Miss-understandings

The delivery person calls my phone, telling me that he has a package for me at the campus main gate and will come over in two minutes to deliver it. I open my main door and wait outside on the porch. While doing so, I notice some dead insects and dried leaves on the porch. As I wait, I pick up a broom from inside and start sweeping the front entrance. The man shows up as I am sweeping. He hands me over the package and says, "Ask madam to go online and fill out the short survey." I nod my head. But wait, madam? Who is madam? Apparently, I got mistaken as the domestic help while sweeping my own home.

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I usually stay back in the office till late night, working as well as indulging in non-essential work sometimes such as watching movies. More than once, a security guard makes a round at around 2 am to make sure all offices are locked. He taps on my office door; I open the door and tell him that I will be working some more. He nods, looks at the name plate outside my office door and asks me my name. I point to the nameplate and tell him that is my name. Confused, he asks me which professor I work for. I tell him the name of the professor (my name again). He asks me what my name is. I repeat my name. Suddenly, realization dawns on him and he says, "Sorry sir, sorry sir, I thought that you are the research assistant!" (In Indian English, you say things twice or more for extra emphasis, yes yes, sorry sorry, ya ya, no no, aiyyo aiyyo). When I work late at night in my office, I frequently get mistaken to be a research assistant. And on realizing that I am the faculty, I magically become a sir.

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Sometimes, I keep a straight face and play along. Like when a cleaning staff had once asked me why I don't have children, I made a face and said, "Babu doesn't show interest!" Her expression was priceless. I find these episodes hilarious!

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And just like that, while enjoying my anonymity (many staff on campus still do not know who I am) and in between playing kaajer mashi (domestic help), the disinterested professor's childless wife and a nocturnal research assistant, I completed three years here recently!

 

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Managing the career

While checking in, the hotel receptionist asks me, “Ma’am, can I see your id?”

The concierge looks at my id, looks up information about my booking, looks at my id again, and asks me the most unusual question.

“Professor, can you give me tips to prepare for the CAT interview?”

The next morning, I wait for my taxi to get to the interview center. I call the driver and hear a sweet, pre-recorded voice speaking to me in Telugu. I understand nothing but understand enough to know that the line is busy and Driver Garu is speaking to someone else. He shows up eventually, wearing pottu, a circular dot on his forehead. I pay him and am about to leave when he says, “Madam, please give 5 rating before you get down.” He ensures I gave him five stars before I leave.

 At the center, I meet those who are organizing the interviews. My job was merely to see that everything looks good, and everything does look good. I didn’t have to do anything but watch.

The head of the center hurries to meet me. “Welcome madam. Welcome madam.” He assured me that everything is taken care of. Then, he lowers his voice a few decibels and asks me— Professor, may I ask my daughter to come meet you so that she can get tips on how to prepare for the CAT? She is in the tenth right now. She will need the time to prepare.

A helicopter parent! He asks me if I got my MBA from the same institution where I work. I tell him that I do not have an MBA. He never summoned his tenth grader after that, so I hope that this signaled to him that I am not worthy of giving career advice. What a relief!

The MBA obsession is everywhere!

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The curse of Ctrl-C-Ctrl-V

Student plagiarizes.

Student appeals to the committee on being reported, pleading "not guilty".

Student emails to tell me I have made a false accusation.

Student makes an appointment and calls my office.

Student starts the conversation by telling me that it is not plagiarism. 

Student tells me it was a formatting error.

Student tells me that other classmates read the paper and did not say that it is plagiarized, so it is not plagiarized.

Student tells me that English is not their mother tongue.

Student tells me that I should consider changing my opinion (It wasn't my "opinion," I had evidence of plagiarism that I submitted to the committee with my report).

Student tells me that they will see me at the hearing (like a court hearing in a university setting where people resolve their differences in front of a neutral committee).

If only the student had written in their own words instead of a blatant copy-paste, they'd have skipped all the drama and save me a bunch of time.

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Things I learned as a new faculty: The pixel and the picture

I used to give the brick and the wall analogy until the wall got a negative meaning in North America, and rightfully so. On being asked about one’s research focus, PhD students will usually talk about the paper they are currently working on. But that paper is like a pixel in the photograph, a brick in the wall. As a new faculty, I had to unlearn to focus on the pixel to be able to visualize the bigger picture, the entire photograph in terms of my research agenda. I had to find my unique scholarly voice. And that is what grant writing is about. Moving from paper writing to grant writing, one becomes less myopic about their research to be able to look at the larger implication. It took me a while to get used to seeing things this way, but this transformative thinking from the pixel to the picture was very empowering. Sure, one can always elaborate on the finer details, but as faculty, one also needs to work towards creating a brand. Think about a bunch of keywords in your area. Then think of a few names that come to mind when you think of those keywords. When I think of NPR, I think of Robert Siegel’s voice. When I think of nineties Bollywood, I think of Kumar Sanu’s voice. When I think of Indian cookery shows, I think of Sanjeev Kapoor. That is what branding is, creating a very unique niche so that your name is associated with that particular topic.

