Today is 1.10.2012. Nothing special about this date and in fact was not even knowing that it is the date today, till I had to, for sake of record keeping in my note book. Somethings just strike, I mean literally strike and this 10 in the date struck me when I looked on the clock hanging on the wall after I turned around to seek for it. And this was the first time I had a "feeling" that new year has arrived. How lazy? It is not that I didn't know that it is 2012 but perhaps I hadn't realized its real significance and felt its real meaning. So it is the tenth day of the year, first step in its growth and ultimate death, first step in the sense that the count of the days has moved from single to double digits. But I was not struck by emotion or regret about 2012 going the same way as have been more that three decades of time that my life has outlasted, but was struck by 10 days having gone by without apparently changing anything in me. There might have been changes at the cellular and sub-cellular level but not at the level one could really see. But do we really monitor frequently the apparent biological changes occurring in us? No, otherwise we would be daily looking at our growing nails or the increasing length of our hair or changing texture of our skin to mention a few. Can't say same with certainty about the opposite gender because these are three vitals most of them take due care of. Anyways resuming, so what was the parameter I was actually trying to evaluate. Professional progress!
Evaluation of professional advancement after 10 days; what high standards, what frequency? High standards of evaluation, darn it, can't be set in this profession where every advancement, every step, every success happens in infinitesimally miniscule increments. So what was I trying to evaluate? I was trying to figure out if I was doing what exactly was expected according to long term plans or something that would at least bring me near to what I had planned for this day or the same that I had been doing ten days back. Now does this qualify to be an evaluation, an appraisal? Don't want to understand at this moment or go into these technicalities because the outcome of 'evaluation' was a too powerful storm to let me think about something else. Wait a moment this storm was not something new or a first one; some were weathered, some passed unnoticed, some were talked about, some were whined about, but very few strike like this one, get long and elaborate, but similar meaning responses.
I don't know what prompted me to scale-up the period for which I was doing the evaluation straightway up for a very macro-level of 10 years, perhaps it was the time when I started taking baby steps or crawl or metamorphose or gestate to be in this career, but beginning of a sort had been made. I was working for final semester of my Master's Program at one of the premier research institutes in India. The most important lesson I learnt there was it is not places that matter but it is what we do is really important. Nevertheless, it was my first real 'exposure' to the world of research! Towards the end of the same year I 'qualified for the award of Junior Research Fellowship'; a perceived and presumed ticket to a place of work of choice and also freedom from financial dependence (wouldn't exactly term it financial independence). And in the first half of the following year I exactly landed at a place I had wanted to be, had dreamt of while reading my text books. The geography or nomenclature of this place was not of importance but it was at this place I believed I would work with I wanted to. Applying lessons from my first exposure!
So it was with zeal, enthusiasm, passion, energy, synergy between getting love and living with love and every possible positivity that I made the actual beginning. The journey till now has not been linearly upward or downward but a mix of things; joyful, sorrowful, eventful, momentous, intimidating, encouraging, depressing, heart-breaking, elevating, alleviating and what not, in short everything. An eternal companion have been those innumerable and endless conversations over countless cups of tea and coffee discussing, planning, strategizing, analyzing, lamenting, fun-making the failures, being sarcastic about ourselves, being sarcastic about failures and re-planning. There is one everlasting memory of being 'almost there'. Ah almost there! Sadly it is not a sprint, neither a marathon but something were we chase unseen, unheard, unknown and unthought of (at least we believe that time) things. We either have it or don't have it. It is all or none kind of thing. Having it wouldn't have meant something life changing but it would have definitely meant something, something different, something substantial, above all something I had yearned to do. Anyways, these are experiences and memories, the real issue here was evaluation.
What is a better, cleaner and clearer way of making estimations/evaluations? Numbers! Numbers belong to math, so called science of God, so have a value while evaluating. Which numbers to use? Impact factor! Always creates interest when not looking for own and mostly creates panic and anxiety when looking for self. I am 'almost there' at having a collective impact factor of 10 from the first authored papers! Not that I believe first authored papers exclusively belong to first author, perhaps they have a more sense of belonging or a more sense of being one's own.10 in 10 years of journey????? I have been recently looking for a new postdoc position; looking into the biographies of different scientists has been interesting, knowledgeable, eye-opening and enlightening. A line in one of such reads read "the best indicator of the success is the ratio of the number of citations to resulting publications to the amount of grant money". Many researchers especially ones working with and believing in numbers make their ways of arriving at these numbers very rigorous by adding constraints in their evaluating methodologies. I kept wondering if the above mentioned indicator is constrained by multiplying the grant money by the ever depreciating Zimbabwean currency? With such a wide gap in ways of evaluating and perhaps in ways of evaluating and doing also and no option of being 'almost there', the automatic question that one faces is what to do? And the prompt reply comes continue with the perpetual, perennial and persistent TROUBLESHOOT!
