Hello, world!

Hi there, long time no see! Somehow in the midst of life I managed to forget and neglect my blog. Instead of trying to summarize my life in the past 6 months in one boring blog post, I'll reflect back over the next couple weeks on what's been going on and what's to come next. You can read about our first Christmas in the UK at my other blog and in the meantime ready yourself for posts about:

-Progress in the post-doctoral research world: Now that I've been a post-doc for nearly a year, what's been different from grad school? What's next on the horizon for a 27 year-old with a PhD? My husband (a fellow post-doc) and I have thought a lot about these questions, and it's been a good transition time for us as we start to figure out where we want to take our momentum next. I'll make a longer and more thought-out post about the first year of looking back on research in the UK and how I hope the next year (and beyond!) will look for me.

-What does SETAC mean to me you? I've spent the last 2 conference I've been at asking people this question. Now with the YES meeting over (and plans for another just on the horizon) I've had time to think about and ask myself this question-stay tuned for my rather long answer in a future post!

-The non-scientific side of science: While I see a lot of really well-written blog posts with sharp opinions about hot topics, understandable yet substantial science articles written for non-scientists, and other experts out there with more clever things to say than me: What should the focus of my blog be? Before I was telling tales of life in grad school, intermixed with my experiences in SETAC and the wider world. Now I'd like to take a bit of a shift in focus and try to address the all-important question of all the things that a good scientist needs to be-and science is just a part of it! I hope the shift in focus will provide some breadth to the wealth of posts already out there and to shed some light on the lives that scientists live outside the lab and how the successful ones get to be that way (at least from my perspective).

My day planner is out and I already marked off some time this week to write again. See you again soon, world!