#thoughts about postdoc

[fractallogic]

You know, I haven’t fully wrapped my head around how I’m going to incorporate it, but I had a great idea for this grant proposal that’s making me very excited

Because I think. finally. I will be able to justify testing arabic-speaking children. I will get to find out what kinds of errors THEY make learning my arabiclike made-up language.

And plus I’m realizing that I like portland more than eugene, and oops, the two Islamic schools and the one Arabic-medium school are all in the portland area oh no I will have to spend so much time in portland if I get this grant oh well

…plus I just really want to be able to stay in one place for three more years, and let scone live in Oregon like he’s really wanted to for YEARS.

I love arabic and I love my pastry and I love how kids do language. I am very excited about this part of the project and I just. The likelihood of it happening is vanishingly low. But it’s more likely to get this grant than getting a TT job. So.

[strawberrystepmom]

jotaro x f!reader. going to a wedding is hard when you run into your ex who isn't quite your ex. | divider by @cafekitsune, wc 2k

cw alcohol consumption, implied age gap (reader is in her late 20s/30s and jotaro is in his 40s/50s), implied unhealthy relationship.

You feel like a fish out of water.

This would be a hilarious joke for you, marine biologist, to make if anxiety weren’t currently making every inch of your skin crawl. In search of another glass of champagne, you exhale your relief when a tray is walked right past you. A glass is plucked off, carefully, and situated between your fingers so that you can take a moment to assess the situation.

This isn’t even the first wedding you’ve been to within the last six months. Unfortunately, it is the first where you may accidentally run into a man you’ve been hoping to avoid as much as possible. 

Jotaro. 

Just the thought of his name makes that itchy feeling return. 

You pinch the underside of your right wrist with your left fingers, reminding yourself to keep it cool and together. There’s no guarantee he’ll even be here, perpetual flake that he is. This is a wonderful opportunity for you to reconnect with your former research lab interns, now professionals either working in the field or furthering their education. 

Like clockwork, one of them approaches you. You remember him as Alexander though he told you many times to call him Alex, a boyish young man with deeply tanned skin and hair that you’re certain he gets professionally permed to give him a beachy and easy going appearance.

“Hey doc!” 

Smiling, you nod. Last year was your first postdoc, although you still find yourself uncertain if academia is for you or not. You’re still in your lab this year, sticking close to the place you’ve made your home. At least for now. 

“Hey, kid. It’s good to see you.”

Pleasantries are exchanged, the two of you idly chatting about what has happened since the last time you saw each other. His life is far more exciting than yours, doing his time at the Speedwagon Research Station in Newfoundland just as you did yourself nearly a decade ago. Time passes so quickly even if little changes it leaves you breathless but you drown the anxiety with another sip, allowing the talkative young man to take the conversational lead.

“You know, all of us assumed last year that you two were, like, secretly married and just didn’t want anyone to know.” 

Your former intern laughs, a jovial lopsided grin on his face. He did a lot of that over a year ago too, mostly at your goofy jokes or whatever playlist you picked for light lab days that would make your program co-head shake his head and silently return to his reports, a hint of a smile across his lips. Things felt good back then. Stable, at the very least. The lab was full of life, you and Dr. Kujo worked in tandem verifying research and giving advice to kids who someday hoped to do the same things the two of you have been able to do.

It sucks you haven’t heard much from Jotaro since then but hey, you understand that life happens. Always cool, always rolling with the punches, conveniently blocking out that your mattress has a permanent indentation in his shape now. 

“We used to refer to you colloquially as the doctors Kujo.”

The smile you give him back doesn’t reach your eyes. It’s polite, curving just enough to show your teeth to seem less tense. You’ve perfected this smile over years of schmoozing for grants and an audience to your research alike and only reach for it when completely necessary. There’s only one person who can tell the difference between your fake smiles and your real ones anyway.

You hope his flight got delayed while tossing your head back. 

“It has never really been like that between us.” That smile fades as quickly as it appeared. Lifting your champagne glass, you take a quick sip and raise your eyebrows. Smacking your lips together, appreciating the acidic bubbles over your tongue, you raise the glass halfway and nod your head. 

“It’s just me, myself, and I most of the time. Tonight especially.”

The trainee turned apparent Lothario leans in toward you, that lopsided grin becoming something a little more flirtatious. You picked up on these vibes when it was definitely inappropriate and politely warded him off back then. 

“So you’re single right now, eh doc?”

Now, though, you fight the urge to indulge him just to assuage your loneliness. 

The difference in age between the two of you is significantly less than the gap between yourself and Jotaro. Shame simmers in your stomach while you honestly contemplate giving this bright eyed man a chance. Maybe he could make you feel wanted or needed or beautiful even, just for the evening until he heads back to where his current research has taken him in the morning. 

Pathetic. 

Sipping from your glass again, you shrug, washing away the words that are on your tongue. Flirting back would be a cruel thing to do to him anyway when you’ll never mean it, your heart forever stuck on one man. The energy behind you shifts and you feel a gaze on your back, a familiar voice speaking from over your shoulder.

“Give it a rest, Alex.”

Your trainee beams and looks up, up, up over your shoulder, tempting you to do the same. Turning to the side, you look up and away as quickly as you spot him. The salt and pepper sides of his hair are slicked back and his face is as unaffected as ever, aquamarine eyes flicking from the bare skin of your shoulder to the twenty something year old man across from you.

“Dr. Kujo! I was wondering when we’d bump into each other.” 

The younger man holds out his hand to shake and the older one takes it. You allow the distraction to give you time to get a good look at the proverbial ghost that haunts your every dream, in disbelief that he’s real and here. 

He looks amazing. That barrel chest is encased in a perfectly fitted button down shirt, his wavy hair is completely off of his face; the lines around his eyes look deeper, maybe he’s been smiling more, and you ignore the sting in the middle of your chest imagining someone else is doing that for him.

Do you even have a right to feel that way? 

The conversation around you fades and you’re only acutely aware Alex is departing, holding your hand up to offer a small wiggly fingered wave and wishing him a good time. It’s just the two of you now. Jotaro wastes no time collecting your empty glass, letting it dangle from his fingers while an attendant breezes by with another tray full of them. He carefully grabs one, pinching the stem delicately, and hands it to you.

“Think he may still have that, what did you call it last year? Puppy dog crush?”

Despite yourself, you laugh. Accepting the glass with a polite nod, you don’t bother to think before you speak.

