Research is like a slot machine

Ecogeoman recently compared working as a scientist to a gambling addiction. He has a point.

Funding rates are crappy. He applied for 10-12 small grants in the last several months hoping but never expecting to be successful. Lo and behold, he actually won two of them and he is on cloud nine. He mused that this taste of success is enough to keep him going...for a while.

It’s like gambling at a casino. The slot machine has to pay out just frequently enough to keep your interest so you’ll continue to put the money in. In science, you have to get enough grants funded to keep you wanting to try for the next one.

We hypothesized that people who make it in research are ones who can sustain longest on intermittent success. Alternatively, the most successful people probably enjoy more frequent success. We think maybe that’s not so much the case. Instead, we think that there’s selection for people who can coast on glory for longer, thereby getting more done before they are overcome with the depression of failure. There's clearly a positive feedback.

My career plan: shrug

I come from a working class family. My dad is a skilled tradesman, my mom stayed home with the kids until she became a receptionist/office manager when I was young. Most of my siblings went to college, but none had advanced degrees until S4 got a master’s to keep up her teaching certificate. In short, I had no experience with the concept of a Ph.D. before I went to college and had Ph.D.s for professors. Scientists were people interviewed on the news about cancer breakthroughs or marine biology.

I went to a smallish, non-Ph.D.-granting university with a tiny master’s program. I had little exposure to research until my last semester when I got to work in the lab of a new faculty for course credit. Right after I graduated, that assistant professor took me to a small, student-friendly meeting to present a poster representing my work. It was the best professional experience I’ve had.

Everything at that meeting was new and exciting. I didn’t know who anyone was, so I didn’t know who to be intimidated by and I was fearless. I learned so much and met so many people, including Research Advisor, who then hired me to be a technician.

I came to RA’s lab not knowing exactly what I wanted to do. I still wasn’t considering grad school; Ph.D.s were for other people, not me. I figured I’d try the research gig for about a year, then try something more applied for a year and see what I liked best. After several months, the research bug bit me and I eventually enrolled in a grad program.

Now that I am approaching the end of grad school, it’s really hard to imagine the next step, let alone where I’ll be ten years out. In the fall, I’ll probably have to start seriously looking for post-docs, which just feels weird. There are so many different directions that appeal to me where I could use my current knowledge and skills in new ways. I sort of figure an opportunity will come along and the choice will be obvious. But now there’s Ecogeoman’s career to consider as well. And there are some great opportunities on the horizon in my current (non-university) lab. While I know that it sometimes isn’t good to stay in the same lab after a Ph.D., quite frankly it might be the best way for me to get on a nonacademic career path.

So, here I am, almost with a Ph.D. that I never expected and never planned for. I’m optimistic that it will all work out in the end. I plan to keep crossing bridges as I come to them since that has served me well so far. Really, it’s all I know.

scientiae-carnival

Shuffle meme

All the cool kids are doing this meme, but I've been resisting because I don't have an iPod. I broke down today when CAE specifically tagged me to do it. I figured I could make do by leafing through my old-school travel cd case to list the 25 songs I've listened to the most lately. Unfortunately, I pretty much only listen to 2 or 3 cds, so I tired to come up with songs I really like even if they're not in regular rotation. Even that didn't get me to 25, so I took a trip down memory lane to fill in the list with favorite songs from throughout my life. I think I need to cut back on the NPR.

Step 1: Put your MP3 player or whatever on random.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 25 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: Strike through when someone gets them right.
Step 5: Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING.


Bonus points if you can pick out the two songs from the cds I have on repeat. More bonus points if you can identify what was my first favorite song.

