Your adviser is the driving instructor

In a previous post, “working for myself,” I drew an analogy between driving and doing research as faculty. The next obvious question would be “How do I know as a faculty where I should drive to?” It is not easy to know that, it takes years to figure that out (I am still figuring out, maybe some do it sooner). A PhD training plays an invaluable role in this.

Role of your adviser

Consider your doctoral program a well-known driving school and your PhD adviser a renowned driving instructor. Their main and perhaps only duty is to teach you how to drive (do research). Sure, you can learn driving from your parents, neighbors, or the distant cousin who is visiting from Canada. But learning from a good driving school prepares you for real driving on the bumpy roads of life (getting your hands dirty with real data) and not just in the parking lot or in simulated roads on video games (made-up data we sometimes use to practice statistics in class). Sometimes, your adviser is a big-shot training instructor. In that case, other lab members such as senior PhD students and postdocs take you out for a ride to teach you those driving skills. So it is important that you have a good relationship with everyone in the lab. Your adviser doesn’t just teach you how to drive. They let you go to conferences where you showcase your driving skills in front of an audience. They write grants and get you funding so that you always have fuel in your car. They write you good recommendation letters so that other places can hire you as drivers. They advise you when your car isn’t running well or your engine is making a funny sound and you need to troubleshoot. They give you a pep talk on days when it is snowing outside and you don’t feel motivated enough to drive. They teach you life-saving skills such as changing lanes, looking at your blind spot, racing, parking on mountains, parking downhill, and avoiding drunk drivers on the freeway.

Couple of other things that happen in your PhD training

1. You take coursework. Consider courses as the tools that help you to be able to do research. If you are training as a driver, it will help to know a little bit about the mechanics, the nuts and bolts, where the engine is, how the brakes operate, how the radiator works, how to change a flat tire, and why driving in a certain way may be better than driving another way. Coursework just doesn’t teach you the skills to drive, but also the knowhow to stop, park, check engine oil or maintain the car.

2. You build collaborations with your peers and other professors. In the world of research, carpooling is way more fun than driving singly. Sometimes, you get more gas/petrol (funding) if you are able to show that if you are carpooling (collaborating), rather than taking a lonely trip from Seattle to Boston and not being fuel-efficient. Gas stations most certainly frown upon single drivers. But how do you ensure that you get along with the other carpoolers and don’t end up going for each other’s throats on the freeway? Graduate school lets you find other drivers you might get along with. Big gas stations (funding agencies) like the NIH and NSF will not even give you any fuel if you are young and applying singly or as the main driver. That’s when established professors will be on the driving seat and you in the passenger seat.

3. You identify mentors in other professors. Remember, you have the closest relationship with your own driving instructor. But sometimes, they are too busy or gone. Sometimes, you don’t get along with them. Sometimes, they do not know a skill that you need to know because driving regulations have changed in your generation. That is when the other mentors ensure that you continue to do well and your car(eer) doesn’t stall in the middle of the freeway.

Your research agenda

Your primary research agenda is usually an offshoot of your adviser’s research agenda (it could be different, but I am speaking from my experience). You spend maximum time with your dissertation data that is based on your adviser’s project and research interest. Let’s say for my PhD, my adviser trained me to figure out the shortest, safest, and the most fuel-efficient way to drive from Seattle to Mount Rainier National Park. I demonstrated to my dissertation committee that my car runs fine, I can check blind spots, I don’t get killed while driving on I-5, don’t run out of fuel, and can apply the proper gears and brakes depending on road or weather conditions. Now the fruit doesn’t usually fall too far from the tree. So after this, perhaps my own independent research could look into how to find an optimal route that connects all three national parks in Washington State in the most efficient way. I create that knowledge for other people to use. Or maybe now, I base my research on a real-life problem, for example, why do most people who take a particular smaller state freeway from Mount Rainier to Mount St. Helens after sunset get killed. If I never took that Seattle to Mount Rainier training for my PhD, I would have never figured out how to move ahead in life from Mount Rainier. I would not even have reached Mount Rainier.

And the convocation ceremony? Consider it as a public event where your adviser officially gives you your driving license. He comes wearing his driver’s uniform and you wear yours. The world rejoices, your parents fly to attend the ceremony beaming with pride and wiping tears of happiness, and some big-shot celebrity driver comes to give the convocation speech.    