Now how does one learn to visualize the bigger picture? It comes with a lot of creative imagination. In faculty interviews, particularly in the US, there are different variants of a very common question: What are your short-term and long-term research goals? Where do you see your research going in the next one year, five years and ten years? Answering this is not easy if you are unprepared. It requires some deep introspection and you will find yourself put at a spot if you did not anticipate this question. I have extrapolated this question to my own life and wondered what life will look like in one, five, and ten years. Try imagining if you already haven’t, it is a very interesting exercise.

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Things I learned as faculty: Unconscious bias

As faculty, I have learned to be more cognizant of unconscious bias, how people view me and what’s going on around me. Sometimes, in a room full of people who do not know me, some assume that I am a student. This has happened at conferences and board meetings. In the same room, some people will talk to other faculty as faculty but ask me what year of my PhD program I am in.

It is tempting to get flattered and think that I look young, and hence the misunderstanding. However, this has nothing got to do with age. Many people are subconsciously primed to think of women and minorities as holding lower positions. White faculty, brown student. Male faculty, female student. Male doctor, female nurse. People are not evil but they just do not know any better.

If it was about age, they would assume I am young faculty, not an older student. I always use this as a teachable moment for my minority students. I sense those few seconds of discomfort when I calmly tell them that I am not a student. However, I do not take my position for granted.

For example, I never wear jeans and informal clothes to work. I am always in semi-formals or formals. I don’t care whether people think I am a student because those are their biases to deal with. However, I am immensely aware of the responsibility my position brings, not just for me, but for others who are training to be faculty. My colleague next door will wear denims, sports jacket and running shoes and no one will flip an eyelid. However, I cannot assume that I will be treated like a faculty if I wore the same kind of clothes. We do not live in an ideal world. We don’t get what we deserve. We get what we negotiate.

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Things I learned as tenure-track faculty: Time is the new currency

When you are on tenure-track, time flies incredibly fast. It seems like yesterday that I started, and now, I am almost at the end of my second year. It has been an incredible few semesters of learning, failing, trying again, and succeeding, in an infinite loop. Being faculty is hard and being on tenure-track at a Research 01 institution, even more.

My most important learning is perhaps that time is the new currency. Although I had heard of “protected time,” it is only recently that I developed a full understanding and appreciation for the word. Although I have a 50% research position and my tenure and promotion will be primarily dependent on my research productivity, a hundred different things get in the way of me doing research. Committee meetings. Teaching. Advising. Keeping an eye on the students who have promised to do work for you but keep disappearing. Academic networking. IRB submissions. Accounting, budgeting and managing my research money. The constant buzz of emails. People randomly dropping by my office to chat. The list of interruptions is endless.

My best days are the ones when I can get to work and start doing research without interruption. But that’s utopia. Hence, I work on the weekends, because I am less likely to see another human being within a one-mile radius on the weekends. We are trained to see money as currency, but not time or energy. Time conservation as well as energy conservation are few of the many things I try to improve upon every day. As a PhD student, I spent a lot of time to earn some money. As a faculty, I spend a lot of money to earn some time. For example, I will spend research money to outsource some of my work to graduate students so that I can do the higher-level work. I outsource my interview transcribing to a transcription agency. I outsource my taxes to a tax consultant. Outsourcing my work frees up my time to focus on research.

Talking of time, I have only recently started being mindful of the difference between “urgent” and “important.” The urgent will camouflage as important and compete for time. For example, service committee meetings are urgent (which is why people will schedule them early). Signing paperwork every two weeks so that students can get paid is urgent. Completing IRB paperwork is urgent. Submitting my review for a potential PhD student’s application is urgent. Finishing a journal paper review is urgent. Preparing to teach a class every week is urgent. However, none of them are important (important being defined as anything that grants you tenure and/or helps you to live a healthy life). Going to the gym is important. Writing that grant is important. Submitting that research paper is important. Eating healthy is important. Sleeping and waking on time, irrespective of work, is important.

Talking of the different dimensions of time, it is also important to mention “structured time” and “unstructured time.” Structured time is everything that has been written down in your calendar. However, as a faculty, you will notice that most things written down in your calendar either constitute teaching or service, but not research. You make space for committee meetings in your calendar at the beginning of every semester. You make space for teaching courses and preparing for teaching. You make space for submitting your journal paper reviews on time. This is because a lot of these structured activities are where you are accountable to a group of people. You might sacrifice writing your paper over preparing for class, because you are accountable to your students to teach that class. However, as faculty, research is largely left to “unstructured time.” This is time we have not accounted for. As a result, unstructured time gives the wrong illusion that there is a lot of time. You think that you will be writing your manuscript for 20 hours in the weekend, and before you know, the weekend is gone and you have barely written a paragraph.