1. Someday mother will die and I’ll get the money
2. When you grow up livin’ like a good boy outta
3. This is the beat that make you shake your rump
That make your booty go ba-bump, ba-bump
It’s that beat that make ya bump ya bump (ohh)
4. I’m wearing
fur pajamas
5. Ground control to Major Tom
6. Drop your glasses, shake your asses
7. All I can say is that my life is pretty plain
8. Hello darkness my old friend
9. You never give me your money
10. Sunshine came softly a-through my window today
11. The queen of light took her bow and then she turned to go
12. I want you to know that I’m happy for you
13. Reluctantly crouched at the starting line
14. She keeps moet et chandon in her pretty cabinet
15. Sitting on a park bench eyeing little girls with bad intent
16. I was lying in the grass on Sunday morning of last week indulging in my self defeats
17. Alcohol on my hands I got plans to ditch myself and get outside
Dancing women
Throwing plates
Decapitating their laughing dates
Swirling chickens caught in flight
Out of focus
Much too bright
Coming down
Shiny teeth
Game show suckers trying to bleed
But I got a drug and I got the bug
And I got something better than love
18. We’ve come a long long way together
19. You’ve got to trust your instinct and let go of regret
Youve got to bet on yourself now star
cause thats your best bet
Watch me now with a wicked and wild and I said
We come with the funky style
That gets us known for the show
And well mix the hip hop reggae if we say it is so
And fuck the naysayers cause they dont mean a thingcause this is what style we bring
20. Good mornin’ ladies and gentlemen, boys and motherfuckin’ girls
21. Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise
22. At home, drawing pictures of mountain tops
23. 6 o’clock already? I was just in the middle of a dream
24. On the first part of the journey I was looking at all the life
25. Early in the mornin’. risin’ to the street. Light me up that cigarette and I’ll strap shoes on my feet

Lost = awesome

This season of Lost has been brilliant. The pacing is fantastic, the plot is dramatic and complex, and every single episode ends with a twist out of absolutely nowhere. I can't wait to see what happends next!

They best not end the series by revealing that the whole thing was someone's dream.

RBOC

I have been unusually busy in the evenings this week so I haven't written any substantial posts. So, bullets.

• I sent my advisors the second draft of my paper. I wonder how long it will take them to read it. I expect it to be a while.
• I have a committee meeting coming up. I want to convince them that I should drop the last proposed chapter of my dissertation. I really hope they agree to it.
• If you are going to invite your lab to your home for an open house to entertain a guest scientist, tell people what day you want them to come. Tell them before the day you want them to come.
• If there is a lull in conversation at such an open house, play telephone. It's hilarious when your guests speak a variety languages and children are involved.
• It FINALLY feels like spring. There have been several days with highs above 70F. yay.
• Lost is back tomorrow!

A Note

Dear Former Self,

Thank you for taking good notes sometimes. Occasionally, I think you are a genius for remembering to record what you did in the lab, like the time you saved my ass by noting how you did that one step in the convoluted protocol.

That said, I wish you would do the dishes more often.

Take care,
Current Self

I'm a trained monkey

I'm off to the lab this afternoon to do some seriously mindless work. If I'm lucky I'll tick off 6 more samples from the counter at the sidebar. Even though this task is crummy, tedious, boring, and dirty, I enjoy it as long as I don't have to do it every day for weeks on end. Candid Engineer has a post about why big brain thinky types like to do repetitive lab work (actually, there are a bunch of great posts at Candid Engineer in Academia) that I think is pretty much spot-on. It feels good to see the work get done. Also, I like to get my hands dirty with the project so I develop a more intimate knowledge of it.


So you say, "EGF, you don't work on weekends! That violates your 40 hours rule." That's true, but I do want to graduate and the only way to do it to get things done. However, unless I have a huge and looming deadline, when I work on weekends I reserve the right to choose whatever I feel like doing rather than worrying about what has highest priority. I figure it's bonus work so whatever I get done is great. I don't want to be resentful of being there; I want to be pleased with myself for getting something extra accomplished.

Every thing I do today is one thing I don't have to do tomorrow.

Vacation Part 2 -or- Carrot

I went on vacation the day after I took my oral candidacy exam. I hadn't realized just how tense I had been while preparing for the exam; I've never felt such an obvious release of tension. Even though the trip was to Gatlinburg, TN with my whole 28-member family (including two infants), it was blissful.

When I told Academic Advisor about my July vacation plans, he half-joked that I better have my paper submitted before then. I thought about it a little and decided that it's a really good goal. By the time we go through a few more iterations, we probably will be entering summer. It would be positively glorious to lie on the beach with a beer knowing that the paper is off my desk.

Yes, that's the goal. That's a big juicy carrot dangling on a stick. I'm gonna kick that paper's ass.