I am waiting for the day I will be sitting in the main driving seat as the principal investigator (PI), my adviser and other colleagues in the passenger seat as co-PIs, and together, we will drive around the world with tons of fuel supplied by the NIH or NSF looking at interesting research problems.

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Building on an abundance model

The first recommendation letter I ever wrote for someone was under extremely ironic circumstances. An international colleague I had briefly worked with wanted a letter of support for their green card/permanent residency application in the US. I was a postdoc in Germany then, trying very hard to find a faculty position in the US. I applied for innumerable positions, almost a few every week, got Skype-interviewed by some, but never heard back. I never got invited for campus interviews. It was one of the darker times in my career when I was constantly engulfed in worry, self-doubt, and fear that the situation would never change and I might run out of my postdoc time without a faculty position. To write a letter vouching for someone about why they should be able to stay and work in the US long-term was ironic.

I did write that letter, a stellar one too. My situation was independent of their situation, and as colleagues, we support each other in our careers. But this was not before I emailed them back asking why they were considering me as a potential referee. What I did not ask directly was, "Why should people reviewing your application believe me when I myself have been unable to find a faculty position in the US?" I asked if a letter of support coming from someone outside the US would be effective at all. What they said was eye-opening.

“Are you kidding me? You are an international scholar who has worked in both the US and Germany. A letter from you would be incredible.”

The revelation was eye-opening. As intuitive as it is, I was not viewing myself as an international researcher. I was viewing myself as a researcher who was struggling to find a position in the US, and was hence working in Germany. Rather than approaching my situation from a position of abundance, I was approaching it from a position of deficit.

In life, reality is subjective, not single, and there are often multiple perspectives to it. The fact that I was struggling to gain my foothold in the US was a reality (more real for me). And the fact that I had work experience in multiple countries as a result was also a reality (more real for my colleague).

It made me wonder how often had I undermined myself similarly. How often I had focused on the “don’t haves” and not on the “haves.” I grew up in a culture where highlighting one’s accomplishments was considered bragging or showing off. And I now work in a culture where it is not just necessary, but imperative to highlight one’s accomplishments. We do that in conferences and meetings. We create websites to show the expanse of the work that we have done. It’s a cultural shift that takes some time and experience getting used to.

I often tend to think, “Shit! I have no experience running structural equation models.”

However, I usually don’t think, “I have some good grant writing and collaborative experience now.”

This email exchange taught me to position myself from a perspective of abundance and NOT from a perspective of deficit. I started enlisting every achievement I should have highlighted earlier. The list wasn’t spectacular, but not bad either. Along with being my own critic, I also became my own champion.

My colleague eventually got their permanent residency. And I got my faculty position. The department told me how excited they are to have a colleague with international experience. People started viewing me in a certain way only after I started viewing myself in that way.    

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Nothing to lose

There are times in life when you take in a lot of garbage. And then comes a day when nothing really happens, but a small something tips you over. You realize that you have had it, and you are done taking in all the garbage. I think I reached that point recently.

It happened the same day I wrote my earlier post. I was walking back to my office, and the wind was strong. It was raining as well, and thankfully, I had my umbrella with me. I have very fond memories of this umbrella because I bought it on a rainy day during my trip to Europe. So it is a souvenir. Anyway. The wind was strong (Nebraska is infamous for that), and my umbrella kept turning the wrong way. There was no point in carrying it if I was getting wet anyway. So I tried to close it.

At that point, my finger got stuck in the umbrella, tearing a little bit of flesh and drawing a few drops of blood. I find the sight of blood very repulsive, and as I looked at my finger in horror, something in me flipped. Tears started rolling down my cheeks, mingling with the rain, as a bunch of school kids on an educational excursion walked by me. These were not tears of sadness or fear, these were tears of anger pent up for a while. The umbrella incident was totally random, but it invoked a strong sense of anger in me, because it was symbolic of the helpless situation I was in. And I realized, I don’t want to be helpless anymore. I don’t want to feel like a victim, because I have not done anything that should make me feel like a victim. I am done being in this toxic situation that I am in.