In summary, I have learned to be mindful of two concepts: urgent versus important and structured versus unstructured time. Getting invited to give a talk at Harvard University might seem exciting and ego boosting, but guess what? Even ten such talks every semester will not give you tenure. Yes, that talk you give at Harvard might indirectly help you by getting you connected with future collaborators and co-authors. But preparing for that talk should not occupy majority of your time. It might be urgent, but for a pre-tenure faculty, it is probably not important.

In any given day, I try to see whether each of my activity counts for research or non-research (teaching and service). What did I do today? I checked emails in the morning (not research). I replied to emails and scheduled some meetings (not research). I took a bus for an inter-campus visit (not research). I observed a class from 5-8 pm (not research). I had dinner with an old friend and colleague (not research). I booked my flight tickets for an upcoming conference and optimized my spending by getting a Sunday night flight back home instead of a Monday morning flight (flight research is definitely not research). I am writing this reflection post (not research). At the end of the day, I have a false sense of satisfaction that I have worked a lot. However, I haven’t done any research.

Moving on to a different kind of time, the need for downtime and quiet time has never been more important. A lot of the “doing” aspect of my job is based on “thinking.” It might sound odd, but I try to build some protected time in my daily routine just to think without distraction. This is the time without the distractions of popping emails, phone calls, Whatsapp messages, or looking for houses on Zillow. I usually make time to think when I am on the bus or walking back home. I know people who keep 2-3 hours of dedicated thinking time every day.  Those are some of the more successful people in the department. Also sleep time has never been more important. Because if I am not well-rested, I will be useless and non-functional the next day. A good night’s uninterrupted sleep is something to be thankful for. Naturally, if I have the luxury of some free time, I will disengage from the drama around me to either think or sleep. Being on tenure-track has helped me rethink my time as a finite, non-renewable and indispensable resource.

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A random day in the life of a faculty

As a PhD student, research seemed hard. Protocols did not work, data did not make sense, and I often found myself stuck between false positives and false negatives. We have all been there.

As a faculty, research seems the most cherished part of my day. And that is because I actually get so little time to do research. Here is what a random workday of my life looks like:

1. 6:30 am: Woke up. Stayed in bed for the next 45 minutes, wondering if the "revise and resubmit" comments I wrote last night would work. Then hurriedly scampered to work.

2. Made a mental note not to miss the Skype call tonight. The last time, I thought that it was at 9pm while the meeting was at 8pm and I missed it.

3. Made a note to reply to the fifty-seven emails that have been pending a response for the past five days since I was traveling.

4. Chatted with a colleague who hates the words "seminal work" and "dissemination" because of their roots in the word "semen" (hence, male; hence, power). I added my bit by saying that I hate the morbid terms in academia such as "deadlines," "terminal degree," and "publish or perish."

5. Almost slept through a committee meeting that lasted ninety minutes. I have no idea what they said. I was more surprised by how much people talk, make printouts, and waste paper at these meetings. I am pretty sure everything they said could be summarized in ten minutes.

6. Checked my Google Scholar citation for the umpteenth time. The numbers haven't changed since the past month. It is a strange addiction of seeking external validation I have developed of late, similar to counting Facebook Likes. This is only more consequential and more harmful.

7. Kept thinking about the annual review that I will be writing in January. Have I made enough progress this year? The process is so rigorous, it makes the PhD defense look like child's play. How can I hit a couple of sixes in the last six weeks of the year and look great on my annual review?

8. Read a bunch of student assignments. One, most students have horrible handwriting. I wonder if they ever had compulsory, daily, cursive writing lessons in schools. Two, many have bad grammar too, which is surprising since most people here can get away knowing just one language- English. I was also amazed by the number of times they used the word "cool” -- The book was cool. The program was cool. The class was cool. The professor was cool. Such informal language in academia- not so cool!

9. Registered for an upcoming conference in Boston. This is the first time I paid more than a thousand dollars for registration alone. So I sat at my desk and whined for a while.

10. Filled out a bunch of paperwork to get my student enrolled in the system.

11. Filled out a bunch of doodles indicating my availability for future meetings. Created a Doodle myself and sent a reminder email to those who need to fill it out on time.

12. Conducted an interview to collect data, which also meant inputting mundane information into an excel spreadsheet that my hypothetical undergraduate student should have been doing. Hypothetical, because I do not have one.

13. Prepared a bunch of expense bills from a previous conference travel. This involved painstakingly putting together every receipt with comments and scanning all of them.

14. Called our communication manager to chat about how I would like my new business card designed.

15. Thought of new research ideas. It means mostly sitting at my desk, staring blankly into the ceiling until a new email pops up or someone knocks on the door, and repeating the process till it is time to go home.

These are not necessarily research. Just a bunch of mundane things that may lead to research in the future.

