New attitude (for now)

I'm sick of The Race. I'm both irritated and bored by the rush to finish projects and write papers and not get scooped (which almost never happens in my field anyway) and all the rest of it. I want to just relax and enjoy what I'm doing. If I do it right, then presentations and papers should come naturally as part of the process.

I want to do science because it’s interesting and fun and valuable. There are lots of other jobs I could be doing that would get me more money with less education. If science isn't fun or interesting, then there's little point in doing it for me. Sure, there's the benefit scientists provides society. But I feel like I could do as much or more good in another profession. It would just be a very different sort of good.

The other day, my carpool buddy was fretting about some deadline that he didn't think he could meet. Ecogeoman and I are constantly doing the same, both for external deadlines and the ones we set ourselves for motivation. But I suddenly realized how arbitrary our deadlines are. No one is going to die on an operating table or starve in the immediate future if we don't meet our deadlines.* My research is very important, but not it’s just not that urgent.

That thought brought on a welcome sense of relaxation. I have been thinking about how all this worrying about meeting goals takes mental energy away from actually doing the work. I want to focus on the parts of my job that are fun and interesting. I'm tired of spinning my wheels, planning and replanning my future, both immediate and distant. I need a break from all the fuss to just do my work and enjoy it for what it is rather than doing to meet an arbitrary deadline or because it's good for my career. I want to do it because it's good for science. My career will follow.

I hope that this change of attitude will provide some renewal of my motivation. But rather than renewing my fortitude to meet an arbitrary goal, I hope to renew my excitement about my research, and that’s all.

*I know some of you work in fields where this might be the case.
scientiae-carnival

Type A timesheet

We got another winter storm last night into this morning, so I worked from home until noon. I'm usually not very successful working from home because I goof off too much. I really want to be able to work at home sometimes (that's work, not "work"). And I want to be able to plan to do so with the confidence that I will actually get something done. So today I signed up with Slimtimer.com after seeing Dr. Shellie's comment on one of Saxifraga's posts, along with references to similar programs on other blogs. It's a website that lets you track how much time you spend doing particular tasks. You can add tags in order to group tasks by topic. I think it's possible to download daily or weekly logs of your activity. Good for seeing how you really spend your time.

I only used it for a few hours this morning, but seeing the clock ticking away helped keep me on track. I haven't logged enough hours to try out some of the features, but I bet that my totally anal retentive, structure loving personality will thrive on this sort of rigidity. Bring it on!

Pour out that beer if you want to publish

I thought “networking” was good for my career.

Alas, a Czech researcher has found that beer consumption is negatively related to number of publications and their citation rate (Grim 2008). Grim, an avian ecologist rather than a social scientist, surveyed the beer consumption habits of other avian ecologists working in Czech Republic, a country with very high per capita beer consumption, in 2002 and 2006. Controlling for both age and years since first publication, he found that the more beer the scientists reported drinking, the fewer publications they had. Furthermore, the survey results from 2002 predicted results in 2006 (r2=0.90, F1,9 =6.15, p<0.0001). Thus, he couldn’t test how changes in beer use influenced publication rate (i.e. he couldn’t address the hypothesis that drinking decreases with age with a concomitant increase in publishing). The study also compared a high-consumption region with a lower-consumption region and found a similar relationship; scientists in the high-consumption region published less and had fewer citations. This was not related to age, time since first publication, or funding biases among regions.

The median beer consumption among one study group was 200 liters per year. That’s eight pints per week, every week. That’s way more than I drink. So maybe my beer drinking still falls within the good-for-your-career, networking-over-drinks, helping-relax-among-colleagues-and-superiors-so-as-to-not-feel-intimidated-and-inhibited variety. Let’s hope. Because I am not about to give up beer in the name of science!

Cheers!

Grim, Tomas. 2008. A possible role of social activity to explain differences in publication output among ecologists. Oikos. doi: 10.1111/j.2008.0030-1299.16551.x

Hackneyed

Lately, a few phrases keep coming up again and again. They are starting to get a little meaningless and more than a little annoying. Some examples:

Related to work

• The paper/presentation/proposal needs to tell a story.
• It depends on the question.

and the perennial favorite,

• When will you be finished?

Related to life

• You'll understand when you have kids.
• It's different when you're married.

and the seasonal favorite,

• There's a 90% chance of "wintry mix" tomorrow.