And suddenly, in my head, I heard my own voice. Screw you job! Screw you visa! Screw you insecurity. I don’t have to take this. I don’t have to live in a country where I am perennially afraid of the insecurities. I don’t want a colleague suggesting me ever again, even jokingly, that I should have tried hooking up with a citizen, like many people wanting to stay here do. I am done. I am so done with this life. It is no better than being made to feel like an outcast, being asked to sit separately, like the British did to the Indians pre-independence, or higher caste people did to lower caste people.

The epiphany of “screw you” perhaps came from self-worth, and gave me more strength than anything had given me in the last few months. I have a PhD (I am told that less than 1% people have a PhD, but in America or around the world, I do not know). I am in good health. I can speak in English. I can learn. I can relocate anywhere in the world. I can do math. I can think. I have the energy. I have the courage and determination to do what it takes. I can take risks. Most importantly, I am alive. Why am I forgetting all my blessings? Why am I constantly trying to fit in? When I moved to the US eight years ago, I had nothing. And I had nothing to lose. But now, what do I lose if I don’t find a job? Absolutely nothing. I just go somewhere else, and take my skills and ideas with me. I haven’t spent a single day for the last few years when I have not worried about a visa. No self-respecting academic should ever fear that. Because wherever I go next, I take my brains, and my ideas with me. I realized that a high school dropout is perhaps more fearless than I am, armed with fancy degrees and all.

This realization gave me a lot of strength. Often under duress, we tend to think that we are helpless. We are not. This will be my chance to reinvent myself, create my future, and start a new chapter in life. I am looking for a job, but I already have enough work to sustain me for a while. Then what am I so scared of?

When I get a job, this post will be shelved as one of those inspiring notes written during crisis. If I do not, these will become words that will dissipate into nothingness. In either case, I will have nothing to lose. And that thought that I have nothing to lose is empowering in itself.

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The Ides of March

A few months back, they selected my doctoral dissertation to be among the top three in the field. And last month, they told me that they do not have additional money to renew my contract.

The bipolar nature of academia baffles me. How could these two extreme things happen within a span of a few weeks, I cannot explain.

So I am back to looking for a job, a postdoctoral position to be more specific, not knowing what awaits me. It has been six weeks since that day, and I still haven’t found anything. But in these six weeks, numerous meltdowns and heartbreaking days of staring into the unknown later, I have had some profound realizations.

I have realized that I cannot control everything. That instead of resisting the waves, I can only learn to ride with them.

I have realized that the transition time between the end of something and the beginning of something else is the region of greatest possibility. I make the analogy using Lego blocks. Whenever something ends, anything, a relationship, a career, a job, a life, we lie like a pile of Lego blocks, broken, without direction, and feeling useless. But that is also the exact moment when we can recreate and redefine ourselves, mold ourselves into something new, create new possibilities, and become someone different. I think that if we were never broken, we would never get a chance to build ourselves again.

I have realized that the US is extremely unfriendly and unforgiving for people who require a job as well as a visa. Even when they have a PhD from the US.

I have started looking into my options in other countries, which I had not done before. The complacency of having a job in the US had stopped me from looking into my options elsewhere.

I have learned to reach out to other people. I don’t just wait for a job posting to show up. I proactively contact people, asking if they are looking to hire. Sure, nothing has come out of the effort so far, but failure is not the opposite of success. In fact, success and failure lie side by side, the opposite being not trying at all.

I have realized that people can ask to interview you, and you give a job talk with full gusto, only to be told that they do not have a position, but they will keep you in mind. What baffles me is, if they never had a position, why did they make me prepare a job talk and make a presentation in the first place? Human behavior is sometimes difficult to make sense of.

I have realized that there is more to me than what I do, my professional identity. When asked about who I am, I say that I am an educational researcher. However, there is much more to me than just being an educational researcher.

I have learned to be able to stare at the ending of something, and let go. If I do not find another job (with the visa in place) in the next few months, my stay in this country is history. I have been here for more than 7.5 years now, and to think that I might just have to leave everything I have and leave one fine day is heartbreaking. It is worse when you know that it was not your doing, and you cannot do anything to make the situation better. The feeling of paralysis that comes from helplessness is very difficult to come to terms. In fact these days, I notice in me a tendency to push doing certain things that bring gratification. The other day, my mom remarked that I need a haircut, and I told her that I want to save the occasion for the day when I find a job (equaling a hair cut with finding a job). I am seeing that the rice at home is beginning to get over, and a part of me is debating whether I should delay buying the big bag of rice until I find a job, because I don’t want to leave it unused if I have to go. The rice connection doesn’t even make sense to me, one needs to eat everyday, job or no job. Yet the prospect of spending for something makes me feel guilty, not knowing how much I might need to save for the rainy day.