P.S: I started writing this on 10th of January and today is 13th, but isn't it what we are apt at? Missing deadlines. Cheers!
Evaluation of professional advancement after 10 days; what high standards, what frequency? High standards of evaluation, darn it, can't be set in this profession where every advancement, every step, every success happens in infinitesimally miniscule increments. So what was I trying to evaluate? I was trying to figure out if I was doing what exactly was expected according to long term plans or something that would at least bring me near to what I had planned for this day or the same that I had been doing ten days back. Now does this qualify to be an evaluation, an appraisal? Don't want to understand at this moment or go into these technicalities because the outcome of 'evaluation' was a too powerful storm to let me think about something else. Wait a moment this storm was not something new or a first one; some were weathered, some passed unnoticed, some were talked about, some were whined about, but very few strike like this one, get long and elaborate, but similar meaning responses.
I don't know what prompted me to scale-up the period for which I was doing the evaluation straightway up for a very macro-level of 10 years, perhaps it was the time when I started taking baby steps or crawl or metamorphose or gestate to be in this career, but beginning of a sort had been made. I was working for final semester of my Master's Program at one of the premier research institutes in India. The most important lesson I learnt there was it is not places that matter but it is what we do is really important. Nevertheless, it was my first real 'exposure' to the world of research! Towards the end of the same year I 'qualified for the award of Junior Research Fellowship'; a perceived and presumed ticket to a place of work of choice and also freedom from financial dependence (wouldn't exactly term it financial independence). And in the first half of the following year I exactly landed at a place I had wanted to be, had dreamt of while reading my text books. The geography or nomenclature of this place was not of importance but it was at this place I believed I would work with I wanted to. Applying lessons from my first exposure!
So it was with zeal, enthusiasm, passion, energy, synergy between getting love and living with love and every possible positivity that I made the actual beginning. The journey till now has not been linearly upward or downward but a mix of things; joyful, sorrowful, eventful, momentous, intimidating, encouraging, depressing, heart-breaking, elevating, alleviating and what not, in short everything. An eternal companion have been those innumerable and endless conversations over countless cups of tea and coffee discussing, planning, strategizing, analyzing, lamenting, fun-making the failures, being sarcastic about ourselves, being sarcastic about failures and re-planning. There is one everlasting memory of being 'almost there'. Ah almost there! Sadly it is not a sprint, neither a marathon but something were we chase unseen, unheard, unknown and unthought of (at least we believe that time) things. We either have it or don't have it. It is all or none kind of thing. Having it wouldn't have meant something life changing but it would have definitely meant something, something different, something substantial, above all something I had yearned to do. Anyways, these are experiences and memories, the real issue here was evaluation.
What is a better, cleaner and clearer way of making estimations/evaluations? Numbers! Numbers belong to math, so called science of God, so have a value while evaluating. Which numbers to use? Impact factor! Always creates interest when not looking for own and mostly creates panic and anxiety when looking for self. I am 'almost there' at having a collective impact factor of 10 from the first authored papers! Not that I believe first authored papers exclusively belong to first author, perhaps they have a more sense of belonging or a more sense of being one's own.10 in 10 years of journey????? I have been recently looking for a new postdoc position; looking into the biographies of different scientists has been interesting, knowledgeable, eye-opening and enlightening. A line in one of such reads read "the best indicator of the success is the ratio of the number of citations to resulting publications to the amount of grant money". Many researchers especially ones working with and believing in numbers make their ways of arriving at these numbers very rigorous by adding constraints in their evaluating methodologies. I kept wondering if the above mentioned indicator is constrained by multiplying the grant money by the ever depreciating Zimbabwean currency? With such a wide gap in ways of evaluating and perhaps in ways of evaluating and doing also and no option of being 'almost there', the automatic question that one faces is what to do? And the prompt reply comes continue with the perpetual, perennial and persistent TROUBLESHOOT!
P.S: I started writing this on 10th of January and today is 13th, but isn't it what we are apt at? Missing deadlines. Cheers!
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