There's always teaching

At the start of my career as a professional astronomer, I told myself that I could always become a highschool teacher if I would fail in science. In the crazy busy schedule of the last months, this had slipped my mind somewhat. Also the prospect of working with teenagers was not the most appealing.

This week I was reminded how much fun I have in working with kids of any age. First I was talking at the local elementary school. Explaining to kids age 8 to 12 what dark matter is in less than 5 minutes is quite a challenge. Nevertheless, I got great positive feedback from my own kids, and I've not felt that energized in a long time!

Next day I was asked to come talk to a high-school student, who happened to be visiting a nearby planetarium with her school for a day. She was so excited about science in general and astronomy in particular, it was really good fun.

So I started to think again. Maybe teaching is the way to go anyway. Unfortunately, there are no highschools that teach astronomy. Physics and math would be an option though. I've asked around, and one math teacher I know offered me the opportunity to come and teach in his place for an hour or so.

I might just take him up on that. After all, teenagers can hardly be much worse than astronomers with oversized ego's... ;-)

Bugger off brain!

I honestly try to keep a positive attitude in all this, but my brain is staging a hostile take over of any positive thought between 2 and 4 AM. This is seriously conflicting with getting enough sleep.

So here's hoping that writing all this down will help. According to my brain I have failed at:
- keeping a job for longer than 4 years anywhere
- becoming a project scientist
- submitting a first author paper every year for the last many years
- applying for grants
- even being aware I could still apply for grants
- finding PhDs or first year postdocs to build up a team
- constructing a solid basis for diversity in the organization
- applying for a tenure-track position
- standing up for myself when I feel left out

That's all true, but my dear brain has been notified well in advance of all the decisions that led to this situation. I'd even go as far to say that my brain was in charge of taking them, though gut feeling was always an important second. Plus, in the mean time I have had a fabulous jobs over the last decade: who can say they get paid for doing what they love most?

So dear brain, please stop harassing me! Really. Stop it. If you don't, I'll be forced to take actions in the shape of a glass of 16yo single malt before going to bed.

Just another week in the life of a job-seeker

This week I had what sounded like a first interview, but was actually a first getting-to-know a company that sounded very interesting to me. I visited them in their location in the south of the country and got a tour of the lab facilities there. Very impressive! Then I chatted with two of the people about the next move the company wants to make. They asked me to look into this option and we will meet again in another location of theirs to discuss my ideas. Basically they gave me 'carte blanche' to write a business plan for a new branch. That is just SO AWESOME!

As for the late submission due the my e-mail failure: I am still in the loop. The organization is trying to advertise the job broader, and the deadline has been moved to May 15th. Would have been so nice if they had updated their information on time, and not after I resent my application while crawling through the dust, but who am I to blame them for being late...

In the mean time I'm trying to get in touch with more small businesses and talking to people in my network. All sorts of ideas have popped up. One which I will pursue in more detail is teaching Python. It won't be a full-time job, but I love to teach and I know Python quite well.

Karma or just stupid?

Sometimes you think you've got it all under control, only to find that due to some stupid event, things are not at all what you wanted them to be. This happens occasionally when I am at a cross-roads and facing tough decisions. Whatever the event, the decision seems to be made for me. Almost as if there is a higher power that is steering me in some direction. If I weren't such a sceptic, I might turn religious.

One such moment occurred this week. Late Sunday evening I felt really proud that I managed to attend a busy meeting in the UK, meet up with collaborators there as well, prepare two talks for the coming week, submit a job application, and have fun with the kids over the weekend. Yay me!

Of course I used my home laptop, something I rarely do, but the thing was readily at hand. Of course I used my work e-mail, which never works from home. And of course the application was the last thing I did, reading it through once more without kids running around. I clicked send, closed the laptop and went to bed.

Come this morning, I wake up with a nagging feeling: did I really use my work e-mail? I never do that for applications. But I should check. Of course: there it is. The original e-mail typed up on Sunday evening, with a little additional screen saying "Cannot send message using server X". Cue the cursing, screaming and shouting at e-mail servers and firewalls.

The application was resend, including a sincere apology and attempt to explain why it was late. It remains to be seen what the aftermath of this will be. Was this indeed one of these deciding moments, or was it plain stupid? At the moment I believe the latter, but I also believe in karma. Karma sounds so much better than stupid.

Time will tell, nothing I can change about it now.