My Job

Many people ask me "How is your job going?" or "Do you like your job?" ever since I moved from Arizona State to Montana State.  I don't know the answer to these question so I usually just mumble something like "good".  The short answer to the question is I absolutely love my job, but it often keeps me awake at night, and I don't think this is a contradiction.  The job is very complex and diverse since it is a combination of teaching, research, meetings, community service, councilor, and cheerleader.  I absolutely love lecturing and teaching.  I love it when a student working in my lab solves a problem.  I work with a wonderful group of colleagues and I have the best department head in the world so the meetings part of my job is enjoyable.  The hard parts are getting proposals rejected and seeing students fail even though they are trying hard.  Those are the parts that keep me awake at night.  On balance, I have the best job in the world and I hope I can do it forever.  I also hope I can sleep tonight since I should be getting a proposal review back soon.