I feel the stress creeping in around me as the other postdocs near my desk seem to be frantically writing this and that to get somewhere, to get something. We are all writing papers, grants, reports or even presentations -- to prove our science is worthy. It all makes me wonder why we are not just doing the science.
Most of us are just trying to keep out heads above water. We need the funds and we need the publications, so we write and write in the hopes that someone will think are ideas are worthy. Funding is impossible at the moment. Unfortunately for me, NIH grants are more of a dream than a reality. One can only hope that the government will eventually give NIH more money soon. In the meantime, my colleagues and I have to try for everything and anything.
Sadly, I am working on a resubmission and foundation grant at the same time. I am also hoping a grant I was originally given will come back to life and give me the money I thought I was promised. Yes I hope zombie grants do exist! I need all these possibilities and more.
Yet here I am writing about writing. None of this will help me get a grant or a manuscript published. I suppose it just feels good to write about what I want to and not what they want me to write. I don't need to prove anything here -- I can just write for the sake of writing. Now if I only could do science for the sake of science.
