Update

Has it really been 3 weeks since I last posted? I thought it was a couple of days ago. I guess I'd better get everyone caught up.

I've taken a nice break. From (almost) everything. The holidays were relaxed, although it was a bit challenging to entertain 3 kids with ages varying from 3 t0 13. I've had to take care of my plants for the experiment I'm trying to wrap up for publication purposes, and I did finish writing a paper by mid-December. I did a lot of little projects around the house that had been accumulating for more than a year. It's been nice to go from room to room through the house and do some of that.

I searched for a job by (literally) going from door to door (but being selective when it came to choosing specific doors) offering my services. On the first day I scored two maybe's not bad.

Job 1 is related to the research I did for my MS. I suppose the learning curve is somewhat smaller. But the funding isn't certain for several more weeks, and I couldn't afford to wait, largely because of immigration issues.

Job 2 is with a really high-energy professor in a neighboring department. It's less than ideal in that it's not a full post-doc with (health) benefits. However, the PI has agreed that if I make some decent progress on the two projects I'm assigned I can leave to pursue other options (presumably Job 1). Fair enough.

The really good news was that I could start today at Job 2, which I did. So technically I was unemployed for 20 days. Not bad, eh?

I got so caught up in science that I totally forgot to feed the parking meter all day. Luckily the parking police didn't stop by, and I got away with it. I'd better not try that again.

I really, really like the lab. There are 14 or 15 very friendly people in the lab, the PI works at the bench regularly, they have regular lab meetings (lacking in the previous lab I was in, which I didn't like at all), and one of the projects is in such an advanced state, I ought to be able to get a paper out of it in a couple of months. It might be hard to leave the lab for another job (with a higher salary and/or benefits). I was never in this for the money anyway. But the benefits account for a lot. I need health benefits badly, and cannot justify turning down a job with health benefits simply because I'm having so much fun.

Anyway, now everyone is back up-to-date. Dr Makita is employed!