State of the Lab

For obvious reasons our State of the Lab Address was postponed until just recently.GrAdvisor didn't really feel like sitting us all down to tell us how crappy things were back at the very beginning of the year...but they have since improved.Looks like our grant will get funded and people can return to their full-time salaries in a month or two. Huzzah!This also gives me a bit of wiggle-room with my defense date as it will not be quite so crucial to get out before the $$$ run out. Though GrAdvisor is still pushing for soon, as am I.We had a nice candid discussion about money and how to get it (all my info previously came from DrugMonkey) which was a nice change of pace.Another student asked if we could be more involved in the grant writing process (I have never even seen a copy of our current one, though I know that some of my data are in it). GrAdvisor seemed to think this was a strange request, and another student suggested taking the grant-writing class. First student and I countered that it is a more valuable experience to be actively working on a grant using your own data than it is to process generic information in a seminar. GrAdvisor seemed receptive? We'll see where that goes.In other news, BH got himself a pretty sweet post-doc here which is a de facto decision to stay in our current location for a few more years. This is a considerable relief, as it greatly focuses my own post-doctoral search (not to mention that we quite like our house and friends here). Still holding out hope for the Shining Star in candidate review for a faculty position here, though the timing might be awkward. However, I spoke to another faculty who uses the same model organism. S/he seems reluctant to commit to taking on new people in the next year as s/he is up for tenure review, but I imagine that I could fanagle a short-term position in hir lab until Shining Star is up and running which might work out great for everyone. S/he encouraged me to meet with hir to discuss projects so I will set up an appointment for the near future and see if we can't work something out.Things are starting to look up.On the other hand, GrAdvisor is pessimistic about both of these people. Not sure what to make of this really other than to look at other options as well and hope that his tendency to be rather out of touch regarding these things holds true in this case too.

Labels: Lab