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Being faculty: End of year one

This week, I completed one year of being faculty. Exactly one year ago, I had moved back to the US and landed here. My landlady, whom I had never seen before, had come to pick me up. This time, I celebrated my first anniversary with a goat that lay on my dinner plate as mutton biryani. That is one thing I will never grow tired of eating.

So what does faculty life mean to me after one year? It means no longer being able to play the "I am a new faculty and I don't know what I am doing" card. To say that time flew would be an understatement. Talking of time, I was reading about the research on biological clock that won the Nobel Prize in Medicine this year. Other than conceiving time as what we know, the lifespan clock and the biological clock, I have also come to understand what the pre-tenure clock means. I could fill an entire book with my thoughts and realizations of life as a faculty, perhaps some day post-tenure.

New currency

I have learnt many new things over the past year. Some of them were skills and the others, deep realizations. However, if I had to point to that one thing that has been my most important learning this past year, it is the concept of currency. We are used to thinking of money as currency.  But for the first time, I learnt that time and energy (and not money) are my new currencies. Time is non-renewable and it surely depletes fast. As a student, I spent a lot of time trying to earn some money. Now, I will happily spend money to earn time, which is what all the grant writing and making graduate students do the work is about. It also means learning money management. I protect my research money much more fiercely than my personal money. I am always bargaining and looking for better deals to buy stuff for my research group. I could not even bargain a pair of earrings for ten rupees less.

The power of “No”

I have mastered the habit of saying no. No, I cannot be a part of this committee, it will take away my research time. No, I cannot visit Seattle this month, I have a conference deadline. No, you cannot visit me either, because of the same deadline. No, I cannot attend this potluck or cook for twenty people, and no, I cannot go on a dinner date, no, not even coffee. I use my work as a shield to bail out of a lot of things I do not want to do. If you plot time versus "no", I think I have said no maximum number of times this past year.

Weird moments

Being faculty to me also means sometimes hearing, "How far in your PhD are you?" And I don't think it has anything to do with my youthful looks (or the lack of it, especially given the crop of grey hair I sport now). It comes from something called unconscious bias where women (especially minority women) are usually designated stereotypical roles with less power. Male doctor, female patient. Male professor, female student. Rich guy, poor girl. Older guy, younger girl. Such stereotypes not only penetrate, but also deeply cut through reality to make up fairy tale stories and Harlequin romances.

Being faculty also means getting some very strange emails sometimes. So far, I saw random strangers emailing me their GRE scores and asking what they should study and what university they should apply to. However, I recently got an email from a complete stranger asking to be my friend (with a few smileys following) and wanting to know how to get a faculty position and to also help their spouse figure out how to do their PhD and what prospects await the spouse after their PhD. Complete strangers from completely strange fields asking me strange questions. I was tempted to ask if their children also needed help looking for schools and while doing so, if I could also visit their home to help them fold the laundry.

What else?

It means looking at a potentially interesting guy and thinking, "Hmm... I wonder what his h-index and his citation number is." It means little joys like free textbooks (ask the publisher and they will send you a copy) and free bus rides. It means three months of freedom every year to go and work in any part of the world I want to. It also means "technically" not having to show up at work unless I have a class or meeting. It is an unthinkable idea to many working in other industries. I could show up to work every day at 3 pm and no one would care.

And it means sometimes hearing, "Oh, you are at this university? What does your husband do there?" (The assumption being that my fictitious husband is a faculty, not me, I might be a trailing spouse). It also means being asked "What do you teach?" all the time. Not all faculty teach, and not all the time. Teaching is less than 50% of my job. I have only taught one course so far.

But all this aside, one of the best things about being faculty is being able to chat with some very smart people. Only today, I chatted for an hour each with a space researcher who works on galaxies, a cancer researcher, and a NASA scientist.

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Working for myself

One year ago, I started working as a tenure-track faculty at a research university. After the first day at work, Ma asked me, "So what work did they give you today?" Soon after, a few friends who are not acquainted with academia asked me the same question. These friends from the tech industry may know about coding and fixing bugs, but looks like they are not quite acquainted with how academia works.

The funny thing is as an academic, these questions, or the way non-academics see academia never dawn on you. This is a job where no one gives me work. I create my own work. Yeah. Take a few minutes to digest that idea. 

I don't have to show up to office every day, or at a specific time. I could be Facebooking, chatting, or chasing Pokemons all day. No one is going to come at the end of the day asking me how productive I have been. Unless I am teaching a class or have a meeting with other colleagues, I do not have to be at a particular place at a certain time every day. I could be anywhere.

Work-wise, no one tells me what to do. To give a simplistic analogy, getting this job is like getting a car with some limited gas/petrol (startup funding). Where I go with my car and how much gas/petrol I spend is my business. I could take it to Glacier National Park. Or I could drive to New York City. Or I can keep my car in the garage and never use it. Unless I do something drastic like harass a student or smuggle and store drugs in the department, no one can fire me during my 6-year pre-tenure period.

