Introvert vs extrovert future

So, after spending a whole day of listening to “how to get a job” and trying to incorporate that in what I am doing at the moment, not to mention to pretend to be on top of things, I am beat. Not only listening to, what I would perceive is, good advice and hope I feel tired. I know I most probably should listen to it all and take it in as good advice but at a point I just feel like I’m trying to keep up with a marathon runner being a person who can run 5 miles all good but never can keep up with the speed and endurance of a marathon runner – even at the distance.
I hope I am wrong. I hope the little I have done so far, applying for jobs and sending out proposals is kind of enough. At the same time I know I haven’t done enough. Need to write more of those “hi, I would like to talk to you about what jobs there is out there and what kind of experience you need to get a good job fitting my capabilities”.

Good things about today? That I wrote a mind map kind of to myself, or a to-do-list, that I need to find time to get through. The funny, and no – it’s again not a real funny haha thing, would be that I don’t really feel that I have the time since I want to do the lab work (to finish stuff up) rather than focus on solely applying for new jobs. I know somewhere deep down, that I need to apply for jobs and call people and at the same time I need to have the energy to do my “regular job”. Time difference is not helping but that is me blaming something. I need to think about future rather than just “this at the moment” but maybe it will all be good if I talk to my PI and being really honest?

I think I am just tired. Not just because I work weekends and don’t really seem to get a whole day (and if it took you this long to realise that I might be whining – so sorry but I seem to let out steam) to apply and think about what I really want to do…. but also because this is affecting my mind and my mental status. Well, that sounds bad but it is not really what I mean. I mean that every once in a while it would be nice to have a break.(The break being in a place for a time feeling good and doing good work and feeling like this is what I want to do.) I know though, deep down when I think about it all, that this is just what we all call life. Life is not necessary nice, easy and pleasant and it deals you cards you don’t want but you just have to look at them and make the best game possible out of it. It’s just unfortunate that I feel like I’ve had my share. Like I would like a smooth ride?! Like I said, it is all about realising that life might not be what you wanted it to be at that specific time when you had it all planned out… it is realising you have to make do with what happens. Because that is what life does, it happens and you deal. It’s not comfortable and planned – it just is. Reapply and rewrite another application and hope for the best.

Watching Battlestar Galactica might be good or might be a little too cynical at times. I don’t know but at the time it feels good to know that I’m not living that bleak a life. But really, at the moment it is about all stuff like that. I choose not to think about what will happen in August. What will happen when I don’t have a job anymore and I am out of the security system back home. I knew when I accepted this post doc position on the other side of the Atlantic that I was out of my home country, out of the system and needed a job to get back in. And still I went. I just hope that the gambling of taking a job somewhere is going to turn out to be better than being unemployed back home. Although I know that basic and sad truth that it would have been better to stay at home and just “looked” for jobs and not left the country.

But still I hope. And still stuff like BSG and other series (yes, talking about Buffy and Angel) to get a little bit of distance to it all. It might be silly and nor really

If I’d known what I know today – my life considered- would I still have moved? I said today on to another post doc, funny enough I meant it, “it’s life and you just have to play with the cards you got dealt, and I will always be happy for this time and the people I have met and the experience I have gained”. It is true. I wouldn’t have traded this experience with being secure in the system since I did a post doc in the US and I did test my experience.

Time to go to bed, as I seem to write a lot. Go figure.