Alice Pawley is an assistant professor of 
SciWo is an assistant professor of geosciences. She blogs about the intersection of science and real life - primarily based on her first-hand experiences. Her older posts can be found 
You know, maybe it's just because it is 11:30 at night and I have another hour to wait to pick up my husband from the airport shuttle place, but...
... there are some days I wish I was still pseudonymous.
'Cause then I could tell you just how tired I am, how even though I had a lot of good meetings today, I am feeling SO COMPLETELY over my head. How much I worry about failure. How much I feel like I have to squish aside and hide the crazy-cool me in order to be Dr. Me at work who is supposed to know everything already, how much I feel I'm being sucked into being in crisis-busy mode all the time so that I have no space in my head to think about being me because I'm too worried about all the work I have to do. How I worry about how I'm guiding my students, 'cause they wouldn't know my blog was me. But they do. Hi, students.
As I am not pseudonymous, I clearly won't say such things.
There are good things about not being pseudonymous, too. As there are about being a faculty member.
But I'm too tired and my head is too full to share them at the moment. My blogging silence may continue for a while.*
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*With the exception of one final DonorsChoose results post (I'm just waiting for confirmation from one more person... If you donated, and have a yahoo-related email, check your spam for an email from me!)
Comments
Hang in there Alice! I'm sure you're doing a great job!
Posted by: Jenn | November 12, 2008 3:43 AM
Science isn't about knowing it all, Dr. Science is about knowing how to figure out what we don't know.
Engineering, on the other hand...
Posted by: Lab Lemming | November 12, 2008 6:48 AM
Hey Alice - Let's figure out some way to actually really talk and support each other. I know what you mean, and the support of a strong community is really valuable in getting through. We need some net way to get together - even if we can't have real lunch, maybe we can figure out a way to Skype once a month or something.....
Posted by: Marie | November 12, 2008 10:28 AM
"how even though I had a lot of good meetings today, I am feeling SO COMPLETELY over my head. How much I worry about failure. How much I feel like I have to squish aside and hide the crazy-cool me in order to be Dr. Me at work who is supposed to know everything already, how much I feel I'm being sucked into being in crisis-busy mode all the time so that I have no space in my head to think about being me because I'm too worried about all the work I have to do."
I'm in my second year of a tenure-track job, too, and this is EXACTLY how I feel most days. I'm going to see a therapist (my first time) tomorrow--hopefully it will help me get a better perspective on things.
Posted by: Jr Prof | November 12, 2008 1:30 PM