The Contradictory Feelings Thread

[Vijay]

I don't think you're arrogant or whatever, but I was definitely lacking in confidence until relatively recently myself, and I know firsthand that it's easy to mistake self-confidence with arrogance; I even remember therapy teaching me that. I'm also learning to make peace with my own flaws and in fact even to just understand them better. (For example, I used to think I was lazy about doing a lot of things, but I've come to realize that I'm not lazy, I'm slow, and my slowness in turn is usually due to lack of familiarity). Your confidence in yourself isn't dependent on external factors if I understand you correctly, and that's good; it shouldn't be dependent on external factors. The more you believe in yourself, the easier it is for you to deal with your own problems.

[Raphael]

Thank you, Vijay.

[masako]

it's difficult for me to discuss my feelings for a myriad of reasons, primary among these is my AS and my fear of ridicule so this may seem more like a stream of consciousness than any sort of coherent thought but what is important is that this place just as neutral as any other

if I stay I subject myself to emotional turmoil that is both unnecessary and devastatingly harmful to me and potentially others that I care about...but if I go it will most definitely have immediate and long-lasting effects that will also be mostly irrevocable

I have stood my ground for almost 23 years through issues both big and small...I have tried to grow as a person and motivate others to do the same...to no avail...I have failed to motivate others, and in some ways grow myself, but I firmly believe that my efforts have been in good faith while others seem to have regressed to an apparently adolescent mindset

when I attempt to fathom the infinite possible outcomes of either decision I am overwhelmed with stress and feelings of anxiety but I am weirdly comforted by the knowledge that there is no deadline and these decisions can be thought of as fluid in nature

I am afforded days of solitude by my chosen profession, however I always return to this precarious situation that both fills me with joy and stifles me with dread

wondering what to do does not occupy every waking moment, so I know I am better off than many others who suffer endlessly with feelings of anxiety, however this does not comfort me while having moments of despair as much as it maybe should

in almost every way this is undoubtedly of my own making, as are many situations that I find anxiety inducing, but others are most often much easier to reason through and endure...and affect fewer people that I care about (in a very personal way)

no matter what I try to stay humble knowing that a few decades from now, none (or almost none) of these feelings will matter and all of the people involved will have moved on (including me)

[Linguoboy]

My bank notified me of their escrow analysis and for the first time I can remember my monthly payments are actually going down. I want to be thrilled by this but I can't shake the notion that there must have been some mistake made somewhere.

Also, they're sending me a refund check for the balance (all of which will go towards paying my home insurance). So I'm like, "Yay, money!" but also like "WTF are you sending a check for?" I have a checking account with this bank; why don't they just direct deposit the money there?

[Raphael]

Also, they're sending me a refund check for the balance (all of which will go towards paying my home insurance). So I'm like, "Yay, money!" but also like "WTF are you sending a check for?" I have a checking account with this bank; why don't they just direct deposit the money there?

Because Americans love sending checks?

[doctor shark]

So, there's a position that looks like it'd be cool to apply for. It'd be a one-year postdoc position at the University of Leeds, working with a professor I know (and like), and the pay seems decent (£30 thousand) and the topic also interesting. If I'm aiming for a permanent research position somewhere, then a stay like that would be excellent.

But... I'm very close to being able to apply for Luxembourgish nationality/EU permanent residence, either of which would make staying in Europe much easier. Not to mention the visa for the one-year stay in the UK would be close to £1000 as a non-European, and there also wouldn't be a guarantee of a renewal of the contract...

[MacAnDàil]

The money seems simple to solve: +30000 a month-1000 one-off seems financially beneficial to me.

Would it be possible to go to Leeds in a years' time? Which one would regret the most not doing?

[doctor shark]

The money seems simple to solve: +30000 a month-1000 one-off seems financially beneficial to me.

Well, it's £30K per year, not per month (right, should've mentioned that... in the US, we normally report annual salaries in job advertisements). So it's not as appetizing a fruit, plus with it only being a guaranteed 12-month contract, I'd have to pay about £1200 for a renewal. Plus, all of the fun of moving... if it were a two-year contract, I'd be a lot more interested. But one year doesn't seem like the best.

Would it be possible to go to Leeds in a years' time? Which one would regret the most not doing?

Normally, with funding like that, it's usually not possible to defer: the money is for a fixed project, from X to Y, and you should start as close to X as possible. (That's what happened with my Luxembourg funding: it had to be "activated" within a four-month window, which can be tricky when it comes to immigration.)

