Today is a memorable day...

...my advisor gave me comments on my drafts! I can hardly tell the original text - there's so much stuff written on top of it, but it's great! I feel (masochistically) happy. I also got pedicure and manicure with a beautiful bride to be today... maybe that's why I'm happy... hmmmm

LIST!

I was at a preparation for friends' wedding tonight and the bride is so organized she had a pile of lists. So I feel inspired to start my own list here, of important things I am learning about job applications, that I wish I knew before.

4. Be proactive about things - ask people to read your drafts, talk to people about your ideas, sign yourself up for talks and conferences. That's what a good postdoc will do, and, because you are hoping to be one too soon, you should too.

3. This is from a few days ago, but bears repeating: don't rely on your adviser to help you with your research proposal. It must be your own ideas! It has to be your own writing. Get your act together and move it along!

2. Collaborate! Or be known. Work with or interact with senior people in your field OUTSIDE of your own institution! SENIOR people. Those connections will come handy when you are wondering who will write your letters of reference.

1. Start research independent from your adviser well ahead of job applications. May be a year ahead is a good time. Think of interesting things to do, write your own proposals, get your own observing time, collaborate with your peers - other grads and postdocs. These projects will lay your road to writing job applications.

enough for now, more later.

yet another day (in paradise)

Life is coming along. My research proposal is shaping up. My advisor finally read it and contrary to my expectations, didn't quite throw it back in my face. I forget if I've mentioned it previously, but some of the jobs I am applying for are fellowships and they require a research proposal that you are planning on carrying out with the money they give you. So that's really hard to do because it has to be somewhat disconnected from your thesis, and I haven't even written my thesis yet. It's difficult for way too many reasons to enumerate here. Anyways, FOUR of these fellowship applications are due next week, actually three of them are different. The problem is that the schedule is getting tight. I am photographing a wedding on Saturday, I am leaving town on Monday to go to Boston and give a talk at a conference and then, holly sh*t, give a colloquium at Harvard, submit the applications in the mean time, and come back on Friday all refreshed and ready to work on the "Holly Ghost" of job applications - The Hubble Fellowship, due on Nov. 8th! I'm getting out of breath just thinking about it! Wish I could go get some exercise!

missed oportunities

I was talking yesterday to one of my house-mates that I wanted to be a writer when I was in high-school. In fact I wanted to be a journalist. I loved writing essays, short form stuff and had some stuff even get awards. I used to get a kick out of looking at ideas from lots of different angles and going all poetic or all philosophic about them. May be writing this blog would help me get my bug back, the joy of stringing words into ideas that actually have impact and make people thing. So far I certainly haven't done that. It's been more of an outlet for stress and frustration. And that serves a purpose too, I guess. I just hope I go back to being a better person when this is all over! I hate myself being stressed, because all the worries make me self-absorbed and self-centered and I forget there is a world out there where other human beings struggle with their own lives just as much as I do. I am grateful to my house-mates for bearing with me!
So I hope that tonight my inspirational bug would come visit me again. I talked to my advisor today and though she still didn't read my research proposal, she at least herd what my proposal is all about and let herself be convinced that it was interesting and doable, which is a major stem forward! So I am going home to write! Wish me luck!

about expectations

A realization of the day. Your advisor is not going to help you with your job application. No. Read it? Maybe. But not help. Good luck!

I was just hit by an yarning for a lost freedom while listening to this song:

An ex-bf of mine loved this song many many years ago and it grew on me and has always reminded me of him when it comes on the radio once in a while. I used to imagine us getting in a car and taking off into the sunset/sunrise. It just dawned on me, listening to this song today, that I have put chains around my ankles, that I don't have the freedom to get into a car and disappear out my life for a while. At least not without loosing something won with a lot of work. I know I did it to myself, but it makes me sad nevertheless.

yet another day

Saw the Martha Graham Dance company tonight. Had a sip of Bordeaux. And now I am sitting in bed with my laptop in the hope that I will do some work on my Past and Present research statement and send it off together with a CV and a list of addresses to my letter writers. I have already submitted 4 job applications so for 3 of them the letters will be late :( Oh well. I have the sniffles. I hope I am not getting sick! That would be very bad timing!

some more job applications

It's Sunday night and I am soooo tired. I just spend the weekend working and it sucks so bad! I feel like I haven't really done much of anything - I've been just editing this 3-page write-up over and over again, At the end of the weekend I have a better sounding 3-page write-up than I did in the beginning of the weekend but it still doesn't feel like an achievement. Such is life during job applications. I am tired. Two proposals are due tomorrow and because they are for jobs in Europe I have to submit them by noon. Thank God! My research proposal is shaping up. I like it. I am enthusiastic about it. I am kind-a excited about these jobs I am applying for tomorrow - I'd be happy to get one of them, though one more than the other. We'll see. I'm going to work on my CV now.

About personal life

clipped from www.comics.com

I've wanted to write about some personal stuff for quite some time and because I'm sick of complaining about job applications to everyone including my blog, and because I feel enough time has passed, I think now is the time to do that. *Cough, cough*. It is very common that women in astronomy date men in astronomy, or that women in astronomy date women in astronomy, (probably men in astronomy also date men in astronomy but I have no personal example of that). Not only do they date each other, but they get married too. I have always been ambivalent on whether that's a good idea. At times (like now) I have been convinced that's actually a terrible idea. I am sure there are zillions of theories and pontifications on the benefits and pitfalls of dating in the workplace, but I never read them. May be I should have. I can certainly understand the allure of such a relationship - takes a lot less explaining what you do, how you do it, why is it important and why do you need to move every couple of years or so. It makes for a supportive relationship and both people are usually equally smart and accomplished. In fact the being together part is great. It's the breaking up part that I don't recommend. Especially if there is a very real threat you'll keep running into each other for the rest of your lives at conferences and such. Especially if you don't keep things very amicable. Especially if the relationship is at the point where the whole department knows ... and your collaborators around the world too. Especially if you stick with him whole he goes through tough times only so that you don't tear his life apart but he doesn't seem to care that your job applications have higher priority that his books still at your house. Then it sucks so bad that you never want to do it again. Ever. Ever. I already have two such corpses too many and that's enough. Amen.