Choice

The freedom of choice is a double-edged sword.

When I was choosing labs for my postdoc, I essentially narrowed down the choice to 2 labs. One lab was in California. The boss was very laid back, well liked, and very hands off. The postdocs lived a more laid-back existence although the drawback was that the quality of science from the lab wasn't fantastic. Good yes, but not great. The other lab is the lab I ultimately joined here in Boston. The boss seemed more intense, more involved in people's projects and the science was of a higher quality. It was a higher stress lab but the trade-off was a better career opportunity. It was an agonising decision, and the 'what if...?' scenarios played through my head for a month before I decided. In the end I chose 'career' over 'life and joined the Boston lab.

I now realise that I've made a terrible choice. The more time has passed, the more I've realised and heard from other postdocs that my boss is generally very abrasive and quick to shout at the postdocs: information that the postdocs failed to mention for some reason when I was interviewing for the position. In particular, no scientific proposal seems good enough to avoid the Boss's wrath, even if it is well-thought out and explained clearly. I learned this the past week and it was hammered into me today as I got yelled at by the Boss. It was a full on tirade of wrath. It was completely unreasonable and the factors leading to the shouting are too complicated to write about. I was completely taken off guard and was barely able to mumble a few answers in attempt to clarify the situation or defend myself.

I was made to feel completely worthless and stupid. My recent efforts and hard work over the past week went utterly unrecognised and not one word of encouragement was given. Criticism in science is expected but my Boss delivered it with vengeance that was crushing, humiliating and upsetting. Getting verbally abused in front of fellow colleagues in the lab is not fun. The honeymoon period of being the new guy abruptly ended today.

Sad thing is, almost everyone in the lab at some stage gets treated this way apparently. I was told not to take it personally, but I'm a sensitive guy (over-sensitive perhaps) so I was pretty upset afterwards.

I've considered changing labs but that is a pretty traumatic process and I don't think I can handle it. I've only been in the lab over two months, maybe I'll get used to the Boss's 'unique' management style. I see this time as a way to learn to better myself and be less sensitive.

With choice, comes regret. Sometimes choice sucks.

Reading over this post I can see that it's not very well written, but I'm too tired at the moment to give a shit. I just needed an outlet to vent. I'll reassess the whole situation tomorrow.

Into the Berkshires

Work seems to be consuming my Boston life already. It's been bloody hectic these past few weeks due to ongoing experiments. Plus the pressure to present some positive results at the weekly group meeting, or risk getting grilled by The Boss, is always a prompt motivator to be in the lab doing stuff. With scientific research, experiments don't work 90% of the time (well for me anyway...), so most of your time is spent tweaking the conditions for one experiment in order to get it working. This means there's a lot of repeating experiments which can be incredibly frustrating and demoralising. Coupled with the constant threat of a verbal crushing by The Boss, it has been getting increasingly stressful. I'm very conscious that the honeymoon-period of protection that is conferred by being the new guy is wearing thin in the eyes of The Boss.

In non-work news, made my first sojourn out of Boston last weekend. Went with Bay-buddy, his wife and another postdoc in the lab on a 2 and 1/2 hour drive west of Boston to the Berkshire region of Massachusetts that borders on New York. We spent the day hiking in the area around Bash Bish falls and Mt Alander. It was a fairly moderate hike of about 7 miles I think (11.2 km) up fairly steep terrain for the most part, so I was glad that we were only lugging day-packs and not rucksacks for camping.

The falls were only a few metres high and not that spectacular, but hey...

I had a great time being out in the US wilderness for the first time and I really enjoyed the tranquil and my somewhat sweaty reconnection with Nature. The only thing that bugged me was that the map they provide at the beginning of the track sucked big-time as it wasn't very detailed. So if you're ever heading out there for a hike, I'd recommend getting a decent map of the trails elsewhere before you go.

Ferns and fungi, what's not to like?

We crossed into New York going to the South Taconic trail and Mt Alander.

I also saw my first chipmunk running around the bush which excited me greatly. There was this fuzzy little brown and black ball capering noisily through the undergrowth and when I excitedly pointed it out to Bay-buddy and asked him what it was, he glanced up for all of 1 second and in a completely unimpressed tone said "It's a chipmunk". Then he turned back to cursing at the map. I assume now that chipmunks are quite common. Well I was excited... Glad I never told him how cool I thought it was to see squirrels running around Boston.

"How's the serenity?" A small stream from the falls.

So this was my animal spotting list: chipmunks, a small snake, two frogs, a green and yellow caterpillar which plopped onto my arm from the sky, and many birds. Again, I got childishly excited when the tap-tap-tapping sound that echoed through the woods was identified by Bay-buddy to be a woodpecker. A lyrebird calling, and not a woodpecker pecking, is the norm in the Aussie bush: hence my excitement.

