Well yesterday was the first day on the new job!!

So, the position is only for a year–which is totally fine, since I’m still bound and determine to get out of Oklahoma by next summer, since this state doesn’t really care that much for education (public or higher) or science for that matter. I’d been kinda disillusioned about a career in academia for awhile, and having to deal with being unemployed the past few months, due to the state budget crisis–though to be honest, I’d been thinking of getting out of academia for a while since I really don’t want to spend all of my time trying to write grants, get experiments done, publish, and on side do some teaching. I’d rather try to find a teaching position, or a position in industry that allows participation in outreach.

So the new job is on the technical side of things working in a core facility, where I will be in charge of doing the DNA sequencing, and also learning how to run the mass spectrometers as well. These technical skills, along with the “transferable” skills, will hopefully help me in finding my place in industry.

One thing that I didn’t realize–and I will admit that I should have–is that there are more possible positions than just R&D or sales rep for an PhD in industry.

I’m currently looking to see what other type of job other than R&D could be of interest to me–one thing I’ve realized is that while I want to travel, I don’t think I want it to be part of my job description (though I wouldn’t mind a little bit of travel), I just don’t want it to be 75-80%+ of the job description, so that has already struck a couple of jobs (besides the sales rep) from the list (though I might change my mind by this time next year).

So now, I have to start trying to find a routine again–I’m at work for 8hr/day (more or less), but right now I don’t have internet access, so some of the things I could get done when I have a little free time I can’t due to lack of internet access (which should hopefully be fixed by next week). So I am having to try to figure out how to balance–trying to workout in the evenings (the mornings are just a no-go right now) with both personal and professional development, and my mental unwinding time before trying to go to bed.

I’ve realized that there might not be enough hours in the day to do what I need, though once I can access the internet from work, there may be a few more hours that I can push a little more into. One thing I need to do, is try to convert an notebook/journal into an actual planner that I will make use of–a bullet journal of a sort. I like planners, I like lists, I like making goals—I just haven’t found the planner or journal that I think could do all of that for me–so I am going to spend a good part of December trying to create a bullet journal for 2018–I just don’t know if I can find one big enough for what I want to put in it.