I had the following exchange with my boss yesterday:
"Doctor X wants to nominate you for postdoc of the year", he said.
(Cheering from the other postdoc in the office)
"Really?" I ask.
"I think it's ridiculous. I mean really... You have no publications... None, zip! You got that grant, but so what? Now if you have a couple of papers maybe, but I think you'd be just setting yourself up to bomb out of postdoc of the year." He said.
"Okay", I mumble.
After the boss walked out of the office there was a short silence before the other postdoc apologized for his premature excitement.
"Well", I said, "At least I have a boss who keeps me well grounded!"
---
In other news: I have been working with a Science Outreach program at my University. Basically, it's designed to get school children interested in science and to show them that science can be fun! I love it, and it's what I'm aiming to do after my postdoc. The Monday after next I will be leading the class in a chemistry lab, which will be a lot of fun. I found out yesterday that a local station will be filming the day for a news article! It's all very exciting!!
It's a good thing I have people around to keep me grounded, or it might all go to my head! :-)
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Absurdities
Three thing today have struck me as somewhat absurd...
1. Nature Publishing seem to have figured out that I only need (and subscribe to) one copy of their journal, as they have indeed stopped sending me two copies... This in itself is not absurd, but all the events leading up to this have been!
2. I am under consideration to be in the 2009 edition of "Who's Who America"... Seriously! This is absurd for too many reasons to list!
3. Finally, an absurdity from the world of sport... At the beginning of December Shaquille O'Neal (playing for Miami) was mistakenly fouled out of a game (he had 5 fouls and not the 6 fouls required for "fouling out"). This was a mistake by the scoring officials who were employed by the opposition team (Atlanta). The NBA decided that this was a major error as the scores were very close, and that the removal of Shaq from the game may have contributed to Miami losing. So the NBA declared that both parties were to replay the remaining part of the game (all 51 seconds!) when they next meet to play each other... in March! So, replaying 51 seconds of a game, on a different court, some 3 months later is absurd enough, but it gets worse... Yesterday Shaq was traded to another team (Phoenix), making him ineligible to play in the remaining 51 seconds, but Miami and Atlanta are still required to go through with it!!! So two teams are required to replay 51 seconds of a basketball game because a player who won't be able to play was mistakenly not available to play the original 51 seconds... Uh huh!
1. Nature Publishing seem to have figured out that I only need (and subscribe to) one copy of their journal, as they have indeed stopped sending me two copies... This in itself is not absurd, but all the events leading up to this have been!
2. I am under consideration to be in the 2009 edition of "Who's Who America"... Seriously! This is absurd for too many reasons to list!
3. Finally, an absurdity from the world of sport... At the beginning of December Shaquille O'Neal (playing for Miami) was mistakenly fouled out of a game (he had 5 fouls and not the 6 fouls required for "fouling out"). This was a mistake by the scoring officials who were employed by the opposition team (Atlanta). The NBA decided that this was a major error as the scores were very close, and that the removal of Shaq from the game may have contributed to Miami losing. So the NBA declared that both parties were to replay the remaining part of the game (all 51 seconds!) when they next meet to play each other... in March! So, replaying 51 seconds of a game, on a different court, some 3 months later is absurd enough, but it gets worse... Yesterday Shaq was traded to another team (Phoenix), making him ineligible to play in the remaining 51 seconds, but Miami and Atlanta are still required to go through with it!!! So two teams are required to replay 51 seconds of a basketball game because a player who won't be able to play was mistakenly not available to play the original 51 seconds... Uh huh!
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