(Left) Aaaagggh snake!; (Right) Spot the wildlife...

Leave a comment if you spot the wildlife in the photo (it's actually pretty easy).

Reinvention

People relocate their lives for many reasons. For some, it's simply for a new job. For others, a new environment offers the chance to find an ill-defined 'something' in life that has previously eluded them: it's the opportunity to be the person you'd always wanted to be. For me, moving to the States is primarily to broaden my career, although I suspect a sprinkling of the latter is also true.

Moving abroad is an opportunity to start fresh. It's a clean slate ready to be painted in whatever shade you desire. You can reinvent how you wish to be viewed by others and leave behind tired routines and bad habits. It seems a nice romantic ideal and I wonder how much of it is true. Of course this will be true for certain people like refugees, but what about for people like me who move between first-world countries?

Although a new continent may offer the opportunity for reinvention, can one simply find the unfulfilled aspects of their life in a new city? Most probably not. I suspect it's more the case of "different shit, same smell".

At my stage in life, a persons personality is already hardwired into set patterns of thought and behaviour, and to positively change this thinking is a slow and difficult process for the most part. Living elsewhere may influence certain perceptions, but is it enough of a catalyst for the self-reinvention process such that the happiness which has eluded someone in their native country is found in their new home? I wish this was the case but I doubt it.

I've moved to Boston with few expectations. For me, it's not about reinvention, although I'm taking this period of change as a chance to re-examine the spiritual aspect of my life. No, I'm not talking about religion, but the spirituality of being at peace with yourself, being content with the past and accepting of an uncertain future.

It's not reinvention that I seek, but reinvigoration.

New tech for Ben, hooray!

Last week my laptop died. State-of-the-art 4 and 1/2 years ago, my Dell Inspiron 8200 is no more. I was simultaneously mortified and elated when I pressed the power button and heard a pathetic whine of a dead hard-drive instead of the reassuring clicking noises of a healthy drive. No-one believes me but I knew that the death of my laptop was imminent which is why I backed up my files the week before, thereby saving myself a crap load of lost-file grief.

The reason for my partial elation upon the demise of my Dell was because I hated its appearance (cheap looking black plastic case), and despised lugging it around (with its cumbersome chunky power pack, it was over 4 kg/8.8 lbs). Despite the unseemly aesthetics however, with all my folders, files and web-browser bookmarks arranged to my liking, plus the fact that I found the XP-professional operating system to be absolutely great, I really grew fond of my trusty Dell. It was a case of what was inside that counted and not looks.

So when my faithful Dell died, I was stranded. No computer=no internet at home. Combined with no TV, no radio, no-one to chat with at home, for about a week, it was unpleasant. The only thing that kept me sane during that time was my beloved iPod, my copy of the novel 1984 by Orwell, hanging out with Bing and Lulu for a bit, and sadly enough being crazily busy at work. Money is a bit tight at the moment so I didn't want to amuse myself by going out too much. If you think pfft, what a wuss, you try going from work to a home without internet/human interaction/radio/friend network nearby/familiar local hang-outs for a week and see how it goes.

But the technology-induced isolation at home is no more! Now I've got Triple J radio and billions of webpages to surf at home again. I'm now typing away on my shiny new Apple Macbook Pro. I've used Macs extensively at work so I had decided a while ago that my next computer would be a Mac.

I only received my new Mac today and one word sums up the notebook in terms of functionality and looks: elegant.

Of course Apple's OS operating system is quite different to Windows, but OS X is easy to learn. What also impressed me was how quickly I received my MacBook. Ordered it late on Friday and got it this morning, and having been provided a FedEx tracking number, it's pretty amazing that you can follow the whole procedure (OK from my amazement, it's clear that I don't get many FedEx deliveries, well not deliveries that I'm really hanging out for and obsessively tracking anyway):


Anyway, my MacBook Pro arrived earlier than some software that I ordered a day earlier that was being shipped locally, so I was impressed.

So farewell Dell old mate, I thought I'd commemorate the memories of lugging you across various continents, bashing out a PhD thesis on you, giving many Powerpoint presentations on you, and playing countless hours of music through your tinny speakers over the years, with a tasty local beer (or 3), as documented by the iSight camera on your hopefully worthy Apple replacement.


Cheers.


Update, Wednesday morning: As a slight kick to the nuts, I'm disappointed that the new line of MacBook Pros got released yesterday, just as I received my older version notebook: same price, extra memory/faster processor speed. I was vaguely aware of their release but had no idea it was so bloody imminent. In the words of 24's Jack Bauer, dammit!

Right, back to waiting for the gas company guy to arrive and change my meter. Apparently he's due sometime between 8am-12pm... A freakin' four hour window? Dammit!