“You’re twice his age, Jotaro. Act like it.” Rolling your eyes, you sip from your champagne. You’ll need about four more glasses to protect your good time tonight, especially if Jotaro is hell bent on going down memory lane but you play along. “Besides, a year isn’t that long depending on who you ask. He didn’t forget about me.” Casting him a sidelong glance, your mouth falls into an unimpressed line. “Unlike some people.”

“Is that what you think?” He asks, face impassive as ever despite the offended lilt in his tone.

How could you possibly think anything different? Eight months ago he kissed you goodbye in the apartment you had one month left leasing, telling you he’d see you later. Between then and now you’ve moved, started another term with fresh interns, and grieved. Sometimes silently, pensive and alone staring at your hands and your journal wondering when it will stop hurting. Sometimes loudly, bitching to your friend on the phone about how impossible and fake it feels to move on when nobody you go on dates with makes you feel the same way he does.

All you do is sigh, looking over his shoulder at the guests you do not know passing quietly, unaware. You could walk away to your assigned seat but you know his assignment is right next to yours, the neatly folded place card warning you for his pending arrival. Naively you assumed he’d leave you alone. Not that you wanted him to but you hoped he had sense enough to stay away.

“Answer my question.”

It’s hard to tell who is really lacking sense here. You giggle, a bit hollow and humorless.

“I never know what to think but regardless I’m happy you made it. Have you seen Maddie and Ben yet?”

The bride and groom, the pair that was brought together in this holy matrimony thanks to their time spent as your interns. You watched them blossom before your eyes and even told Jotaro you imagined that they’d end up together someday, happy, studying rocks and plankton and water temperatures. Having little babies they’ll eventually take to the beach, leaving nothing but footprints and giggles behind. 

A life you used to idealistically imagine for yourself but have outgrown. You’ve never really been the type for marriage and family, a reminder popping your dreams like a needle to a balloon when you steal another glance at Jotaro’s profile.

He leans in closer to you, nodding, eyes dipping to look at your quickly disappearing drink. “Yeah, they look happy. I’m surprised it took them this long to make it here, they seemed really eager to get to the…you know.”

An honest to God laugh leaves you, for the first time since you can remember. It takes all you have not to double over with laughter at this grown man in particular suddenly censoring himself around you. 

“You can say fuck, Jojo. It’s nothing I haven’t heard or done with you before.”

The return of the old nickname, one he confided in you years ago makes him feel at home, tells him that you aren’t so angry he can’t fix things. Your body language speaks volumes, fully turned toward him with a little smile on your face. Perhaps nothing was even broken to begin with. Aside from the little hairline fractures on your heart that heal themselves each second he spends looking down at you, eyes shining like the waters you both love so much. 

“Okay then.” Jotaro dips his face, hiding a smile of his own lest anyone see it and forget he’s a big, mean, scary man. He bows low enough that his head naturally rests just above your ear, chin tickling the side of your head.

“They seemed really eager to fuck back then.”

Another laugh and you grab his bicep, wrapping your hand around it to balance yourself. His hand falls naturally to your waist and the two of you are once again existing in a world made just for lovers, void of sound and sight despite two pairs of eyes on you from across the ballroom that has been transformed into a reception space.

“I’m not gonna lie dude, I still think they’re married. They definitely arrived separately to keep it a secret.” Alex leans in to another one of your former interns, an unimpressed looking young woman who leans to the side to catch the two of you actively speaking. 

Your hands move a mile a minute, Jotaro watches every single twitch and movement. She swoons, laughing to herself but turning her smile toward the man next to her.

“I used to think you were making shit up but honestly, you’re right.” She nods, wrapping one of her arms around his extended one. “Only people who were made for each other behave like that.”

[vakarians-babe]

After a historic 6 week strike, the Temple University Graduate Students Association - the first graduate worker union in Pennsylvania - has WON.

When we went out on January 31st, I don’t think any of us thought that we would end up here. This was a long and arduous process that could never have been accomplished without everyone involved—and I do mean everyone.

Numerous news outlets have been reporting throughout the whole strike, but I’d like to run through what, exactly, it is we’ve done.

After well over a year of negotiations (we went to the table in January of 2022 after the administration delayed responding to our RFIs for months) and more than a year without a contract (it expired on February 15, 2022), we were stuck with an administrative team whose position was, resolutely, “we are happy with the contract as it is.” Their belief was that teaching and research assistants, who facilitate—at a conservative estimate—approximately one-third of all instructional work here on campus were “not a core function of the university.” Pay was structured around a tier-based system that generated inequity as part of its structure which ultimately manifested as race and gender based wage gaps, and that pay averaged out between 19k and 20k for the majority of our bargaining unit. We had only five days of parental leave in the event of childbirth. To cover a single dependent on the dependent healthcare plan required an individual to spend approximately 30% of their paycheck. There had been no substantive raises or adjustments for the cost of living since our first contract as a union.

During the strike, Temple university cut our healthcare and revoked tuition remission, attempting to break us through punitive bills and threats. They quite literally threatened peoples’ lives in addition to their livelihoods. International students were threatened for daring to exercise the rights they have as visa holders to engage in protected concerted activity. They attempted to break our will and our organization.

They failed. We didn’t.

On Monday, voting on a second tentative agreement closed. The contract negotiations team and the executive board unanimously endorsed that TA. It passed at an overwhelming 98% vote among our members. That TA, which will now become our contract, did the following:

Eliminated the tier system completely

Brought our pay up to 24k at the beginning of our contract, reaching pay of 27k by its end in 2026

Introduced 25% dependent healthcare coverage which, in addition to the pay raises, lowers the burden of single dependent care to just about 18% of one’s paycheck instead of 30%

Increased parental leave to 21 days

While this contract is not the most perfect contract, it is one of the largest single contract wins in recent history. It signifies an incredible amount of organizing power and it opens the door for future negotiations that will make TUGSA even stronger.

But more importantly, this strike and this contract are incontrovertible proof that graduate worker unions can win. They are proof that we can do it, and that administrations cannot expect to silence us through retaliation. We are stronger than them.

The fight doesn’t end here. The union of graduate workers, faculty, postdocs and more at Rutgers University has passed their strike authorization vote. The graduate workers at Duke University are fighting for their right to be recognized as employees, and that fight will soon be passed up through the nation to challenge rulings made at the National Labor Relations Board. Graduate workers at other universities in Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia area are moving to unionize. TUGSA continues to organize—our next contract negotiations will begin in less than two and a half years. Now is the time to support graduate workers. We cannot backslide. We have to fight for each other, because when we fight, we win.