What are your (least) favorite science and life cliches?

Bullets

This blog has been a tad serious lately so I wanted to lighten up a little. I couldn't think of anything both chipper and coherent, so here are my disjointed thoughts for the day:

• I forgot to put on deodorant this morning. After a few hours at work, I remembered I had some in my desk and slapped it on. Unfortunately, it was like, rancid or something. At a minimum there was no fragrance left. It smelled terrible and made me feel queasy all day.
• Advisor has lots of time for lengthy impromptu conversations, but has trouble scheduling an hour to discuss my paper draft. I highly value these unarranged chats, as I learn a heck of a lot and really enjoy them. It's just a little frustrating when I want to talk about something specific. And it's all about me, right?
• Someone asked me this question as sort of a quasi- pseudo- personality test, "would you rather give up eating or sleep, knowing that you wouldn't be physically harmed by the loss?" Really, I'd like to give up pooping, but since that isn't an option, I choose eating. I *heart* sleep. However, I hate putting myself to bed, even when I'm tired. I think there are few things as decadent as falling asleep on the couch, which I've been doing pretty often lately. This question is supposed to give some insight about your personality, but I don't know what that might be.
• Do you ever listen to the radio show This American Life? I play the podcasts while I do this super tedious task at work. It makes the time fly by. The one from last week about "tough crowds" was really good and funny.
• The spellcheck in Blogger is working again!
• Lost was awesome tonight!

Another thought on anonymity

A good thing about anonymous blogs is that they reduce anxiety that stems from rank/success inequalities among bloggers, particularly those in science. Since I don't know the identities of most bloggers, I can't be intimidated by their real-life greatness. Even when people clearly state on their blogs what level of career achievement they have attained (e.g. my profile says I am a student), it doesn't sink in the way it does when I know who they are. For example I recently stumbled upon a non-anonymous blog by a prominent scientist broadly in my field. I don't think I would leave the same sort of comments there that I leave at other blogs, even ones I know to be written by senior level people.

This observation is a small example of how the Internet can eliminate barriers. Things that might stop people from interacting in real life are irrelevant here. It doesn’t matter if in real life you have a heavy accent or smell bad or can’t make eye contact or have an appearance that is often the subject of bias. If you write an interesting blog (and I know about it), I’ll read it. Not that I would purposely avoid you in real life if you have the above traits. I’m just saying that we get boiled down to the message we transmit on our blogs, without the confounding effects of race, appearance, number of publications, funding, etc.

I know these are not novel ideas, but I still find them interesting.

Guaging writing productivity

As I have said before, I am a member of two labs. Neither of them are very prolific, but for somewhat different reasons. The one I consider my primary lab is super slow getting papers out mainly because nothing is ever considered final. There are always a few more samples to analyze, more statistical tests to run, or other ways to look at the data. Add to that the slow internal review process in our group, and papers just never seem to get submitted* (my frustrations with this will probably expand into future posts).

This lab culture makes me feel like it is a Herculean task to write and submit a paper. I think writing one’s first paper is often a battle. But it seems to be a particularly huge deal in our lab and that makes it ever more intimidating to complete a draft and give it to my advisors.

I worked exclusively on this paper for the first few weeks of the year, which included reworking stats and figures. Since then, I have interspersed lab work with writing, either working part of the day in the lab and part at my desk or alternating whole days. I find that I feel much more productive when I’m in the lab, which adds to the psychological difficulty of writing. I know exactly how long it takes to do different bench tasks, so I can plan the time I need to complete them. If I finish what I set out to do, I feel productive and good. Unfortunately, I have no idea how long it should take me to write sections of a paper, so it’s hard for me to tell if I have worked efficiently at writing. It’s a little frustrating.

I think this will change as I gain experience. I welcome suggestions or advice from your vast experience, readers.


*The papers are undoubtedly better for it. When they do get published, they are awesome and highly cited.

Anything but a professor

Today I told Research Advisor that I don't want to be a professor. I have decided that I want nothing to do with academia long term.

I started grad school after working as a technician for a couple of years after college. Seeing that having only a bachelor's degree will get you little more than a dead-end job in research, I thought, "what do I need to do to keep doing this?" Then I enrolled in a Ph.D. program.

