The Year of Dying.

It's coming up to the 1-year anniversary of the shit storm year that began with my father's death. And lately, I've been thinking a lot about dying. I think, in part, because I came so close to it in October of last year when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The tumor had begun to envelope the carotid artery in my brain. Luckily, it was benign and the surgeons successfully removed most of the tumor.

The surgery was only 3 ½ months ago and if you were to meet me today, you would have no clue as that I had just had brain surgery. I work as hard, maintaining the same long hours as I did before the surgery.

Aye, there's the rub. Something did happen. In fact a lot of something happened.

I last saw my neurosurgeon (how many people can say that?) in January and he suggested that a. I could get back to running and doing yoga, two of my favourite activities and b. that I start on craniosacral therapy (CST).

Here's wikipedia's explanation of CST:

”A craniosacral therapy session involves the therapist placing their hands on the patient, which they say allows them to tune into what they call the craniosacral system. The practitioner gently works with the spine and the skull and its cranial sutures, diaphragms, and fascia. In this way, the restrictions of nerve passages are said to be eased, the movement of cerebrospinal fluid through the spinal cord is said to be optimized, and misaligned bones are said to be restored to their proper position.”

CST is a weird experience because, well, it feels like nothing. I go in, lie down, and the therapist puts her hands on my head, spine, and feet. But it’s not like massage therapy where you can actually feel it physically. Instead, what you sense is an internal rocking, as if the bones in your head are moving.

As a scientist, before trying CST, I wanted evidence that CST made a difference. Before the brain surgery, I read all about the trans-sphenoidal approach to removing pituitary tumors. I even watched videos on YouTube. I learned as much as I could about the success rates, side effects, recovery times, etc. But for CST, there isn't a whole lot. And what's even more odd is that this therapy is covered by insurance but acupuncture is not. It seems random what American health insurance companies will or will not cover as far as alternative therapies go.

Although, there isn’t much evidence that CST works, I don’t care. For whatever reason, something is happening in those sessions. And I don’t mean just the physical.

In my last session, as I lay there on the table, I could hear it rising in my body as she was working at my feet.

I made her stop, explaining that I was feeling suffocated and experiencing great anxiety and fear. What was the fear and anxiety about, she asked.

Dying, I said. Dying.

And then I began to sob.

Since then, I have been thinking a lot about My Year of Dying. A year where my father passed away and I got a big, fat, yummy, brain tumor. I imagine these have probably affected my feelings about death and dying.

There’s an obvious loss of family that comes with a parent dying. But because my mother is dead as well, with the death of my father, all ties to culture and family history have been severed. In normal families, aunts and uncles would serve as that connection. The generation that consists of my mom’s brother and my dad’s sister live in fear and from fear. It’s hard to know how to love if fear is your skin. They never call us. Not when my mom died. Not when my dad died. And certainly not when I had a brain tumor.

My relationship with death has not been peaceful. I have never, in my life, seen anyone die without some kind of clinging. Neither my mother nor my father died peacefully or at peace. When I was about 10 years old, my mom took me on one of her rounds at the terminally ill children’s ward. Since then, I’ve seen a lot of people die – friends, family members and it has always been painful and a struggle. Part of reducing our fear of death is to experience it without strife.

There is also a death that comes with a major life surgery. It is the loss of youth. Unlike the typical slow decay of aging, this is a front-end assault. And I guess, it’s just taken a bit of time to catch up to the experience of post-traumatic stress syndrome.

It’s been hard to start running and exercising again, even though, my neurosurgeon (gotta love that) said it would be okay. For some reason, I can’t. Unlike before the surgery, I can’t consistently practise yoga or run. There’s always an excuse. Or I’ll start a yoga session or a run and then I just stop. At first, I was literally afraid my head would explode (ridiculous, I know), but then I realized it was because I no longer understood my body. It was not a healthy, young, fit woman. It was this diseased tumor filled sac ‘o water.

Today, I am learning how to befriend my body again. I am learning gratitude. I am thankful that my body was able to recover from such an assault. And I am learning to give up hope of a better past.

