It's better to never leave

With the start of the summer many PUI and MCU faculty are welcoming new research students into the fold.  In my case, just as my new students are starting I need to go out of town to a conference.  This leaves me with a half-dozen new faces and only a couple of students with less than a year's experience to oversee them.  This will require that I organize and write out in detail everyone's training and research plan for the week before I go.  It's a bit daunting when the new students have not had technique training yet.  It is hard to do research this way.

I am not bringing this up to instigate a pity party.  I am lucky to have six new research students.  When discussing the issue of not wanting to leave so I can stay a train my students my RO1 friends laugh.  In general they have not worked in the lab in years.  The current PhD students and postdocs train the new students.  Leaving town has almost nothing to do with the schedules or training of student workers.  While there new students are being trained they are writing papers and grants.

I find that when the summer comes my days are no less busy that during the academic year.  In some ways they are more busy.  Maybe this is why I wanted to punch my neighbor in the nose yesterday when they asked me what I was going to do now that I am on vacation for the summer.

Thankfully, with skype and e-mail i can at least touch base with the students each day.

T.S. Hall