• A Meandering Scholar by Ian Brooks

    Wherein I hope to document the path of change: The continuing evolution of the Postdoctoral Fellow within academia.

    • On excellent colleagues

      Wednesday, 07 Oct 2009 - 19:59 UTC

      I have a half written blog post about my recent absence from the Network, and indeed, blogsphere in general. It ties in nicely with the title of this blog, so I’m actually trying to do it justice instead of usual 15min brian brain dump.

      But, in the meantime, just a note to mention the totally excellent Dr. Tee, my colleague and junior Faculty member in my department. I am trying to finally catch up on my reading after not having looked at The Literature for weeks and weeks. And this is fun, but somewhat mind numbing at times. The sun is shining through my office window, the printer is humming as I print out PDFs and it’s getting hard to focus.

      And at the perfect moment, in strolls the inimitable Dr. Tee with a bag of fresh chocolate-infused coffee beans, and says he is making a pot of coffee and am I interested. Bear in mind, Dr. Tee’s coffee is to regular coffee what Pentaerythritol tetranitrate is to a match head.

      so here I am, freshly infused with liquid amphetamines, blogging about blogging, and about to try and concentrate on the two Genetics Opinion articles in this week’s Nature

      Last updated: Wednesday, 07 Oct 2009 - 19:59 UTC

      • Comments

        • Date:
          Wednesday, 07 Oct 2009 - 20:05 UTC
          Richard Grant said:

          Meantime, you’re prevaricating.

          Welcome back.

        • Date:
          Wednesday, 07 Oct 2009 - 20:15 UTC
          Henry Gee said:

          Oh, there you are.

          You’re right about decent coffee. I’ve been wretched ever since Mrs Gee buggered off to conferences without adequately training me in the mysteries of the new expresso machine she’s procreated purloined procured for the Cuisine Des Girrafes. What was wrong with the old percolator, I ask myself, as I struggle blearily through the day, spreading entropy and tripping over chickens as I go?

        • Date:
          Wednesday, 07 Oct 2009 - 20:17 UTC
          Ian Brooks said:

          @rpg: Yup :) After all the Grant grant writing I’ve done recently I’ve my love for the keyboard a little…

          @HG: Ye gods man, that sounds awful. can’t the Minima help? Kids can work wonders with tech nowadays… have them pretend it’s a VCR, or whatever is en vogue nowadays

        • Date:
          Wednesday, 07 Oct 2009 - 20:20 UTC
          Jennifer Rohn said:

          Perhaps Henry’s guinea pigs could grind the beans with their molars.

          (Note to self: check whether guinea pigs actually have molars.)

        • Date:
          Wednesday, 07 Oct 2009 - 20:24 UTC
          Eva Amsen said:

          It’s Ian! Wait, who’s Ian again?

        • Date:
          Wednesday, 07 Oct 2009 - 20:28 UTC
          Henry Gee said:

          Guinea pigs do have molars, but it’s the incisors that cause the damage.

        • Date:
          Wednesday, 07 Oct 2009 - 21:01 UTC
          Åsa Karlström said:

          haha, I hope you enjoyed the coffee as much as the excellent collegues.

          (I was going to say something about the “when I am not a post doc anymore I will have more time to write lots and lots of blog posts” but at the moment it seems a bit… ehh.. precarious to throw stones in what looks like a small house of glass ;) ]

        • Date:
          Wednesday, 07 Oct 2009 - 21:12 UTC
          Ian Brooks said:

          @Jenny: I agree with HG. The incisors are the buggers. Thankfully my Guinea pig died.

          @Eva: sniff sniff… the guilt :`(

          @Asa: But you see the inherent logical flaw there? I’m not a postdoc anymore and I blog even less!

        • Date:
          Wednesday, 07 Oct 2009 - 21:31 UTC
          Åsa Karlström said:

          Brooks> I do, that’s why I qouted you ;) and then I thought it was a bit evil to make the point. You did say “more time when I am not a post doc”

        • Date:
          Wednesday, 07 Oct 2009 - 21:34 UTC
          Ian Brooks said:

          …yeah. I was…naive…

          :)

        • Date:
          Wednesday, 07 Oct 2009 - 22:22 UTC
          Stephen Curry said:

          Postdocs have it so easy! I lie awake at night dreaming of being spat at in the face a postdoc again… ;-)

          Welcome back Ian!

        • Date:
          Wednesday, 07 Oct 2009 - 22:23 UTC
          Ian Brooks said:

          Cheers Stephen :) I dunno about easier… just…different!

        • Date:
          Thursday, 08 Oct 2009 - 06:31 UTC
          Richard Grant said:

          PIs have it easy. They just sit around writing grants all day. Feh.

        • Date:
          Thursday, 08 Oct 2009 - 11:18 UTC
          Alyssa Gilbert said:

          Welcome back – sounds like you’ve got a great colleague. We all should have at least one of those.

        • Date:
          Thursday, 08 Oct 2009 - 13:13 UTC
          Bob O'Hara said:

          Welcome back! Enjoy the coffee!

          Damn, I should blog about my absences too. Aarrgh!

        • Date:
          Thursday, 08 Oct 2009 - 17:17 UTC
          Ian Brooks said:

          @rpg: Tell me about. Lazy swine!

          @Alyssa: Ta very much. I would agree that everyone needs a Dr. Tee! His nickname is “little Buddha”. Very apt.

          @Bob: Cheers mate. When in doubt, getting meta and blogging about not blogging is a great stop gap!


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