Welcome to My Nightmare

As this is the inaugural post of my blog, I'll give you a brief introduction and "mission statement" as it were. I am an ex-bench scientist (finished my postdoc in the field of immunology in July) that has fled the bench to become a scientific editor. Do not take that to mean that my blog will have even relatively decent grammar; I'm thinking it will be more stream-of-consciousness (think Faulkner, one of my favorite authors). Typos will abound.

Why am I writing this blog? That's definitely a question I'm asking myself right now. I guess the main reason is that I regret my decision to leave the bench, despite still agreeing with the cost-benefit analysis. I need a place to vent or my husband will go insane having to listen to me bitch constantly. I have recently had a kid (aka 'The Spawn' - affectionately named by a graduate student friend of mine) that I actually get to see now with the better hours, lower stress, and higher pay. And yet, I'm not intellectually challenged and feel like I'm stagnating. Don't let anyone tell you that constantly reading other people's papers holds a candle to writing your own.

Do I miss hours of repetive pipetting? The bad karma of mouse murder (now in the thousands according to my 'hit list' spreadsheet documenting my savage killing spree)? The constant stress of having to find funding or getting your publication in the best Journals? Not for one second. I don't miss the long hours either - but I miss the ownership of my project, the small pride in knowing that I was contributing something to the greater body of scientific knowledge, the feeling that I had the potential to make a difference with my work - even though it was often incremental (or not even) or redundant. Basically, it comes down to missing the power trip.

But of course, I got sidetracked. The blog will often (if I continue it) talk about my kid, my work, and interesting science that I read. I may even occasionally delve into politics (I'm a liberal independent), the economy (what a cess-pool), and other things that irritate the Hell out of me. If you like complaining, I'm the girl for you.