I have realized that there will never be a dearth of work for me, even though there is a dearth of jobs. The number of papers I am involved in right now, it will take me at least a year to finish writing all those papers, job or no job.

I have started to notice myself as an observer, like I would observe someone else. Some days, I feel so lousy, it is hard for me to get up and get ready for work. Other days, I am naturally strong, telling myself that this is just a phase, and things will look better soon. I have better days when I feel stronger. But when I do not, the day drags on aimlessly, and inefficiency spirals, to make me feel even more lousy.

And of the many other realizations, I have also realized that I can look at the situation whatever way I want to. I can blame myself, my luck, or whatever. Or I can be kind to myself, and tell myself that it was not my fault. That come what may, I am in control of my life, and a certain external situation that was not created by me should not have the power to disorient me. Sure, I can choose to dance to the whims of fate, breaking a little bit every time the weather is rough. Or, I can choose to stay calm while the storm passes, because things will be better again. Is my pain greater than the collective pain of the world? I am looking for guarantees and securities in a world where airplanes disappear into thin air, and sturdy ships sink into the bottom of the ocean. Is my pain any greater than their pains? Or tomorrow if I was diagnosed with a terminal disease, will the job situation still bother me so much? It is all about perspective.

But most importantly, I just feel annoyed that anything should come in between me and my work. I dream of a day when I will be able to wake up and start working with enthusiasm, not having to worry about things like employment and visa.

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On work hours

This is my third week of working as a postdoc, and I see some clear differences in the work culture and work hours. The difference might somewhat be attributed to working with an associate professor versus an assistant professor, but I am not so clear on that. However, the work hours here resemble more of a 9 to 5 job. Make it 8 to 6 actually. Today, the hours got slightly reversed. When I left at 7 in the morning, I saw the sun rise on my drive to the lab. By the time I was done, it was past 7:30 pm, and the sun had set. However, today was an outlier, I hope.

            During PhD, there was no compulsion to show up at work during fixed hours. Don’t get me wrong, this did not mean that I was not working. It only meant that I had the liberty to work from anywhere, and not necessarily the lab. It makes sense, since two of the three years in graduate school was spent taking classes, and the third year was my final year when students are busy writing a dissertation and do not want to be interrupted. There were 1-2 weekly meetings at specific hours when everyone in the lab would meet. If you happened to be out of town, collecting data or on vacation, you could call in. With 3-4 graduate students, people were always in and out. I am not saying that I didn’t show up at work, what I am saying is there were no fixed timings. Some days I would be there by 9, and other days, I would show up after noon. Then again, some days I left by noon, and other days I worked until midnight. All I had to do was tell my adviser that I am going home to work on something, and he can call me or email me if he needed anything. As long as he knew where and how he could find us, he did not care. For me, it was a false sense of freedom while I was still on a leash.

            During my third year especially, I remember working from home three out of five days, or showing up at work for a few hours, and then coming home and working more. As a result, I would have the flexibility to work until late night, and wake up late in the morning. Then I would sit in my sunny, east facing kitchen cum dining space with huge French windows, sipping coffee. I would cook a hearty breakfast and wash it down with more coffee, amid working and staring out of the window and watching students take the bus. After lunch, I would even take a nap. When the roommate came home in the evening, we would chat up, drink tea, eat onion fritters, and watch a movie on Netflix, still working. So I was working all day, but the way I wanted to. It’s not that I was hiking up the mountains. I was still communicating with the adviser whenever I was needed.

            Graduate students are low stake employees. They hardly get paid anything (I like the way I now call them “they” and not “we”), they take a few years to train, and the level of accountability is lower. I cannot generalize and speak for all research groups, but I have known enough research groups to be able to make a broad statement. A postdoc on the other hand is an employee. We get paid (marginally) more, and it is a full time job. The level of accountability is way higher. A postdoc is only a step away from being faculty most of the time. So you can easily forget the morning brunches and the afternoon naps.

