personal lives to benchtops

my alternate title for this one is “shit that’s really hard to blog about.”

last weekend had some awesome parts and some excruciating pain. for a moment in time, that knocked down the 10 long years of uphill progress that i had put up between present-day me and the person i used to be. it took me a day to recover.

and i can’t put this stuff into words and talk through it. i just shut down, i stop feeling. as the incident happened, i was vaguely aware somewhere in the back of my mind that it was totally screwing me up. but rather than feel anything, i watched myself negotiate and walk away from the situation. then i refused to acknowledge that it happened until later.

the son of a bitch hasn’t changed. he’s the same manipulative, lying responsibility-denier. except now he’s got some form of dementia on top of the constant intoxication and looks about 20 years older than he really is. and the words are still empty. they are instruments to get what he wants, and nothing more.

i thought i would never see him again. i thought i wouldn’t be placed in that situation again. overconfidence… i should have known better, i suppose. dear mother has never been great at making decisions.

combined with a recent misstep of a beloved person into impulsive drug-taking binges, calling me in a panic in the middle of the night asking if s/he was going to die and to please help, and subsequent interventions… this incident has sent me absolutely reeling. i was at least handling this last bit until the weekend’s events threw me down in a brutal way.

it’s times like this where i question whether i can continue doing the work i do, now that my subject of study is more closely related to my own past. i suppose it’s the present non-science-life influences converging to darken my perspective on things, and maybe once i get my feet back under me i’ll feel differently. i was doing ok until last weekend, after all. but it’s not an easy road to walk, the way things are right now.

i was pondering this as i had some walking-alone time today, telling myself that the implications of my work might contribute to the lessening of someone else’s suffering someday. fewer people in my own shoes, with these burdens, that’s a good thing for everyone. but today? my own world of suffering is closing in. and i’m reminded of it when i read the case studies. when i read or even write introductions arguing why ____  needs to be addressed with methods x-y-z.

there are many scientists who chose their field of expertise due to personal motivation. i think this is good- in my opinion, if we’re more invested, we might tire less easily in the face of disappointment. and science involves lots of disappointment. but given my current state of being, i think this might be too close.

i’m in the development stages of my own thing, which basically uses data collection methods similar to the already-funded project and makes a sharp turn in another direction. to an area of interest that needs more study, which is still relevant to my larger field, but not so hard on me personally.

i tell myself everything is going to be ok.

not quite what we had envisioned.

among other annoyances of postdoc life, one of the least amusing is the fact that there does not appear to be a single job which utilizes the fixer’s college degree in the general local area. if he were willing to drive a 2-hour round trip commute every day, his chances would improve. still, this is a very sad realization and a big change even from the situation in the area when i signed the offer letter and mailed it back.

i feel like i just totally fucked his career over… and it’s an awful feeling.

sure, part of it is the fact that the economy is worse now than it ever has been, in my lifespan. however, had i known that every last job in the field would dry up here, i would have chosen a larger metro area simply for the fact that more people in the area = more people with the fixer’s unique job skills required.

i am exceedingly fortunate to have a spouse who is very supportive of my career. he was on board to move to a new region of the country 2 weeks after our wedding so that i could go to grad school. he stuck with me through all the shit that mega u dragged me through. and though it was probably fortunate that we did not share living space while i was in the early dissertation-writing phase, he did tolerate (barely) the fact that i was totally consumed by my work for the last few months of the ordeal, right after he came home to stay.

and no, i acknowledge that it’s not like there wasn’t some very major give and take at every step, but i tend to focus on my own failures…

i feel like my placing us here has failed him, and as a consequence, us. and that’s a really shitty feeling. we’re working on a “what next” plan in case things aren’t any better when it’s time to decide whether to stay here any longer. i have lots of factors to consider in this decision.

parking wars

it’s time for me to share something amusing from my new life so far, instead of frustrations.

the current experiment demands that i get up insanely early every single day and go to work. i’m lucky if i get to sleep in late enough to see the earliest signs of daybreak in my rearview mirror in the morning. usually, i’m not lucky. (i had to do this for a while to use a shared microscope as a grad student, but i could at least sleep in once in a while. this particular situation is painful.)

at any rate, this means i’ve got the very first non-university-owned vehicle to park in the parking lot for the day. and it also means i get total fucking rockstar parking. (sweet!) BUT, this also means i have displaced the former earliest arrival of the day.

that dude is pissed off about the situation. he has started to arrive earlier in an attempt to claim the single most rockstar of parking spaces before i get there.

alright, if that’s important enough for him to get up at absurd-thirty in the morning, whatever. i don’t mind parking 15 feet farther away from the building. but every few days, i have to get to work EVEN EARLIER. and this totally messes with the dude. if i move my car to bring some stuff over from another building, by the time i get back 15 minutes later, his car is in the most-rockstar spot. he must be watching for me to leave, like a hawk.

