Aspirations

You can only improve when you recognize your limitations and weaknesses. You can only improve when you realize you start to feel too comfortable with what you are doing, and it’s time to get yourself uncomfortable by exploring new routes that people in your field might not have tried before. I started off as an environmental science and engineering student, and bumped into the world of microbes. But at that time, I wouldn’t define myself as a person knowing a hell lot about microbes. My research area is to come out with a molecular tool that one can apply to look at the bacterial community. When I moved to do my postdoc, I realize there’s actually a lot about microorganisms that I don’t know – the functional traits, the biochemistry, the physiology, the genetic systems and medications and so on. So what if a person is looking at 16S rRNA genes? So what if we know what microbes are there and at what numbers? There are still a lot of questions that remain unanswered. Yes, I can publish papers, but so what? I am not getting as much citations as I would like. I am also not getting as much respect from the peers as I would like. I’ve actually had more than one people say that my field was easy, and I can publish papers fast. In other words, they think it was insignificant work. I’ve also had a person saying that people who look at 16S rRNA genes only are just lazy and stupid. I hope at the end of my postdoc, and if I have the chance to embark on research of my own, I would be able to bring to my field some insights and ideas that no one else would have thought of. And to prove to the critics that it’s not just the 16S rRNA genes that I am capable of. But it’s the 16S rRNA genes that I first choose to work with to embark the subsequent steps. Note to self.