20100604 used to be my password. The day I started in my new role; as an independent scientist. It was a momentous day. A place I had dreamed to be and then arrived. So it felt then. That was 10 years ago!
The truth was that I was quite unprepared. I, in fact, had no clue what being a scientist entailed. All the ‘un-scientist like’ things I had to do. Lots and lots of paperwork, lots of learning of administrative lingo, learning the rules and how to wiggle through them. Lots of arguing with colleagues, shouting in corridors, losing my temper (definitely not part of my routine as a pre-PI), fuming alone in my office, taking the simmering dissatisfaction and anger home. Then learning to lower the heat slowly, finding my own comfortable temperature on the settings, learning the ropes of dealing with the director, senior colleagues, equals, juniors (oh the invisible hierarchy!).
Yes, I was quite unprepared for the students who did not understand the point of controls. Students who had no eye for detail. No idea on how to deal with students having babies, having break-ups and breakdowns, having spats and chronic incompatibilities, having self-doubt or no doubt at all! The anger and frustration (at what I can’t now remember) that left me shaking, sweat beading on my forehead and afraid of having a breakdown myself. Then slowly learning to let it all wash over me, watching my students learn to take my out-of-the-blue ideas (or counter-ideas) and then walk away blithely without paying any heed, discovering my students discover the joy of science and process of it. Reaching that homeostasis that worked for me; perhaps for them too.
I was also quite unprepared for the tangents that threw me around. The trouble with the idea of unfettered freedom (such a thing does not exist). The 9 students and the 9 different fields we explored! The lack of space in my brain for so many compartments. The fits and starts that each project brought and took away with it. The pace at which you need to switch gears! The realization that what I called multitasking was not it at all!
However, as we say in papers, there was also enjoying the banter of colleagues in the lunchroom, cracking wisecracks and then suffering for it on WhatsApp groups, chilling a wee bit uncomfortably on the lab trips and picnics, relaxing on those evenings with alcohol with colleagues across the country at conferences. There was also the sheer joy of sitting back on my comfy chair and gorging on beautiful data brought in by students who worked hard at it, now displayed on my 26” HD screen (and not feeling any guilt for it).
Yes, it has been 10 years. Longer than I have ever stayed in one place physically or mentally, ever in my life, be it school, college, PhD or post-doc. It also has been 70 days that I have stayed at home. Longer than I have ever stayed home since I was six years old! 40 years. 10 years. 70 days. Too many numbers. Too much inactivity. Too much social distancing. Too much time to think (and stress and hyperventilate too). It is definitely time to move a bit, if not in body, then certainly in mind. Feet are tied down, but the mind is free to wander. Time for some new challenges, some new pastures. Let us nibble away to the far end of the field and see how the grass tastes there.
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