i’m really amused by this. it’s so trivial.

a postdoc on a rollercoaster

i’m still getting into things here… have had some major disruptions, finally made some progress, then more disruptions, now i’m hoping for a little peace… it’s been a rollercoaster over here.

thank you to my blog peeps for the sympathetic responses and to those of you who have given helpful advice. i’m figuring out the root of the situation thanks to outside perspectives from others, but have yet to figure out how to handle that situation from my position.

i guess time will tell.

meanwhile, i’m also attempting to do this work-life balance thing, which ceased to exist while i was in graduate school. i did a lot wrong in the last few months of grad school. a lot. i need to do some things for myself. and the fixer and i have a lot of things to make up to each other.

end of week respite

and so concludes my first month as a postdoctoral scientist. there were definitely no care bears or tea parties, to paraphrase the semi-famous saying.

conflict with one of the bosses, conflict in my outside life, impatience and frustration, general adjustments, it was a challenging month. less so than the last month of grad school, or the transition month between the defense and the postdoc. but i wouldn’t want to re-live any of the last 3 months of my life.

on the upside, i received my doctoral diploma today. that was a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful thing. i looked at it for a good 10 minutes. it reminded me that no matter what’s going on now, i was really fortunate for my graduate school experience. and yes, it did prepare me quite well in many ways. but there are some things you just can’t prepare for until you get there.

re-evaluation

i was pretty fucking pissed off the other day. today i said fuck it, and laid the shit on the table. what, exactly, did i have to lose anyway? (this is clearly a trait i picked up from grad mentor, and i’m glad for it.) i have a track record of refusing to get stepped on.

the good news: i’ve re-affirmed that i am a motherfucking postdoc. there is sadly little glamor in postdochood, but it’s what i sought out and signed up for.

the bad news: i am not enjoying the transition to this lab management style. at. fucking. all.

after all this upheaval, and time spent searching myself, i’m fairly sure i know what i want out of my career. i’m hoping 2 years as a postdoc will get me where i want to go. fortunately, i’ve been considering this for a few years, and have made some solid connections that are willing help me get there.

you knew the misadventure part was coming

my expectations of postdoc life: independence, time to learn and develop new skillz, develop my own area of interest, take on some more leadership roles, publish a lot.

boss2’s apparent expectations of postdoc: just another pair of hands to generate data? this is um, not what i heard at the interview. leigh just got totally sideswiped.

result:

majorly unpleasant exchange.

oh… fuck.

REALLY regretting some decisions right now.

and that is really all i can say on blog.

Diversity in Science: Mario Perez-Reyes, MD

The name might not sound familiar to you, but a tremendous amount of our scientific knowledge about the effects of marijuana in humans is due to the work of Dr. Mario Perez-Reyes, emeritus professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill.

Dr. Perez-Reyes is responsible for much of the early systematic investigation of marijuana and its constituents in humans, reaching back to the early 1970s and continuing well into the late 1990s. He characterized the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of several marijuana constituents after varying routes of administration, pharmacologic activity of cannabinoid metabolites, tolerance to cannabinoids, effects of cannabinoids in males and females, the effects of passive inhalation of marijuana smoke, excretion of cannabinoids in milk, and interactions between marijuana and other drugs such as ethanol. This is by no means an exhaustive list of his twentysomething publications in the cannabinoid field, but a mere sampling.

Given the early state of scientific investigation of marijuana during the 1970s, these studies blazed a trail of facts through the speculation and mythology that were (and unfortunately remain) associated with the drug.

Dr. Perez-Reyes, a native of Mexico, earned his medical degree at the National University of Mexico. After completing his MD, he relocated to Maryland to do an internship and residency at Prince George’s General Hospital, then to Tennessee to complete a fellowship in Experimental Medicine Division of the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies. After a residency in Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he became faculty at UNC’s department of Psychiatry and led a prolific career as a physician-scientist.

In addition to his contributions in the cannabinoid field, for which he earned the 2005 Career Achievement Award from the International Cannabinoid Research Society, Dr. Perez-Reyes has also made substantial contributions to the study of other drugs of abuse in humans. His published studies include investigations of cocaine, methamphetamine, phencyclidine (PCP), and ethanol. He was involved in the characterization of naltrexone in humans, an opioid antagonist used today in treatment of opiate and alcohol dependence.

I also feel is important to note that Dr. Perez-Reyes worked to help other poorly-represented populations advance in the medical field as well. For instance, he became involved in a program designed to support women medical students in the 1970s. It is this type of attitude and involvement that help to facilitate advances in equality in science and medicine. We could use more of this attitude still today.