[bme-girl]

Top 6 things I learned in my first 6 months of my PhD

So here I am, 6 months into this thing that I dreamed of doing for years in my undergrad, and at some point even something I thought wasn't going to happen after initial rejections.

In no order:

#1: However long you think it will take to complete a piece of your project or most tasks really, even with a generous estimate, double that time lol

#2: There is literally no point to comparing yourself to your peers, and that is liberating! :) everyone in your cohort and lab has a unique and different background. In my case, I'm an engineer in a room FULL of psychologists and each one of them is so different from the other still! Comparing yourself/your project or your accomplishments to them and theirs makes absolutely no sense :D so remember that always and be free!

#3: If your supervisor(s)* aren't freaking out or nervous about something, whether it's a deadline, milestone, whatever, then neither should you be!! (*assuming good, supportive supervisors)

#4: In the beginning, take advantage of being new and introduce yourself to EVERYONE and at least get an idea of what they do. You never know who may be able to help you with the annoying server, the niche programming package, or a particular difficult method later down the line.

#5: Remember you are a student. Don't be so hard on yourself and think "damn, I should know this already" or "wow how embarassing idk how to do this." Student is part of your title (still applies to candidates), and if you knew these things already, then you'd have the degree already and there'd be no need to venture in and learn anything ;)

#6: Be honest when you are struggling. Even simply to the colleague or lab buddy that says "how's it going?" I can't tell you how many times I've been vulnerable and said "actually this weekend I had a little cry because I was homesick" and my buddy gives me a hug, and I feel SO much better afterward. Or my colleague shares a similar story and I don't feel so alone :) support systems are everything in this journey!

Some of these were told to me by our most senior PhD (now postdoc) in our lab, and they ring true. I try to keep these all in mind when I am stressed or struggling, and they have helped immensely.

[gaiaseyes451]

A Little Life - Chapter 2 - Smile

I intended to only update on Wednesdays. But, with the holiday, I thought I'd release Chapter 2 early. This chapter is explicit but no other content warnings, imo. Please do read the tags for the entire work. There will be 12 chapters in total.

Rated: E; Words: 11.7k/~71k

Summary:

When Professor of Botany Anthony Crowley met bookshop owner Ezra Fell one November afternoon both knew their lives had irrevocably changed. From that moment forward, Anthony and Ezra’s existence was intertwined. Their story was written through the moments and memories they created as they moved through life’s chapters of coming together, building a family and facing the challenges of being human. This is a story of unconditional love and the joy and humour, obstacles and grief that inevitably come with choosing the same person, day after day, over and over and over again.

*~*~*

Excerpt (Read the entire chapter on AO3):

There were few things in this world Anthony truly cared about— her and Shadwell, his research, his students and postdocs, his plants. That had been the exhaustive list. Until Ezra.

She watched as Anthony turned out his office lights and shut his door at the end of the day, instead of working all hours of the night.

She watched his door stay resolutely locked on weekends.

She watched him lose focus when his phone buzzed, a soft smile creeping into his eyes as they walked to lunch or a seminar.

She watched as his frenetic energy and perpetual motion calmed.

She watched him smile, and she hoped and prayed to whatever god or spirit or entity or fate or whatever might exist that Ezra felt the same way.

*~*~*

This was written for @fuzzygoblin for the Good Omens Song & Poetry Exchange. Chapter 2 (of 12) is up on AO3 now! Chapters will be released weekly. It is inspired by Lord Huron's - The Night We Met.

A huge thanks to @goodomensafterdark, as always, for the writer community. And an extra special huge thanks to my beta's for this chapter: @the-literal-kj. @hakunahistata and @adverbian!

[dreadfutures]

University Workers on Strike.

Hi there!

TLDR: My union has called for a strike, starting Monday, Nov 14.

I am not an official representative of the union but these are my personal thoughts, and my reasons for striking, with links to our official UAW platform.

Graduate students, postdocs, and other academic student employees are essential to the teaching and research mission of the University of California, especially as undergraduate enrollments rise. But as greater and greater demands are placed on our work as researchers and educators, we are falling into rent burden and poverty, and suffer unjust treatment by our employers.

We cannot provide the level of research and quality of education that WE WANT to offer our colleagues and our students in these conditions.

Therefore we are demanding:

Wages and raises that meet or beat inflation.

Making the University-owned housing AFFORDABLE.

Increasing access too and affordability of sustainable transit options for commuters

Enshrining protections for workers against bullying and harassment from their supervisors

Among other demands, which can be found here.

What can you do to help?

Undergraduates at the University of California can help us out! Check out @ undergradsforCOLA on Instagram 

Community members can donate to the Strike Pay Fund. As we strike, the university is allowed to withhold our pay for work we are refusing to perform. The Union provides a small stipend to striking workers who are actively supporting the picket line (as I will be).

Keep up on social media and amplify the voices of our union (Santa Barbara’s is included here but there are others, and I do not attend the SB campus personally)

Write to (YOUR PERSONAL) representatives in the California Legislature, as well as the leadership of the University of California, in support of the strike and our demands.

IF YOU DONT LIVE IN CALIFORNIA: In addition to donating and amplifying the movement on social media, look at universities in your state. They’re looking at us right now. Many academic workers have unionized, following our example, over the past YEAR. This is a young movement that will live or die in the near future... and your support--even if it’s just encouragement--can give it power! Contact the local unions for workers like me and voice your support. Contact University administration and local political leaders to encourage them to support academic workers’ rights and compensation. And when academic workers go on strike, show your support with donations, vocal encouragement, and even volunteer on the picket line.

Please reblog this! Talk to people about it.

Below the cut, some more personal explanations.

Some of you may know that I am a graduate student, or more accurately, I am “pursuing my PhD in chemistry.” There is nothing “student” about my situation. I do not take classes. Instead, I perform highly trained laboratory work for the University of California along with countless other Postdoctoral scholars, technicians, and so on. Though the word research might conjure just pictures of me, a scientist in a lab, there is invaluable work being done in Humanities and Social Sciences that take on many different shapes and forms. All of it is done under the auspice of the University of California, and it is THIS that gives the university its prestige worldwide.