I heard this recently, “In the pursuit of knowledge, something is gained. In the pursuit of freedom, something is let go.”

The sweet spot

This is the perfect amount of time that you can spend visiting with family such that it was worth it and not too much time so that you're filled with regret for being there.

Live in joy.

As a buddhist, I don't celebrate Christmas. Not even secularly.

But I did grow up in a Muslim household, where we celebrated Christmas until I was "old enough to know better" or more specifically, until our parents donated the family plastic christmas tree to the school.

At first my sisters and I were pretty upset that we weren't going to get presents like everyone else. But then my mom told us that instead of getting presents only 1 day a year, we'd have 6 days scattered throughout the year where we'd get presents. As a form of religious conversion, bribery really works.

After all that, I turned away from any theistic religion to the practice of buddhism, specifically American Theravadan Buddhism. Buddhism has been described as a downwardly mobile practice because it runs counter to the idea that we should consume in order to be happy. I hold no judgement of what others practice, but for me the idea of finding compassion and generosity of heart really resonates.

So for this holiday season whatever you celebrate, may you live in joy.

Buddha Nature

Today I got a chance to show my buddha nature. As I was standing in the bike lane, at a red light, this oversized truck decides to honk at me to move because he wanted to turn right and I was blocking his way.

I did not.

The light changed green and as I cycled away I yelled in my loudest and angriest voice, "Have a little patience you mother fucker!"

I stopped counting the number of times I called someone a motherfuckin' idiot on my ride home.

Sigh. Back to the meditation bench.

It's slow but on it's way.

"Every wall is a door." Ralph Waldo Emerson.

HippieHusband and I have moved into our new apartment sans furniture but who cares, I'm happy to sleep on the floor. It's so nice not to be in a hotel anymore. Plus we've been exploring our hip new neighbourhood with all its restaurants, cafes, shops, etc.

I'm sitting in an industrial chic coffee shop, peppered with people from different cultural backgrounds, working away on their laptops or writing that great American novel. The walls are covered in photography largely taken by local artists and it has a unisex bathroom. The cultural, racial and gender diversity of the city makes me feel like I've finally returned home.

And once things settle down for me here, I will post the third and last in the series on Slow Science, "The Death of the Sniper Scientist." I've been writing bits and pieces when I get a chance, but things have been so incredibly crazy and exciting. While we were packing up our apartment and getting ready to move out of SmallTown, something incredible happened for my career. And as much as I would love to write about it, it would reveal too much about who I am. And for the time being, I'd like to remain pseudoanonymous.

But I am thinking about refocusing the blog to be a discussion of science related issues, rather than the more sociological or personal stories that I have been writing about. This idea came about because I've been watching a Canadian comedy/drama show that my sister, Fortune, suggested I watch. It's called Being Erica. Although it has that homemade feel, as most Canadian TV shows do, it's actually pretty good. The show is about a 32 year old woman who is incapable of holding down a job or a relationship. Because of her circumstances, she lives in regret of her past. This regret leads her to some very unusual therapy, which allows Erica to go back and relive/redo those regrets. It's the Canadian answer to Sex in the City without the sex, slick language and expensive shoes, but don't hold that it against it. Like anything it gets better with age!

And so that leads me to think about the future of this blog. There are many bloggers who write about their lives and while I know that it's important to have a diversity of perspectives, I'm not sure that another one is necessary. Plus I think there is a need for people with scientific expertise to write about cool plant research. Plus it wouldn't hurt if I got to read more research!

I'm interested in the opinion of those that read this blog. Do you prefer the personal stories? Do you want more science? Or would you be interested in some combination of the two? I would appreciate any feedback!!!

A maelstrom of moving

Moving sucks until you find a stash of money in a condom box.

Woohoo!

Happy anniversary HippieHusband

I can't believe it, but I missed our two year anniversary. Today at dinner, HippieHusband mentioned that 'oh by the way, yesterday was our wedding anniversary.' Luckily that was also followed with him saying he forgot too. After that, I didn't feel so bad...