However, I have to meet high expectations by the time I go up for tenure review at the end of my fifth year. This includes consistent performance in terms of getting money through grant funding (getting my own gas/petrol to be able to continue driving my car), publishing my work (showing others how well my car drives) multiple times in peer-reviewed journals, meeting high standards of teaching and mentoring students (training novice drivers to drive), collaborating (carpooling), and doing service such as serving on committees and editorial boards (helping fellow drivers service their cars or helping them when their car breaks down or inspiring others to become drivers or ensuring I do not kill anyone while driving). I am putting this very simply with a car/driving analogy, the process is more complicated and labor-intensive than it sounds.

I have the freedom to do any kind of research that aligns with the department's interests. I can collaborate with anyone in the department, in the country, and in the world. There are three broad expectations (research, teaching/mentoring, and service) that I need to fulfill well in order to be able to get tenure. And these are not something that can be achieved overnight, in a month or even a year. I have been preparing to meet these expectations even before my particular position was advertised. 

So to answer Ma's question, they did not give me any work on day one, and never will. I work for myself now and have to give myself work, if that makes sense.

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That picture (im)perfect day

The excitement of the first faculty photo shoot stirred up a lot of drama in my otherwise less happening life. The university photographer had contacted me many times to remind me that I needed a professional portrait for my webpage. And yet, I tried delaying it for as long as I could. Six months, to be exact. We all know people for whom, the excitement of the wedding shoot surpasses the excitement of the wedding itself. I could be going through something similar.

When I was scanning graduate schools in the US to apply many moons ago, what struck me (rather odd) was how happy faculty looked on their webpage. Where I was coming from, most people went “statue” in front of the lens. Yet here were professors rolling on the grass, sunshine lighting up their faces and showing perfectly aligned teeth, balancing pets on their lap as they posed for that perfect shot depicting the deceptively Utopian faculty life. The Utopian life where grant money flows freely, students flock to you looking for a project like ants to honey, and receiving awards and promotions are monthly affairs. Professors were supposed to look glum and serious- that was what I thought based on my worldview back then.

But more than a decade later, here I am, waiting for my picture to be taken. While procrastinating for all these months, I had hoped for miracles that involved fantasies of magically toning up, temporarily making the double chin disappear, or bringing an academic glow on my face. None of that happened. Instead, I developed dark circles under my eyes and grew lots of grey hair in these six months of chasing everyone and everything- department chairs, students, grant money, and deadlines.

I had to look like those happy people rolling on the grass for whom academia was like a carnival. And I now had my quirks too. I wanted an outdoor picture by a red brick wall. I even spent days wondering what I should wear to bring out the perfect faculty look in me. Should I match my clothes with the color of my eyes? Should I wear formals? Well, a formal jacket would be too formal and a casual shirt, too casual. I mean, given my role, I needed to look serious. But if I looked too serious, no student would want to work with me, and God knows that I have been having a hard time finding students. Since I am averse to pets, nothing or no one would be sitting on my lap. Considering all the time I spent in these weird, inconsequential thoughts around a portrait, I could have published a peer-reviewed paper in that time.

The day of the shoot, I had to wake up really early. I had to wash, blow dry, and straighten my hair. I had to apply makeup. It took me 90 precious minutes to do all this, minutes that I could have spent sleeping blissfully. In a forced bid to show me as me, I had lost touch of the real me. The real me woke up late every day, procrastinated until she had to spring out of the bed, get ready in 20 minutes flat, and leave home while combing her hair. If combing was too much, she would simply tie up the mess into a high ponytail.

What happened at work was even more anti-climactic. It rained like never before, washing away all my dreams of an outdoor photo shoot in front of a brick wall. Other faculty members gave me strange looks, some of them completely failing to recognize me. It happens when you show up at work every day without a trace of makeup, and then one day, you look like you are going to a carnival.

And then, I met the photographer- a petite woman a good ten inches shorter than me. And guess what? After months of procrastinating and planning, the shoot lasted exactly five minutes. Even shots (at the doctor’s place) last me longer than this shoot. As I was adjusting my shoes, she asked me not to worry as she would be only taking portraits. I might as well have showed up in my pajamas. The lady jumped on a stool, asked me to look a couple of different directions, and smile with different intensities. The stairway doubled up as the dark background. As I was trying to get comfortable thinking of striking a slightly sexy pose or pouting my lips, the dean of the school walked by. In between, I did manage to find a spot that had a brick background somewhere at a distance. The pictures were ready in a few days. I still don’t know if I looked faculty enough in them, but the selfies I took on my cell phone that morning before leaving for work looked way real and way more like me.

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Mother tongue speaks the loudest

The sign outside my office door has my name written in English and my mother tongue, Bangla. This creates quite a stir in the busy hallway with students, teachers, faculty, and other people walking around.

At the least, people stop and take a close look before walking away.

