Tossing and Turning

This weekend is an an ark weekend. Two days where it almost nonstop downpours and wave after wave of thunderstorms come through. It rains for so long and for so much that we are thankful we live on the fourth floor and start looking around for wood in the house to build an ark.

James is softly snoring in the next room since he was up at 2:30 to watch the men's hockey.

It took me a long time to get to sleep last night. For the last month, I have been working on a research proposal to send in my job application package. Two applications need to get sent out this spring. Resume, two page teaching philosophy, four reference letters and then the research proposal. At this point the proposal is eleven pages, three research projects, eight figures, fifty references, and many many holes.

Yesterday I had lunch with the Boss and a high powered speaker they had come in for a lecture series: a very big cheese from Cal Tech. He gave two talks this week, one on some pretty hard core nano-physics and the another on protein assays for cancer research. As well, he runs an additional lab in Singapore, is a single father of two, has more Science papers than I have fingers and toes, is on the board of a gazillian institutes, and has three companies. Very nice guy, very interesting guy, and surprisingly easy to talk to.

But I have to say, my little research, Hebrew lessons and my little blog seem woefully inadequate, not to mention my bite-sized research proposals. The funny thing is, after talking to the boss alone after lunch, I get the impression he felt woefully inadequate too.

At lunch, I point blank asked the big cheese for sage advice on job applications, and I got a lot of advice, right after he said that last year was the worst hiring year he had ever seen. One of the pieces of solid advice I got for these tough economic times was to explicitly list the existing facilities in each school I can use. That way, they don't have to worry about my research needing a huge start up grant. And furthermore, I need to subtly suggest in my cover letter what times I will be back in North America, i.e. I will pay to get my own butt over for an interview.

Needless to say, my night was spent worrying about my ideas, not thinking they are good enough or big enough, and then stopping those thoughts and thinking they are really strong and appropriate for starting out.

Should I take out the one idea that requires a lot of access to extra equipment? Nah, it is at the end, no one will read it anyway. There are lots of solid ideas before that in the proposal that don't require that extra equipment. That little thing won't kill me.

Then I was thinking well heck, there are no jobs anyway.

But then remembered there are two positions in nano open in Canada right now.

And the boss seems to have confidence in my future.

Then I was thinking they must be getting a heap of applications, I had better make sure my package is good.

It would make things better if my paper got published in a high power journal.

I wonder if my paper will get accepted.
God, I hope it gets accepted.
No, don't get your hopes up. You know it isn't good enough.
Why haven't we heard yet?

But it did get past the editor.

But a high power paper isn't the only thing, I have to have a good research proposal.

My proposals are really good.

My proposals suck.

I am never going to get a job.

I am never going to be able to afford children.

But then I hear my mom's voice reminding me it will all work out, it always does.