Been picking up album after album lately, completing more and more of my music collection and further exploring artists that have interested me but that i've never fully investigated. I completed my Doors collection by snagging The Soft Parade and Morrison Hotel. Also corrected my unforgiveable lack of Hendrix by grabbing Are You Experienced? and Electric Ladyland. I'm in the process of filling out my XTC collection, which as of a week ago consisted solely of the singles collection Fossil Fuel. Odd that i had little to no interest in these guys as recently as a year ago, only having Fossil Fuel because i thought i should be up on such a frequently-referenced band. I heard "Life Begins At The Hop" on the new wave music channel on digital cable, of all places, and realized "Wait a minute! I own this!" On second listen, Fossil Fuel sounded incredible. Now i'm listening to Skylarking for the first time. Truly a pop masterpiece.

I got the Nation of Ulysses album Plays Pretty For Baby, that had been eluding me for quite a while. The first Explosions in the Sky record Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever is also waiting for me. Their latest, The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place, is a worthy descendant of the brilliant mood rock of Mogwai, so i'm eager to hear their beginnings.

I'm not one for listing a lot of links, but Rob had this one on his site and i thought it was nifty: Make-a-Flake. Take a few minutes to design a snowflake, and while you're at it maybe you'll see mine float by. Makes me feel like i'm back in Boston watching the snow engulf my car.

A lot of people think the phrase "jack of all trades" is a compliment. That's primarily because the key to the saying is most often omitted. The full version is "jack of all trades, master of none". The fact that the term "jack" is used is a tip-off, what's really meant is that the person is an apprentice to many disciplines but hasn't become a true master of any of them. Why am i doting on this? I have a feeling i'm painting myself into this corner. In grad school i studied magnetic resonance imaging, for a postdoc i studied fluorescence imaging. Now i'm faculty and i'm starting work on positron emission tomography. While my intellectual curiosity is thrilled that i'm getting to experiment with a bunch of different imaging modalities, i'm fearful that i'm screwing myself in terms of career development.

Of course, i had bad initial periods in both grad school and my postdoc. When i joined the lab at UCSF (the MRSC) in which i did my Ph.D., i had no idea where i fit in. I couldn't see the importance or value of my work, and i figured everyone else must think it (and i) was useless. In retrospect, it wasn't until i gave a talk at the ISMRM meeting in Philadelphia that i began to understand that my work was significant and that people around the lab appreciated me. That's over two and a half years that i spent seriously doubting myself, nearly quitting grad school at one point to get into web design (thank god i stuck it out!). When i graduated two years later, i found it hard to leave because all my colleagues there were now very good friends. But for my own good i went off to Boston to get experience in another lab. In my postdoc the growing pains didn't last quite as long, maybe six or nine months, but they were just as fierce. I remember applying for my current position and wishing they would hire me straight away, because i felt i was completely out of place at the CMIR. But when i did leave a year and a half later, again i was saying goodbye to people to whom i was now very attached.

So now here i am in Stanford Radiation Oncology, again wondering what i'm doing here, what i bring to the table, and if both Stanford and myself would be better off if i was somewhere else. Experience tells me this feeling is temporary and things will improve given a little time. True as it may be, it doesn't make the present any easier.

Anyhoo, life is not all bad. Christmas is almost here, decorations are up, and the smell of pine is in the air, making me feel like i'm eight years old again. Some people knock it, but nostalgia is a wonderful thing.