You Only Live Once

On this period of my life, I don't like to work on weekends. I used to do it when I was an undergraduate student, when I was a postgraduate student and when I was a posdoc. Then, I enjoyed it and I felt productive and I was passionate about my work. As time passes by, as I am always on the tightrope, as I get older, working on weekends is a dead end. Passion sort of vanishes with uncertainty. 

Sometimes, like today, I find it annoying and unnecessary. As I was jogging earlier in the morning, sort of waking up to this Saturday, with my eyes sort of closed to the shining sun, with my ears listening to Mark Lanegan's voice, I tried to not think about working on weekend, but, as I ran and ran and got exhausted and my mouth went dry, all my thoughts focused on the things I have to do today. 

Perhaps, my reluctance to work today has to do with the fact that I am in a bad mood. I will have to work on a review paper. I started to writing it by myself about half a year ago. Then, in December, in holidays, I finished and I sent it to the Principal Investigators I work with. It was really a though time. My future was uncertain. My contract ended in January. I was not so enthusiastic, but I finished the review paper. I received no feedback from PI's in the last five months. Now, they want me to start all over again. I see their point, but I'm in a bad mood. 

As The Strokes say (and many many musicians before them): we only have one life. 

What do you do with your time?

On the last days I've been watching again some random episodes of Breaking Bad. It's one of my favorite TV Series of all time. The dialogues are awesome. I saw an episode in which Mr. White tells Pinkman how he discovered, at a very old age, his true passion. He says something like “You discovered it at a very early age, and I sort of envy you”. 

I wonder what do I do with my time? Am I doing it right? Am I wasting my time?

I love to write since I was a kid. I love to read since I was a kid. And I have a PhD in which some of my duties imply to write; not literature, but scientific papers. And it is fun. I also have to teach neuroscience to undergrad students. And it is fun, too. But, sometimes, students are so apathetic. And I have no brain to read and to write about myself.

You Will Never Work In Television Again

I cannot stop listening to this song. A couple of weeks ago, while I was warming-up for a run, I heard this band for the very first time. I guess I initially saw a video on Facebook, it was a very poor quality video in which a band was rehearsing in some sort of a dark basement. The video also had a very poor sound quality, I barely heard what the singer was singing about. Yet, I identified Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood and I thought the band was Radiohead. The song was catchy, with a lot of noise, with a lot of drums and bass.

The band was playing this song. Beyond the singer's voice, it didn't sound like Radiohead. Yorke played bass guitar and sang something I couldn't understand. Greenwood played electric guitar. An unknown drummer hit the snare drum and the hi hat.

I wonder which kind of vibe will this song remind me of in a couple of weeks or months, when this awful uncertainty comes to an end. Will this awful uncertainty end...?, will I ever find the job of my life...?, am I doomed to hunt for temporary contracts for eternity...? You don't know how sad it is to save money all the time, you travel all over the world every year, you don't work a minute for free. I sort of envy you.

One In A Million

Twelve years ago, I was at my first SfN meeting in Chicago. It was really a big thing. It was quite impressive to see millions of researchers and students from all the world, sharing scientific knowledge. One day, I was waiting for a coffee in a Starbucks, inside the McCormick Place, and then Eric Kandel came close to me and asked me if I knew where could he pick up this badge and all the stuff. 

I told him where to go and he walked away. I couldn't believe it. Although it was for the wrong reasons, a Nobel Prize and I spoke in my first meeting of SfN! What was the probability...? 

I was so naive, foolish, and romantic that I thought that talking to Eric Kandel was a sign for me to stop pursuing my dream of becoming a non fiction writer and to focus 24/7 on science. Twelve years later I have twelve published papers in peer review journals, but a week ago the head of department told me that they will not renew my contract and I wonder what have I done with my life.