I guess, for me, the main question is the "do I do something for my career academically vs. personally". Having EU PR/EU nationality would make staying in Europe much easier and make travel to a number of other countries additionally easier (there's a number of additional visa exemptions that open up with a Luxembourgish passport), plus I really would like to stay in Europe (esp. the area of France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands...) if circumstances permit.

[Salmoneus]

I dug out my old writing system I devised for Rawàng Ata. Good news: it looks really cool. In several different versions.

Bad news: my documentation was as bad as it always is. By comparing two image files and a document, and my hazy impressions of what I think I used to think the diachronics of the language were, and trying to decipher a few inscriptions that may actually be using words that don't exist in the language anymore, I think I may have a plausible analysis (although two letters in particular it's probably impossible to tell which was meant to be which). But this analysis doesn't quite fit my current views on the language's prehistory.

Easily changed, though, surely... except, the script as it looks so cool to me, and so all of a piece with itself, that it's intimidating to think of editing it, replacing or adding some characters, years later, when it surely won't be easy to emulate its style exactly...

[doctor shark]

Some of you may remember my post about applying for a postdoc at the University of Leeds. Sent the application in last week.

Well... I got shortlisted and invited to an interview. Next Friday. In Leeds.

[Linguoboy]

So I'm not sure where the Contradictory Feelings are here. Have you previously expressed some sort of antipathy to Leeds?

[Raphael]

So I'm not sure where the Contradictory Feelings are here. Have you previously expressed some sort of antipathy to Leeds?

See vampireshark's posts here from August 26th and August 27th:

So, there's a position that looks like it'd be cool to apply for. It'd be a one-year postdoc position at the University of Leeds, working with a professor I know (and like), and the pay seems decent (£30 thousand) and the topic also interesting. If I'm aiming for a permanent research position somewhere, then a stay like that would be excellent.

But... I'm very close to being able to apply for Luxembourgish nationality/EU permanent residence, either of which would make staying in Europe much easier. Not to mention the visa for the one-year stay in the UK would be close to £1000 as a non-European, and there also wouldn't be a guarantee of a renewal of the contract...

and

The money seems simple to solve: +30000 a month-1000 one-off seems financially beneficial to me.

Well, it's £30K per year, not per month (right, should've mentioned that... in the US, we normally report annual salaries in job advertisements). So it's not as appetizing a fruit, plus with it only being a guaranteed 12-month contract, I'd have to pay about £1200 for a renewal. Plus, all of the fun of moving... if it were a two-year contract, I'd be a lot more interested. But one year doesn't seem like the best.

Would it be possible to go to Leeds in a years' time? Which one would regret the most not doing?

Normally, with funding like that, it's usually not possible to defer: the money is for a fixed project, from X to Y, and you should start as close to X as possible. (That's what happened with my Luxembourg funding: it had to be "activated" within a four-month window, which can be tricky when it comes to immigration.)

I guess, for me, the main question is the "do I do something for my career academically vs. personally". Having EU PR/EU nationality would make staying in Europe much easier and make travel to a number of other countries additionally easier (there's a number of additional visa exemptions that open up with a Luxembourgish passport), plus I really would like to stay in Europe (esp. the area of France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands...) if circumstances permit.

[doctor shark]

So I'm not sure where the Contradictory Feelings are here. Have you previously expressed some sort of antipathy to Leeds?

See vampireshark's posts here from August 26th and August 27th:

So, there's a position that looks like it'd be cool to apply for. It'd be a one-year postdoc position at the University of Leeds, working with a professor I know (and like), and the pay seems decent (£30 thousand) and the topic also interesting. If I'm aiming for a permanent research position somewhere, then a stay like that would be excellent.

But... I'm very close to being able to apply for Luxembourgish nationality/EU permanent residence, either of which would make staying in Europe much easier. Not to mention the visa for the one-year stay in the UK would be close to £1000 as a non-European, and there also wouldn't be a guarantee of a renewal of the contract...

and

The money seems simple to solve: +30000 a month-1000 one-off seems financially beneficial to me.

Well, it's £30K per year, not per month (right, should've mentioned that... in the US, we normally report annual salaries in job advertisements). So it's not as appetizing a fruit, plus with it only being a guaranteed 12-month contract, I'd have to pay about £1200 for a renewal. Plus, all of the fun of moving... if it were a two-year contract, I'd be a lot more interested. But one year doesn't seem like the best.

Would it be possible to go to Leeds in a years' time? Which one would regret the most not doing?

Normally, with funding like that, it's usually not possible to defer: the money is for a fixed project, from X to Y, and you should start as close to X as possible. (That's what happened with my Luxembourg funding: it had to be "activated" within a four-month window, which can be tricky when it comes to immigration.)