And some stop to tell me how beautiful it looks, asking me what language it is.

Some keep the conversation going, wanting to know more about the place I come from.

And some come inside my office, wanting to know what their name looks like in Bangla. They always leave my office very excited at having seen their name written in a foreign language.

This has sparked many a long, important discussions, about the history of languages, language politics, the brain of those who speak multiple languages, colonization of the English language around the world, diversity and immigrant power, and so on.

Some people are so inspired that they want their names written in Bangla too, just like mine. Because it's not fair that they can speak and write only in English whereas I have the advantage of flaunting my knowledge in multiple languages.

Of course, I did not plan any of this. All I have wanted for the longest time is to have my own office one day, and have my name written in my mother tongue along with English. And so I did, sparking so many joyful, interesting, and important conversations in the process. I know so many more people in the building now, just because they stop by to read my name, introduce themselves, and ask me to write their names in Bangla too. And that is the power of the human connection.

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Teaching: Then and now

Eleven years ago, I started my career working as a science/math teacher. I did that for a year before going back to grad school. That was the end of my teaching. Eleven years later, I started teaching again. But it's not quite the same anymore.

2006: Students used to call me ma'am, and different variations of it. Math ma'am. Chemistry ma'am. Funny ma'am. Angry ma'am.
2017: Students call me Dr. [My last name]. I keep nudging them to call me by my first name. Even then, an Asian student said, "Sorry, it is not in my culture, I cannot do that."

2006: I was given a syllabus the ICSE board had prepared.
2017: It took me an entire week of blood, sweat and tears to write my syllabus. I put two classes on reliability and validity testing and then went like, naah, not so cool. So I deleted them. Talk about acquiring syllabus superpowers.

2006: I used to feel like a celebrity putting "right" marks and my signatures in red ink, as if I was giving autographs.
2017: Technology has taken away the fun. Now, I grade word documents. And I put those red marks in my own calendar, just for kicks.

2006: I used to start reading the chapter an hour before class.
2017: Now, I spend the entire week reading up not just textbooks, but research papers, Coursera materials, and stuff on the internet.

2006: "Okay, enough questions. Let me continue."
2017: "Any questions?" (And I silently die a little inside when no one asks questions. Are they not engaged? Are they not understanding? Are they not connecting with me? PS: It takes exactly 3.87 seconds for a silence to get awkward)

2006: If I didn't know an answer, I would make it up on the spot.
2017: Now, I just say, "That's a great question. What do you think?"

2006: My comments went into students' evaluation.
2017: Students' comments go into my annual evaluation.

2006: "No one should talk now." (I had too much to say in 50 minutes)
2017: "Let's spend an hour doing student presentations." (I don't think I have enough to say for 3 hours)

2006: After my first class, I must have gone home, watched TV and dozed off peacefully.
2017: After my first class, I kept checking the online roster for 24 hours to make sure that no one had dropped out of the course.

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Being faculty: End of semester one

I wrote this post the last week of my first semester as faculty. Well, it was technically half a semester since I got in late. Ten weeks of faculty-hood was like getting on a roller coaster ride that I mistakenly thought was an innocuous rickshaw ride by the park. I have journalled well, scribbling down the many little experiences that shocked, surprised, and shocked me again. Don't know about grey matter, but grey hair increased exponentially as I was asked to analyze the many grey areas in my research. Here are ten random scribbles:

1. By the end of week one, I woke up to the realization that time, and not money, is my new currency. Being faculty means wrapping my head around so many things in many different directions, I now understand why the term "protected time" exists in the research world.

2. There were numerous moments when I was deeply engrossed trying to make sense of a problem, only to think, "Shit! I cannot make sense of this, I need to talk to my adviser," only to realize that there is no adviser. I am the adviser. The voices in my head often tell me, "Stop thinking like a grad student!" In the garb of a confident tenure-track faculty member, I still feel like a confused grad student inside.

3. Almost every time someone heard what my job is, they asked me what I teach. Well, I do not teach. However, I will be, from January. The professor in me says, "This is exciting, let's bring it on!" The grad student in me says, "Shit! What did I get myself into?" After doing mostly qualitative research, I am now developing a survey course. I thought this is some kind of a cosmic joke from the universe. For the past few weeks, I have been brushing the cobwebs off my statistical knowledge about factor analysis, IRT, and other stuff I learnt way back in grad school and swore never to use again. Well, never say never. Writing the syllabus alone took me three full days of effort. This will be my first time teaching at a university, and as excited as I am trying to be, I am terrified inside.

4. A big part of being faculty means making things up on the fly. Barring some exceptionally interesting talks, I zone out in most talks and start thinking about other things. I was attending a seminar when someone asked me, "Blah blah blah ... so what do you think of it?" Not only did I not know what to think of it, I was not even paying attention. All I can say is that with practice, you get good at making things up on the fly.