I once had the pleasure of sharing a dinner table with Dr. Perez-Reyes, among other distinguished researchers that a mere graduate student would only dream of being able to speak with on such a personal level. Over dinner, I found that Dr. Perez-Reyes is both a scholar and a gentleman. Additionally, at a meeting I once attended, he shared his stories of the early research in marijuana. His talk was both enlightening and entertaining, and quite reflective on how much things have changed in the last several decades. It showed that he cared deeply about his work, and truly enjoyed what he did.

Dr. Perez-Reyes made some of the earliest advances in marijuana research in human subjects, a foundation upon which much of today’s cannabinoid research continues to build. He worked hard not only in research and medicine, but also to lend a hand up to others seeking to follow in his footsteps. And this kind of professional is exactly the type of role model that I look up to.

meeting people

there are so many people to meet as a new member of a department. normally, i’m fairly shy and guarded around new people, so this has required a lot of energy for me.

obviously, one has to get to know one’s immediate work group and learn how to work functionally with them. if you don’t get along well enough to work with your lab group, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. the key is mutual respect, regardless of what stage of science your coworkers are in. also, they can clue you in to the strengths, weaknesses, idiosyncrasies of the boss, the general environment, etc. the boss will be asking them about you, too. you definitely want to get on a good foot with these people.

i’ve found the local techs to be very forthcoming about their experiences with the boss. in fact, i haven’t met anyone in my working group that i have had any reason to dislike. at all.

then, of course, the boss. your learning style vs the boss’s mentoring style have to work together somehow or you aren’t going to benefit. this probably requires adjustment on both ends, but whether that happens… well, i’ll leave that open. i’ve had a major adjustment to make, as my phd mentor had published in a C/N/S journal before i was even born and was clearly well situated by the time i arrived in the lab. on the other hand, boss2 was defending a phd roughly at the same time that i was beginning college. i’m not saying this is a bad thing! but i am dealing with a mentor who is in a very different career stage, which involves different worries and different motivations than a very senior, very well established mentor. this has required me to learn this new subset of concerns and worries and how my contributions in the lab will affect this mentor’s future career and my own. boss1 is fairly more well-established, so i do get two differing perspectives on this.

it’s good to at least introduce yourself to profs in your department OTHER than your boss. this is not only good networking, it opens you up to other mentoring opportunities. it’s not that your boss is insufficient (or, who knows, maybe s/he is), but the more contacts you can make, the better. it will not hurt you to be on good terms with the pi of neighboring lab.

you cannot get through your work without the administrative support people. i always make nice with these folks immediately, because they can make your life so much easier. they’re well connected and familiar with everyone in the department. as a new postdoc on a new campus, you’re gonna be a little lost and disoriented for a while. these people will help you. they will also assist you with grant applications and other things that will affect you in the future, so it’s in your best interest to at least get off on a good foot with them.

next, the building staff, support staff, and other folks who do the daily chores so you don’t have to. will they help you get your after-postdoc job? nope! but i promise you, you’ll only benefit by being friendly with these folks too. i just met the area cleaning lady yesterday- introduced myself, took 3 minutes to have a friendly chat. today, she smiles and greets me by name, asks how i’m doing. i was tired, it was the end of yet another (very long) day of wandering through the literature making connections, and a little bit of bench work. having that pleasant interaction brightened both our days a little.

finally, MEET OTHER POSTDOCS. many schools have postdoc advocacy groups. go, meet others, don’t isolate yourself. others in your career-ladder position get what you’re going through. maybe the ones who are a little more senior can give you helpful advice and hook you up with resources you didn’t know about. and if you meet people in closely related fields, who knows what kinds of mutual benefits you might run across in the future just by having connected.

am i really telling you to just be nice to everyone? YES. everyone in your environment has an impact on your daily life… and in many cases, could be a valuable asset in developing your career. and that career development is why you’re a postdoc in the first place.

damn you, undergrads!

at mega u, where i went to grad school, there were very few undergrads in the area where the research went down. this was a major advantage from the graduate-student perspective. no undergrads meant less traffic and fewer annoyances (with apologies to my favorite undergrad ever).

at postdoc u, i’m in the middle of swarms of these undergrad types. mostly professional students, because i always seem to arrive to work as the morning class is filtering out of the big lecture halls on the main floor of the building where i work. then i get to work my through milling crowds, give some dirty looks, and be on my way to work.

well, i finally caught some virus from the swarm of disease vectors. damn you! [shakes fist]

i broke through the mild fever last night, sweating it out through mid morning. i hope to venture back to lab this afternoon to practice the new technique. now that i’ve seen the full range of the results, i am totally fascinated by this phenomenon. i can only do so many trials per day due to the nature of the effect anyway.