            How does a typical day of mine looks like now? Well, I am at work by 9 am, which is when there are no 8:30 am meetings, or 8 am class evaluations. So a 9 am day is a good day for me. I am not the only postdoc, there are more. Hence there is always an implicit comparison on how much work we do. It looks very odd if a postdoc leaves for home at 5 pm, and the other one is still working, and so is the professor. My entire day is filled with meetings. I meet with the professor every day, sometimes twice or thrice a day. There are group meetings, and then there are one-on-one meetings. Then I attend a lot of workshops and seminars, typically 3-4 every week. This is because it is not enough to sit cocooned in your lab working, you need to be out there familiarizing yourself with other research groups and networking with them.

            Earlier, my Fridays did not start until 12 noon, when there would be a group meeting. Now, my meetings with the adviser Friday morning is at 8:30 am. Every week at the group meetings, I give an update on what I have been up to, and critique a research paper from the field. If I was taking classes, I would also have to give a talk on how what I have learned in class is applicable to my research, so that other members of the group who are not taking those classes can learn too. And these talks are around the table formal discussions, with powerpoint slides, and not informal chats. Very soon, I will also be supervising undergrads who work to gain some research experience.

            By the time I come home, it is usually past 6 in the evening. I barely have the energy to cook myself something, take a shower, head to the gym (sometimes), and collapse on the bed reading a book. I cant stay up late nights anymore because I have to be up the next morning, and the similar cycle would resume. I am genuinely enjoying it, learning a lot, and keeping busy in life. It gives me a sense of worth. However, I no longer have the flexibility to show up late, or not show up at all. I now get twelve vacation days annually, and everything is on pen and paper, formally documented. And on that note, it’s midnight here, and I must go to sleep. I am evaluating an 8 am lecture tomorrow morning.

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Doing the math

Earning more doesn’t necessarily mean saving more, and I am learning this firsthand. As a graduate student, I thought that my financial miseries will be over once I start working. What I did not realize is that a student is also shielded from a lot of extra spending. As a postdoc, I earn 1.4 times of what I used to earn as a student. Not a whole lot more, I agree, but remember, I now live in a city where the cost of living is much less. Now let’s do some math.

            I now pay more taxes.

            I now pay some money for my health insurance, which I did not have to do as a student. It’s about $100/month, but still.

            Most students live in shared houses. The more the number of roommates, the less expenses per person. The rent gets shared, and so do the utilities, electricity bill, internet bill, water, sewer, garbage, anything you can think of. Now that I live on my own, I pay everything by myself.

            Most students also live close to campus, and either walk, bike, or take the bus. The bus ride is always free. In a bid to stay in a larger apartment community, I moved away from campus. So now I am paying for gas, as well as parking. Parking alone is close to $50 every month.

            School gym is free for students. Not for postdocs.

            I now have an iPhone, that comes with a data plan. Despite getting an 18% university discount, I am still paying more.

            I now fancy things I did not fancy before. Bose speakers, nice bedding set from BB&B, et cetera. Agreed, it is a one time buy, but still.

            I will no longer be able to avail all those student discounts. At conferences. For professional memberships at organizations. In Bengali associations, et cetera.

            I am not even accounting for the weekends when I do not have to work (which I used to as a graduate student), and hence feel like taking a flight and visiting some place. Remember, I live in a place which is really flat and uneventful. The nearest mountain is a good 8 hour drive away, the Pacific is close to 26 hours away, and the Atlantic is close to 20 hours away. To curb temptation, I just stay at home in the weekends, do household work, watch movies, and read.

            And at the end of the day, I cannot take up a second job for money. No tutoring, consulting, or offering professional services. I could, if I lived in India, but not here. Hence my argument. Unless you earn many times more, this earning more as a postdoc is just an illusion. What you actually do is spend more, and become poorer.

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A tale of three job offers

My first verbal job offer came as early as a year before I graduated, during a conference presentation. Someone I met there liked my work, asked if I would like to talk over breakfast, gave me tips on how to strengthen my skills in my CV, and thumbs upped my adviser. I had not even proposed my dissertation then.