I have never been interested in teaching. When I started grad school, my ideal was to get a job with as much research and as little teaching as possible. But the more I learn about academia and the more I learn about myself, I realize that academia is not for me. The positions with the highest proportion of research are generally the most prestigious and competitive. Given my 40-hours-a-week-is-enough attitude, I don't think I'd be the best match for those jobs.

More than that, though, I've realized that I dislike the culture of a university -- the heirarchy, the competition, the inconsistent priorities. Facutly are pulled in a dozen directions at once, with so many people relying on them for urgent issues. I don't want to teach, but I also don't want to write upteen recommendation letters or read students' crappy first drafts, or explain the same concepts over and over. Yes, I appreciate that someone is doing that for me. But it doesn't mean that I want to do it. Frankly, I don't even want to mentor grad students.

There are several government agencies that have research facilities where I could work. Of course, those research-only positions are not easy to get. Soft money isn't so attractive, either.

I'm beginning to realize that I'd rather do something else with my science skills than do research as a professor. Management and consulting are appealing. I'm glad to be thinking about this now so I can keep my eyes open for alternative jobs because they are difficult to envision. When academia is almost the only path offered to Ph.Ds, it takes some thinking outside the box to find something else. However, I very much want to do a post doc because I want to learn something new and experience a different lab. I think a braoder skill-set would be beneficial for any kind of science job.

A few minutes after we finsihed our conversation, I asked Research Advisor if she thought less of me for saying I don't aspire to be a professor. She does not and pointed out that many people start PhDs with no intention of doing research. She said if it's okay for them to want to teach from the outset, it's fine for me to want to not teach. She's great.

Big fish in a little pond

I love this expression. Just when you’re at the highest rank, really performing at your peak (at least compared to everybody else), you move on and realize that you’re not a special snowflake anymore. It so aptly describes the transition from high school to college, college to grad school, etc., for so many over achievers. Probably there are a few rock stars out there who never perceived such a phenomenon, but I bet most of us have.

Recently I was talking with a friend who says he feels his research is much more focused and old-school than most students' in the department. He sometimes feels insecure because he doesn't totally understand nor is he especially interested in the work that many of his colleagues are doing, work that might be considered more cutting-edge. It is a unique department though, one of the best. I bet when he leaves, my friend will go from being a little fish in a big pond to a big fish in a little pond. I bet that will feel good.

Tragedy

I feel so very sad for everyone at Northern Illinois University and the families and friends of those who died or were injured. It's impossible for me to imagine what they are feeling or what motivated the shooter. It's utterly unfathomable.

I'm surprised at how few bloggers (in my circle) are writing about this. I guess because it's hard to know what to write.

E!

Amelie awarded me E for excellent! Thanks, Amelie!

There are so many awesome blogs that I really enjoy. Here are ten that I think should get an E:

Female Science Professor, who is so awesomely awesome.
Propter Doc, who doesn't mess around.
StyleyGeek, who is hilarious.
Cae, who is a hoot.
Jane, who just seems so darn nice.
Mad-hatter, who is groovy.
Arduous, who is endlessly interesting.
Sciencemama, who is both eloquent and foul-mouthed.
Bean-mom, who makes another person's kids so fascinating.
Unbalanced Reaction, who is so easy to relate to.

Oh my, how I could go on -- I have other favorites. I read many more blogs that I think deserve an E, but I should leave some for someone else to honor.

Don't spare me

Some things are hard to learn in grad school. The things we are trained to do during grad school, specifically research, are not the only responsibilities we are likely to have in the jobs we get after grad school. The most general observation I can offer is that I work mostly in the lab while my advisors work mostly at their desks. We are clearly not doing the same things.

The most obvious way to learn about all the administrative work that goes into running a lab is to ask one's advisor. But it doesn't always work. Once when I asked about funding, I was told I "didn't need to worry about it". I think my advisor was feeling stressed about the level of funding he had and how to distribute it. It irritated me though, because how are students supposed to learn things like how to manage a lab's finances when no one will disscuss it because they don't want to disclose any worries?

