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New Profs in the age of COVID19 - the series:
- by Swanne Gordon @swannegordon
- by Yoel Stuart @yestuart
- by Amy Parachnowitsch @EcoEvoAmy
- by Jaime Chaves @chavechito76
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Dr. Amy Parachnowitsch is an assistant
professor at the University of New Brunswick. She moved her lab there from
Uppsala University (Sweden) in the summer of 2018. She studies the evolutionary
ecology and chemical ecology of flowers. You can find her on Twitter too often
these days @EvoEcoAmy
My daughter’s school has started sending
suggested activities and learning goals (all optional thankfully!). One is to keep
a journal of your daily activities and feelings. The teachers emphasize the importance
of writing about your feelings so you can look back on this time. I really
wonder what I will think about the pandemic and how it affected me years from
now. I haven’t written a diary for years but since I’ve experiencing writer’s
block it seemed like as good of a place to start as any.
Today, like most days, I did some
administrative stuff (read: answered emails, always emails), puttered around
twitter and read too much bad news, managed my teaching obligations in this
time of on-line courses, hung out with my 10 year old, and did a little
exercise. I feel mostly fine but easily distracted. I feel overwhelmed yet
underwhelmed and bored. I feel sad for all the plans my lab had for the summer
that are now cancelled or in jeopardy of being cancelled. I feel relieved that
my only child seems to be taking this new reality all in stride (schools have
been closed since March 16th here). I feel worried and yet
incredibly privileged to be on the tenure track after so many years of
temporary employment. I feel unmotivated to science and guilty about all the
manuscripts that I thought (pre-pandemic) I would be getting to as my teaching
finished up. I feel like the floor has dropped out from under me, just as our research
was starting to work. I feel uncertain about everything. Most of all I worry
about the uncertainty for the students and post doc in my lab. There are things
I can do for them but so much is beyond my control.
That feeling when you almost cry on the drive home but don’t because you don’t want to have to touch your face but your plants are doing so fucking well after so many false starts but it is likely that you won’t ever collect those data anyway... pic.twitter.com/1FHcnKqXMi— Amy Parachnowitsch PhD 🌸🐝 (@EvoEcoAmy) March 26, 2020
Some days I feel more positive than others.
Some days my daughter and I bake or get outside for longer walks. The spring is
slow this year but we have been able to start on a little gardening which
always makes me happy. I go to our university greenhouses every few days to
water plants that represent a hope that we will get to collect data from them
before they all finish flowering. Sometimes this helps and other times I leave feeling
powerless and wanting to cry. My partner and I seem to have punctuated the
weeks by reserving the weekends for house renovations which I am sure we will
appreciate in the long run. We bought our ~150 year old house last summer and
the painting projects are endless, although those bigger renovations that my
parents were planning to help with this spring are on hold. Who would have
thought the borders between provinces would ever be controlled?
Campus was eerie @BiologyUnb. I became essential staff on Monday to keep our research plants alive. I would normally be happy to see things bolting and ready to flower but all I can say to these is “slow down!!” pic.twitter.com/yrkGm36IbW— Amy Parachnowitsch PhD 🌸🐝 (@EvoEcoAmy) March 19, 2020
The thing I am not doing is writing. The
writing I know I need to do for my career. I need those papers published for my
tenure package. I need those papers for my next grant application. More than
any of those needs, I would really like our science to get out. I used to like
writing but I am not there right now. Despite the pandemic, I keep thinking
about how easy I have it. Why aren’t you writing? It isn’t like you have a
toddler at home (could be so much worse). Why aren’t you writing? You have a
supportive spouse (could be so much worse). Why aren’t you writing? You have
plenty of space and your own home office (could be so much worse). Why aren’t
you writing? You haven’t lost anyone to COVID-19 (could be so much worse)! Why
aren’t you writing? It seems like you’re using this pandemic as an excuse. Why
are you so drained by on-line teaching? Why aren’t you taking this opportunity
to do the writing that you say you want to? What is your excuse? I wrote
all these dark thoughts out not because I think that they are legitimate but
rather to be honest about how I’m feeling. Maybe it helps someone else out
there struggling with productivity in a pandemic to see they aren’t alone.
I hope as this new rhythm continues, I will
get my creativity and focus back. I know all the tricks (I tried one now to
help me finally get over my writer’s block for writing this blog post), I know
I will do fine eventually. I know I’m not alone in having trouble working. But
I am early in my career here at UNB and back in Canada. I do feel like I need
to show that my lab can produce new and exciting science. I want to do new and
exciting science! And as much as writing up old data that I have from my
previous position in Sweden is generally a great thing, I need new work based
here to add to my record. As a field ecologist, to get that new data we must get
outside or at least get to the greenhouse. We need to touch plants to collect
our data.
I’m trying not to focus on what we cannot
do and instead focus on the projects we can progress with. I deleted a whole
series of paragraphs on all the stuff we cancelled or put on hold. It was
perhaps cathartic to write but probably not particularly interesting for others
to read. We’re making back-up plans for the back-up plans if we are able to
collect data this summer. It helps. Yet, it doesn’t stop all those worries and
anxieties from creeping in. We are lucky though. We do have options and are
getting creative for plans to do physically distant science. The safety of the
people working for me is more important than any research that will be lost.
I don’t know how things will pan out in the
long run, but I do know I am not alone. I know I’m incredibility fortunate to
have a stable job and live in a country that is implementing measures to help
scientists (e.g. NSERC grant extensions). Science is being disrupted everywhere
right now and I’ve landed in a relatively good place for that to be happening.
