Went to an "early career researcher" seminar/forum on Monday, and it infected me with a nasty case of status anxiety. I'm NOT publishing, networking, organizing, committeeing, grant applying, and collecting a complementary set of mentors as I should be. But that's "as I should be if I want to take a career path like they were assuming everyone there would". Which I don't. And I suspect (hope) 50-70% of the early career researchers there were a bit more realistic than to expect that path...I probably should've pointed that out in the discussion afterward. But still, am feeling all competitive and antsy. Am reading Status Anxiety instead of doing anything about it. Should really do more about that list though.
I've started going to the gym again after a four year total break (and the year prior to that I only went a handful of times), but I'm not habituated yet. I used to really enjoy it and would like to get back to that mindset/neuropharmacological condition, but am still very meh about it at the moment. It's only been a couple of weeks, must persevere and overcome the meh.
Drinking WAY too much. So many birthday's! Q's and Chef's and Bogan's and Loud's and Q's housemate and Loud's brother and a couple of random others I don't think I've mentioned here before...
Our recycling bin was stolen several weeks ago. Last week Loud finally submitted the statutory declaration telling the council "it really was stolen!" and yesterday a new recycling bin appeared! Was surprisingly and happily quick. Go council!
Darwin for first meeting of New Project was good. Got to go via Alice Springs, which I've had a vague yen to go to. But didn't make it out of the airport. Am still liking New Project, although first meeting indicated that I would be doing much more of it than had been previously indicated to me. Is also a bit daunting cos there's a HEAP of work being done on the same system by stacks of different groups (*waves at exp_err *), and I'm still trying to get my head around where we fit in. The people I'm working with seem good though.