When I receive my “degree” I will continue doing the same work I am doing--currently on a $30k stipend--but the jobs I will be looking at pay $90k or much, much higher.

As a researcher, the work I do is severely underpaid in this university setting. It is something that we all DO agree to and put up with for the sake of having this “apprenticeship” time with prestigious professors and older researchers, at institutions that have technology, equipment, and libraries we need for our work.

HOWEVER, in agreeing to this severely underpaid work, we are offered things like guaranteed housing in the local community--communities like Berkely, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Irvine, and San Diego, that are INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE for people to live in otherwise. Or...some of us are guaranteed. Because EVEN in the University-owned housing, there are:

housing shortages

lack of significant subsidies

rent burden

More than 37% of my income goes to rent every month, and I live in the cheapest possible apartment from University-owned housing. Many academic workers are not even OFFERED the cheaper options, instead being given the “take it, or lose your housing guarantee on campus and fend for yourself in the outer community” treatment...but their offers are for apartments that cost 55% of their income or more. The university is paying us. The university is also charging us through the nose for housing we desperately need and can neither find nor afford elsewhere.

In addition to the insane rent burden we undertake, there are inadequate legal protections from overworking us (our reputations and references entirely depend on our advisors and supervisors Approving, and many of them expect 7am-midnight-or-late work days, 7 days a week), bullying us, harassing us or otherwise abusing us. International workers--drawn here, again, by the prestige of the University’s research efforts--are most at risk, and most unprotected.

There are other issues of equality and fairness at stake here: child support and paid leave, affordable transportation (hey, if we can’t afford to live in Santa Barbara, we will need to commute from somewhere else. Right now there are few options that are affordable, let alone sustainable, to do so), just to name a few examples.

The University also claims to be a leader in labor equality, fairness, and movements. We are among the historical faces of the Free Speech Movement and Vietnam War protests. We are the faces of labor rights research and progressive policy development and sustainable energy research. We are where the Earth Day movement started!

AND YET the University has antagonized union-forming efforts, incentivized anti-union sentiment, threatened and implied retribution for union activities, spends insane amounts of money trying to quash the union and send counter messaging, and seems to want to do ANYTHING other than pay us well.

Here’s an example of one of the latest offers and how insulting it is.

And it’s not just us. Food service workers on campus, custodians, and many others on campus who make things RUN, have gone on strike in the past and showed us how utterly hypocritical our sterling, utopic University is.

It’s just a corporation.

And so we are treating it like one, by going on strike.

I love what I do. I love science, and the research I do is focused on issues related to our energy crisis. The training I’ve received has prepared me to take jobs with IMPACT, that will shape our green energy future.

And I am a passionate educator. Right now I am responsible for ~ 250 students (a portion of our 900 students taking Chem1A right now), with classrooms of 50 students each. These are not ideal teaching conditions and yet I am DEDICATED to using the best pedagogy I have learned to help our most at-risk students succeed in this class. I have a history as a TA of improving student outcomes for underrepresented minority, low-income, and first-generation students who disproportionately fail our classes due to poor preparation at their local high schools, feelings of alienation, and the likelihood that they are working multiple jobs through college while more privileged students focus on classes. I have shown that I care about my students, in ways that even many professors do not.

That is why it is a heartbreaking and infuriating decision to go on strike, but I believe there is no alternative way to make the University improve our situation. We do it for other UC workers who are not compensated as well as we are, and we do it for future graduate student researchers, TAs, and postdocs–some of whom we hope are in Chem 1A right now--and we do it for the students who are not being best-served by graduate students sleeping out of cars, forgoing meals, and suffering from abusive supervisors.

Thank you for your support in whatever form it takes. it has been really encouraging to have friends, family (my REPUBLICAN CONSERVATIVE FAMILY SUPPORTS THE STRIKE), students, strangers, and even my supervisor (again, a red Ohio man lol) supporting this exercise of our legal right to protest, and the demands we are standing behind.

Talking to my advisor was a terrifying ordeal, especially when the other members of my lab were too scared to do it and risk his ire. We have a good relationship with him, but the fact is that he is our supervisor, and his reputation depends on our hours worked, and he could be frustrated. But I couldn’t sleep well if I didn’t participate in this strike, so I resolved to sit in front of my advisor face-to-face, alone, and tell him I was joining the strike.

My advisor isn’t the problem, the structure of the university is. But it was still the most terrifying conversation I’ve ever prepared for. And it went...so well. So, so well.

Our faculty understand that we are under a worse rent burden than they have ever seen or experienced themselves (they weren’t, and aren’t, paid super well either!), and they understand that we care about our work and don’t WANT to stop.

So it’s with great relief, and fervent hope, that I will be joining the strike. I hope whoever is reading this feels INVIGORATED by this movement, no matter the outcome. We are a new generation that is saying enough is enough. We will not tolerate mistreatment. We will work together to make sure we are all uplifted.

My department treats its chem students better than MAYBE any other chem department at the UC. We have it REALLY GOOD. My primary reason for striking is:

Sure. I can put up with some things. It’ll be tight, but I can afford it. Barely.

But I know many, many others can’t. They are my friends and colleagues. They were my mentors in the past. They are who I might be in the future!

Doing it for them is right.

[lycomorpha]

Life & lichen - a small zine of non-binary thoughts

Making this zine meant a ridiculous amount to me, & I finally got my 💩 together and put it in my store here

I'm a bioscientist as well as an artist, & I used to study lichen in a plant sciences facility where I was a visiting artist. (It was at the same uni where I worked as a medsci postdoc - bc who needs sleep? Aii. 😬) Anyway... In this batshit-tory-hellscape I continue to find comfort in lichens; specifically how our knowledge of their inner workings, and our understanding of lichen symbiosis, has changed over time. Lichens don't care how much humans want to see nice tidy binaries. & They've been building their own communities all along.

This zine & the little concertina micro-zine contain some enby-life-thoughts. Thoughts about lichen & hopes. It was freeing to illustrate them. & That's all. 💚🌿

[catboybiologist]

But are you ever going to have the time to do the Appalachian trail?

So first, if I ever do one of the triple crowns (PCT, CDT, and AT) I would not choose the Appalachian trail. Sorry. PCT would be my first choice in a heartbeat, and I intersected and overlapped it multiple times this summer. There's a slim chance that I would do others after that, but CDT would be my next choice (if I could handle it, that's a fucking GNARLY trail).

