Well, term has finally reared its ugly head and I am desperately trying to finish writing lecture notes, exam questions and case studies ready for next week. Suddenly M&S, all the pubs and the whole of Newcastle city centre will be jammed packed full of excitable 18 year olds. Apparently Princess Eugenie will be joining us but I doubt I will have the opportunity to teach her thermodynamics.

Last week I made a conscious decision to back down in all of the disagreements/conflicts I was having with other academic staff (related to teaching loads e.t.c.) and admin staff (related to well… I can’t really go in to that!). True, the backing down wasn’t the most rewarding experience, victory could be spotted by a sudden horrific intensity in their eyes, however life has become much easier, tension has dissipated, and I can move on with important things,even though I have agreed to to things I have no time to do.

One of my groups aims is to investigate the origins of life on Earth, in the hope of gaining useful information for the creating of an artificial cell, well an entity which has the minimal characteristics of life, a protocell. Our approach is rather bottom up, as we have to assume that complex biological molecules were not available…we really are looking for that “moment” when their was a transition from non living to non living matter. My plan is to put some more time into this project. It involves me working nights, something that I used to thrive on. However these days I’m dosing of by 9pm.

My other project is starting right now. It is a synthetic biology project which involves making half biological, half machine robots. Its such an exciting project because it pushes the limits of genetic engineering, electronics and robotics. However I do feel quite a lot of pressure to deliver as I am the only Brit on this project, the other 3 investigators being American, and big name Americans at that!!!

How do academics balance work with family life (and social life if this is possible)? Answers on a postcard as I am having a real difficulty in this respect.

Bye for now
Daniel

Things in the lab have improved markedly since I started 3 years ago. I bought in a couple of big research grants and this seems to have made all the difference. This is a sad reality. Overnight I went from being treated like a nobody to be treated like one of the “others”. But am I happy???? The university is a complete contradiction. On the one hand it is the best place on Earth to work…an environment of constant learning…a kingdom where one can pursue the purest form of intellect…ideas…On the other hand it is hell, strangled by a omnipotent admin with politics that would make Margaret Thatcher blush.

At the moment I am enjoying classic science papers. Those from yesteryear where incredible discoveries are reported without ALL THE HYPE that is so encouraged these days. In fact it is refreshing to read through the modest understatement of defining scientific achievements.

A week or two ago one of the PhD students accidentally left on the magnetic stirring plate (without a stirring bar) when preparing one of his model cell membranes. When we looked at it with the atomic force microscope there were the equivalent of micron scale crop circles all over the membrane. It was so surprising that I almost fell out of my chair. My first thought was that it has to be an artifact, but the circles were real. Unfortunately we are having difficulty repeating this initial observation. This is because we don’t quite know why these things formed in the first place. We will try for a couple more days and then give up!!! Doh!!

Term starts in a couple of weeks and I need to find time to revamp my lecture notes. Every day something else appears on my desk delaying this necessary task. Today it was a big bundle of exam papers (resits). Yesterday it was progression panels for PhD candidates. I’m sure tomorrow it’ll be something else. Still. I love my job, I love my job, I love my job…if I keep telling myself this I will believe it.

In a nutshell I am a new academic at a British University, Newcastle University to be precise. I would like to describe my experience of setting up a laboratory and hopefuly discuss some science as well. It’s taken me three years to start this blog

I will start as of today…in the process of lab birth I have lost plenty of potential academic friends here and made a bucket load of enemies. This is despite the fact that I am a pretty easy going person with no delusions of granduer, just a basic desire to carry out science in a suitable lab under normal conditions. This isnt a big ask..some would say the norm….In terms of stress its been a rough ride and it seems that I have aged 10 years. Sometimes I dream of those days when I was a postdoc where my only concern was the one project I was on. There were no colleagues out to stab me in the back, there was no funding related stress there was no ADMIN! Still all the time I was a postdoc I was dreaming of a faculty position. My only consolation is that it seems MUCH HARDER in the US with the tenure track process. Now I finally understand why so many academics are social misfits with severe personality disorders not to mention alcoholics.