I guess, for me, the main question is the "do I do something for my career academically vs. personally". Having EU PR/EU nationality would make staying in Europe much easier and make travel to a number of other countries additionally easier (there's a number of additional visa exemptions that open up with a Luxembourgish passport), plus I really would like to stay in Europe (esp. the area of France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands...) if circumstances permit.

Indeed. Plus the interview is next week, on very short notice, which means I need to book a plane flight (just booked) and make other travel arrangements to visit Leeds. Fortunately largely paid for by them, but it's still a bit of a hassle, especially with my Ph.D. defense scheduled to happen in less than four weeks.

[masako]

I am very happy to be getting paid for something I love, but the project manager is turning out to be less than amicable and alarmingly enigmatic about how to proceed on various details as well as the larger project goals.

Kinda wanna quit, but my stubbornness won't let me.

[Salmoneus]

So I'm not sure where the Contradictory Feelings are here. Have you previously expressed some sort of antipathy to Leeds?

I was going to say that antipathy to Leeds should be taken as read... but actually, Leeds is pretty nice, for the North. Or at least, it has nice bits.



vampireshark: I'm surprised you're giving up the EU citizenship opportunity. Is the job in Leeds so amazing that you wouldn't be able to get anything like it a year from now?

[doctor shark]

vampireshark: I'm surprised you're giving up the EU citizenship opportunity. Is the job in Leeds so amazing that you wouldn't be able to get anything like it a year from now?

I'm still applying for the positions here in Luxembourg, but that's why I mentioned the conflict: if I want to stay in academic research (which I kinda do), then a position like this is great. It's with a good group (the group leader is Helen Gleeson, if the name rings a bell to anyone) and it both complements my previous research quite well while being fresh and exciting. And gaps in an academic career can create challenges when going for positions later. But the EU citizenship, how much desire I have to move back to the US (almost zero!)... and while there may be a second (or third!) backdoor option to explore seeing as how the first one fell through*, I would feel much better were I to get the citizenship based on my achievements rather than just by descent.

I'm also not fully apprehensive because, fortunately, the citizenship clock doesn't completely reset if I leave Luxembourg: you need five years' residence, but only the last twelve months have to be continuous to apply. So, if I leave, I could come back, spend twelve months here, and become Luxembourgish, which would be nice.

*Attempting German citizenship on my mother's side kinda fell through, but there is a potential option to go for German citizenship on my father's side, but that requires a lot of genealogy research... also, my mother is of Irish descent, so I could apply, but, without living in Ireland and because my Irish ancestor is further back than my grandmother, it's not automatic and, from what I gather, not likely.

[MacAnDàil]

I've never heard of Helen Glesson, but first link on searching on DuckDuckGo was her Wikipedia page that mentions her awards and honours. So I'd say go for it.

I think that, unless you're threatened with persecution or becoming apatride, focus on career rather than citizenship. Anyone can get a citizenship and noone is known just for that. Although I do understand the interest in having it, it is only worthwhile in order to further other goals. A good science career, on the other hand, is something worth having in and of itself.

Also, as you say yourself, there are still ways to get your citizenship and therefore have your cake and eat it.

[doctor shark]

Well, as things would have it, I'm now in Leeds (nice city, I have to say), with the interview to happen tomorrow.

But the other reason I want to aim for EU citizenship is also practical for career reasons. If, for example, I would want to move to France for a postdoc, as a US citizen, the paperwork is... well, formidable. (First, I'd have to get a hosting agreement; then go to Brussels to get a visa; then enter France and validate the visa within 90 days; then rinse and repeat after the first year! And it's not cheap.) Same for Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, and those are some of the easier ones! A lot of that becomes easier with the EU passport, though: using the France example, I would just move there. No other formalities.

That said, again, it's not all-hope-lost, but there's, for me, that practical issue. The position I'd be looking at in Luxembourg is also one I would likely enjoy doing, so there is that... I have until Monday to hand everything in, so let's see how the interview in the UK goes.

More: show

Also, trips to the UK always feel strange. It's like it's hugely familiar, since I grew up with British TV and lived in Swansea for six months for university, but at the same time I still feel quite like an outsider, both with my accent and perhaps how I perceive things. Though the border control this time was very fast (and I mean VERY fast: US citizens can now use the automated gates, so I was through passport control in five minutes). It's a bit like Germany for me: it feels very familiar after having grown up there, but I still feel like an outsider.

[Vijay]

There's a fairly strong chance at this point that I'm about to get a job teaching English to little kids in Beijing.

[mèþru]

Good luck and stay safe
I find the idea of going to China scary but there are things I really want to see in Macau