Week in Review

It's been quite a week.

After a rough Saturday night processing the fact that my K-99 was in the bottom half of the applicant pool, I was feeling better Sunday.  I screamed myself hoarse at the NYC marathon (and really, there is little that does a better job of making your problems seem insignificant than when there are thousands of people--especially those who are older than your parents and/or missing limbs--streaming by you who are Running. Twenty-six. Miles.), and then came home to cook all afternoon for a mini dinner party J and I were having that night.  I love entertaining, and there's something about all the prep work for a party that I love almost as much as the party itself, so I was a happy camper chopping veggies and whatnot for a couple of hours.

Monday, though, the wounds were opened fresh again when I went to lab and had to tell everyone what had happened with the grant.  It was hard because of course people wanted to talk about it, when really talking about it is the last thing I wanted to do, because there's nothing talking can do but make me angry and sad.  Had I been more forward thinking I'd have had a t-shirt made that read "The grant's been triaged; can we talk about baseball?"  Instead, I fielded sympathetic looks all day, and while I adore my lab-mates, I despise the feeling of people feeling sorry for me.

Things brightened on Wednesday, when THE YANKEES WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!!!!!!  I feel like I've been waiting forever for this, because I only started going to games regularly in 2002.  I actually had tickets to game 7 had it happened, but I was genuinely happy that it didn't have to.  And if there's anything that can make you forget your troubles for a while, it's throwing your arms around strangers and singing "New York, New York" at the top of your lungs while champagne is passed around.  Yesterday J and I played hooky and went down to the ticker tape parade, and while there were way too many people for us to get anywhere near the parade, we did see a lot of ticker tape paper floating through the buildings downtown, which was very beautiful.

 With respect to my career (this is what this blog's supposed to be about, no?), Thursday was the best day and here's why:  I went to hear a visiting speaker, and the speaker turned out to be someone from my graduate program!  She had been in her 4th or 5th year when I started so I didn't know her too well, but now she is a bona fide Assistant Professor at a super Classy Institution!  Her work is so sexy it hurts (in a good way) and it was just so incredibly inspiring to see someone from my generation be so successful.  What's more, she is still the very down-to-earth and nice person I remember her being, so it's encouraging to know that one doesn't have to become an aggressive bitch in order to make it as a woman in science.

So I'm back on the horse, as they say!  I have more applications to send out this week, and thanks to Candid Engineer's excellent synopsis of what she learned at the  Negotiating the Ideal Faculty Position (NIFP) workshop and DrdrA's comprehensive guide to applying for faculty jobs, I think I've tweaked my cover letter and research statement for the better.  Onward and upward!

Location, location, location!

OK, the I Love Academia cheese-fest is over.  Let's talk real estate, shall we? 

I'm going to cut right to the chase here; I don't want to leave New York.  More specifically, I don't want to leave my apartment.  Not in a Brian Wilson kind of way, but in a...well, let me show you:

This is the view from my private roofdeck.  I took this picture.  

I mean really, how could anyone be expected to give this up?  I live here with my very handsome boyfriend J and our [number redacted] kitties, and we're very happy with life in general.  We love New York and how it indulges night owls like us with endless late-night dining options, how we don't have to own a car, and how we really can have absolutely anything delivered whenever we want.  We recently had a little party where mint juleps were the drink of choice, and when we ran out of ice and mint I called the grocery store and asked them to deliver 4 bags of ice and 5 bunches of mint, and they totally did it in, like, 10 minutes.

But I'm neither naive nor delusional enough to think that I can restrict my job search to just the metro area.  I'm entering what's probably one of the toughest job markets in recent years, and I need to cast a broad net.  How broad, though, is the question.  Common sense would dictate that I apply to absolutely every position that even remotely fits my interests, but am I allowed even a smidgen of location bias?  For example, can I rule out the deep south?  The rural west?  How much of a geography snob do I get to be?  (I am seriously interested in your answer to this question.)

And there's also the matter of J; It's not fair for me to demand he move and find a job just anywhere, and I don't want us to live in different places.  I have friends who've taken faculty jobs that required them to live a plane ride away from their significant others for 2-3 years, which kind of blows my mind.  Those positions were only temporary, and eventually they all ended up together 4-ever, but I still don't think I could do it.  In the end, I suppose these are things we'll worry about when they are actual, tangible issues (as in, after I'm invited for interviews, not before I've even sent out my CV), and decisions we'll make together.  And there ARE faculty openings in NYC, so it's not completely out of the question that I'll get to stare at that ridiculous view a while longer.