That said, I don't know if I'm ever even going to do that. I'm still undecided about it. The PCT is certainly a realistic possibility for me, but I basically have one chance in my life left- taking a gap between my PhD graduation and hunting for postdocs/other jobs.

I have two major hangups about it: one, there's other things I would potentially want to do in that time, like bottom surgery or go more fluidly into a job hunt.

And the second one is a realization that I had on the trail, that honestly surprised even myself: I genuinely think it would get a little boring. That sounds dumb to say, right? But part of what made this summer so special and unique for me was the diversity of habitats I saw: driving to different, unique locations, and then using backpacking to experience each one of those areas in depth, as opposed to traversing large continuous chunks. Don't get me wrong, that's exciting as well- but is taking half a year for the traversal aspect what I would want to do with that time?

Some of my next steps point in that direction. The JMT, which is mostly just the Sierra portion of the PCT, is absolutely going to happen sometime in my life. But that's a 1-2 month endeavor.

But moreso than that, I'm thinking back to places I feel like I've only seen "surface level", or heard about, and thinking how far backpacking could take me. Denali NP in particular is something my thoughts keep drifting back to- the peak itself is obviously not something I would do, but backpacking through the wildlife corridor in the tundra below? Genuinely sounds like paradise to me.

I'm still a ways off from graduating, so I have time to figure it out. But we'll see.

[eponymous-rose]

OKAY, I have a lot going on over the next few weeks, and I desperately need to get my thoughts in order, so allow me to yell into the void about the research proposals I absolutely need to be working on over the next week:

Resubmission of a $600k grant proposal written with my colleague. This one technically doesn't have a deadline, but if we get it in quickly enough, we can fund an incoming grad student on it! The project is quite well-defined and we had a sit-down with the program manager, who both encouraged resubmission and went line-by-line through the last set of reviews to tell us which to follow and which to ignore. I've got a to-do list of changes, and thankfully no logistical stuff to worry about since we're submitting to the same call. I would estimate only about 5 hours needed to get this one ready to go for the first round of comments from my colleague/co-PI, and it'll just be going through the first version line-by-line with my notes and the reviews in front of me, changing as I go. My goal by Friday of next week: complete draft to send to my co-PI.

Resubmission of a $700k grant proposal written with a friend at a different university. This one's a bit trickier, since it was rejected by one federal agency and we want to submit it to a completely different one, so it'll require a complete rewrite and a fair amount of logistical juggling. We have the revised budget ready to go, and my co-PI met with the program manager and got the good dirt on what they're looking for. So content is yes, but focus and logistics (page length, format, etc.) are way up in the air. I would guess about 15 hours to get a complete draft done, and ideally we want the whole thing done by the end of the month. I'll have to sit down with the old proposal, notes from my co-PI's meeting, and the new proposal call in front of me and do a fresh document. My goal by Friday of next week: At least one of the three main sections complete to send to my co-PI.

Brand-new $800k grant proposal written with a computer scientist at my university. We met at a talk I gave last quarter and just got along really well and figured we should work together, and then this call came out looking to fund work bridging the gap between EXACTLY our two disciplines, so we couldn't resist. We have a budget and a very, very loose idea of what we want to study, but the details are vague and we also need to have this in by approximately the end of the month. We've loosely structured it so that its three sections are my specialty, his specialty, and then a combo of the two, so my role initially here is going to be creating a framing narrative into which we can each independently drop our sections of the work. I'm guessing my total contribution will be around 20 hours on this one. My goal by Friday of next week: A detailed summary with point-form bullets in every single subsection.

Brand-new $???? grant written with a friend at a different university. We literally just saw this call two days ago and went "YES", so now it's a matter of figuring out if we can actually get things done. This is a totally new area for both of us (wildfire science!) but it would involve the experimental radars that he builds and the fluid dynamics expertise I have. This was kind of me going "yes, let's do it!" so I feel some responsibility here to come up with some big ideas. I need to clarify, but I think we need to have this done by the first week of March or so, and we need to talk to the program manager to see if they're interested. We can talk budget at our meeting next week (or via e-mail), so I think initially here I just need to put some ideas on paper, similar to #3 above. No idea how much time to expect to put into this one. My goal by Friday of next week: A detailed summary with point-form bullets in every single subsection.

Grant co-written with a postdoc from Zurich who wants to come work with me! She's applying for two years of funding, but the deadline isn't until August so honestly I just need to brainstorm a small idea or two that I can contribute to the conversation.

Phew. Okay. Let's get started on some of this.

[maklodes]

One thing I find amusing to imagine in Star Trek is that almost every species that is a member of, or in contact with, the Federation independently discovered the warp drive on its own.* (After all, the Federation generally regards contact with pre-warp species as a violation of the Prime Directive.) Since warp drives are, by our standards, impossibly advanced technology, that basically means that all species not only discovered warp drives on their own, but they also discovered basically everything leading up to warp drives: Newtonian physics of course, quantum mechanics, relativity, all of the mathematics describing all that, whatever crazy material science stuff leads to warp coils etc.

So not only is the valorization of Zephram Cochrane as the inventor of the warp drive just human parochialism (every species has one of those!), but every species also has its own equivalents of Planck, Einstein, Gauss, Euler,  etc, as well. (Okay, not exact equivalents, necessarily. The Bolian photoelectric effect guy needn’t be the same as the Bolian special relativity guy, and maybe in some species some of Lorentz’s discoveries, Poincaré’s discoveries, and/or Einstein’s discoveries were made by the same guy, but still it’s a pretty safe bet that such equivalencies do exist at some level.) 

I imagine conversations among different scientists/engineers of different species:

Human scientist: One barrier to the speed and efficiency of early starships is that  when Zephram Cochrane invented the warp drive…

Vulcan engineer: (sotto voce to a Vulcan associate) Zephram Cochrane was the humans’ equivalent of Sarmok and T’Pran.

Human scientist: … he didn’t have anything like modern duotronic computers, so he made some simplifying assumptions about plasma flow over warp coils, using a pre-existing computational magnetohydrodynamics model based on combining Maxwell’s equations with the Navier-Stokes equation…

Visiting Klingon scientist: Navier-Stokes equation?

Vulcan engineer: (quickly types something into a PADD) Klingons would know it as…  the Tensor of Gwartok the Honorless.