This is a rather isolated example, as Academic Advisor really explains a lot of what goes in the department, the politics of our field, etc. Certainly Research Advisor seems to tell me pretty much anything (everything?), but it's a little different with her because I'm the only student in her lab, so there isn't such a structured hierarchy. They both encourage me to go to meetings, introduce me to visiting scientists, discuss proposal ideas, and whatever else. Overall, my advisors rock. But I know that most students struggle with this stuff, perhaps not even knowing what they're missing. It must be especially difficult for students in really big labs with famous advisors who travel frequently. But the trade-off is the association they get with a flashy name.

Mrswhatsit has a couple of really great posts on this topic.

On one hand, I appreciate being sheltered from the nasty or not-fun parts of science. On the other, I want to learn how to deal with it all. At the very least, I want to know what I'm getting into. I want to be ableto make an informed decision about what kind of carrer to try for when it's time to apply for jobs.

How anonymous are you?

Today at work, a woman I barely know came up to me after a seminar and said, “I’d like to talk to you about something.” We were quickly alone in the room and then she laid it on me, “Do you have an anonymous blog?”

!

It turns out that through a complicated series of facts she learned from this and other blogs combined with some reasonable assumptions, she strung together my identity. Can you believe it? She didn’t even do any major sleuthing or google stalking. And our blog circles don’t overlap all that much (we compared notes).

I think it’s pretty cool to have learned this person is a blogger. We had a wonderful conversation about blogging, which developed into a two-hour discussion about grad school, careers, etc. I hope that we have more like it.

I have to admit that there are only a handful of blogs that I regularly read that I think are truly anonymous, i.e., I think there is enough information in most of them to develop a pretty good hypothesis about the author’s identity. I don’t have any false security about my identity either. My location is just short of obvious and I bet it would be pretty easy to figure out the rest of me, too. It was just a shock to have someone that close to home put it together.

I’ve said before* that my main reason for being anonymous is to keep this blog from coming up in google searches of me, my departments, etc., and that I don’t mind other bloggers knowing who I am but I don’t want people in my real life to know about my blog. There have already been things I decided not to write because I didn’t feel I was anonymous enough. I try to write posts that I wouldn’t be devastated to have real life friends/colleagues read, but also that wouldn’t devastate my friends/colleagues if they read them. I know it’s a real possibility that I will be found out someday (well, I guess I’ve already been found out, but I mean more broadly).

The moral of the story is, if you’re an anonymous blogger and you really don’t want anyone to know who you are, be pretty damn careful what you write. Anyone around you could be an anonymous blogger, too!

*I haven't actually said all that before. But that post I linked to has some great comments discussing this issue.

Archive Meme

Arduous tagged me for a meme!

Archive Meme Instructions: Go back through your archives and post the links to your five favorite blog posts that you've written. ... but there is a catch:Link 1 must be about family.Link 2 must be about friends.Link 3 must be about yourself, who you are... what you're all about.Link 4 must be about something you love.Link 5 can be anything you choose.I think this is a great way to circulate some of the great older posts everyone had written, return to a few great places in our memories and also learn a little something about ourselves and each other that we may not know.Post your five links and then tag five other people. At least TWO of the people you tag must be *newer acquaintances so that you get to know each other better....and don't forget to read the archive posts and leave comments!

My blog doesn't have an extensive archive yet, but whatev. Here are my choices:

Link 1: Family
This is my favorite post so far about family, but it's recent. Since I think the point of this meme is to highlight older posts, I'll link to this one too, which is about what I usually do during Thanksgiving break.

Link 2: Friends
So far, I haven't written so much about friends. I guess this explains why (although I have had some things to say about e-friends).

Link 3: What you're all about.
This post lists my top five dreamy dream jobs.

Link 4: Something I love
Selecting a post for this one made me realize this blog is pretty negative. I like finishing things and FotC, but Ecogeoman is who I really love.

Link 5: My choice
I'd like to point to two posts that go together about why I started this blog and why I named it The Happy Scientist, which is kind of a lame title at first blush.

I guess I cheated a little by linking to multiple posts. Oh well.
I tag ScienceMama (since Arduous didn't :) ), Psycgirl, Amelie, Amanda, and DancingFish. Of course, they don't have to if they don't want to. And if anyone else wants to do the meme, they should. I'm sure I'm not alone in wondering what's in a blog's archives but not having time to sift through them.

