Teaching where you learned

My little brother's kid just had his 1 year birthday. In my home country (my family migrated when I was a kid), the one year birthday is a big deal. I know it's like this in a lot of countries, and like in many other countries, we have a large feast the kid doesn't know anything about or remember. I would love to be closer to my nephew because I love kids, but can't be because of distance. They live in my old college town (OCT...I know OCT has other meanings in the biomed world, but let's just pretend it means Old College Town) and I live...away.

My younger brother is a screw up.  He started to get his life more together the past few years, but he's still got a lot of growing up to do. I love mentoring kids (part of why I want to get back into academia), and I'm concerned this kid won't grow up to greatness because of his parents. So I fly down pretty frequently on weekends (a 2hr flight). I wish I could see them more, but it's not possible. If only I could find a job in OCT.

Oh wait! A faculty posting just popped up at OCT University! The search head has said my application would be very strong, but I heard it's bad to become a faculty at your PhD school. Is this true? Why? A friend of mine that did her BS, MS, and PhD from the school she's a assoc prof and said it's because reviewers see it as you can't separate from your advisor.  She had to really reach out of her school to make sure she could prove her independence. Not sure if that's the actual reason-just what she told me.

My brother will be graduating with his BS soon and he's looking for a job in two places: OCT and City I Have an Interview at for TT Job. I'm going to do what's best for me and hope my minor involvement will help keep the kid on the  righteous path. But, I wouldn't mind working in OCT. It's my favorite city ever. 

Family chaos and boredom

I don't know why, but I really don't care about seeing family. I know I should, and I have fun, but part of me (the biggest part) just doesn't care. I love socializing, but every year I'm reminded how little I have in common with my direct and extended family. Maybe because I've been off on my own since I was 17 I didn't develop mutual interests with my family. I'm also the only STEMer from my liberal arts family on my side, and my blue-collar hands-on working family on my spouse's side. But I'm not sure that's it, because most of my friends are non-STEM.  I kind of have this same issue professionally, I'm pretty quick to make friends (I usually develop a set of dependable friends within a month of living somewhere), but they end up being the more detached-from-their-work personalities. We never talk about work when we're together (which makes meetings very difficult) and despise talking work when it's not necessary. I love the work, although not as much as I love open-ended research.

My spouse thinks it's because everyone around us having kids so their interests and conversational direction tends to lean towards kids. Since I don't have them and I'm not yet interested, it's tough to get involved. To me, family just makes it loud and overcrowded. Loud commotion, tons of competing mini-conversations, lots of drinking. It's like a bar...if bars had kids with new toys running chaotically all over the place. I also think I get bored when I visit because there's not much to do in the small cities my spouse and I grew up in. I'm sitting on my phone while everyone is just watching TV or napping.  I'll be heading back to Major City, USA tomorrow and probably end up missing family. This whole situation is very difficult to comprehend how I feel, and I can't wait for the next holiday season.