From The Farm to The Yard to the pharm

I cannot believe it’s been 5.5 months since our move to Connecticut, and since I began this job.  To make this easier to digest, this update will be in 2 separate posts: Residence/Job and Schools.

•    The new residence

We were lucky enough to find a condo (really, it’s a house) in a very friendly community in Danbury, Connecticut, only 10 min from the NY border.  The one thing that has taken getting used to is that Danbury feels like a small town, yet we have a Starbucks, Home Depot, and Michaels/TJ Maxx/CVS/Walgreens/Bed Bath Beyond/Costco/Five Guys literally 5 minutes down the street.  Go down the other way, and you have an AMC within 5 minutes too, along with Lowes, Best Buy, and Applebees.   I couldn’t figure out why I still felt lost, til I realized that Connecticut has no major sports teams—save for UConn or Yale.  So you’re either a fan of one of the New York teams, or the Boston teams. The girls and I miss Boston dearly--who would've thunk that it would grow on me--and so I still read its news online.  Sometimes, Vivi starts bawling that she misses Boston, and Artie will cringe and say, "aw, there goes a Massachusetts license plate..."

•  The new job

As you may recall, if you saw my last post, I was hired at temp status, with the goal of making me permanent by January (has not yet happened).  I work with two groups at Art's company, Nerve Growth Factor and Respiratory syncytial (sin-SISH-uhl) virus.  Additionally, I send out the calendar invites for Protocol Review Committee meetings, which is trickier because there are certain people that have to get invited, depending on the molecule being discussed (uh, what?).  Though the work is all admin--scheduling meetings, processing invoices, ordering office supplies and lunch as needed for meetings--it is literally like learning a new language.  It's even harder when scientists are very socially awkward; I literally sat in a meeting 5 minutes after it ended because the folks I was meeting with never thought to say "hey, since we finished early, my colleague and I will quickly discuss xyz in here" or anything to that effect--they just stared at me and smiled! The hardest part is realizing that what you do has to comply with FDA rules, and that the timelines are very fast due to time sensitivity of studies. I can't complain about the culture--for the most part, it's laid back and no micro-managing.  But I would go back to higher ed in a heartbeat.  I really miss being in the thick of international relations, especially in today's world....