I attended a virtual seminar this week that was about understanding my own strengths. Most of us like to focus on our weaknesses to become better, but this seminar was about understanding what our best features are so we can use them to our advantage. The seminar will be held…
Last week I attended a three-hour seminar in the Scientific Management Series where we learned about negotiation and negotiation styles. The basic point was that when negotiating it is possible for both parties to leave the table satisfied. If you communicate well you can both identify your needs and wants…
I´m attending a six-week course on how to write in Academia. The course is for postdocs that are non-native English speaker and it´s taught by a very funny guy, Dr. Kristopher Geda. The course is held every Tuesday 5 pm-7 pm and although it seems like most people would be…
I was thinking today about what my niche in the blogging sphere is. My Swedish blog has been alive and well for more than 10 years and I´ve gained a lot of readers there, but my English blog isn´t getting as much traction. It could be because of the sheer…
Another week, another learning opportunity! I have the possibility of obtaining a Teaching certificate through the Postdoctoral Office at Stanford. To obtain the certificate I need to attend a journal club, teach at least 20 hours, and participate in a teaching workshop. The workshop is held three times a year,…
I attended another postdoc workshop last Friday. It was called Creativity in Research and we learned to use our creativity to get unstuck, create collaborative projects, and design our research projects. The workshop started out with various games. One of them was to spontaneously draw a random person sitting in…
My family has been in the US for almost two months, and what have we learned so far? Everything is expensive Very early on, we learned how expensive things are in the Bay Area. Housing is ridiculously expensive, and we spend around half our income on our two-bedroom apartment. Still,…
After flying from Stockholm-Arlanda Airport early on Thursday morning via Munich we finally landed in San Fransisco International airport late at night, Pacific time. There, we had to queue for more than an hour to get through passport control before our youngest kids started screaming. This led to an officer…
Last winter I thought about doing my postdoc at Stanford University in California, USA. I applied to the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation for a two-year grant with the possibility of another two years back in Sweden. Now I am excited to learn that I was awarded the grant, which…