It has been twelve days since I graduated from UMass Amherst with a PhD in Civil Engineering. 12 whole days. Now I am a post-doc. I'm still trying to get into some groove. I've been chilling at Rao's, a local coffee joint in Amherst, most mornings, working on this or that and running into random people I know and have not seen in a newt's age. I am relieved to see my worst fear of being alone in this wonderful valley have proven false. I still have friends who have not left, and others who have left and now returned. Even though my tenure here will soon be over... its heartwarming to have warm hearts around.
Oh right, back to the groove thing, or lack thereof. I spent so long working on my dissertation, a single large, and yet diminutive, project (the former for me, the latter in terms of my field), I have forgotten how to manage several things at once as well as how to effectively multi-task. Seems giving myself and my brain an inch of rest resulted in them taking a mile! Stress is a magical thing... more of a neutral force that is definitely necessary to some degree. So I have been spending a fair amount of time thinking about work and sitting in front of my computer, but not a lot of time actually working on the draft of a technical note for a journal I want to finish. Oh, well... time is the healer of all, is it not?
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I am a woman in civil engineering proudly experiencing what I call a "Post Doc Bender". Bender in the natural sense, where I am taking advantage of post-dissertation freedom, and bender as in the fine nickname given to me in grad school (related to my research topic). This is about the year after, where I try to regain some normalcy, re-enter the world of the living (and not just existing), and travel to Australia for a post-doc.