I’m off to Chicago tomorrow for the second and last of my postdoc interviews. I’m looking forward to it; I haven’t been there in a couple of years and it’s one of my favorite cities. Nice people, wonderful restaurants, concerts, and nightlife, and a honesty and unpretentiousness that is really quite attractive to me after living in the San Francisco area for over five years. Ultimately my decision about whether to stay or go is going to come down to scientific and professional concerns: what sort of projects I want to work on, how I get along with the professor and the other postdocs and grad students. But these are both stellar labs, and I suspect the decision will involve all of the nonprofessional aspects as well, and on that front I waver almost daily between wanting to stay with my friends and the mountains and wanting to indulge, at least one last time, my itchy feet.

(cdm | CityOfBroadShoulders)