Unexpected

Work has been good lately. Busy, but good. Back in January, I met with my boss's boss, and his boss (the Director of our facility) to talk about our research, and propose a new project that I hoped would be valuable to the organization, interesting to me, and make me in turn valuable to the organization. It has to do with looking at genetic variation in genes that make mosquitoes resistant to insecticides.

It's taken a while to get rolling, and I needed to do another project in the meantime, but we are underway and it's unfolding. Colleagues at work have been really accommodating and helpful (really helpful) as I try to learn new techniques. Insecticide work has to happen in one person's lab, and she's been awesome in giving me all the access I need. I ran into boss's boss last week and gave him an update. He said that they are working on project planning for 2014, and that my project should be supported and on the list. Good news.

Then late last week I got a forwarded email from the person whose lab space I'm borrowing. It was a job announcement for a tenure-track position at the local university, my alma mater. It's 80/20 Research/Teaching. I had seen the announcement the day before in an ecology listserve I subscribe to, and it was sent by someone on the search committee, who I know from when I was a student. This is a different department, but her area of research was close to mine and she was an unofficial mentor.

I initially dismissed it, but then FB messaged the woman I know to ask if she thought my experience was enough to make it worth applying, even though we were just getting going with the project. The position is to look at herbicide resistance in weeds, as opposed to insecticide resistance. To my surprise, she said, "Absolutely, you should apply."

Huh.

So I'm going to apply. The deadline isn't for another month. I really like what I'm doing, but the year to year contract thing isn't as stable as this position. Interesting.