Vanderbilt

I know I promised to finish the Thanksgiving trek story next, but this is more fresh in my memory. Also, geesh, when am I going to cook something? It's been nothing but pizza and fend-for-yourself for quite awhile in these here parts. :)

Actually I'm enjoying some blackened catfish (good, but salty), white corn polenta with parmesan, and kale sauteed with onions even as we speak. But, back to my 2nd interview tale.

Back in October, when I attended the SFN conference in Chicago, I finally worked up the nerve to ask one of our collaborators about post-doc positions. I've had a lot of reservations about the whole post-doc thing, and I'm still not thrilled about the pay level, given how much education is required prior to this, but the non-academic job market has changed in the recent past. Many positions (of what's left; not too many people are actually hiring) now require 3-5 years of postdoctoral research, so it looks like I'm headed in that direction anyway. The thing is, this guy is a big deal in my field of research (and a few others as well), uses the techniques I think will be most helpful (and that address experimental questions I come up with), and has trained a lot of people who've gone on to become successful.

So I headed down there a couple of weekends ago, and got to see some of Nashville before the marathon interview. I got in on Saturday, visited with some friends from Pittsburgh (who moved down there last year for work), spent Sunday working & purchasing some last minute necessities to look put together on Monday for my talk, returned my rental car to the airport (needed it on Saturday), and got ready for dinner with the research group I would be working with.

At 5:40 pm, the interview started. 7 of us had dinner at a pretty good Thai restaurant, and I actually had a great time. The people were friendly, funny, and gave me the pros and cons of Nashville (most are explants from other areas) and Vanderbilt. I got back to the hotel around 9:30, and went back to work on my talk. This is the same talk I gave at NYU, but I had updated some of the data, and had to rework a few things for a different audience. I think I went to sleep around 12/12:30, and got up with plenty of time to spare.

Which is a good thing, b/c while I was in the shower, the head guy called to see if he could pick me up 15 minutes earlier. He managed to reach me after leaving me a message, and I agreed. So he picked me up at 8:15, we went to breakfast at a cool diner near campus, and then he gave me a quick walking tour on the way to the labs. Showed me around the various labs, then went to get set up for my talk at 10.

I got that out of the way (ugh, I don't like my own work, though I wasn't as nervous as last time, and since this will also end up being my thesis talk, I need the practice), and started meeting with people. Two senior lab techs/lab managers, four graduate students @ lunch, three post-docs, two junior lab techs and another grad student later, the head guy picked me up & took me to a hockey game (with a few other people from the lab). We talked a lot of science, but man, was that a long day (8 am till 10 pm straight).

Tuesday, I packed up my stuff, checked out of the hotel, and the head guy picked me up again for a few more meetings. We checked out a new microscope that Olympus was demonstrating that day (very cool, I wish I had one now; it would make my data collection much much quicker), then I met with the Postdoc affairs lady, another grad student, and had a meeting with the head guy before he drove me to the airport.

We left it open, with a soft deadline for me to accept or pass of by the end of February.

It's a great opportunity, but Nashville is certainly not somewhere I had on my radar. It is definitely in the South, financially about the same as Pittsburgh (okay, a little more expensive, but not much), and I heard several comments about church, so that would be a little different. I didn't state my beliefs outright, so I hope that doesn't become an issue. But it's also warm (yay!) and the research environment seems like a step in the right direction from where I am now.

D seems on board, even though it might be tough for him job-wise. I'm subtly suggesting he should go work at a vineyard, and learn how to make wine - but that's my daydream, I suppose. I do worry that this might not be the right step for us, but I think he wants me to go after what I need for my career. I also worry that I'll be a disappointing post-doc, but I don't think there's anything I can do about that unless it starts actually happening.

So it looks like I'll be moving to Tennessee, come September, assuming my thesis gets wrapped up without any further major snags.