So I have a million things to write (for work) and got little done tonight except going through some job postings I had flagged.
-- The University where I work there are several labs who work on topics similar to the lab in which I work. One in particular is actually a "rival". This is sad because we are at the same school and collaboration should make all of our research progress, right? Due to previous transgressions within the rival lab, the PIs no longer speak. The rival lab just came out with another paper. I need to get my butt in gear on my paper! I have a good start, but it is not nearly ready to submit to a science journal yet! Today I wrote two sentences and changed another paragraph*. This can hardly be called progress.
-- My PI can support my salary until next summer. In about four weeks, I will hear back about a grant that would cover my salary for two years. This is AFTER many application deadlines for tenure-track faculty positions that I have seen online. I have been looking at job postings, but am not feeling the pressure to find THE job yet. However, a high school friend called tonight and asked if I had found anything closer to them...so I checked at specific schools instead of looking at a central site...and found a job at the University where I had really wanted to apply for grad school but then missed the deadline. (I have been frustrated in the past few years when I get spacey and mess something up, but clearly this is nothing new.) AND the deadline isn't until later in October. WOOHOO! Just because of the location and size of the school, I think it would be a great job, and I have more time to get my materials together!!
One might wonder how my teaching and research statements are going for said job applications. (Luckily I keep my CV up-to-date, so that is just a matter of tweaking for a job application.) In a moment of inspiration last night, while reading "How to write your teaching statement", I wrote a chunk of that but then did not finish it. The research statement explaining my immediate and long-term ideas for a research program is still a blank page. AHHHHH!!! I do think about these things when I am not actually writing them, so I like to think that when I do write them I get a lot done at once. Wish me luck.
*I did not ONLY do that today. I also did some experiments and figured out what an undergrad left me with, and fixed an old piece of equipment and figured out some new stuff to order and...
5 comments:
Good luck on the writing, I'm sure you will do great!
Thanks, Ron!
Try keeping a voice recorder (does your phone have that function?) with you (in the car, next to your bed and bring one when you walk), then transcribe your thoughts into something written. It's always those times when you don't have a pen and paper (let alone the ability to write and drive/sleep) when a great thought or statement comes to you, and sometimes it's easier to think out loud to yourself, first, before trying to write it down...
Aim - good idea! I had looked into recorders at one point. My phone does record, but I don't know for how long.
I'm so glad to hear that you looked up what a teaching philosophy is supposed to be like! I've read applications for faculty adjunct positions where people clearly didn't bother to google what it is supposed to entail. Now, of course, the ones I'm referring to were for adjunct positions, and not quite as serious as a full-out tenure-track application. But still, it doesn't bode well when people are totally off topic.
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