Visiting Klingon scientist: Ah yes, Gwartok’s Tensor. Thank you and sorry to interrupt.

Human scientist: … pardon me, but Gwartok the Honorless?

Visiting Klingon scientist: (sighs) There was an incident early in Gwartok’s life when there was only one open tenure track position. Another postdoc challenged Gwartok to a Bat’leth duel for it. Gwartok never showed up. He said he forgot about it  because he was distracted by thinking about a vexing fluid mechanics problem. Many thought he was an honorless coward.

Vulcan engineer: Fascinating.

Visiting Klingon scientist: … one thing Klingon scientists learn to accept is that it's the macho warrior clan guys who have the political authority, and who appoint the censorship boards which can edit our textbooks. We don’t always get to pick the epithets they assign to past scientists, but at least we still get to use their equations. (Sotto voce to herself) I think I’ll look up Maxwell’s Equations on my own.

One possibility is that universal translators just translate terminology based on specific names into the equivalent for the appropriate species. Although that could lead to its own problems:

Betazoid: After Zephram Cochrane’s first successful warp, when we were contacted by Captain Robau of the USS Kelvin, as a species we mostly put aside our ancient...

Human: After Zephram Cochrane’s first successful warp? Okay, I guess this would have taken place after that, but did you really mean..

Betazoid: (fidgets with combadge in irritation) Right. I really meant our species’ inventor of the warp drive, Lwaxana Hoitrax. You heard Zephram Cochrane though, right?

Human: Yes.

Betazoid: I guess the main clause of my thought about species unification and all that jazz was interpreted as being broadly applicable to warp drive inventions and first warps in general so it got translated into “Zephram Cochrane” for a human, but my secondary clause about Captain Robau and the Kelvin was too specific and particular to our history to get translated into a universal equivalent. I didn’t know I was going to add that secondary clause until I had already started saying my main clause, so the translator got caught off-guard, so to speak.

* There may be a few exceptions to the “Federation members/contacts all discovered warp drives on their own” rule. Like, if a pre-warp species gets conquered by the Cardassians, and thus gets coercively inducted into the warp-enabled galactic community without independently discovering warp drives, then the Cardassians attack the Federation and lose a war, being forced to cede some peripheral territories (including the conquered species) in the peace treaty, then the conquered species might regain independence, then decide to pursue Federation membership. 

[astronicht]

whumptober day 7: radio silence

look does this count. i don’t know! i was not prepared to write these guys they just showed up and characterization??? is??

F1 rpf | george/alex | 1k, rated M | art theft AU with no actual art theft just the greater horrors of the industry

“Hiya, erm,” says a guy in English. Nowhere accent, something papered over with RP.

“Hiya,” Alex says, because all the docents speak English; there’s little point faking that he doesn’t. “The toilets are actually—“

“I’ve got a question about a painting, actually—“

“Out the way you came in and—“

“It’s just on my phone here.”

The guy is pulling up a Gmail app, so Alex gives up on the toilets.

The guy is pretty, his hair parted in the center to flop, boy-band-ish, nearly into his eyes. That’s not even what’s getting to Alex; it’s the way his nails are bitten down and there is a pack of tissues in the chest pocket of his coat.

“Right, just a mo,” the guy says. He’s not posh, Alex decides, it’s just that he shops at Waitrose. Easy mistake. As for his natural habitat, well, under the coat the baby blue button-down, belt, jeans, unscuffed loafers could come right off any man eating a sushi lunch in central London.

The guy is searching something in what looks like a personal email, a line of calendar notifications read and undeleted, marching down the page. Flight, Saragh’s bday, Gym (day pass). Alex looks politely away.

“Ah, here we go. Small screen I’m afraid.”

Alex uses an ancient iPhone 7 he got used from the SEX years ago.

“Right, so,” the man’s voice goes from apologetic to confident in a sudden shift. Alex blinks. “Does this resemble a Breughel? Someone from his studio, or a follower maybe? Or is it like, from 1964.”

The painting is odd: round, on beveled wood. The photographs have been taken professionally, maybe off a website. But they’ve been emailed to the man, forwarded from a g.russell@LMMA.com, original message from photography@LMMA.com. The man’s gmail doesn’t show his personal address or his name.

Alex bets it is something like George.

The painting itself is not a mystery at all, and Alex thinks this guy knows it.

“There aren’t really any Breughels recorded missing,” Alex says, lightly. The guy’s jaw tenses, not with surprise or anxiety, Alex doesn’t think. Like if he was less in control of himself he would have nodded sharply, his suspicions confirmed, thankyouverymuch, you have been so helpful.

This conversation looks like it might be ending, so Alex considers a few things. For example, that both Alex’s Leverhulme’s postdoc funding and his Visa are about to run out, and he isn’t getting the job opening at Utrecht, either, he already knows. Brexit means he’s no longer just fighting the other EU kids for the good jobs, he’s up against everyone for the scant scraps on non-EU funding if he wants to stick around.

Money is tight, and he’s staring the end of academia in the face, when they all thought he was going to be one of the ones who makes it.

“Can I buy you lunch?” Alex says.

“Aren’t you, erm, working?”

Alex’s docent job ends next Wednesday, his research work not for a month.

“C’mon,” he says. “The cafe has stroopwafels if you’re into that.”

George’s wrinkled nose says he’s not, but he tucks the phone with the Breughel in his pocket and trails Alex to the museum cafe.

***

“I didn’t steal it or anything, you know,” George says two hours later, in a half-joking tone, tangled in the sheets in Alex’s flatshare. Rain is pouring down outside, the North Sea weather familiar on either side of the channel.

Alex shrugs. He’s in his en-suite looking for chapstick. His mouth aches. His ribs ache. He’s never made a man come undone like this in his bed midday on a Tuesday. Apparently there is a first time for everything.

“I didn’t assume,” he says lightly.

George frowns, Alex’s duvet wrapped in his lap. “You assumed something,” he says. Alex feels a thrill of worry that this guy can read him as well. That this feeling could be two-way glass.

“You’re feeling guilty about something,” Alex says. He left work in the middle of his shift; he’s feeling guilty, but mostly furious. He was supposed to be one of the ones that makes it.

George’s mouth pinches. His lips are rubbed red.

“I’m admin at an auction house,” he says. Alex wonders if he’s one of the army of interns at Harrington’s, but dismisses it. He’s not fresh out of uni. “It’s actually all above-board.”

