Here Goes!

Well, here we are.  Welcome!  I’ve decided to embark on a little blogging adventure, and see where it takes me.  I initially wanted to write a science blog.  However, while I was putting together some things in order to begin, I decided I should just dive in; I have a lot that I feel like saying.  So, here goes.  On this blog, I’m just going to write, and work on finding my voice again.  Hopefully you find it enjoyable, and then we’ll both be happy!  We’ll see where this leads, but hopefully it will be enjoyable and useful for us both.   

For starters, I’m working as a post-doctoral fellow in Montreal, Quebec.  I moved here from the U.S.A. two and a half years ago and have had my perspective turned around in a thousand different ways since then.  It’s a blessing and a curse.  (In the end, maybe after a few beers, I’d probably admit to you it’s been a blessing and I wouldn’t change a thing). 

If you’re unfamiliar with what a post-doctoral fellow is, well then you’re in good company.  As I understand it, once upon a time, folks who were ambitious (or nuts) enough to be a university professor could attain that inviting-sounding position after obtaining a Ph.D. degree.  They could then teach undergraduates, run a small lab, and basically enjoy a life of educating others and educating themselves all the time.  It sounded fabulous to me.  However, nowadays, there is enough Ph.D. competition out there, that a post-doc is necessary in order to achieve some research experience, hence hire-ability.  So, I survived the Neuroscience Ph.D. program and enjoyed that so much that I moved on to the post-doc.  The post-doc, as far as I know, is the lowest-paying (and accordingly modest) job option out there for a newly graduated Ph.D. student.  Mind you, this is someone who has gone to school for at least 25 years.  Anyway, the idea is to fill yourself in on any skills you missed during Ph.D. school, become an independent researcher and develop your own research program.  This means that if you were handed a lab tomorrow, you’d be ready to fill it up with students, churn out some data, and apply for and obtain some serious funding.  The funding comes from many sources, private and public, but as far as I know, the climate in the last few years has been that big government grants, National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) are the top goal (lots of money).  However, as the world economy (and especially the U.S. economy) is starting to show cracks, so has the government-funding of research.  Science is a difficult field to get a degree in, and an even harder one to get a job in these days (oh, what have I done?).

Still, I always wanted to be a scientist (as well as an astronaut, an inventor, a writer, a pilot, an engineer…).  There was even a moment where I specifically remember yearning for 5 Ph.D.s; this was just after I learned what a Ph.D. was.  I believe I was around 9 years old.  (Dear God, what is wrong with me?) 

Such ambition and determination in a risky and sorely difficult type of career must eventually lead to burnout or breakdown, right?  Anyway, here I am now.  Approaching or involved in a transition period, a burnout period, a moment of asking myself, “what in the WORLD am I doing here?”  How did I get here?  Why did I leave comfort for adventure?  What is most important?  Before any science ambition, before I knew why the leaves changed color in the fall, and long before I’d ever heard of the Dave Matthews Band (J), I wanted to write.  I could write.  It was the one thing I could always just do.  Through the angst of teenage years, through long northern winters, through breakups and big moves, I wrote.  And I’ve written in quiet, in journals that are never read, poems that are never published.  It’s been a long time since I’ve used this voice, loud and clear.  I’d like to share it again, to see where this might take me. 

It’s time to sort the last few years of my life out.  It’s time to make some observations, to analyze my experiences, to evaluate the situation.  And I’m inviting you along for the ride.  Please, please comment and share.  Would love for this to be as beneficial for my readers as I hope it will be for me.

And, a note about the blog title, in case you were wondering.  “Both Sides Now” is a Joni Mitchell tune, and I happened to be listening to Joni Mitchell, a classic Canadian singer-songwriter, during the lovely cold winter afternoon in the coffee shop where I wrote this first blog!  I think it really suits.  Enjoy!