The Sweet Taste of Success

I was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship last year. This is a big deal for me: most other graduate students write grants for predoctoral work or help their advisers write grants to fund themselves. I didn't have to since my adviser was well-funded. I have also been lucky enough to land up with postdoctoral advisers with funding. So, while my scientific training so far has been fairly smooth and stress-free, it also means that I lack a very basic skill that all scientists should have: how to fund oneself.

So imagine my utter delight when I applied for (an intramural) grant and was funded. I felt that I could at last have something concrete to write on my CV. But during the application process, much to my chagrin, I had completely screwed up my presentation. My written material was good, but I had spoken unintelligibly fast, had a fit of stammering at one point and was not able to provide a concise and clear answer to questions like "where do you see your career going?" So while the committee ultimately awarded me the grant, they expressed grave concerns about my presentation skills and my lack of focus for my academic future.

In the months since that cringe-inducing meeting, in my mind, the members of the committee shaped themselves into scornful, nitpicking, intimidating bullies. In my bad moments, if I happened to encounter any of them in the hallways, I would have to struggle not to give in to complete mortification.

The semi-annual progress meeting came up. I was inundated with work, not research-related, but personal, the kind of work that doesn't seem like much, but drains energy: We had a friend who had been staying with us and had left behind piles of her stuff to sort through; one of our close relatives was in the hospital delivering a baby; her parents were in town and it was important to spend time with them; my husband decided that we had to get to work earlier than we were, so I had to be done with housework quicker the previous night and get the kids to bed earlier than they were used to; Durga caught a new infection at daycare and so on.

I was also terrified enough about the meeting that I didn't feel like working towards it. This is a particular sort of mood that I have become familiar with over the years. The first time it happened was when I was 18 years old, during the interview at Christian Medical College, Vellore. There was such anticipation at home, so many expectations that I would do well, so many scary stories about the interviews that when I went there, I slipped into a kamikaze haze and sunk the interview.
In my dreamy moments, I wonder what might have happened if I hadn't done that, if I had fought to do better and if I had actually become a doctor. I don't think I would have married Ramakrishna then (nor that he would have married me) or had my kids, so I guess it all turned out for the best.

This time though, I was determined not to let my haze slip over me. For one thing, if I lost my fellowship, I would have to bid goodbye to my incredibly awesome, fairly cushy job and I am not at all prepared to do that. So I sat myself down, clarified my priorities and did something that I should remember to always do for important things from now on: wrote up about what I aimed to do, what I had done and how I saw this fitting into what I wanted. Regarding this last and most important part, I was honest: I didn't create a tenure-track future for myself, I instead talked about becoming an expert in the field while continuing as a non-tenure track staff scientist at the institute. If anybody was going to challenge me about that ("why should we fund you if you are not prepared to join the ranks of professors and scholars?"), I wrote up a statement defending my choice. With this blueprint in hand, I felt on much steadier ground. I used this blueprint to modify my CV and to create a presentation.

But it was still lacking an oomph factor. So I quickly drew up the plans for a few experiments, and classified them on the basis of impact. I would have time only to do 2 experiments and I needed them to give me the biggest bang for the buck. I also drew up alternate plans: what to do if I somehow messed up these experiments (a very common occurrence with me) and didn't obtain the data I needed. I scheduled time on various equipment for these experiments: a microscopy appointment, a flow sorting appointment and so on. I called different clinics to get the clinical samples I would need, obtained some on an emergency basis and got to work. In the meantime, I wrote up everything that I wanted to say.

My presentation was scheduled for Thursday afternoon. By Wednesday I had most of the things I needed, but it still lacked something. So, I scheduled yet another urgent flow sorting appointment for Thursday morning, got my samples in place by Wednesday evening. While the samples were being processed for the flow sort on Thursday morning, I ran down to the microscopy department, copied the images I needed, ran back to the flow facility, copied the results obtained from there, ran back to my lab, updated my presentation and with a slightly sweaty hand, sent the presentation to the committee and its secretary.

I still had two hours left. In this time, I printed out a copy of my presentation, found a quiet corner for myself, got a timer and went over everything that I had written down. I also underlined the words that needed emphasis, marked the places where I would pause strategically, and kept note of the amount of time I would spend on every concept that I introduced during the talk. I also made my pronunciation more American so that my audience wouldn't have to spend time deciphering my accent. I noticed that while I was fairly fluent once the talk was underway, my biggest challenge was a smooth beginning. Another challenge was stumbling when I would encounter something that made me lose my train of thought, such as meeting somebody's eyes. So I literally memorized my lines for the first few slides until I could say them without having to think. Were I to encounter the faces of the many audience members, I would be able to say my spiel without distraction.

One hour to go. I went back to my office and browsed the daily news. It was time to rest and let my subconscious process all the things I had shoved into my head over the past few days.

Show time.

I did well. My adviser later told me that my presentation was 'spectacularly good'.

Yes!

Now I can finally rest with the knowledge that I have truly earned my fellowship.