Alex laughs and George cracks a smile. “I know, I know,” George says. “It is, though.”

“That’s such a low bar, mate,” Alex laughs. “Did you hear about the place in Berlin last month—“

“Yeah, I think eight different coworkers emailed me.”

“To point and laugh, yeah, same,” says Alex. “But the Berlin guys, they took a painting and accidentally helped a thief build a false provenance for it. That paper trail stuff is worse than theft, every time.”

Alex laughs to cover the jab, but George just looks at Alex very steadily from Alex’s bed. “That’s not it either. We didn’t even sell it. The consigner brought it by, then decided not to sell and pulled it.”

“Hm,” Alex says.

George shrugs. “I asked to check it out and it was just on my desk, next to my tea. And then it disappeared again, and no one else gets to see it. Nothing illegal, just, you know, the market. You don’t work in institutional acquisitions, do you?” George asks, a swift subject change. Alex pours a glass of water from the tap and brings it to him. George takes it with long careful fingers.

“Oh no, I’m a post-doc.”

“Weird that you know so much about the trade side of things,” George says.

They keep in touch for a week, mostly not about the painting, mostly in Alex’s flatshare bed. George catches a cold and tissues are strewn like mourning doves around Alex’s bin. His duvet starts to hold the imprint of a man’s clutching hands.

And then, one week after a man showed up in a museum with a photograph of a lost painting, it is not George who disappears. It’s Alex.

[batgirlsay]

Expert in a Rocky Field

When the @ans-arcade gift exchange sent me your name, I immediately thought about making you a Lata playlist! Started digging through my old grad school playlists for some academic vibes, then I filled in the blanks with other songs about rocks. It ended up having more songs about the sadness and peril of academia, which I’m sure Lata knows about… I hope you like it, @meefy!

Expert in a Rocky Field

Expert in a Dying Field- The Beths Sisyphus- Andrew Bird Iridium Dream- Louie Zong Lazuli- Beach House Calcite Prism- Louie Zong Oblivion- David Bazan Postdoc Blues- John K. Samson May Their Brilliance Ever Linger- Louie Zong

Summary lyrics are posted after the cut:

Expert in a Dying Field- The Beths

Hours of phrases I've memorized Thousands of lines on the page All of my notes in a desolate pile I haven't touched in an age

How does it feel? To be an expert in a dying field And how do you know? It's over when you can't let go

You can't let go, you can't stop, can't rewind Love is learned over time 'Til you're an expert in a dying field

Sisyphus- Andrew Bird

Sisyphus peered into the mist A stone's throw from the precipice, paused Did he jump or did he fall as he gazed into the maw of the morning mist? Did he raise both fists and say, “To hell with this,” and just let the rock roll?

Let it roll, let it crash down low There's a house down there but I lost it long ago

It's got nothing to do with fate And everything to do with you

Lazuli- Beach House

In the blue Of this life Where it ends In the night Is nothing like lapis lazuli Let it go back to me

Like no other You can't be replaced

Oblivion- David Bazan

Hello again, Oblivion Can you find the frequency While the specters hover whispering

Hello again, Oblivion But it's no good to complain Of fatigue and existential pain

Hold on to what you've got Though it may not be a lot Cause now is not the time for second thoughts

You believe in it Now it's time to follow through You believe in it What does that say about you?

Postdoc Blues- John K. Samson

So your presentation went terrible All wrong dongles, sweat stains and stares

Don’t despair you’ll get it right tomorrow night

I believe in you and your PowerPoints I know why you can’t stay away

So take that laminate out of your wallet and read it And recommit yourself to the healing of the world And to the welfare of all creatures upon it Pursue of practice that will strengthen your heart

[kevin-the-bruyne]

tw; discussion of death, non graphic mentions of suicide, personal life

Interesting bout of mental health spiral the last two weeks. I think everyone around me thinks that I am about to kill myself but you should be happy to know that I am in fact way too tired to do that. Never in my life has killing myself been less likely than it is now. In fact 80% of my thoughts are just some variation of “I am tired”. And it forms this wall that prevents any new information from passing through.

I can’t even engage in catharsis because of how tired I am. Writing divorce sandray backfired so spectacularly. I was so tired from having reread the first two chapters and crying that by the time I got to the third I wrote like 200 words then was too exhausted to continue. If anything I only dug deeper into Ray’s pain, and with no resolution it’s just sitting there like a boulder upon my chest...

I am fresh out of sick leave on account of being sick near constantly so I must go to work and act like a person for 8 hours minimum (I am a postdoc so when I say min I mean ABSOLUTELY MIN and I’m still underperforming) presumably for the rest of the week and every week that comes after. Nothing to say of the fact that I have 8 days of PTO left total to ration for any kind of leave for the next two months. Let alone a vacation I can’t even do anything that isn’t resting at home because if I got sick again it’s all over. I’ve needed 6 days of sick leave in May alone and at least 4 in April which I was only able to manage because my boss was very understanding about working from home (yes to the Europeans our sick leave is rationed in the US). Let’s just say there is a benefit to being too tired to kill myself.

My day to day life is so devoid of basic comforts. I am aching for someone to so much as pat me on the head. I have friends but it is extremely hard to communicate anything. Figures that even answering a question like what do you need requires energy. I am tired I have no thoughts only barriers and exhaustion.

[polutrope]

bittersweet memories + uhh turgon or finrod?

Thank you for the prompt! Here's ~850 words of plotless banter between old friends. Warnings for a little recreational cannabis use. Stoner Turgon is so important to me. Posting these to AO3, here. Prompt list. Beleria Cast of Characters.

They passed through the blue light tunnel and emerged onto a wide open space. Here, the leafless trees were girded in twinkling green and red and gold, garlands of handmade lanterns strung between them. Illuminated wire sculptures of bears and wolves and reindeer glowed among the thick cedar trunks that stood sentinel around Doriath Botanical Gardens.

“Hey,” said Finrod, grinning at the exuberant display of holiday cheer. “Remember when you got me high that time we took my parents here?”

“Best way to do a festival of lights,” Turgon mused, deadpan. He sipped from the hot apple cider they’d picked up at the concession.

Finrod laughed. “I don’t know, I was freaking out. Remember I kept tying to comfort you, thinking you were crying when you were laughing? Hah! And my little sister was there too, wasn’t she? She was what, eight? Nine? She must have thought we were nuts.”

