A Leather Drinking Tankard!, yesterday
First with Jenny, and now Anna, waxing lyrical about the halcyon days of youth I thought I might do the same. But then this morning I couldn’t get in my building because my swipe card wouldn’t work. It dawned on me then that today is the 1087th day I’ve been in Memphis, or to put it more traditionally, my Third Anniversary!
I was going to reminisce about the last three years here in Memphis. How I’ve learned to adapt to the awe-inspiring weather, and the truely lethal driving habits of Memphibians in general. I thought about mentioning the bands I’ve played in, the loves I’ve loved and the loves I’ve lost (or maybe not… this is meant to be PG after all).
Then I thought, it might be nice to thunk a good think about the science I’ve done. This is doubly timely because just yesterday, on the last day of my original three year contract, I got the final couple of data points I needed to close out another project.
I could have explored the feelings I have at watching my friends and colleagues go off to start their own labs, as faculty or instructors. I could mutter about feeling left behind and being caught in a kind of stasis and how I’m occasionally quite sad and stuff. But that last would just be a lie. I’m narcisistic enough to always look on the bright side. I wish my colleagues well, and I look forward to following their careers over the coming decades. Some, I know, are destined for great things.
I’m waiting on this potential internship with our administration. But is it what I want? Is there enough money? Is there enough work? (one a don’t know, one a maybe, the last a _yes_). And just as I’m having this thunk and pottering about with my rig getting a bit of data, my phone rings and I have an impromptu phone-interview! This occurs partly without warning because, as an absent minded science type, I mispelled my own email address on my CV!
I’ll say no more about it, out of fairness and stuff, but I’m really rather excited. Even if all comes to naught…I’m sure there are other handsome intelligent folk in the running…it’s a wicked good evaluation of my progress on a timely date.
I know there is no way I could have seriously applied for a job like this three years ago (not that I didn’t try!), so my original decision to stay at the bench and hone my skills and make a fully informed decision has paid off.
A nice feeling to start another busy weekend at the bench with!
Congratulations, Ian! Whatever it is, it sounds promising. Best of luck with it. Hope you’ll be able to talk about it soon!
Phone interviews are rather terrifying, are they not? Especially impromptu ones.
How is your arm, by the way?
And yes, at the end of a long Friday of a long week, by ‘it’ I mean your job interview. I am barely coherent at the best of times, now… not so much.
Cheers Anna :) Many fingers crossed… well, fingers that work anyway. Speaking of which, my recent foolishness is healing nicely. I finally have thew brace off, but I have to remember not to do sily things like…use my hand :/
I tremble with an..ti..ci..pat…tion.
3 years? really? wow… I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised since I had my 2 years thing a while back :)
it really creeps up on you though, time and getting older drifting off in some philosophy rant
I’m in my 21st year at Nature. I have colleagues who, when I started, presumably had yet to shed their deciduous dentition (no, Grant, look it up). Now, in my day…
Reminds me of a cartoon I saw in Punch many years ago in which a crowd of Chelsea pensioners is trying to calm one of their number who has becom somewhat agitated. “Not now, Charlie,” one says. “We’ll come to the urrent situation in Zaire when we’ve finished talking about Mons.”
Next month marks 10 years of living in the States! now that’s a milestone.
…and I haven’t even been shot once! shot at… but not actually hit…
Next month makes it 20 years in the States for me (aaaaaand now I feel old).
Do people in the States get shot a lot? I was not aware of this.
Usually only in Memphis. And Detroit. But, usually Memphis. Per capita we’re one of the most dangerous cities in the Nation. Of course, if you’re middle-class, white and live North of downtown your chances are significantly better than being Black (majority population here), low income (majority blacks in M-Town), and living South of Downtown (spot the pattern), in which case your odds of being a tragic statistic before your 40th are somewhat higher :(
Anna> it’s not unheard of here in the Memphis area…
Brooks>hm, I wouldn’t be too sure on the whole south/north thing. North of down town has a very high rate of those bullet thingys… I think the researchers (at UT/UM) called it “a horseshoe turned sideways” when describing where crime is highest and where it is not (east). Then again, it doesn’t really matter that much since all the other assumptions are dead on (sorry about the pun, couldn’t help it).