Almost fifteen years ago, I started to teach at undergraduate level.
One of the reviewers of my thesis was a young researcher.
He studied timing on rodents.
I had just written a thesis about numerical competence on pigeons.
At the end of the revision process, I told him that I was interested on teaching and he got me an interview on a private University.
It was one of the most expensive in the country, or they said so.
When I went to the interview, the appearance of the school surprised me.
It seemed really modern. It seemed a first world school.
Everything looked so new and clean.
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| http://www.marca.com/ |
I had an awful schedule and a boring topic.
Nevertheless, the experience was the best I could ever have.
A few of my pupils were really concerned in learning.
Since it was the first time I was completely responsible for a full course, I must have been a lousy teacher.
Two years later, I started to teach at UNAM.
I worked there for four years.
On the last years of my postgraduate studies, I was so stressed that I did not enjoy teaching and then I quit.
The relationship with my PhD advisor was so unpleasant at that time.
I had even found a way to teach my classes when it was lunchtime at the lab, to avoid any kind of conflict between us.
Sadly, it didn't work.
He was not personally mad with me, but in general.
The lab was full of undergraduate students. Most of them were apathetic and lazy.
He treated me like if I were one of them.
One day I got sick and I told him that I would not go to work.
Unfortunately, that day none of the lazy undergrads was in the lab at that time.
He got furious and wrote an impulsive e-mail.
He wrote the worst things he thought about each one in the lab.
In my case, he wrote that I had no ideas and that I just followed his instructions.
He sent that e-mail to all of us.
I still conserve it.
Obviously, it hit me.
Specially 'cause he made it public.
I trusted him and he trusted me –I was the one who took charge of his classes when he couldn't do it–, but it was completely disappointing.
Maybe I was apathetic and lazy, too.
However, everybody is able to check my track record at his lab and draw their own conclusions.
The last paper I published with him was my idea, but he refused to accept it.
It looks like he just wanted to show how powerful he was.
Also, the most important issue above all: he never get wrong.
Specially when it's about judging people.
He recently published a review including part of the data of my published papers.
Not only he did not include me as a co-author –he could ask me to write the corresponding section of the paper or to redo the plots, or whatever–, but he did not even put me on the acknowledgements of the review.
On each one of my papers he put people who actually did not collaborate at all.
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| 2011 SfN Annual Meeting. San Diego, CA |
I was so stupid.
I should have leave his lab sooner than I did.
I quit as a professor.
I should never have given up.
I would have almost fifteen years teaching at UNAM.
I became SNI soon after I received my PhD and I had a post-doc position for three years at UAM-Iztapalapa on which I acquired several abilities related to training of human resources and to Grant's writing.
I've been teaching on a regular basis, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
I also have been invited to speak about some research topics on diverse academic forums.
I was advisor of a graduate student and also co-advisor of a postgraduate student.
I am about to send the response to the reviewers' comments to my last research paper.
Nevertheless, what I do is barely attractive to society.
September 19th earthquake' damaged an important research building in the institution I have been working in the last four years.
Obviously, it worsened my chances to find a researcher position there.
A month ago or so, I sent my CV and my independent research plans to compete for a researcher position in a provincial University.
A colleague told me about this opportunity.
A week later, he also told me that I had just passed the first candidate filter.
This researcher position was offered by an institution interested in conducting studies on addiction to drugs of abuse.
They wanted to have evidence to apply it on public health policies.
They expected from the young researcher all the abilities I had acquired as a post-doc.
This opportunity sounded like real fun.
Besides, my postgraduate studies were conducted in a lab focused on cannabinoids and I have an expertise on behavioral tests employed to evaluate diverse stages of addiction on murine models.
My profile could be of interest for the institution.
Nevertheless, a couple of weeks ago, while I was watching a FIFA World Cup game between Brazil and Belgium, I received an e-mail from this institution.
I was so nervous.
Then I started to read:
"We're sorry to inform you..."
It seems the epithet of my academic life. I asked them what had been exactly wrong with me.
They told me that they didn't have the necessary resources to support my research purpose and that they were looking for a social researcher.
My profile was too oriented to basic research.
In other words, they wanted a profound thinker rather than an expert on behavior and basic research.
It was kind of weird, 'cause on the announcement of the vacant they asked for an expert on evaluating the effects of drugs on health.
What the hell does that mean?
Were they just too polite to me?
Was my PhD advisor right about me?
Am I an average untalented researcher?
I hate my situation.
They say it cannot rain all the time.
However, this has been the second bad news I have received in the last month.
At this rate, the best news I will have is that I can have a child.
Perhaps I am overreacting.
I guess I should have learned how to fix cellphones and cars.
I am a disaster.
I fail over and over again.
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I'm A Loser Baby, So Why Don't You Kill Me
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