My new favorite sport

I've finally gotten my hands on my first piece of bragging material. I picked up pole dancing last fall after having been curious for years, and my only regret is not having started sooner. You better believe I checked that Aarhus has a pole dancing school before I accepted that job offer!

A Big Decision

The big interview day (Friday, Jan. 30) came and went in a bit of a blur. I confess to having been slightly more high-strung than necessary (read: understatement) especially given that I'd had the chance earlier that same week to give a departmental seminar at the Institut de la Vision in Paris on just the same topic on which I had to interview, but while I may work well in high-pressure situations, I make no such claims about the anticipatory period. Luckily, my talk went smoothly, and the people at DANDRITE (The Danish Institute for Translational Neuroscience) were smart, friendly, and engaging. And just let me say, if ever you find yourself in Aarhus (Denmark's second largest city), do not miss out on the restaurant Nordisk Spisehus, where my interview finished over a four-and-a-half hour dinner.

I made it back to the hotel that night completely overwhelmed: the aftertaste of 5+ courses fresh on my palate, science projects swirling through my head, and a fresh job offer in my hands. I felt nauseated.

Don't get me wrong, this is exactly what I wanted! This interview could hardly have gone better. But this left me with so much to consider, and suddenly everything was very real. What direction did I really want to take for my research trajectory? I'd whittled the list down to the spinal cord and the retina as two interesting neurological systems fairly accessible for biomedical intervention and critical for quality of life. This project would put me square in the world of the retina. But was the project sufficiently medically relevant? Did I want to join a totally new team? Was I looking principally for a scientific or an engineering environment? Would this project put me on a trajectory towards possibly running my own lab, and is that really what I want? Was it even okay to respond to this offer before getting a response from a fellowship to which I'd applied for a project in Switzerland? But with the response scheduled for late March, could I possibly afford to wait? And was I willing to risk spending the next half year applying for my own independent funding for that Swiss project, especially since my PhD research project hasn't yet been published, which seriously diminishes my chances of obtaining the funding I'd need? On the other hand, was I ready to move to Denmark, a country so random that I'd never even visited it before this interview? (Note: +1 brings my countries-visited grand total to 29.)

With all this spinning through my head and my stomach, I boarded a train the following morning back to Copenhagen, where I'd flown in the day before my interview. An unsuspecting Nicolas soon met me here, only to be bombarded by all my Big Life Questions. Luckily the Questions took some interludes for exploring a new city. It was our first time in Denmark and our first weekend of traveling as just the two of us.

Our weekend in Copenhagen following my job interview in Aarhus

Gotta admit, the Danish sense of humor really had me smiling throughout the weekend.

The city was completely charming, entertainingly quirky, and colder than I'd have liked. Our weekend slipped by in a flash, but my worries didn't escape me as quickly.

Over the next couple of weeks I met with, called, and skyped professional colleagues, former classmates, friends, and family. When was I supposed to have become ready to make such a big decision about the direction in which I take my career? And how would I know if I'd made the right decision?

Finally enough was enough. I packed my bags and emailed out to accept the job offer at Aarhus University. And then I closed up my computer and ran off to a foreign country. England. (Come on, you didn't think I was going to just pack a bag, move off to Denmark, and dive straight in without some time off for traveling first?)

My highlights from London. (Sensing a theme?)

Back in Paris, I am frantically trying to wrap up the publication of my PhD work, I'm playing travel hostess for a full calendar of Airbnb renters, and I'm continuing my battles to retain the right to reside in France and receive my unemployment benefits. (I'll let you know if that ever actually happens.) And in the background, the wheels are in motion for my grand pre-postdoc travels. But more on that later.

Catching up

Autumn in Paris- yes, a few leaves do redden!

I've hardly had time to come up for air since my thesis defense last September. That said, it hasn't all been the in-over-my-head workload kind of stress. Only sometimes. In between, I enjoyed another classic autumn in Paris, complete with the (minimal) reddening of the leaves, another Nuit Blanche and Salon des Vins, and my 7th annual Expat Thanksgiving.

Another classic Nuit Blanche adventure outside Hôtel de Ville

Expat Thanksgiving Round 7 was a smashing success

But I hardly restricted myself to the confines of the périph (the beltway around Paris which separates the true Parisians from everyone else). There was the unseasonably hot weekend in late October that we spent out in Brittany, where I discovered that thatched-roof houses are not just a thing from a Disney movie.

Ah Bretagne, home of wonderful crêpes, thatched roof houses, sandy beaches, and Azad's sexy pose.

Then there was that nearly-20-hour layover in Warsaw on my flight home for Christmas-- way to check off country #28!

Warsaw, Poland. Totally worth the layover, even though the downpour did require me to scour the Christmas markets for a fresh pair of warm, dry, wool socks to survive the subsequent transAtlantic flight.

Of course, no trip back to the US is complete without a stop through New York, which this year included pre-noon cocktails (in my defense, it was 5pm in Paris! And so rainy outside...), the windows at Saks, and a showing of the 2014 Tony Award winner for Best Musical, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder.

Living it up on Christmas Eve in New York City

And we can't forget the third annual grown-up Christmas-Edition Cousins' Campout, which even came complete with a crowdfunding campaign to bring home Professor Flinghopper.

Crowdfunding campaign ad to bring home Professor Flinghopper

Cousins' Campout- Christmas 2014. Enough said.

2015 got off to a crazy start, minus a break for one last mulled wine of the season at the Champs-Elysées Christmas Market.

One last vin chaud (mulled wine) at the Champs-Elysées Christmas Market to start the new year right.

The rest of my time was split between running to meetings with the Pole Emploi (French Unemployment Agency) and the bureaucrats who decide whether I can stay in the country, sneaking into lab to continue working (and manage collaborators) while legally unemployed, and throwing together a fellowship application and a couple of presentations in an effort to sort out my future as a postdoc. It wasn't easy and it wasn't always pretty. Welcome to my life as a freshly minted PhD.