Life
Over the weekend, I watched About Schmidt, a thoroughly depressing, and I would say, unredemptive movie in which Jack Nicholson’s character realizes his life has been wasted. In short, he retires from a lifetime career as an actuary at an insurance company and finds himself replaced overnight by a young business school graduate with no need of his accumulated expertise. Soon thereafter, his wife dies suddenly and unexpectedly, taking away his stability and source of sanity. Meanwhile, his daughter, who seems to have little desire to talk to or spend time with him, is marrying a waterbed salesman susceptible to pyramid schemes, and the sole source of happiness in his life is writing long, socially inappropriate letters to a 6-year old Tanzanian boy he is sponsoring through a children’s charity.
Right. My recommendation is to skip this one.
Anyway, this depressing reflection on the potential of life to veer towards futility just underscores (in contrast) how delighted I am at the opportunity I am getting. I am very happy that I will be able to do work that I find meaningful. That I will be able to do research and teach, build a group, and help my students develop their potential. That I will be able to contribute to a university community. That I will be able to live in a great city that my husband and I love. That I will have the resources (space! office! startup!) to start up a research program to tackle questions I think are interesting and important. That the campus architecture is beautiful. That we should be able to get a condo, a Prius, and a friendly, small-to-medium sized dog. (Yes, happiness has elements of self-fulfilment, altruism, and commercialism.) I am thankful to many people right now, for helping me get here.
Congratulations- you rock! Sounds great. Although, I must wonder. How anonymous can the university be if it has great architecture? Especially if it’s in a great city (e.g. not New Haven)?
Comment by Lab Lemming — July 17, 2007 @ 12:32 pm
Hmmm… good point, LL. This may eventually turn into a non-anonymous blog. Or at least, “I don’t care if people figure out/know who I am as long as it’s not Google-able under my name blog.”
Comment by drshellie — July 17, 2007 @ 4:37 pm
De-lurking to say thanks Dr Shellie for going full out optimistically. I too want both: career & family. I’m still not sure I want to take the PhD leap (but I do!) and the latter isn’t yet in the cards but I want to know it’s possible. You go woman!
Comment by WayfarerScientista — July 19, 2007 @ 12:36 am
congratulations on the decision! do stay anonymous! how can you say interesting things and get tenure if you aren’t anonymous?
Comment by your friend — July 23, 2007 @ 1:29 am