My belated congrats–couldn’t resist joining in, although I was a latecomer. So a quick ramble:
One day, I was minding my gap, when someone came up to me and said, “I have a confession—I was driving by the city limits and stopped to watch the end of the pier show and read athene donald’s blog.” “Were you trading knowledge?” I asked, “and if not vwxynot?“”No, I found my reciprocal space at science behind the scenes.””Were you blogging the PhD, or were you—-” “No!” the girl interrupting me, “I’m not ranting!”
“No comment,” I said.
About Steve Caplan
I am a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska where I mentor a group of students, postdoctoral fellows and researchers working on endocytic protein trafficking. My first lablit novel, "Matter Over Mind," is about a biomedical researcher seeking tenure and struggling to overcome the consequences of growing up with a parent suffering from bipolar disorder. Lablit novel #2, "Welcome Home, Sir," published by Anaphora Literary Press, deals with a hypochondriac principal investigator whose service in the army and post-traumatic stress disorder actually prepare him well for academic, but not personal success. Novel #3, "A Degree of Betrayal," is an academic murder mystery. "Saving One" is my most recent novel set at the National Institutes of Health. Now IN PRESS: Today's Curiosity is Tomorrow's Cure: The Case for Basic Biomedical Research (CRC PRESS, 2021).
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B006CSULBW?
All views expressed are my own, of course--after all, I hate advertising.
Heh. I like the irregular tenses you’ve used here.
^
See what I done there?
I debated adding the irregs, but well, I didn’t want to say anything about laxatives…
🙂 happy times indeed!
Cheers!
Maybe I should change my title to something tha’s a bit easier for you to sneak into the paragraph you write for our 2nd birthday – like Victoria’s Secrets, Musings, Unprofessional Conduct, Impact (sorry that’s a UK ‘joke’), or Letting off Steam….
Happy Birthday + a day, Steve. You and I , I think, felt like the incoming novices last year but I hope we’ve earned our stripes.
Thanks! As for earning stripes (for real)….brrrrrr…. never again do I want to go through that!
Nice! I keep thinking I should change my blog’s title, too..
I like your title! I almost felt that you “scooped me” and was envious!
Talking of military ranks (assumed, honorific and otherwise), this post might amuse you, Steve.
Thank you, Quartermaster Aust! In truth, I do spend a lot of time thinking about how the military (my rank was Sergeant Major–as the IDF requires those who want to take officer training to sign on at least an extra (4th!) year. (No thank you, despite the blatant and other threats sent my way. One example, after crew commander training course, those with qualification for continuing to officer training and declined were usually sent to a different unit from the one they were originally from. I asked to go to a different unit, so they sent me back to my original unit to punish me. Child psychology works in the military…)
Seriously, though, that is the theme of “Welcome Home, Sir”–how military service has affected a researcher’s life and ironically, despite the PTSD incurred, actually prepared him better for dealing with academia.
Child psychology turns up in all sorts of rigidly ordered hierarchies. One of my ex-Heads of Department later became Dean of a Medical Faculty. I remember him telling me that: