Midsummer
So today is Midsommar, when Swedes everywhere have BBQs and go on vacation or relax. My boss is unfortunately working, I think, but later on we are going to her house for a BBQ. She wanted to be away on vacation already but her husband had to work. I would have had to go in myself but stayed for a full 12 hours getting my crap done, so it's all finished and not only are my plants happier, but I don't have to go in and work.
We had grandiose plans of getting up early to see Swedish folk dances and such at a museum site, but screw it. We woke up late and Seth made us a huge and tasty breakfast, and now I am lolling around in my pajamas. The folk dances can wait until tomorrow.
I looked at a Nature survey of scientists' salaries at different times since graduation (with PhD) and I am sorely lagging behind even the average salary for females. This is because I've been taking postdocs in academia- and that's probably as low paying as you can get. Seth tells me to sell out, but I don't have any experience that industry would value (it's all been basic research in microbial ecology, which most companies can't care less about), unless it's Monsanto hiring someone to see the effects of Roundup on soil microbes. There's no Canadian government job worth taking that I've ever seen, and both my employment experiences with Agriculture Canada have made me never want to work for them again. They are cheap bastards. That leaves the US government, and I need to be a US citizen to work for them. The jobs seem cushy- lots of pay and they don't look very hard- and for some jobs you can be a foreign national with status (I think this means "green card"). In any case, once Seth and I get settled here and I have some money coming in, I can look into how expensive and difficult it would be to get a green card. It would be nice to have a US government job, since I can't seem to make it in academia, and I WANT TO MAKE MONEY. I always assumed when I was younger that with my various experiences I'd get a tenure-track faculty job, but that hasn't happened yet. A year after I applied to RPI for one of their advertised jobs, they wrote back asking to see my updated CV, and I sent it to them (updated to reflect a few more publications, and the fact that I was leaving to move to Sweden), and I haven't heard anything since. I wrote to them just now asking if someone could please tell me what is going on over there. We will see if this elicits a reply.
In other news, I woke up this morning thinking it would be nice to have a kid. I only get these fantasies once in a while, and they are usually fleeting (often dispelled once I am around actual children). I don't mind children in small doses, but I can't imagine having the patience for one 24/7, and even if I had the money to raise a child, Seth would be in his 50s when the kid is still very young, and in his 60s when the kid is a teenager. I'd be in my 50s. It wouldn't be pretty. I think it's my biological clock again- it started up around my late 20s and then went silent around 33 or so, so I figure it's kicking in now that I'm 38 and it will probably shut up when I'm in my early 40s. Bah.
So far my experience in Sweden has been good. There are a lot of parallels to the time I spent in Vancouver as a graduate student, which was one of the better periods of my life. Lack of money is part of that, but Seth and I will just have to budget carefully, at least until Seth is able to start making money of his own.
Time to go- Midsummer beckons!
We had grandiose plans of getting up early to see Swedish folk dances and such at a museum site, but screw it. We woke up late and Seth made us a huge and tasty breakfast, and now I am lolling around in my pajamas. The folk dances can wait until tomorrow.
I looked at a Nature survey of scientists' salaries at different times since graduation (with PhD) and I am sorely lagging behind even the average salary for females. This is because I've been taking postdocs in academia- and that's probably as low paying as you can get. Seth tells me to sell out, but I don't have any experience that industry would value (it's all been basic research in microbial ecology, which most companies can't care less about), unless it's Monsanto hiring someone to see the effects of Roundup on soil microbes. There's no Canadian government job worth taking that I've ever seen, and both my employment experiences with Agriculture Canada have made me never want to work for them again. They are cheap bastards. That leaves the US government, and I need to be a US citizen to work for them. The jobs seem cushy- lots of pay and they don't look very hard- and for some jobs you can be a foreign national with status (I think this means "green card"). In any case, once Seth and I get settled here and I have some money coming in, I can look into how expensive and difficult it would be to get a green card. It would be nice to have a US government job, since I can't seem to make it in academia, and I WANT TO MAKE MONEY. I always assumed when I was younger that with my various experiences I'd get a tenure-track faculty job, but that hasn't happened yet. A year after I applied to RPI for one of their advertised jobs, they wrote back asking to see my updated CV, and I sent it to them (updated to reflect a few more publications, and the fact that I was leaving to move to Sweden), and I haven't heard anything since. I wrote to them just now asking if someone could please tell me what is going on over there. We will see if this elicits a reply.
In other news, I woke up this morning thinking it would be nice to have a kid. I only get these fantasies once in a while, and they are usually fleeting (often dispelled once I am around actual children). I don't mind children in small doses, but I can't imagine having the patience for one 24/7, and even if I had the money to raise a child, Seth would be in his 50s when the kid is still very young, and in his 60s when the kid is a teenager. I'd be in my 50s. It wouldn't be pretty. I think it's my biological clock again- it started up around my late 20s and then went silent around 33 or so, so I figure it's kicking in now that I'm 38 and it will probably shut up when I'm in my early 40s. Bah.
So far my experience in Sweden has been good. There are a lot of parallels to the time I spent in Vancouver as a graduate student, which was one of the better periods of my life. Lack of money is part of that, but Seth and I will just have to budget carefully, at least until Seth is able to start making money of his own.
Time to go- Midsummer beckons!