression used to seem obvious: student, post-doc, post-doc, assistant, associate, full professor, but I have to admit that the deeper I get into this the more I realize that the decision to proceed down this path is not as easy as I was hoping it would be. Like many other women in science, I find that I am frequently dealing with the "two-body problem", the possibility and timing of starting a family, protecting my personal priorities, Imposter Syndrome, and feeling like I have to prove myself more so than my male counterparts. I'm not sure that I have anything necessarily new to add to the other fine forums out there but at least now I won't just be a lurker.So there's my mission statement. If anyone out there is reading, I promise that subsequent posts will be lots more interesting.

Labels: What It