But something is clearly amiss - my work life balance aspiration has become a work aspiration driven by the insane attachment to getting enough data for a stupid manuscript. A manuscript that in the end won't mean diddly squat to the progress of science. Over the last 10 days, I've been putting in 10-12 hour days every day, including weekends. And when I get home all I want to do is sleep. I'm tired and grumpy when I wake up in the morning.

Today, after dinner as we were sitting out on the porch looking at the sheep and turkeys, HippieHusband asked me what were my aspirations and dreams and all I mumbled that all I wanted was to survive the next two weeks.

"That's not an aspiration," he cried.

"Yes but it's true," I lay my head back in the chair and put my legs up on another.

"That's kinda sad if basic survival counts as an aspiration." he said simply.

My response was to baa like a sheep. I tried to think. But I was just too tired.

[Sidebar: Have you noticed that in the words tried and tired the "ir" is reversed. I wonder what it all means...]

"I'm trying to have a serious conversation and you're baaing like the sheep," he complained with a whiff of hmff in his voice.

"Well they're pretty loud. And they don't really sound like sheep. They just sound like really drunk undergrads at a frat party," I tried in vain to stay his frustration. "I don't know. I guess I want both of us to get permanent jobs so that we can settle down in one place."

"I want to be able to function not like a student," HippieHusband said fiercely. He continued, "I want us to have jobs that will allow us to put enough money away for things like emergency surgeries."

"Have a family." I chimed in.

"Fly half way across the country for a family funeral." he said

"Buy a home and some land," my eyes were closed now.

"We'll never be able to afford a home in YummyLargeCity." said HippieHusband.

"Okay then a small apartment."

"Go on vacation," he sighed.

"But we just had a 3-week vacation," I reminded him.

"Yeah, that was fun. We saw a lot of the US on that trip. And now we're moving to a totally different part of the country. I'll be so glad when we're moved and I can leave SmallUniversity and the bullshit behind," he said sinking into the chair as if the weight of his bad postdoc experience was pulling him downwards.

I opened my eyes and looked over at HippieHusband, kissed him lightly on the cheek and gently said, "It will all work out, love."

Now this is how to quit your job.

This girl is awesome.



She quit her job by emailing 20 people in the office these photos messages to her boss that she wrote on a dry erase board.

Ugh, suburbia

I'm feeling cranky. And yesterday HippieHusband and I took a walk through the edge of Smalltown. I realized that there are things I absolutely can't stand about suburbia:

I realize that pavement gets too hot to touch when its 100degC out but what an earth makes some people think its a good idea to water the sidewalk or road.

Lawns, lawnmowers and leaf blowers. WTF?!!

Sidewalks that end just as suddenly as they start.

Dogowners who leave dogshit on the sidewalk. Just because its biodegradable, doesn't mean you should leave it on the sidewalk.

Stripmalls. Need I say more.

From the air, suburbia looks as if the Transformers puked their guts out.

Nosyneighbours who really aren't interested in neighbourhood watch, but are mainly want to find out who wears the pants in the family.

Frankly, Jane Jacobs said it best, "Expressways eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities." Cars. They're fucking noisy. And it makes me grouchy to walk on a dirt road, appreciating a pastoral setting only to have some yahoo in a truck drive too fast that it leaves dust and dirt in my eyes.

Update on the job front

Today I was offered a postdoc in YummyLargeCity, USA. Before I left for my vacation, however, another job that I had applied for called me and said they were very interested in me and if I got offered a job, could I please let the, know and they’ll get the ball rolling.

I have a couple of weeks to make up my mind. I'd prefer the other position but the postdoc I was offered is a big step up in terms of university size and community. In addition, should I choose to remain in academia, it could offer amazing potential for setting up a very cool research program. And even if I don’t choose to stay academic-bound, I’ll get some very sought after industry related skills.

At the very least, HippieHusband and I won't have to stay "small".

Will keep you posted!

My summer vacation

Okay so it was more than a couple of weeks...

HippieHusband and I just got back from three weeks of vacation. The adventure involved BigCities, hiking and camping and a 10-day silent meditation retreat amidst the redwoods. There are no cell phones, no internet, no communication with the outside world. They ask that you don't read or write during the 10 days you are there. Primarily it is a sitting and walking meditation but there is also an eating meditation. At the end of the night one of the teachers gives a talk. These are people just like you and me, except they are so wise and insightful.

