My wedding celebration is over, the flights booked, my visa nestled in my passport. Now all I have to do is complete all the projects I'm working on before I leave Australia to spend the next two years in the United States.

Since my postdoc contract ended last year, I have been paying the bills by working on three part-time projects that add up to a full-time workload. During an average day I juggle my time between them — from examining the impacts of dingos on Australia's mammals, to writing a book chapter on the impacts of climate change on Western Australian biodiversity, to writing website content for a new national climate-change research network.

I am grateful for the work, and dependent on the money it brings, but I yearn to do my own research. As I struggle to find enough hours in the day, unfinished manuscripts sit forlornly in a folder on my desktop. Others wait for me to address reviewer comments and resubmit them to journals. This does not bode well for my 2009 publication record.

With our forthcoming move to the United States, my husband working full time, and a toddler to care for, I can't see this cycle of part-time work ending any time soon. So perhaps I should embrace it rather than fight it.

Indeed, the benefits are many. I get the opportunity to work on a diverse range of interesting projects, and the flexible hours allow me more time with my son. And maybe one day I'll embrace those lonely manuscripts and finish them once and for all.