Song of the future

Sitting in front of the screen open to the Blogger posting page, I wiggle my thick, oafish fingers and search for the right things to say, two weeks after my last post. O Muse of Six-Year Graduate Students, help me to sing the song of my last days here in Ann Arbor!

The paperwork for the PhD now firmly behind me, I've been preoccupied with thoughts of the future. Where should I go? What should I do? It's amazing how little some things change in my life between the ages of 18 and 31.

Those who know me know that one of my fondest childhood memories is of my dad taking me to the library on the weekends. I'd peruse books on airplanes and birds, photography and cooking, astronomy, dinosaurs, camping, computers -- in fact, just about everything seemed interesting. If someone had considered a topic interesting enough to write about it, it -- whatever "it" was -- could seem interesting to me as well. I was a bibliophilic empath.

Sometimes I'd feel overwhelmed by the choices at the library. And that's sort of what I'm feeling now. I'm sitting in a room full of gold. As a postdoc I won't live extravagantly, but I'll live well enough by the standards of human history and have the luxury of getting paid for doing something that I like. My basic needs will be met, my physical hardship will be at times of my choosing (say, while exercising), and most of my effort will be devoted to putting ink on paper. In short, the picture seems rosy if I count up from 0 instead of back from 100 and compare myself to paupers, not kings.

I have a leaning on which of the three offers I'll ultimately take. I have until tomorrow to decide. And if it seems like I'm sitting in a room surrounded by gold, where my opportunities are nuggets, then it's also clear I can't stay here. I'm going to have to pick one of the nuggets and go. Stay tuned for Stew's decision.

Up early in a dreamlike state

Five o'clock in the morning, and I find myself awake. My brain seems to have decided that six hours of sleep was enough for itself and my body. My body seems to feel otherwise. It moves about with rebellious lethargy and resents that its decisions are made by the gray matter up top in tyrannical fashion rather than by a consensus of limbs. It's rule by fiat. Like workers about to strike, the eyes blink and the joints move with more resistance than they ought. But does my brain care? Not a whit. It's already taken off for the day, weighing decisions that it need not make for hours. For goodness' sake, it's five in the morning! The limbs whisper dissent, talking about a nap they're going to force the system to take later in the morning. It's a bad sitch.

Last night I saw the pompous mind-fricasseeing movie Fountain starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz on DVD. It's made by Darren Aronofsky whose short but impressive list of films include Pi and Requiem for a Dream. He's written and directed all three, impressive for someone under forty. The Fountain skips through time (1500, 2000, and 2500 CE), taking the audience with Jackman and Weisz's characters from Spanish conquistadors through modern day medical science to some weird, spaced-out future. It plays a little fast and loose with the basics -- the characters don't speak Spanish, medical research is done in clearly sub-ethical ways, and we're never sure if these characters are the same through time or just connected -- but for all its imperfections, it seems to have stuck in my head. Weird dreams the sleep after.

Well, it's cresting seven now, and the revolt seems to be in full swing....

Slightly shady

The job search, like all hunts, sometimes takes you to weird places.

Take this company I found advertising on one of the bioinformatics job posting boards: AcademicExperts.

According to their website, they "provide academic assistance to high school students, college students and students in Master and Ph.D. programs."

You might think they do tutoring until you see the main qualification for those they're looking to hire: "High quality writing, up to 'A' standard of a relevant academic level."

Pretty much a dead giveaway they're cheating facilitators. That and the too-attractive photographs of the lasses who run the company. Real, I'm sure.

Reminds me of the time I got a speeding ticket in Louisiana. Upon hearing about it, several people in town offered to help me take care of it. A typical conversation went like:

Townie: [Leaning forward] "Do you want help with that ticket?"

Me: [Fidgeting] "Uh, I don't want to do anything illegal."

Townie: [Looking around then leaning forward again] "You're not hearing me right. Do you want help with that ticket?"

Me: [Backing away] "Uh, I really don't want to do anything illegal."

This went back and forth a few times, but what do you do when you're a high school teacher and the townie talking to you is the school janitor?

Well, so much for AcademicExperts. But then again, there's also EquityEdit. Now that might be okay.