BFF tells me that going to these retreats officially makes me a hippie. While that may have been true in the 60s and 70s, I think now there are people of all kinds that come to the retreat, including, gasp, republicans. Side by side we sat together and meditated republicans, punks, old hippies, young wannabe hippies, and scientists. Ah, you ask, but how would I know since we didn't talk for 10 days? After we broke silence you get a chance to talk and let me tell 10 days of silence is sometimes not enough. Clearly, I'm still working on the whole compassion thing.

This is the second retreat of this kind I have done. The first one, I did immediately after my PhD. The silence and quiet was brilliant. My thoughts thinned out and by the end the internal chatter that borders on dementia was mostly gone.

It's amazing how wonderful the simplest things like eating and walking become when you learn presence. Before the retreat, I couldn't count how many times during a day I'd space out or my eyes would glaze over or I'd be lost in thought. I don't think there is anything wrong with daydreaming but I'd like to be aware and know when I am. I still space out but now I catch myself (most of the time).

I realize that these retreats are not for everyone. It's a mental and physical challenge. What makes it incredibly hard is that as you sit, the main thing you face is your mind. Imagine sitting still, watching your breath, for just 5 minutes let alone 45 minutes. As I sat there, my back began to hurt, followed by my stomach and then my my knee. I thought that I had permanently damaged my knee forever and that in addition to having had to recover from a brain tumor, I would now have to face a disability... oh my god I think there's a spider crawling on my ear and what if it decides to make a nest inside my head, I think I'm going to die of a heart attack what will they do if I die meditating...I wonder what we're going to have for dinner because yesterday's meal was so good I'll have to get that recipe...that girl beside me was covered in tattoos why does she have one that says hellbound.

You get the picture?

Knowing what causes your suffering is the first step to reducing it.

So after taking my first step toward enlightenment, I came back to SmallTown and a distended email inbox.

Somewhere amidst the junk, I found out that my manuscript is in press and the journal is writing a perspective. I received requests from two different journals to review manuscripts. Early Monday I have another phone interview and I was shortlisted for a job I had applied for before we left for vacation.

I should go away more often.

*******
I've always wondered why the housefly,
trapped indoors,
spends most of its time flying up against a window.
Cautiously crawling, it examines the glass
As if it might escape through a small opening.
Gathering energy and focusing on the target,
The fly dashes into the window.
Resting in disappointment, its legs tremble.
Flying a short distance from the glass, it hurriedly returns,
As if its heart will break to leave prison.
I want to pick it up by the wings and stop the stupidity.
Why does it do that?
If it only it would turn away from the glass, it could find a way out.
And then I remember,
Ah, isn't that the way it always is?

Hiatus

I'm on hiatus for a couple of weeks.

First, HippieHusband and I will be hitting multiple BigCities - I can't wait. A little part of me sighs in relief when I first enter a city. I think it's because I get to see a cacophony of images and my nose meets a smell, while it's likely something that may cause cancer, I smile, because it's slightly familiar and reminds me that I'm home again. Best part - restaurants!!!! Where I live now - no restaurants.

Then HippieHusband and I will head off on a big adventure.



When I get back, you folks will hear whether or not HippieHusband and I will be leaving the village.

And I'll post the final installment in the Slow Science Series - The Loss of the Sniper Scientist.

Have a fun few weeks folks!

Prelude

"The sign said Fine for parking - so I parked there because it was fine."

I had a wonderful conversation last night with my sister, Wisdom. She and I were talking about the latest in her wonderful teaching adventures at high school. Her school like many schools in big Canadian cities has changed in composition over the last 10 years. And many of the teachers at the schools have not changed their prejudices and biases. She often encounters teachers in the teacher's lounge saying things like,

"Why bother teaching students to write an essay. They can't do it, it's too difficult for them and they're only going to work in laboring jobs anyway."