            This was one of the premier cancer research institutes of the country, the person was very well known, this was a big city with an impressive diversity, sizeable Indian population, and one of my favorite authors lives in that city. I was thrilled, and mentally started making plans of graduating on time and moving there. Five months later, a formal interview was done, and they said that they will get back to me.

            When I did not hear back from them for a while, I got nervous. I started applying for more jobs, thankfully. And there I saw a job advertised for a postdoctoral position in the Chemistry department. I was applying to as many jobs as I could, and although Chemistry is not my specialization, I wanted to give this a try. I was a chemistry minor in undergrad, had studied enough chemistry and biochemistry during both my master degrees, and for the rest, I was wiling to learn. I was not terribly excited about the place, and this was more of a backup job option for me.

            When I asked my adviser for a recommendation for this job, he actively discouraged me from applying, because of the same doubts I had. I did not specialize in chemistry. According to him, it would look bad on my part, as if I had not done my job research, and it would make him look bad, because he was recommending me for the job. We argued, and by the time I left his office, I had decided that for once, I will go against his advice. Sure he is my adviser and is supposed to know more than I do, but I was fighting battles he had no inkling about- the need to find employment, a visa sponsor, and making sure that I did not go out of visa status.

            Months later, on an unrelated note, the adviser told me that if I felt unhappy with my job, I should let him know. He was applying for a grant renewal, the same grant my dissertation was based off, and if he got the renewal money and I was still interested, I could rejoin the team as a postdoc. I considered this as a verbal job offer, and my best option, since I already knew everything about the project. But he said that this was a backup option for me, since I should spread my wings independent of him.

            I got the second job offer during the phone interview itself, stunning me. I was too tempted to ask, “But I have not specialized in chemistry”. That was a backup job and I did not even think that I would get.

            After months of prodding, the first group told me that they are declining me an offer. The funding agency had recently gone through serious sequestrations, and they did not have enough funds to hire me. Job offer one was gone.

            Yesterday, the adviser announced that he has decided not to go for that grant renewal this year. He wants to wait for a year and get more publications first.  Job offer three, from my very own doctoral research team, was gone as well.

            As for job number two, I took the job and moved here. Then one day not so many hours ago, I asked the new boss why I was hired despite my lack of background.

            “To avoid researcher bias”, she said. She wanted someone with the required skills, but outside the field, because everyone else was from within the field, and she wanted an outsider’s perspective. She wanted to reduce research bias. I got the job precisely for the same reason that I thought I would be denied the job.

            What can I say, this situation reminds of three movies, Amores Perros, 21 grams, and Babel, all from the same director. Each movie has three separate stories revolving around something common. All three movies are fantastic.

            Three independent research groups in three different locations and specializations, together decided my professional fate. What I thought I would get, I did not. And the job I got was precisely for the same reason I thought that I would not get that job. And I am beginning to like that job.

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Beginnings

The first day of work was more paperwork than work. Filling out numerous forms, photocopying passport and SSN, visiting international student office and postdoctoral office, attending a faculty workshop, doing online training, and interviewing an undergrad. Then there was going to the bank to get one dollar bills (for parking) and quarters (for laundry). I am slowly beginning to figure out my way around the city, and around the campus. Now I know where to park my car, where to pay, and how to figure out the way to the department without using a GPS or getting lost. I know where to go for grocery, where the bank is, and where the post office is. Slowly, I am beginning to figure things out. The feeling of alienation is not gone yet, and I mostly drive around like a stranger in an unknown city, looking at roads and shops and people. Anonymity has its own merits, when you know that you will never bump into a known face, since there is no known face. A friend tells me that before I even know, those bylanes of the city will be privy to my life and secrets soon. I don’t know if I should believe him.

As a child, the first day at school was always exciting. I'd spend the night before arranging my bag, smelling my new books, polishing my school shoes, and organizing my school uniform. The smell of newness surrounded me- the smell of shoes polish and paper and camel ink and laundered school uniforms. There was this excitement of meeting old friends again. The enthusiasm would ebb eventually, and would rise by the beginning of next year. I felt the same excitement of newness the night before my first day at work.