Vacations

Several bloggers have discussed the dilemmas surrounding students’ requests for vacation time, like whether or not the advisor should be consulted, if the time must be "made up", etc. I have two week-long trips planned for this summer and felt compelled to run my plans by both advisors, though not necessarily ask for permission. Research Advisor didn’t seem especially interested and said fine. I must have had an apologetic look on my face when I talked to Academic Advisor today because he said, “why are making that face? Why do you feel bad about taking time off?” How great is that? He’s right, I shouldn’t feel bad.

That brings me to a thought I’ve had for a while: why do scientists feel like we need to justify their vacations? Why do we have to rationalize our fun?

I’ve noticed that people will say they need to take time off in order to be a better scientist. Vacations “recharge the batteries” so one can return to work in super production mode. Time off during evenings or weekends will “refresh creativity” and “clear one’s head”. These things are all true. But is the only reason we take vacations so that we can be better workers? Why don’t we take vacations just because it’s fun or to spend quality time with our families? I don’t feel like my whole point of living is to be a better scientist. There are lots of things that contribute to making me a good person and member of my community besides my work.

I get so sick of the notion that if I’m serious about my career, then the core of my identity should be as a scientist and that everything I do should be to fortify my worth as a worker. I think that’s bullshit. I’m glad that my advisors don’t seem to have that attitude.

I think I should be able to take a vacation just because I want to. If it happens to make me a better scientist, all the better.

Ecogeoman has an ouchie

Ecogeoman was walking to class today when he felt a snap in his calf. He could walk, but only on his tip-toes (I'm sure he looked very graceful walking down the street!). There is severe pain in the lower inside part of his calf muscle when he flexes his foot. I guess he pulled a muscle(?).

I had to pick him up and drive him home from work (he would have taken public, but it would have involved too much walking and too many stairs). So now he has ice on it after taking Excedrin Back and Body (acetaminophen + aspirin). Any other advice?

March NYR review

I’m overdue for a New Year’s Resolution update post. I’m sure these are boring, but they really do provide some accountability for me, so here goes.

• I’m doing fine on the money and cooking resolutions.
• Lab work is slowly but steadily progressing. I met a small milestone for Chapter 2 work this week. Chapter 3 work is not going as fast, but not entirely stalled.
• The paper is not going well. Well, it’s not going badly but this is April already and it’s still not done. I have no one to blame but myself. No excuses. I just haven’t done it. Progress has been creeping along, but I need to get my A into G and do it. Actually, that’s not really fair. I did do a fair bit of work on it in March. However, I can feel myself fake working during my writing time and that’s bad. Also, I put everything else first and that’s also bad.
• I still have the same old problem of being really effective in the lab and not so much at my desk. One of the resolutions I have let slide was to make tomorrow’s to-do list at the end of each day. I think I should try that again. Also, I think the goals should be more specific. Currently, I’ll say I’m going to “write” for 2 hours or whatever, but I think I need to say “I’ll work on paragraph X” or “I’ll find the appropriate references for these 3 arguments”. There’s currently some good advice about goal making and list writing at the Aphasic Grads Writing Group.

Sorry I complain about the same crap over and over, but it’s what I struggle with.

Inept

I got my haircut tonight. Yay for eliminating the cute cut that turned into a mullet as it grew out.

I am so awkward in situations like haircuts. I'm stuck with this person who wants to make small talk for 30-45 mins and I just don't have shit to say. My stylist is very nice and seems very interesting, but 30 min every 3 months is just not going to make us BFFs (of course I know that this is part of her job and she doesn't want to be my BFF either). She tried really hard to ask about my work, but I just couldn't be bothered to talk about it. What I do is just too weird to try to explain to someone with no background when I'm that distracted. Plus I'm much more interested in what it's like to do her job. So after an awkward moment after the third or fourth question about work, I giggled and joked that it was classified and said I didn't really want to talk about it. Then I asked her stuff like, "do people want to cut off all their hair this time of year?" or "Do people think their hair is so awesome that they can pull off ridiculous haircuts?" That got her telling me stories about crazy customers which was much better than me droning on about my research.

And I wonder, do stylists take notes about you after you leave? Seriously, I've been to this woman once before back in January and then took my sister to her in February. She remembered what I do, where I work, where I'm from, etc. It's impressive.