Wisdom is often frustrated by the education system and rants about how many of her older white colleagues are confronted by their own prejudices when they stand in front of a class filled with brown and black bodies. This, she says is the slippery slope logic that many teachers employ.

I wanted to pursue this particular aspect of our conversation but it turned down a road I wasn't expecting and well, I really enjoy tangents.

She started to tell me how she was so shocked and dismayed by what her students were saying in class that she decided to dump the standard English curriculum and teach them something else.

Wisdom is often shocked and dismayed by what her students say, the actions of the principal, other teachers, the government, you name it. Shock and dismay comes, in part, because she still holds to a ridiculous ideal that the world can be a better place. When I remind her of this, she blames me for all her idealistic notions because I was her role model when she went to university. As most undergrads, I ditched classes for protests and writing articles about equity and equality for the university political rags, thinking that I could educate people out of the misfortune of their prejudices. Unfortunately the years (mainly grad school) have made me jaded and bitter, or as I believe, more realistic.

Her new curriculum was on critical thinking. At the start she asked her students what they thought critical thinking entailed, they said it was about detecting bias. Many of her teen-aged students also believed that you couldn't trust the media, politicians, or news organizations to present the truth. Nor for that matter history. History was written by the winners and was therefore just propaganda. As a result they dismissed anything that was riddled with bias. When I told her I didn't differ much, that I didn't want to have to read 10 different news sources just to figure out what happened and so I didn't. She was, of course, shocked and dismayed.

So were many of my friends when I didn't know that 1. Tiger Woods had cheated on his wife. 2. Michael Jackson died. and 3. Brittany Spears had a baby or maybe it was two. How any of this is news is beyond me.

Her response, "Critical thinking is about the effort. There is no excuse for laziness. Just because you may have to spend a little more time reading and evaluating the story doesn't mean it isn't worth reading. Of course history has bias but part of the study of history is to evaluate the social and political context of the writer's story. Just because it's a story doesn't make it any less informative."

Ugh, I know of course she's right. But she's the YOUNGER sister. This was a pattern we have lived with for over 30 years.

She continued, "Besides critical thinking is more than just the detection of bias. It is more about determining meaning in an individual's argument or statement by evaluating the logic and considering the evidence. This is the problem with the education system, instead of teaching students critical thinking skills, we spend our days reading aloud to them from Shakespeare, like they're still three. I think that teachers can't teach critical thinking because they themselves don't understand it. With the increased role of the media and internet in our lives, critical thought as it really is, has died. The death of logical fallacy has become usurped by the detection of bias. "

Now you know why I named her Wisdom.

And then I started thinking about science and the death of critical thinking in the universities and in the process of doing fast and dirty science. And she's right. Really, it's no different for us.

But unfortunately, readers, you will have to wait for that connection between our conversation and my slow science tirade until next time. I have to return to work on that manuscript!

*****

Addendum 1:

Every year HippieHusband and I make the dreaded border run to renew our visas. This time they fingerprinted (all 10 fingers) us and took photos. All I can say is that if the government was going to go to all that trouble to fingerprint me, they should have the courtesy to at least let me try out for the CIA. Yes, I know, I'm obsessed with all that Alias.

*****

Addendum 2:

The job side is looking good. Two possibilities look promising!!

****

Next time - how fast science has meant the death of critical thinking

Ramblings from the mouth of a sleepy buddhist

I talk in my sleep. Not just the mumblings and muffled speak that some people make, but apparently clearly formed conversations. For that reason, I'd make a terrible spy. Oh well, I guess that alternative career is out.

Last night HippieHusband told me that I said the following,

"You're the Stay puff marshmellow man, dude. You're all fuckin' puff and no substance."

Wouldn't you like to know who I was talking to?

The Idealist and The Rational

Last week, HippieHusband and I drove to LargeCityUSA, where I had surgery. This was the sequel to the brain surgery that happened last fall. The pituitary gland is this tiny organ in the body but damn is it important. This is definitely the case where good things come in small packages.

I'm doing okay and blogging helps keep my mind off of the pain. So I lied when I said I wouldn't be blogging.

