Transitional oddness
Aug. 8th, 2008 12:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amethyst73It struck me last night after I'd signed the official offer letter just how completely odd I feel at the moment. I'm preparing to leave one workplace for another. The workplace I'm leaving is feeling empty and strange right now: last week four people in my relatively immediate vicinity left for Huntsville, one person has been away on vacation this week, and next week two people will be out on vacation. Most people work a kind of early shift, and the one person who stays till 5 or 6 (her husband works nearby and picks her up evenings) says she's the only person in the building that late, and that it's downright spooky! There's still stuff to get done, of course, but I'm taking advantage of the fact that I don't have tons to do by leaving on the distinctly early side a lot. After all, the distinctly light work hours are something that's definitely going to change with my new position, so I feel somewhat justified in taking advantage of my freedom while I've got it!
But even that is strange. I do the grocery shopping, come home to a house with cats but no humans besides me. I pet Mouse, and let Tazz out. Usually I practice for a while, then I sit and play Okami or Phoenix Wright or maybe Zelda PH, and feel a little guilty that I haven't gotten down to finding some of the bazillions of useful papers that I'm dead certain are out there that will be extremely helpful to me in the new position. Or I could be cleaning, or ordering tickets to the next theater production, or replying to the exclusive invitation to the new local library that we helped fund.
Some of this sensation is surely stress, and some fear. I have started, at least, to come to terms with the arena of responsibility this new position will put me in. But the professor is energetic, thoughtful, and encouraging, and I feel like I'll get on very well with the postdoc with whom I'll be working most closely, so I have a sense that the atmosphere is going to be a pretty positive one.
I've been starting to think about all the various aspects of the project, and I should start making a physical list soon: what do I know that I don't know? What materials and protocols from my current lab will be helpful to me in my new job? Do I really have to sequence the entire length of each cDNA we work with, or will the ends be enough? Can conditioned media be stored long-term, or do you have to use it in co-IP experiments essentially immediately? Is there some known binding pair among IgG-domain proteins in Drosophila that I can use as a positive control? I also know that answers exist for a lot of these questions; it's going to be a case of going out and finding the answers.
But some of it still feels so totally unknown. And the unknown in the real world is kind of scary. In a video game, you generally know that about the worst you'll likely come across in a new area that you're exploring is a fight with a new kind of monster, which you'll probably win, or maybe some difficult platforming. If your avatar doesn't make it the first time, you just restore from the save point and go on. It's very safe that way. And I know that really, there's unlikely to be any sort of threat here, either - just doing and learning new stuff, which I honestly do enjoy. It's just there's this potential-energy/fear barrier to overcome first.
But even that is strange. I do the grocery shopping, come home to a house with cats but no humans besides me. I pet Mouse, and let Tazz out. Usually I practice for a while, then I sit and play Okami or Phoenix Wright or maybe Zelda PH, and feel a little guilty that I haven't gotten down to finding some of the bazillions of useful papers that I'm dead certain are out there that will be extremely helpful to me in the new position. Or I could be cleaning, or ordering tickets to the next theater production, or replying to the exclusive invitation to the new local library that we helped fund.
Some of this sensation is surely stress, and some fear. I have started, at least, to come to terms with the arena of responsibility this new position will put me in. But the professor is energetic, thoughtful, and encouraging, and I feel like I'll get on very well with the postdoc with whom I'll be working most closely, so I have a sense that the atmosphere is going to be a pretty positive one.
I've been starting to think about all the various aspects of the project, and I should start making a physical list soon: what do I know that I don't know? What materials and protocols from my current lab will be helpful to me in my new job? Do I really have to sequence the entire length of each cDNA we work with, or will the ends be enough? Can conditioned media be stored long-term, or do you have to use it in co-IP experiments essentially immediately? Is there some known binding pair among IgG-domain proteins in Drosophila that I can use as a positive control? I also know that answers exist for a lot of these questions; it's going to be a case of going out and finding the answers.
But some of it still feels so totally unknown. And the unknown in the real world is kind of scary. In a video game, you generally know that about the worst you'll likely come across in a new area that you're exploring is a fight with a new kind of monster, which you'll probably win, or maybe some difficult platforming. If your avatar doesn't make it the first time, you just restore from the save point and go on. It's very safe that way. And I know that really, there's unlikely to be any sort of threat here, either - just doing and learning new stuff, which I honestly do enjoy. It's just there's this potential-energy/fear barrier to overcome first.
Eh. Enough rambling. I am working on the next China entry, I promise! But I wouldn't be surprised if there's more maunderings about this in the next week - apologies in advance.