5. It was funny when multiple people mistook me for a grad student. Just the way a grad student addressed me as the professor, and I looked away, thinking that she was calling someone else. This new role that I have assumed will need some getting used to.

6. My mother beams with pride that I am now a state employee. No one in my family is one, and where I come from, there is a lot of prestige associated with being a government employee. She doesn't get it that that state government and this state government is not quite the same. However, her excitement is infectious.

7. Being a new faculty is a lot like being newly married. You are the star of the new family, everyone is excited to have you around. It also means reproduction is one of the key traditional expectations to survive this marriage. Producing viable grants and papers is mandatory. Very soon, older colleagues will be dropping by and throwing known glances at my tummy (an analogy), asking when I would start churning out those academic babies. I have a committee that makes sure that I do not deviate from this (re)productive track. I write annual reviews based on my performance. This contract even comes with a time limit of six years. These ten weeks were spent looking for collaborators who would be willing to father my academic babies. That's something about academia- the more partners and collaborators you can find, the more viable seeds you are likely to sow, the more babies you are likely to produce, and the more your chances will be of making tenure. Academia is very polyamorous that way.

8. I have re-discovered the importance of sleep. If I am not well-rested, I am most likely going to be useless the next day. So while most people roughly my age are partying around, I get in bed by 9 pm, read for a few hours and drift off to sleep. Some people ask me what are my weekend plans. "Read, write, continue loop," is what I say.

9. No one cares what time you come to work or leave work. It's a strange feeling I am still getting used to.

10. A lot of what I do everyday has got nothing to do with being a professor. It involves replying to countless emails. Organizing meetings. Getting in groups and talking about things I have no idea about. Learning to order a dry erase board or filling out a gazillion forms after a trip, asking for reimbursement. Showing up at large gatherings and networking events when the introvert in me would much rather be at home. Remembering the names and faces of a million people you have never seen before, and be able to tag the correct name to the correct face. Everything that I had the luxury to avoid as a grad student- public speaking, large-scale data crunching, teaching stats, attending meetings, avoiding the spotlight, I will be doing it all now. All of it.

sunshine

The lamb shank

A few weeks into my new job took me to my first out-of-town work trip. I was going to stay in a hotel overnight. Being the true researcher than I am, I had looked up a nice place to eat dinner. It had very high ratings, the reviews were stellar, and it was not too far from my hotel. I had even checked the menu beforehand, making sure I knew what I was going to order. I landed all tired, checked in to my hotel, dropped off my bags and headed for dinner.

I ordered the braised lamb shank, skeptical about how tough or tender it would be. I asked the waitress if there will be a bone and she said yes. However, she assured me that separating the meat from the bone will not be an issue. I didn’t quite believe her since I have eaten lamb before, but I went ahead and ordered nevertheless. I didn’t want to create a mess, struggling to use my fork and knife.

And while I was at it, I went ahead and ordered a glass of sangria too. I am not your average alcohol drinker, but I thought that would relax me after a long day. I had spent an entire day at work and then taken the bus for another two hours to get here.

The first sip of sangria sent me spiraling down to Heaven. It instantly relaxed my muscles and made my eyes droopy. I had first tasted sangria earlier this year and loved it. While the cheaper ones were, umm, cheap, the more expensive ones were a gateway to Heaven.

In between, my order of lamb shank arrived, all wonderfully flavorful.

As I put my knife and fork on the meat, ready to cut it, it came out of the bone on its own. It was so well-done that I did not have to struggle with it at all. I spent the next hour or so enjoying the most tender meat I have eaten amid sips of sangria. The meal was very expensive by my standards, and I absolutely knew why.

At some point, the sangria must have hit my head. For I was suddenly engulfed with a sense of guilt. Only a month ago, I was a penurious postdoc. I hardly earned anything. Since I traveled a lot, I traveled on a low budget. I took trains at odd hours like 3 am just to save some money. I made sure that I ate inexpensive food, which was often roadside Turkish food. Although Europe is considered food Heaven, the only time I had eaten at an expensive restaurant was during a Christmas celebration when the department took us out and paid for it. If I was going to be traveling all day, I made sure I was carrying home-cooked food. I ordered the cheapest food, skipping drinks and dessert. I always kept two apples and two bananas in my bag, in case I got very hungry. I realized that I was carrying two bananas in my bag even that day, more out of habit than need. Here I was eating one of the most expensive things on the menu, but still had emergency food in the bag. I even paid a fat tip that day.

The hotel I was staying at was a standard American hotel. It usually means a huge room, a huge television I never watch, a king bed, most of which goes unoccupied, half a dozen pillows never used, half a dozen towels in the bathroom never used, and so on. If you have stayed at one of these standard chain hotels in the US, you will know what I mean. The only noise came from the whirring air conditioning in the room. As I looked out of the window at night, I saw a parking lot, silhouettes of huge cars parked, concrete and cement, and not a soul in sight. This is in complete contrast to the hostels I was staying in even a month ago, sharing my room with travelers all over the globe. I usually had a twin bed and a pillow, and sometimes had to climb ladders to get to my bed. It would be buzzing outside with tourists, local musicians playing live music and what not.