Being The Rational he insisted that we have explicit Google directions to get to the hospital. HippieHusband is an INTG personality, so he is all about contingency, planning and organization. Leaving early is a common theme in our lives.

Good thing too because I did get instructions - instructions to a cross-section of two roads, where let me tell you there was no evidence of a hospital. This is also a common theme in our lives. Just read this.

I figured that the hospital was big and so when we got there we would see it. So I just asked Google for directions from our hotel to the street address. Turns out that in LargeCityUSA, there are two streets with similar names. And I picked the wrong one.

Can you tell - Girlpostdoc is not an INTJ personality. Turns out I'm a INFP or The Idealist Healer. My focus is on ideas, feelings, right and wrong, blah, blah blah. Apparently it gets me lost a lot. Even with directions.

Bored? Here is the personality test we did.

Ugh

That's really wierd as I went to submit this post, an ad for cheap hernia surgery popped up.

Freaky.

I won't be blogging for a while since I'm going in for day surgery and have no idea how long recovery will take. Day surgery is a walk in the park, given that I've already done the whole brain surgery thing.

Three surgeries in the span of a single year. Who could beat that?

You could say that this Canadian has gotten to know the American healthcare system quite intimately!

Update: Two-week challenge

Well HippieHusband and I made it through the two-week challenge with a little bit of bruising to our egos.

On the very last day, HippieHusband admitted to me that he was scrounging for coffee in my baking cupboard and found some 10-year old expresso. This was coffee I had bought when I was in my first year of my MSc. and tried to bake some gingerbread cookies. The cookies were terrible. I was still with my ex. back then.

Yes, he did drink it and very much regretted it.

My low point came earlier than HippieHusband's. I got into our car and found the remnant of a sour cream and onion potato chip, which I have to admit looked quite yummy from where I was sitting. But I didn't do it.

All in all - not bad.

This past weekend, HippieHusband's uncle and aunt visited and we talked about the two-week challenge. As a geneticist, I know that resemblance between relatives is well a "duh", but I am still amazed. HippieHusband and his uncle, ElderHippie are ridiculously similar in their personality.

ElderHippie gave us advice on how to save money. He believes that you pay yourself first, then pay the necessary bills, and with whatever's left you buy groceries. Not the other way around. It means that if you don't have any money left for groceries, then you make do. Instead of focusing on the pleasure of the now, it makes our future a priority.

I think that this works because we don't have little mouths to feed.

In any case, it makes sense. I would much rather have future savings and deal with being creative about my food than be shit out of luck when our jobs end or HippieHusband gets "fired". (I put the word "fired" in quotes because heck given what has happened how can we know when it is for real.)

Plus, not having money for groceries is usually just a short term problem.

And given the medical bills that have come our way and will continue to at least over the next year, this is a way of ensuring we can pay for them as well as have some savings left over.

Speaking of medical bills, I'm back to Seattle for yet another surgery. Sheesh. This one's just a minor day surgery but frankly, I'm tired of the assaults on my body.

Small world network of a small town

Today, I was walking on my way to the OnlyHippieCafe to do some work. And I ran into three people I knew. No matter what you do here, you always run into someone you know. And if you don't run into someone you know, it's more than likely that the person sitting at the next table knows someone you know quite well.


A few days ago, HippieHusband and I went out for dinner with ForBetterOrWorse and his wife. ForBetterOrForWorse was a post-doc at SmallUniversity who looks exactly like the cartoon version of the husband (John Patterson) in Lynn Johnston's For Better or For Worse). I used to have a blogpost on this guy and his interactions in the department but since I was outed, I have deleted a number of older posts. ForBetterOrForWorse is no longer a post-doc in the department because his contract ended, so for us, this couple qualified as "the outside the university" friends. We were so thrilled to have dinner with this couple because they were disconnected to SmallUniversity. Apparently, disconnected isn't really what we wanted. We spent the entire night bitching and ranting about postdocdom and academia. Most of it involved updating them on HippieHusband's outrageous situation.

It turns out, no surprise, they really aren't that disconnected - in fact, some of the recurring characters in this ridiculous fiction of HippieHusband's are people they socialize with. I'll admit that ForBetterOrForWorse and his wife really don't qualify as "outside the university" friends.

