Post post doc

Continuing what has become a quarterly theme here is summer's post:

One reason for a drop in blogging productivity is that I have been severely distracted by that thing that many postdocs are -- career. It's a pretty neat job being a postdoc. Like a PhD you've got more time to dig deep into a topic but you're more on top of your skills. It's flexible, it's a great way to get work abroad, you can wear a T-shirt to work and so on. It's a nice job.

Eventually you do start to want a permanent position. Now in academia these are hard to get and there's very little geographic control. Many have written long and angrily about this, that's not what I want to get into. It is what it is. From a practical point of view it as an excellent time to think about whether you really want that academic job -- do you want to stick of twist? In my case I've gone for twist.

This autumn I'll be making the move from statistical physics to statistical, er, statistics. My physics work was gradually slipping towards data science and I can't resist any longer (it's the sexiest job of the 21st century don't you know!). Actually I want to post about that physics/data work at some point but need to wait for reviews etc.

I'm really excited about my new position and all the new things I'll be learning. If possible I'd like to keep this blog going, I think there's a decent cross over with what I'll be doing next. The themes might switch more towards data than soft matter but statistics are statistics. It'll be a little sad leaving physics but I'll always see the world through a stat-mech lens, which is no bad thing for anyone in my opinion.