It hit me that day that I will hopefully never have to live in penury again. But that also brought in a feeling of sadness. In the next few weeks, I learnt that money begets money. 

As a postdoc, no one sent me to professional development seminars (that would have helped me find a job sooner), and if I went on my own, I had to pay out of my pocket. As a faculty, not only were they sending me to professional development events, but were also paying for my transportation, food, and hotels (although I can easily afford it now). 

As a postdoc in Europe, I never owned or rented a car, I always took the public transport. Now, if I had to rent a car for work, my university reimburses me. 

I had to buy my own health insurance in Germany. Now, the university pays for my health insurance, although I can afford it. 

I had to buy my monthly bus pass in Germany. Now, the university gives me a free one.

I now have more rights and benefits, although I needed them more as a postdoc. It was a sobering realization, and a sad one too.  The hotel and the expensive food is a nice, kind gesture. But somewhere deep down, beyond this formals wearing faculty lives a poor traveler, happily walking the streets of Europe, eating cheap food, staying in cheap youth hostels, and enjoying live music from streetside performers.

sunshine

On being one's boss

As the train rolled into the station close to two in the morning, almost an hour behind schedule, I pressed my nose to the window pane trying to make out as much of the city as the view would allow. Silhouettes of tall buildings stood as vanguard in the downtown landscape. Traffic lights blinked red and green and occasional cars waited and sped by in otherwise empty streets. Little local stores stood in the darkness dwarfed by larger ones. There wasn't much to make of the city in the dark.

It took another hour to get home, home being a temporary arrangement of sorts. As I debated whether to fully unpack or wait until I moved to a more permanent place in a few weeks or months, the philosophical voice in my head (also known as brain chatter) told me to go ahead and unpack since all homes are temporary anyway. Running alarmingly low on energy, I was glad for all the home-cooked food G had meticulously packed me (even including dessert) as one would do before sending off their kid to college.

After struggling to fall asleep between delirious bouts of tossing in bed, I finally did in the wee hours of dawn. Despite my ambitious plans of showing up at work by 8, that never happened. I slept fitfully for the next few hours, to wake up and realize that I feel even more tired. I walked up to the window and drew the blinds to get my first view of the neighborhood. It looks like any American suburban neighborhood, at least the ones I have seen. Pretty family homes with yards full of potted plants and trees adding color to the fall season. A little grocery store at walking distance which is a huge relief for someone with restricted mobility. Except for the occasional whir of cars stopping and rolling at the Stop sign, there are no sounds at all. No people, no view of the sea and no ships sailing by. I live thousands of miles away from Germany now.

Thus began life in another prison as I molted and liberated myself out of the last one.

Day one at work was very unusual. I never made it to work. Exhaustion induces sleep in a way more potent than drugs or alcohol. I never became fully awake or cognizant of the world until about 4 pm. Just that "poor thing, she is jet lagged and tired" will not take me very far.

Day two: So as not to repeat what happened on day one, I woke up at 5 in the morning and got ready to take the 7 am bus. I was on campus well before 8, only to get stuck because there was no one to let me in. The day was spent mostly doing paperwork. ID cards and visa stuff, setting up computers and emails. It is amazing how much time all this takes. People came by to say hello and introduce themselves. It is pretty much getting married and being a new bride. People show up in hordes to meet you, smile, say how pretty you are (in this case, how fortunate they are to have me) and asking me if I remember them (from the interview). As a new bride/employee, I have to do my homework. I have to know names and faces and be able to match the correct name to face, pretty much like the old aunt of a distant cousin who says, “Remember me?” I have to be familiar with what research they do so that I don’t look lost when they talk. This is also the time when people want to rope you in collaborations since you are new and they want to help you. It is always good to memorize everyone’s CVs.

But here is the strangest thing about being a professor. Suddenly, you don’t have an advisor. No one tells you what to do and you are your own boss. The feeling can sometimes be quite confusing especially since all this while, you are used to looking for validation. Most people respond in two ways. Either they get off the tangent and don’t work as much, or they try to over-compensate and work too hard. Striking the right balance is the key.

It feels like a decade’s worth of training leads up to this final moment of being an independent researcher and faculty member. It’s liberating and scary at the same time. At home, I feel like a little child, cowering and clueless. But when I go to work, I put on my best clothes, my confidence, and show that I am sharp, smart, and bright. It’s a show, a mask I put on until I can figure out how to effortlessly navigate my way around.

I thought that the brightest spot of my day was finding a bus that runs from home to work (not having to drive in America is a rare luxury). It became even brighter when I was issued a card that would let me ride the bus for free. Little joys in life.

sunshine