This led HippieHusband and I to think about out how we could make friends with people who had no connection to SmallUniversity.
I'm not sure that it's even possible to have friends that have no association with the university. Here in SmallTown, I swear, it's not 6 degrees of separation but more like 1-2 degrees.

Now, if I HippieHusband and I had kids, SmallTown would be a great place to meet "disconnected" people because it's populated by people with kids (pun intended).

As is often the case with small world networks, it is characterized by cliques or sub-networks. So in SmallTown, I think of two, possibly three cliques: the Hippies, the "intellectual" elite (SmallUniversity), and the Fundamental Christians. Within each of these groups, any one person is highly connected to any other person.

Although I'm sure that these types of subnetworks existed in BigCity, Canada, I was less impacted by their presence on a day to day basis. At least while at LargeUniversityinCanada, I had tons of friends who had 'nothing' to do with the University. This was due, in part, to the fact that I could join different groups and meet a diversity of people. And if they did have a connection, it felt so far removed that I never felt my life was small.

And that really is the issue. SmallTown just seems to be getting smaller.

There is one good thing about a small town that isn't always true in the big city. People take the time to care. On Friday of last week, HippieHusband and I were "stranded" because I had lost the car key. I couldn't for the life of me remember where or when I last had them. And if you knew me, this lost key business would not be surprising at all. Here's a good example of past key transgressions:

One day, I was sitting in my office, lost in thesis, when BestFriend called. At the time, BF was living in another BigCity in Canada. Without so much as a Hello, how are you? She asked if I had lost my keys.

"No. Of course not." I said, rolling my eyes.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, they're right he- Oh shit I've lost my keys."
"They're in the women's washroon on the third floor."
"WTF, how do you know?"

Apparently an email had gone out across the gradslist, stating that a set of keys had been found in the women's washroom on the third floor of the building that I worked in.

Good grief.

I figured that the car key had entered The Darkroom of the Universe. And well, frankly, it was one less thing to worry about now.

But on Sunday, believe it or not, someone put up a notice, saying "Car key found. Please call --- --- ----."

So I called. The person at the other end had left it in a desk drawer just outside the door of our building. If this was LargeUniversityinCanada, that desk would be in someone's apartment as a "found item."

And all of a sudden I realized that yes, SmallTown was in fact small, and yes there wasn't a whole lot of culture or restaurants, and yes, it would be hard to find "outside university" friends, and yes, people here aren't really that bad and they do take the time to care.

But thank god, it's only temporary.

A two-week challenge

Well, HippieHusband and I have decided to take an aggressive stance on saving money. I guess uncertainty does that sort of thing to you.

The rule is that you should have 3-6mths salary in case of an emergency. But frankly, as a PhD student, that was nearly impossible - I mean maybe if you had a grant and TA'd you might pull something off. Mostly, however, the PhD students I knew - they were living paycheck to paycheck or largely on credit.

And when we did become a two-income post-doc family, because we had lived on so little, we started accruing a little bit of money in the bank. It was so great. But then my father died and we had to dip into the money to pay for airline tickets. Almost immediately after that, I went into the hospital for a small operation. And then of course the brain tumour followed by brain surgery. So our savings basically whittled its way down to - well not much.

In December, we started thinking very seriously about our financial situation. Given that we're both on contract and HippieHusband's latest woes, we decided to start off the new year by saving his salary and trying to just live off of mine until the end of our contracts. So I've been squirrelling money away into our savings account. It was all fine and dandy until I miscalculated and we came up short in our chequing account.

Despite my association to the mathematically inclined, I can't add or subtract.

Ugh. I hate those stupid overdraft fees.

So yesterday was the beginning of new two-week experiment. Since we came up short, we have made a pact not to buy any more groceries or food items until our next pay day - two weeks from now. Instead we will just eat whatever we have stockpiled in our cupboards. We will have to be creative with the dried, canned, or frozen foods - and of course whatever vegetables and fruits I bought before I realized we had a shortfall. Thank god, I bought a bag of apples.

No problem.