I still don’t know a single soul here (except the people at work). I intend to keep it that way for a while. Anonymity comes with its own merits, and I don’t see the need to try to unnecessarily bond with people just because they speak the same language or there is a shared cultural heritage. I decided this after someone I have never met and exchanged a few introductory emails with asked me if I am married or have a significant other, adding a postscript of “This is a personal question, don’t take it personally, and don’t reply if you are uncomfortable”. Clearly the guy was more uncomfortable about my status than I was. It was so evident that the Indian community is curious about the evident lack of signs of a male.

In the meantime, I stayed home for more than a week, and used this time to set up home. And I bought a smart phone. 

There I said it aloud. If you know me well, your jaws would have dropped by now. I resisted buying a smart phone for the longest time. I do not have anything against them, but change disconcerts me. I have ordered the same ingredients for a burrito at Chipotle for years, take the same road to work, and like to use the same set of machines at the gym. I didn't see why I needed to follow the herd and buy one, especially since technology is fickle and gets upgraded almost every week. I do have an iPad, but that was after my adviser told me that he would get me one, and even then I waited for 2 months, until he screamed at me and threatened to fire me if I did not get one right away 

When I was doing my road trip and moving here, someone asked me how I would manage without a smart phone. Well, I had my GPS, map, and smart friends, who were on call to help me, if I needed it that is. I was really happy with my red flip phone that was so small, you could hide it in your fist and no one would notice. I could use it with my eyes closed, solely from muscle memory. I am not a text person, and I have a camera and three lenses that I proudly sport around, so I really did not need a smart phone to talk, text, or take pictures. What also bothered me is the way people become around smart phones. Here I would be having dinner with someone, and instead of making meaningful conversation, that person would constantly check the phone that would not seem to stop dinging or droning. 

So what changed?

Everything. I moved here, and my original phone provider’s network sucks here. I could never start or finish a conversation with anyone. I got a land line, but that meant I need to be home to be able to talk. Then one morning, I needed to talk to my mom, but there was no network for 2 hours, and I could not call her. And that was it. Like Eric Cartman, I said, "Screw you guys, I'm going home". I did some research on good providers and ended up at the phone store. There, I realized that the deal I was getting for an iPhone is not that bad. I got mine within 10 minutes. 

Now all I hope is that I do not become one of those people whose phone wouldn't stop droning while making real face to face conversation with people. I have the same phone color. I told you, change disconcerts me. My preferred mode of communication still remains meeting in person, talking on phone, emailing, chatting, and texting, in that order.

I also had a strange dream a few days ago. During my undergrad studies in India, my early mornings and evenings were fraught with private tutorial classes. A necessary evil according to me, everyone went for multiple classes, because content was not always taught well in colleges, because there was often a mismatch between what was taught and what was asked in exams, because a particular professor was often reputed and sought after, and because everyone else did it (herd mentality). So the time I could be learning new skills, reading a book, or relaxing, I was running in and out of these tutorial classes, often at the other corner of the city. All that happened for years, draining a lot of my father's money and my time and energy.

After ten years since all that ended, I had a somewhat scary and hilarious dream. I dreamed that I was back to my Chemistry tutorial classes in Calcutta. I argued that I am done studying, but the professor said that I will need it for my postdoctoral training. Surprisingly, I identified at least 3 other friends, all PhD students in the US, who were in those classes. They told me that since education is so expensive in the US and they were visiting India for a month, they wanted to use that time taking tuition. I never really recovered from the shock, and was only too happy to wake up and realize that it was all a bad dream.

Then there was this saga about assembling a desk. I wanted to buy the simplest writing desk, that I could use to do some daily writing. So I went to Office Depot and chose the simplest of them. They did not have it in the store, so they said that they would ship it directly to my home. However when the delivery guy arrived, I was not so sure that it would be that simple to assemble.

I opened the box, spread out the contents, and got so overwhelmed that I started doing other work. Yet at the back of my mind, I kept wondering what I should do. Should I ask for help? Should I return it and live without a desk? By afternoon, I tried making sense of the manual, but it looked so complicated that I gave up the idea and went off to sleep. The package came with 15 slabs of wood, and 130 of these fasteners (bolts and screws and what not). Had it been my dad, he would have started working on it with all his excitement. But I am not at all a do it yourself (DIY) person. Building and creating and hands-on activities are not my forte. I actually spent the day confused and clueless about what to do.

