Burn Out

I realize now that I made a bit of a mistake this quarter. Since I have teaching release, I have really focused on writing proposals (6 since July and counting!). I feel that these proposals are good and that I had adequate time to write them, but this has come at the expense of my students. In the summer, I only worked on one proposal (of course this was my CAREER proposal, an important one). I spent a lot more time in the lab mentoring students and we really produced data. I had hoped that the lab would continue on its own momentum in fall, but that didn't really happen.

Obviously students have class and that is a limiting factor in productivity. But I noticed a decline in the productivity of my postdocs as well. It has been especially hard for the undergraduates (we have 7 now) who really require oversight. To be honest, virtually nothing has been accomplished since mid-Sept. So I am resolving to get back on the horse and push out some data and papers. We have three projects that are reasonably close to publication and with some oversight I think we can get them out the door in the next 6 months. These will be our first "lab" publications that don't contain any of my postdoc work so they are important. And above all I am going to take a break (maybe get my nails done).