This morning we realized that HippieHusband didn't have any milk.

Oh, geez it will be an interesting two weeks.

The overlap between friends, faculty and postdoc

Recently, I received an email from a friend who has been asked by a "casual friend" to do a post-doc with her. "Casual friendships" arise because of the overlap between academic stage and real age. In our line of work, people may be at different stages of their career like grad student or postdoc but be within the same age range. Add to that that people get to different stages of the academic career at different paces. So you may start out as grad students together, but one of you fast tracks through a post-doc and becomes a junior faculty, while the other takes a year off or ends up in a post-doc for a much longer period of time. Another scenario that could arise is that as a senior grad student you became friends with the post-doc in the lab or adjacent lab group largely because you were similar in age. Now this person has gone on to become a faculty member. So I think the confound of age makes this even more challenging.

Here is his email:

I'm also writing to ask for your thoughts on something. When I finish my PhD I'll be looking for a post-doc in (insertCityName). Yesterday, I got a surprise offer from (insertFriend's Name), whom you know. We're decent friends and I'm enjoying getting to know her. She wanted to bend my ear yesterday about a project she's planning, and at the end she informally suggested I do a post-doc with her. My response was that the thought had crossed my mind previously (she does really cool stuff), but that I was wary about doing a post-doc with a friend as a boss. It still seems to be an open offer.

Here are my thoughts on whether I would recommend this type of post-doc:

1. A starting faculty or junior faculty has one thing on their mind - tenure. Faculty get tenure by writing and getting grants. They get grants by pumping out papers. Papers are produced by grad students and post-docs. If a grad student and post-doc start at the same time, the post-doc is expected to produce at least two papers per year, one of which should be from their current work even if this work is completely different from their PhD. The pressure that this places on a friendship can strain that relationship. It's not really fair to place all the blame on the junior faculty but at the same time, many junior faculty choose tenure over a friendship with a transient post-doc. They're doing what you're doing - trying to survive and thrive.
2. Friendship is compromised by the unfair hierarchy that is academia. The inherent structure in academia changes the power dynamic between friends from one of equals to an asymmetric one. This person will evaluate your work and write you letters of reference.
3. I believe that as a post-doc, it is really important to work with someone who is older than you. It becomes confusing for both parties when the age of the two individuals are so similar. That's because there is an expectation of friendship causing the lines of friend and mentor to become blurred. If you are much younger than the person there is no reason to expect friendship. It becomes even more difficult when two people enter this relationship as friends - the expectation is already present. When two people are friends and supervisor-postdoc, actions and words become interpreted in ways that make people feel bad about themselves or the other person.
4. I think that for both post-docs and grad students the most important thing is how you get along with the supervisor. Personality conflicts can tank a career and make you miserable for years. Despite the cutting edge research and the productivity of a lab, it is really important to make sure that your personality is one that meshes with the supervisory style. Supervisory style is a different beast than how that person relates to you as a friend.
5. A second factor to consider is the lab atmosphere. In the end, you are likely to spend more time with your labmates than the faculty member. This is not to say that you won't develop friendships with other faculty in the department but because your friend, the supervisor needs to cultivate ties in the department (think tenure), s/he probably won't have time to just hang out that much. This can cause resentment.
6. The post-doc is a place where you do a lot of work - if you're lucky it's innovative and sometimes exciting - but don't expect to get any credit for the work. The glory will come later when you have your own lab. This lack of recognition can sour a friendship, which is based on mutual respect.

Lastly, I know three people now, who have done post-docs with people they knew as "casual friends." All of them claimed to get along well prior to being a post-doc, but the friendship was soured by the end of the postdoc. Frankly, I think it takes two really awesome people who value and respect each enough other to rise above all the politics. Sadly, I don't know of any examples.

My answer is that I would not do it. Even if science was exciting and you knew that you had a really good relationship with the person, my response would be no - don't do it.

Well that's all I can think of - does anyone have any other reasons for or against doing a post-doc with a friend? Or any cases where two people are friends and remain friends - I'm sure that there must be, I just haven't heard. It would be great to pass along the advice to my friend!