Credit: http://musicisart.ws/diane-arbus/

I'm really excited to be joining Labspaces as a blogger.  The idea of a social scientific network really appeals to me especially as someone who wants to have a space to discuss scientific concepts and ideas with researchers from very different backgrounds.

Let me introduce myself to you.

My name is Girlpostdoc and I started blogging back in Sept 2008 when, as a freshly minted PhD I moved from Canada to the middle of Smalltown USA.  We moved because both HippieHusband and I had been offered postdoc positions at SmallUniversity in Smalltown USA.  Part of the reason why I blog pseudoanonymously is because I found it useful to tell others about the challenges I have faced academically, emotionally, and physically.  And some of those challenges involve details about people and places I would prefer to keep well, masked.  Although I try to write respectfully, there are times when I'm emotionally frustrated and I clearly fail.  So blogging pseudoanonymously and omitting details protects others and myself.   It is pseudoanonymous because I know there are people who know my identity, once I was outed at a very large conference and I know some of my friends read my blog.  The old blog will stay up so that people can peruse the archives.

I work in the general area of evolutionary genetics on both small and large organisms, typically following a concept or question first and then deciding what organism would best answer that question.  Anymore details and I would give too much away.

My aspirations are mixed.  I sometimes wake up and want to have a tenure-track position in academia, but then there are other times when I run screaming from the narcisstic personalities that are housed by the ivory tower.  It's been a very rocky road as a PhD and postdoc because life and tragedy has constantly found a way to leak into my attempts to be productive.  But I trudge on.  My constant companions are HippieHusband, my sisters Fortune and Wisdom, non-biological sister BFF, and Buddhism.  They remind me that I am more than just a scientist.

Welcome to my new digs.