BDSM(femdom) and slipping down the ladder

In the society where I come from, marriage is held as a sacred institution, one that none should dare to surpass. As the clock ticks away, the pressure to get married only grows. Not only are one's parents worried about it, but it seems one's relatives are more worried about "getting you married" or finding the right girl for you.

It is also a benchmark by which the society measures you, a subtle yet ever present measure of your worth to society. In a primitive evolutionary sense, that is how it should be. I am quite surprised, that such primitive measures of heteronormative worthiness, has survived in the world of the educated, and the liberal. What such presumptions of "worthiness", or "societal concern" or "societal peer pressure" does not take into account, is a man's right to have different sexual (or other) preferences.

As someone who is sexually submissive and into BDSM (femdom in particular), I do not fulfill my designated manly-man role in society. Not only that, my preferences for women, dominant and assertive, again do not fit societal expectations. Standing at that point, as I am, I realize slowly the shrinking of the horizons. There is little wiggling room, and there is little I can do about it, other than being a lonely outcast.

From my vantage point, I strongly sympathize with the fight, that people who have been discriminated against, on some basis or the other, have to fight, day in and day out. LGBTs have had to fight it for so long. They still have to fight s hard battle, if they are not fortunate enough to get into a liberal enough society. For instance, imagine a gay guy from small town india!

Yet, while the LGBT movement, and before that, the women's movement, have gained a political pedestal, and their discriminations have been so widely written about, I feel like an outcast even in the world of the politically marginalized. I'm straight, and I have certain sexual preferences (namely submitting to a woman in a bedroom). Perhaps such preferences are not shared by a large section of people (as large as, say the gay community). In the olden days, such "irregularities" were treated as "paraphilia". I am not sure how politically correct the medical community on this topic now. However, in the face of such ignorance, and discrimination, not only do I find it hard to come out, but also fight the labels that "singlehood" brings in a conservative society such as ours.

Is post doc the dead end?

A number of people have been visiting this blog in the recent times, trying to get postdoc advice, or perhaps to find consolation, suffering from their own postdoc troubles. Therefore, I thought it might be good to give them some perspective. My last post wasn't intended to do so, and was merely a more personal reminiscing of how I hit a dead end in my career with a postdoc in a middle-rung U.

However, post-docs are not necessarily a dead end. Rather, they can be the beginning of a fascinating scientific career. These days, it is almost impossible to get a faculty position without a postdoc. A number of brilliant academics go from a postdoc to a faculty position quite seamlessly. Therefore, it isn't fair to generalize postdocs as dead end positions.

The nature of a postdoc depends on a number of factors. First of all, it depends on what field you are in. If you are in Engineering, like me, there is less competition for a postdoc, and chances are, it will be less of a nightmare. Both you and your advisor know, that it is easy enough for you to get out and find a position in the industry if things don't work out. It is not as easy, as I said in the last line, especially in this economy, but engineering postdocs still have some wiggling room in terms of the nature of their work, especially if you have done a PhD from an US univ. If you're a foreigner with a PhD from a foreign univ (read india/china), then you are probably in a precarious position to begin with.

If your postdoc is in the biological sciences, then that is whole another story (again, esp. if you are a foreigner, with your visa tied to your work etc.). Lots of labs treat postdocs as cheap labors, and these postdocs too find themselves in a bind, with nowhere else to go, and working their ass off, at a meager salary. Going back to their home country isn't much of an option, since those countries still don't have too many R&D opportunities for PhDs to work on, and the competition for a few academic jobs is fierce.
Green card is an elusive dream, postdocs being a temporary position, and this is a vicious black hole, from which there is no escape. Universities and labs treat postdocs as cheap labor, and in this economy, things work out fine for them.

These are pure cold hard facts, highly opinionated, from what I have seen around me. I just wanted to share it for people who are thinking of getting into postdocs. Remember, most postdocs are not worth it, if your advisor is not bigshot. The other possibility is that it is in your narrow field in which you can churn out great papers. Try to write grants asap. This is a mistake I made. I never took the initiative and started writing grants. It is never too early to think of research statements, lay down the projects you want to start your own lab with, hunt for collaborations, to name a few. If these things are working for you, then you are probably doing fine. If not, and if you think of postdocs as a 9-5 job where you go and do your experiments, and come back home, you are probably not doing the right thing. Getting stuck in the endless cycle of postdocs is the worst thing you can do to yourself, after all the hard work of getting a PhD. It is not only going to keep you poor and bachelor, but in the long run, you will repent losing the wonderful years of your youth, confined in a dark lab, running meaningless experiments.

By all means, go ahead and do a postdoc, if the signs are looking right. But if they do not, do not hesitate to start looking elsewhere. It is easy to get coddled into the complacency of a postdoc, until it becomes too late  to get out. Those in no position to leave, think hard about your options.