Green thumb, black thumb

Comments on my last post praising my alleged green thumb prompted me to be a little more honest about my indoor gardening skills. Many of my plants are doing really well right now but some of them, like those pictured above, are really suffering.

Last fall I moved all the plants back indoors after it got cold. Note that I said "after" not "before" it got cold. So a few of the less hardy ones were a little worse for wear after their summer growth spurt and subsequent frost damage. After they were inside, some of them thrived while others hated their new locations, plus I kind of neglected them at first.

The project efficiency NY resolution helped because I started watering really regularly. The ones that aren't mostly dead are quite happy, but there are a few with just a handful of green leaves left. I'm hoping they will hang on until May when I can move some outside and move the rest to better spots inside.

My Dracaena bloomed!

I never knew these things would flower in captivity. One day, I was watering it and noticed this huge flowering stalk. It didn't do much for over a week, then one evening we came home and noticed a strange smell. It was this plant!

A brief internet search suggests that this is Dracaena fragans; I'd say that's pretty descriptive. Over about 5-6 days, some of the florets opened each evening and were done by morning. They produced a really strong fragrance, a lilly/rose/honeysuckle blend that started out sort of musky and grew into a powerful perfume that filled our whole apartment. EGM hated it, but I thought it was lovely.

It was fun having this plant seemingly spontaneously flower. I hope it doesn't die now.

Treat

In light of yesterday's news, the wonderful email I got today from Research Advisor telling me how she nominated me for the award*, and how I rocked out at work today**, I decided I should get a little treat. In fact, I got myself the treat of all treats: I had ice cream for dinner. Actually, it was a chocolate malt from 31 Flavors. YUM.

*I feel I should seriously savor this because it's not too often that you get praise in this business. I'm sharing it with you not to brag, but because I think it's unfair when people want you to listen to all the bad things that happen but then don't share the good things. And this is "The Happy Scientist", after all :)
** I got back on track with the paper rewrite. I really focused on it this morning and made some headway reorganizing the discussion. I Then spent the afternoon in the lab and it was going so well that I decided to stay to do more samples. I feel really good about my progress today, which is much more than I can say for any other day this week.

I can't believe it!

Today I found out that I received an award. I was totally surpised and very, very pleased. The award is related to a fellowship I have from an external organization that's part of a program designed for students researching a particular problem. Each year, they give a special honor to one fellow who best utilizes the opportunities offered by the program and does good work. In addition to the honor (and the line on the CV), the honored fellow gets a little extra money. Woo-hoo!

The Economical Academic

A while back, I mentioned something about starting a blog all about money issues academics face. Well, Psycgirl and I have finally done it!

Psycgirl and I had both been noticing how frequently money issues crop up in blogs, especially ones written by grad students. We also noticed, however, that money issues aren't restricted to grad students; most academics get a late start on their financial lives after racking up student loans then deferring them while living on peanuts. That includes people who rely on unsteady adjunct gigs, have exorbitant child care costs, or spend tons of money commuting for a long distance relationship.

We modeled the new blog after the Active Academic, which is a multi-author blog for academics about health and fitness. We'd like to have lots of contributors so people can get an array of ideas for improving their financial health or just have a safe and friendly space to talk about their problems. Email Psycgirl or me if you'd like to be an author.

Go check out The Economical Academic!

History of Science

Today the department seminar was given by a historian about one of the pillars, nay, founders of (one of) my field(s). I've never listened to a history seminar before. I'm pretty sure this is the first one of its kind in my department since I've been there.

It was mildly interesting to learn about this Founding Father of my -ology and I've no doubt that the information will be useful to me someday at some level. But this kind of history is just not my cup of tea, so while a talk about something so different was refreshing, I hope seminars like this don't become too frequent. Also, the speaker handed out hard copies of his PowerPoint presentation so we could take notes. It disgusted me a little to see all that paper just destined for the trash being passed around the room.

I did find one thing really interesting in the talk: there were many women in the photos documenting field research from the 1890's - 1930's. Apparently, these women were Founding Father's students. I wonder what they did after they earned their degrees, since it doesn't seem like they went on to establish notable research careers (or maybe they did but didn't get credit for it). The speaker hypothesized that the women chose to major in -ology and to participate in Founding Father's field trips because it was one of the few opportunities for them to get outdoors and get dirty. Interesting thought.