By evening, I was so annoyed with the mess I had created, and my inner and very sarcastic voice kept saying harsh things. The manual actually shows how to assemble the desk in 20 steps, each step in a page with lots of complex diagrams, and I stared at the manual for a long time. Step 1 took me the longest, but soon emerged a very embryonic stage of a simple writing desk.

After 6 hours of working on it (seriously!!), a few cuts and bruises, an elbow swelling, a little bloodshed, hours spent on my haunches, studying, understanding, Googling videos, and ending up with backache, I was able to assemble it. I actually stayed up the whole night assembling this 90 lb desk. The desk is finally ready. The upper drawer needs some rework, but I am too tired, and it can wait.

If living alone has taught me anything, it is the fact that no work is gender-specific. We hear and see a lot of these, that women are good at certain things and men are good at others, but necessity has taught me to cook, drive, clean, assemble, lift weights, and now use a hammer and a screwdriver as well. It's just a writing desk, not a big deal at all, but until I did it successfully, it became the biggest deal for me. Sure, it took me 6 hours and a few cuts and bruises, but I am glad I did not take the easy way out by returning it. It's not perfect, but I can live with that.

And life goes on, as I slowly try to make a living.

sunshine

The first few days

             It hit me the first day I entered my new apartment in a new city in a part of this country completely new to me. My new job as a postdoc was in a city where I did not know even a single soul. I had thought about my transition when I decided to take this job offer. How would I fit into a completely new city in the Midwest? How will I make friends at an age when none of the people my age are single, and I don’t really fancy making new friends who happen to be married and with children? How will I get used to a place that did not have a single national park or mountain, and was as flat as bread? But I decided to embrace my new life with all the positive energy I had. I felt very fortunate that I got a job months before I graduated. I knew that I was going to make this work.

            However, the transition was hard, way harder than I anticipated. I drove from VA to NE, which was my first solo longest road trip. I did stop in MD and PA to catch up with friends, but beyond PA, I was on my own. From PA, I drove for two days, stopping for the night at IA. I covered a total of 1,420 miles. Honestly, I was excited.

            Things went wrong when I reached here. Without furniture, my one bedroom apartment looked even bigger, the bare walls and the empty rooms needing work. I used to live with roommates before, but now I was all on my own. Within the first few hours, I realized that my phone network in this part of the world was terrible, and I would not have internet at home for the next 2 weeks or so. My virtual world had become so much of my real world that I could not get a grip on this feeling of alienation.

            Thankfully, the clubhouse has free internet, and for the next few days, I spent all my time there until my back hurt. Every time I got home, the smell of the carpet would nauseate me. I have a strong sense of smell, and a strong gag reflex. The strong smell of carpet was giving me a psychosomatic reaction. Those were the longest five days of my life.

            After five days, I went to a conference in San Diego. The Californian sun and sea did a lot to help me recover from my depression, but it was not a never ending vacation. The best part of the trip was taking a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean and hiking Channel Islands National Park.

            I am back from California, for good, and I try to stay positive everyday. I am setting up my home, and having furniture at homes goes to some extent to help with depression. I miss the mountains of Seattle and the beaches of Virginia. I miss my friends. I miss my old life. It’s a vicious cycle, when you are depressed, you don’t make new friends, and when you don’t make new friends, you get depressed. I cannot wait for work to start. I have cried without rhyme or reason, everyday, lying down and staring at the ceilings. No amount of long drives or Netflixing or reading has been able to bring me out of this. Eventually, I realized that perhaps by embracing the depression, I will be able to let go of it. I cannot help myself as long as I am in denial, so I have stopped denying that I feel sad about my new life here. I am going to embrace the sadness, live with it, and deal with it. For a person who is as enthusiastic about photography as I am, I haven’t taken a single picture here. I no longer feel motivated to go out with my camera. I no longer feel motivated to write.

            A change in life can sometimes shake the most sturdy of us. I never felt this way when I moved to Seattle, considering that was a cross-continental move half way across the world, in a new country with no idea about the future. I never felt this way when I moved cross country to VA to pursue my PhD, unsure of where I was headed and if I would do well in school. But now armed with a PhD and seven years of knowledge gained by living in the US, a move to the Midwest has shaken me like nothing has done before. It could be age or lack of friends or anything. Who knows?

            I am curious to see how long I end up living here, and where my new job takes me next.

sunshine