Charles and Christy’s Weblog

It seems like I write a lot about what I don’t know, and this is yet another example. I have been struggling a lot lately - feeling overwhelmed and like my current life pace is not very sustainable. Before having Clark, I thought that work life balance was about being able to fit in both work and home. I seem to have missed completely that “self” also needs to be factored in. For 19 months or so, I am either a professor or a mom all the time. I have given up on hobbies, have lost track of friends, and don’t even know how to relax on my own anymore. I know that this sounds pretty bad. I’m hoping that having made this realization, that there’s a third party to be “balanced” here, means I’m on my way toward figuring it out. I’ve brought this on myself. It’s me that chooses to spend every moment I’m not working playing with my little boy, and it’s because I love doing this. I think I’m starting to feel the cost of that now, and I’m sure I will feel it more and more as Clark gets older. I have no sense of how I’m going to resolve this, only that I need to try a few things and find something that I enjoy that’s outside of work and home that doesn’t take too much time. Honestly, before having a baby, I thought people were blowing the work/life balance issue out of proportion… boy was I wrong.

Today was a good day. I gave a talk that got good response from important people, had drinks with the Helsinki deputy mayor, and tried reindeer. Among all this, I miss home and my little boy. Clark is such a physical little guy - he likes wrestling, tickling, and hugging. I hope I never forget what it feels like when a little boy hugs his mama… and I wonder why we stop this. He wraps his little arms around my neck, puts all his weight into it, and hugs like it’s a relief to him to be hugging. Looking forward to Sunday…

So, you know you’ve become an experienced traveler when it doesn’t even occur to you to blog about a trip to a new country until people start asking how your trip is going. Yesterday I arrived in Helsinki for a conference (the same one I attended two years ago in Taiwan). This time, I have 3 of my graduate students attending with me. We arrived at 2 pm Helsinki time and spent the afternoon walking the city in hopes of beating jet lag. Helsinki is about the same size as Minneapolis but is very walkable (even though I’m pretty sure their weather gets as bad as ours) and has an astounding amount of public transit (subway, trams, and buses). We walked through the famous market square and got crepes, walked through the city center, saw the Olympic stadium (where the Women’s Euro football tournament is currently being held), and rode a ferris wheel to get a good view of the city. I managed to stay awake until 10 pm and slept a solid 9 hours (embarrassed to write this number when I know how much sleep Charles is getting at home - sorry). This morning we hit the conference right away for a full day of educational sessions and had dinner this evening at a Russian restaurant who’s menu featured bear meat (none of us got it because it was 120 euros). Tomorrow I have to give a talk that I haven’t started on yet…

So, I finally buckled down and wrote my research description and assembled my tenure dossier. I sent the 166 page document to my tenure committee (three of my senior colleagues) and expected to get back an enormous number of suggestions… overall, they were pleased, and it only took me about half a day to get the document into final form. Now it’s out of my hands. My committee and department chair have chosen the 10-12 people who will be asked for “outside” evaluations, and they will have until early October to read the package and write a letter that gives their recommendation about whether or not I should be tenured. They will certainly point out the weak points in my package as well. This is the part of the process that has the most “wild card” character. I don’t know who’s going to be asked (though it will surely be a bunch of “famous” chemists within some intellectual proximity to my work) or if they like me/my work. These letters will influence all of the votes that happen over the next year on my tenure case. University of Minnesota has an unusual policy that the letters are available to me to read. For this reason, some people refuse to write letters for the University of Minnesota. I’m not sure that I will read the letters … if my department vote goes badly, I suppose I’ll have to look at them to make sure that the letters are accurate. Either way, the next big hurdle in this process is preparing for my tenure talk. On September 29th, I’ll give departmental seminar, and this will be where most of my colleagues will hear what I’ve been working on. I’ve given a lot of talks, and it’s been a long time since I’ve been nervous… but I am for this. This talk will have a significant influence on whether or not I have the opportunity to keep my current job for the rest of my life. Right now I’m feeling too intimidated to even start working on the slides but I’ll have to get over that sometime soon.

I’m writing this blog entry while stalling on assembling my tenure dossier. I am honored that my colleagues want me to go up for tenure early but I am so overwhelmed at the prospects for the coming academic year. This dossier itself is a monster… already 50 pages of awards I’ve won, papers I’ve published, talks I’ve given, and student comments on my teaching. I’m working on the “meat” of the dossier… a summary of my group’s research results and direction. After I finish this, 3 of my colleagues will rip the document to shreds, I’ll revise, and then the dossier will go out to 12 of the most famous scientists in my field (National Academy members, department chairs, etc). Each of these people will evaluate me and write a letter back to my department about whether or not they think I deserve tenure. In early October, my Chemistry colleagues will review my dossier and the letters and then vote on my tenure case. Following their vote, there are six more panels, deans, etc that also get to cast their vote on my tenure case. The final decision won’t be known until late next Spring. In the meantime, I have to do an enormous amount of traveling. Usually, a probationary faculty member visits a bunch of universities the year before their tenure case to meet with potential letter writers and do some good PR for their research group. I was pretty busy in the last year with a new baby, and thus, didn’t do said travel. So, while I’m teaching this Fall, I will also visit a university and give a seminar about once every two weeks. While this will be intellectually stimulating, it will make for a blur of a semester. I find myself wishing I had one more year to spread out the travel, get more results, and write more papers… but I suppose, in approaching this huge hurdle, I would always wish for one more year.

While I was sitting in the dimly lit nursery this evening rocking Clark to sleep, I realized that spending time with him is closest I’ve ever been to meditation. I’ve tried meditating many times but I’m not very good at quieting my brain. When I’m with Clark, however, I’m committed to being present in a way that I’m not for anything else. It’s not just at bedtime when I have this sweet little guy curled up against me… I experience this even when we’re outside. I watch him as he picks up pine cones or sifts through the dirt. I look around the neighborhood and just enjoy being outside watching him interact with the world. While it’s clearly not calm and meditative all the time, it is a very nice gift to have these moments in my day.