“Galadriel at nine? She probably knew exactly what was going on. Your dad knew, too, by the way.”

“What!” Finrod cried.

“Yeah, he called me out on it when you went and stared at the Santa actor for so long some poor volunteer had to escort you out. He thought it was funny, mostly.”

The path rounded a corner and they were greeted by the smiling face and raised arm of a giant mechanical snowman swaying from side-to-side.

“Yikes,” said Turgon. “That thing’s ugly.”

“Surprised my parents let me hang out with you then,” said Finrod, following the thread of his memories. “Seventeen-year-old kid with his cousin in university.”

“Excuse me. I was a very good influence. ”

“I’m surprised you let me hang out with you.”

Turgon shrugged. “You were always more interesting than the guys I went to school with. You got me out of my textbooks to do fun things, like going the light festivals. Smarter, too. Actually, I thought you were cooler than me.”

“Aw.” Finrod bumped shoulders with him. “That’s sweet, Turno. Didn’t know you thought so highly of me.”

“Oh, no. Back then. You’re a loser now.”

Finrod sighed heavily and knotted his arms across his chest.

“Hey— a joke, Ingo,” Turgon said, then looked down at him with that expression of concern that Finrod always found both reassuring and insufferably patronising. “Something up?”

“No, you have a point,” Finrod elaborated. “That was ten years ago, Turno, and what’s changed? I have two worthless arts degrees. Soon as I make any money I blow it trying to go ‘find myself’ in some distant land. I’ve worked in almost every coffee shop in the neighbourhood at this point. I’m still hung up on a girl I left five years ago. Pretty sure my roommate hates me.”

“Curufin hates everyone. Unless you mean Celebrimbor. That kid’s just weird.”

“No, of course not! I love Tyelpë.”

“There you go. It’s not all as grim as you make it out.”

“Oh come on, you know what I mean. You’re married to the love of your life. You have a beautiful daughter. You’re almost a professor.”

“Yeah, I do. And I love them, and I love my job. But I hardly sleep. I hardly spend any time with Elenwë or Idril anymore, and when I do my sister and her kid are there — I love Aredhel, I love my sulky little nephew, but they take up a lot of space. This is the first time I’ve been somewhere other than the university or my apartment in months. And do you know what postdocs make? Probably about the same as you’re earning at that coffee shop.” Turgon sipped his drink again. “Grass is always greener, Ingo.”

Finrod shook his head ruefully. “Sorry, I know.”

“It’s all right. I get it.” Turgon hooked an arm around Finrod’s shoulders and tugged him close. “You remember what granddad use to say?”

“You’ll figure it out, kid,” said Finrod.

“And then you’ll forget,” Turgon continued, mimicking Finwë’s sagacious drawl. “And then you’ll figure it out all over again.”

“That’s what keeps life from getting boring,” they said in unison.

At that moment, there was a burst of song, and to their right a fountain leapt up from the centre of the pond. Turgon stopped in his tracks, transfixed by the impressive choreography of light and water and sound.

“Ingo.” Turgon turned to him during a lull in the music. “I gotta tell you something.”

“Mm?”

“I’m high right now.”

“What! Tsk!” Finrod slapped his arm and Turgon snickered. Then he slid a small, colourful bag from his coat pocket.

“Gummies,” he said, opening the package. “You want one? They’re subtle, not like that stuff I used to smoke.”

“Gummies?” Finrod repeated. “You’re a gummy stoner now?”

“Shh.” Turgon chuckled. “I’m only a casual gummy user. You gonna take one or not?”

Finrod worked his fingers in the bag. “Of course I am,” he popped one in his mouth. “I can’t believe you were going to hide this from me.”

“I thought you might think I was a loser.” A carefree smile reached Turgon’s eyes. “Come on, fellow loser, let’s see some more lights — this time with a hundred percent more pop.”

[the-everqueen]

i feel like no one talks about the terrible in-between that's common in academia. i defended my dissertation with the belief that i would not have a job when i was done. i applied to approx. 30 postdoc and teaching positions. i'd been rejected from most of them. i got the call for my current fellowship the day i was scheduled to fly home because my lease was up, and where else would i go? i'd applied to 40+ non-academic jobs and was considering returning to freelance music teaching because despite having a doctorate that's all anyone in the non-academic world thought i was qualified to do. i spent the summer before my postdoc started working part-time with my previous supervisor because i needed to pay bills. all my savings went into covering expenses for moving, for keeping up my credit score, for scraping by. i started my postdoc a week later than planned because my mom was in a serious car accident. i have not yet been paid. i just registered as a person in this institution's system, and i don't know when i get paid or when my benefits start. all this time i have not been working on my academic projects. how could i? i thought for months i was going to have to let it all go and i grieved in advanced and screamed at the universe. then i got to hang on a little longer but i was too busy surviving. now i'm supposed to start the work like the grieving didn't happen, like i wasn't burned out by debt and overtime, like i'm not anxious about whether i will actually make rent. i don't have generational wealth. my parents are working class. my loved ones are clinging to the jobs they have. but i should be excited. i should be throwing myself into the next round of work. my continued funding depends on me fulfilling what i said i'd do in my proposal that i wrote a million years ago. my (potential) career depends on me building connections and meeting expectations here. i'm so lucky. i'm so lucky.

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Hi new here! In love with LU for a while but just discovered your healthcare au and I'm head over heels it's so good <3 I love all the details you put in. As soon as I started reading it on ao3, I was like "oh this person is a healthcare worker for sure" lol.

I just saw a post where you said Four thought about being a biomedical engineer and my heart went eeeeeee bc I love Four and am currently working on my PhD in biomed engineering so if he has questions about stuff he can ask me;) I build medical imaging systems and am collaborating with a soft tissue surgeon at our university's vet school and it's sooooo cool!

My dream job would be to work as a research engineer at a hospital, maybe do a postdoc...any openings at Hyrule Hospital lololol

Yoooooooooo this is so cool! That's awesome that you're studying biomed engineering!! There's absolutely room for you at Hyrule Hospital! :D :D

Four has considered biomedical engineering, but for now I think he's settled in his position as an ICU nurse. Flora, on the other hand, is absolutely planning on doing biomed engineering, so if you have any tips for her, she'd appreciate it! She's coming fresh out of the military with all kinds of baggage, it's gonna be fun introducing her to the story!

I'm so happy you're enjoying the healthcare au! :D