That was a quick small dirty post from me, about postdoccing. If you have questions, let me know, and I will try to answer them.

Also, that reminds me, I need to update this blog pretty soon.

PhDcomics

When I first joined PhD, I used to think that PhDcomics was was a funny site, and grad school was actualy much different. Its like in politics, they make fun of the Palins in late nigh comedy, but actually the establishment is much saner than that.

But as I proceeded through grad school, I had the not so funny realization, that PhD comics is close to reality, in fact it is the closest to grad school reality anybody has ever told you about. It is scary when your comedians, instead of the pundits represent the irony of your times , just like the "Definitely not co-ordinating with Stephen Colbert" superPAC.

Anyhow, the point of the post is a comic that I came across a few days ago, in another of those post doc rant blog sites. Here it is, with my own modifications, and looks like the reality is even more ridiculous than the comic itself.

Enjoy! :-)

PostDoc

So, of all my career options, picking the postdoc wasn't a particularly good choice, I believe.

Well, I pretty much did not have much choice since I cannot get into academia without

a postdoc.

However, postdoc, it seems is the best way to ensure that you die starving and in depression. :-)

And dude, looks like I am in good company!! :-)

I was searching for the term "post doc blogs" on google, and horror story after horror story popped up like this and this and several, several others.

For me, the horror stories are beginning to come true. I accepted a position at a mediocre university, I am trying to turn my project from experimental to a theoretical one, and that is

not quite going well.

So, I did my PhD in experiment, whereas my academic inclinations are clearly more

theoretical and numerical. However, I could not change my advisor after discovering experiments are not for me. So, I was stuck with a PhD I did not love. And oh boy! what a horror story that turned out to be. Looks like the horror is stil not over with my advisor

still haggling on my PhD papers, which are essential to my academic survival.

My postdoc advisor is not a bad person, but I always feel I am trapped in a mediocre lab, which will not really help me get into academia. My PhD advisor dislikes me. She even did not give me a reco for a postdoc for a long time. So, I have zero connections in the academia, and being the inrovert that I am, I am pretty bad at networking.

So, basically, I am stuck at this postdoc. If I leave, again, I will leave behind a bloody trail with

another spoiled relationship with my present advisor, and no recommendation. Again, I will also not be able to find a numerical/theoretical postdoc. So, stuck here.

Again, it looks like a dead end postdoc to me, and exit from the postdoc means exit from the academia which is a part and parcel of my identity. Therefore, I do not know where to go to, in terms of career. I don't see myself very successful in the industry. Also, I do not want to

do hands on engineering jobs, which I will get. I am much better at programming, data analysis etc, but don't have much of that on my CV. So the doors are shut on me in terms of career.

It does not help that I am still single, and without any hopes.

Sometimes, I look around me, and ask myself, what is it that I have done wrong, and everybody else has done right. I have been a sincere student from my childhood, always been among the top few in class, attended the most prestigious undergraduate college in the country, did my PhD in the one of the top ten univs in the US, and here I am, a postdoc pauper at a mediocre U, wih a dead end career, and no significant other. My friends are mostly in the managerial and financial world. They are raking millions, doing prestigious jobs, have already married. Thats how it was supposed to be.I had also done the right things, and in most cases much better than them. Yes, that my accomplishments speak for. But where do I stand now?

hahaha! I am probably laughing at where I have pulled myself down at. Sometimes I see myself in this ditch, and probably my other friends, with their smiling honeymoon pictures in Europe laugh at me, at this unfortunate guy, who has fallen behind.

What I earn is pennies compared to my friends who even haven't done a masters degree. A school friend of mine was doing a job at my city for a while. I had caught up with him and his wife, and it was great to meet and chat with a childhood friend. But after we met a couple of times, and he had come to my place, they sort of started avoiding me. They lived in a much better Apt, drove a much more expensive car and of course, they had a family. Whereas, here I was, a single guy, who still lives in the dorm style way, does not yet have a car etc. I could figure out that they were thinking this guy is a weirdo.

Well, after that he did not pick up my calls for a while, and thats how that ended. Another episode in a postdoc's life, right. :)

and then people around you don't even understand what a postdoc is. they are like, so what do you do. Well, I am a postdoc. What's that?

Seriously guys? that's all there is at the end of the tunnel?

Whatever happened to the promises of success that my parents made, when I used to slog for grades as a kid. I still slog from 10-7 everyday, but without any promises. Maybe a paper in an obscure journal on some shitty experiments I never cared about, and never did well anyway.

P.S. :And please do not leave mean idiotic remarks. I will just delete it, end of story, period. I am not trying to play nice here in this blog, atleast.