Work is good

Work is good,
work is fun.
I like working,
everyone.

Ha, ha. A little bit of doggerel for you, a la St. Vincent Millay. It feels good to be working. As Professor Zero put it recently (in a comment to an old post):

it's time to define your next research project in *your* terms. Being sure you're working on something you can be enthusiastic about makes you an attractive job candidate, believe it or not.

Oddly enough, today, I'm not so concerned about my attractiveness on the job front. Maybe I'm resigned to the likelihood that I will remain professionally unattached for another year, so I might as well make the most of it. I'm just doing my thing, and enjoying it. All I can say here is that it's got something to do with Louis Armstrong, and I'm diggin' it. As I'm beginning to accept, despite the uncertainties of my current state, and the discomfort of my status, I'm really in a good place to just enjoy my work.

Part of me has been too worried about fitting in. Isn't that always the big question: finding the best fit. Yet, trying to fit a round me into a square hole just won't cut it. Really, I've been trying to say hey, I'm round... but I can also be square, see. And, I guess, noone's been buying. While I might prefer the badge of having a professorship right now, so I could no longer suffer the awkwardness of trying to explain to the inlaws that I'm not unemployed by any fault of my own, it's simply out of my hands. I'm trying to keep that three year plan in mind, making it ever more difficult for search committees to ignore me. I've got to do that in a way that keeps me excited.

As you may have guessed by now, I'm not likely to convince anyone that I'm TimidScholar. In any case, I don't feel like making the effort. At the risk of unduly dismissing Dr. TassePlein's advice on this count, I've got to be me. I think I'm more likely to succeed by enhancing my visibility than by appearing needy. I've sometimes given the advice to cultivate naivety. It's this approach that has allowed me to act as if in the past, and to succeed where perhaps I should have failed. I simply didn't know any better. I simply was unaware that what I was attempting was impossible. So, back to work it is.

.... nah, nah, nah... I'm not listening...