Grain Quality as Hotel California

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I have been at the Grain Quality Lab for 13 years (September 1, 2004–August 31, 2017) if my math serves me well. 

This was the first group picture that the original team had. Vito and Melissa have gone back to Australia. Tina has returned to teaching at UPLB. Tita Dory and Tita Ruby have both retired. Kuya Johnny also isn't connected with IRRI anymore. Kuya Teody has been assigned to work in the Grain Quality and Nutrition Services Lab (GQNSL) in the third floor. Tita Leslie is in PhilRice, I think. Tita Puring passed away years ago. So the only people left in the Grain Quality Lab in Hemmi Building's first floor annex from that original group are me, Ana, and Kuya Jun.


Of course, with the passing of time came the arrivals and the departures of staff and scholars, making the lab a dynamic place to be in. I was supposed to leave in May 2014 when my postdoctoral fellowship ended. However, I was able to somehow do two things at the same time: teaching at the Ateneo and continuing my research in IRRI. And before I knew it, I was being sent to Science Agora, to UNLEASH, to Madrid Fusión Manila, and to other conferences; I was working in collaboration with market researchers on delicious projects and learning economics from some of the best econometricians in town... making my second (or is it already the third?) wind in the lab pretty much worthwhile despite the challenges I faced.

And then in August (while I was in Brenderup, in fact), I received an email that I was to be transferred out of Grain Quality into a new "platform" called "Sustainable Impact". Huh, that was unexpected. When I report back at IRRI, I would be under a different supervisor already, I thought. In the email, I was told that my move to the new team was effective on September 1, 2017... starting my fourteenth year in the institute with an entirely different group of people. Sounds like a good idea; after more than a decade doing grain quality science, I might find something exciting to pursue related to sustainable impact.

But Grain Quality is just like Hotel California: 

"You can check out any time you like but you can never leave."

While I am figuring out what my role will be in this new organisational structure, my workbench and my lab are still with Grain Quality. My new supervisor has only one instruction so far: finish your deliverables in there for the next six months while we begin to ease you into the group. Hence, I don't feel (yet) a real sense of change three months in... maybe in March when shifts in workload will arrive.

So no; there were no tears this time.

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