Potholes

I'm watching a news report about how bad the city's pothole problem is this year. There have already been 10 times as many reports of potholes this season than all of last season. Apparently, we've had more temperature fluxuations than usual (one day it dropped something like 45 degrees in about 9 hours), plus all that snow I've been whining about. This morning I saw some potholes so deep the rebar was exposed. In one, the rebar was broken, so cars essentially had to drive over metal spikes! Not surprisingly, we passed dozens of cars with flat tires. Just getting to work is an obstacle course!

Spring is going to be so awesome.

silly quiz

I saw this at Scattered and Random. I consider myself a morning person, but I guess that's not really the point of this. :)

I was raised by cannibals

The Bean-Mom recently wrote about how she teases her children with threats of cannibalism (you’re so cute I could eat you up. But I’m not food, Mommy!). I too, had to fear being eaten by my parents and siblings, along with many other torments. Commenting on Bean-Mom’s blog inspired me to write a post about some of the most creative teasing I endured as a child.

First a little back story: I’m the youngest of seven children (yes, my parents are Catholic). The oldest six were born over the course of just nine years. Then my parents went on a nine year child production hiatus before I was born. So my sibs range from 9 to 18 years older than me (we all have the same two parents). I would also like to say upfront that I feel I was raised in a loving and happy house and that I really think this stuff is funny rather than traumatizing.

Okay, the torture stories of my youth:

• When I was an infant who could crawl, my sisters would sit in a circle with me in the middle. They would all call my name to get me to go to one of them, which they decided would indicate who my favorite was (at six months!). The story goes that I would usually end up confused and crying in the middle.
• My mom used to sing this song to me, “found a peanut, found a peanut, found a peanut in a shell” in a way that indicated I was the peanut. I just loved that song. Of course, the lyrics go on to say that the peanut was rotten and induced vomiting.
• Both my mom and siblings often said how they intended to put me into a clothes dryer to shrink me so I would stay a cute little kid forever.
• My siblings had me actually convinced that I was adopted. They told me which house down the street I came from and how that family couldn’t take care of me so our parents took me in. They had good evidence. They cited the extreme age difference between the older kids and me and how years before, when my parents had six kids between the ages of 2 and 11, they had taken in a foster child for a year.
• My siblings told me that I was really the oldest, but that I had a disease that kept me from growing. They said that our parents had decided that everyone should act like I was the youngest so I wouldn’t feel bad about not growing.
• This one's not really teasing, but I remember going to bars and frat parties starting when I was 3, until the last sister who went to an out-of-town college graduated when I was about 12. The kids who were younger than the one at college got to go visit for “little sibs weekend”. Can you believe my mom let her 16-year-old drive her three youngest kids, including her 3-year-old the four hours to visit their college freshman sister? To be fair, my mom now can’t believe she let that happen either.

The worst part of all of this is that my sisters and brothers have produced thirteen wonderful nieces and nephews who I’m not really allowed to tease. Those diabolical teenagers grew into adults who think it’s not nice to tease their adorable children. The injustice!

More snow

We're getting another winter storm tonight. This time, it's starting with sleet and changing to snow overnight. Lovely. Total accumulation of 6-12 inches is expected. This is by far the snowiest winter since I've lived in this place.

Lab Conversation

Ecogeofemme: You know what I hate?
Awesome Technician: Puppies.
EGF: Well, yeah, but that's not what's on my mind now.
AT: Other people's kids.
EGF: That too, but not now.
AT: Whole Foods.
EGF: Not it.
AT: When people leave messes in the lab.
EGF: Also true, but not right now. Maybe I should just tell you. I hate when a really interesting conversation gets interrupted and you know it won't get revisited again.
AT: yeah, that sucks.

Then I went on to tell her about the aborted conversation with Research Advisor, which we discussed for at least 30 min.

This made me realize how cranky I must be. But to be fair, most of the the conversations that led to me announcing I hate something were pretty funny, i.e. I don't actally hate puppies or Whole Foods (but I don't much like them either).

Better day

Today has been a better day. I finally read my friend's dissertation (very, very cool project), which I had promised to do several weeks ago. It felt so good to email my comments to her. Then ecogeoman and I went to the botanic garden for about 30 minutes. It would have been longer but we got a little lost getting there and we didn't have much time left before sunset. It was cold, but the whole place was blanketed in thick snow and it was quiet and beautiful. On the way home, we picked up Indian take-out (yum!). After dinner, we went for another walk since the one at the garden was cut short. Now I think I'm going to start my tax return, which sounds suckful but will feel good if I do it without procrastination.

I think that part of the reason I was so upset yesterday is that I had been alone for two days straight. I stayed home on Friday (when it snowed) while Ecogeoman went to work at work. Then on Saturday, I went to work and not another soul was there. I got home that evening feeling really icky. I don't consider myself a people person, but I'm not a loner either so too much time by myself is not good.

ETA (2/3 9:03): I did a first run through my taxes and it looks like I will owe a little. Not as much as last year, but more than I thought. sigh... I'll get a second or third opinion (i.e. use another service) before I file. There's always confusion about the tuition waiver.

Guilt

I almost never remember my dreams, but I had one last night that came back to be this afternoon. In the dream, I had a new born baby. I nursed it, laid it down to sleep, and then forgot about it for many hours. When I remembered it, I fed it again, then put it down and forgot about it again. This kept happening, once overnight; I woke up after sleeping for 10 hours and realized I had never woken up to feed the baby during the night. Each time, to my relief the baby was fine but I felt terrible for forgetting it.

I feel this has something to do with my guilt over not working during the snow day yesterday. Something about ignoring my research and worrying it will die. Or something.

It just nags at me. I had a really productive day today, which you would think would make up for yesterday. My goal is to feel like if I work hard during "work time", i.e. 40 hours or so each week, then I can forget about work during "play time." This is fine, but if I slip up at all, like yesterday, it all falls apart. Plus, it doesn't work in reverse -- I don't get give myself much extra credit for working on a Saturday. And, I feel bad that I'm not passionate enough about my research that I want to work on it more (like Ecogeoman and many friends seem to do).

If I'm going to continue in science, I need to get this guilt thing sorted out. There's no way I'm going to live the rest of my life this way.

NYR Update

I should have written this post yesterday, but whatever. Here's my progress on my New Years' Resolutions, to keep me honest. My theme is "Gettin' It Done" but I had a bunch of specific goals too.

Project Efficiency:

There have been only a few instances of fake working. The fact that I can remember them suggests that I have cut down on this behavior.

I have been pretty good about setting goals for each day. Even if I don't write them down, I've still been better at breaking down tasks so I can figure out something useful to do right now, which helps with the procrastination.

I've had mixed success with avoiding procrastination. Some things have gotten done faster than usual, but other things still get put off. For example, yesterday I did nothing on my snow day and felt all guilty about it. If I had stopped procrastinating and just decided to either work or take the day off, I could have gotten something done or had fun. As it was I did neither. On the other hand, I've been good about knowing when I can't focus/sit in my chair anymore and then finding some small lab task to do so I get something done when I know I would otherwise goof off.

I have dramatically reduced blogging and other personal internet use at work. I did slack on this the last few days, but I resolve to get back on track now.

Money: Doing really well on this one!

I opened an IRA

Put a little leftover 2007 money in my ING savings, along with extra January money. More importantly, I set my automatic tranfer to the amount that I had been paying on my credit card last year. We haven't been going out too much, so hopefully this extra money thing will continue.

Health:

I have been cooking more than three times each week and one meal usually has chicken.

Work:

The Project Effeciency stuff

I have made lots of progress on Paper 1, but fear it's going to start dragging since I've done most of the easy parts. I hope that regular meetings with at least one advisor and confessing my progress here will keeep me on track.

I made little bits of progress on Chapter 2 labwork during breaks from working on Paper 1.

That's it for this month. I still have much work to do on my main issue of keeping work at work and home at home. That probably warrants its own post soon.

*The Blogger spellchecking seems to have crapped out on me. Anyone else have this problem? Sometimes I write posts in Word and paste them in blogger, but not always, so I like the spell check.

Snow Day!

I'm breaking the rules and blogging early today. I figure I've blown it already by sleeping till 10:30.

I got up at 6:00 this morning, checked the traffic report (no less than 2 hours for my normally 45 min drive to work), listened to the weather forecast (still snowing), called my carpool buddy (of course we're not going), and went back to bed. Turns out that my work was closed till noon anyway! My street is still not properly plowed, which is surprising. One of this town's strengths is its efficient snow removal.

I'm going to do some work this afternoon (at home). I think I'm going to be satisfied with whatever I get done today and not feel guilty for goofing off. It's a snow day after all.