Can your stilettos do this?

Last week, something I've always wanted happened to me in the night. It was way hotter than a certain pair of teal sequined pumps and it got me all hot and bothered in the bed. And no, it wasn't Ecogeoman (although he's definitely way hotter than sequined pumps too).

I got an idea while I was sleeping. An idea so sexy that it kept me awake for hours.

I've often been impressed by people's stories of their nocturnal inspiration. Of how they woke up, startled by their own fabulous idea, and positively could not go back to bed until they put fingers to keys and laid that sexy science down. But I'm just a run-of-the-mill scientist making incremental advances to a lab research program that is itself making incremental advances to our sub-sub-subfield. I never though that the science muse would visit me in the night and give me my own STEM version of a wet dream.

I had been mulling over ideas for two different review/synthesis papers. Both are related to my PhD work, but neither one really fit well enough into my thesis topic to warrant inclusion in my dissertation. Plus, I think someone else is working on a meta-analysis on one of the topics so there's no point for me to do it too. Another concern I had been pondering was how to connect two distinct pieces of my dissertation. At the outset, it didn't seem like the two parts would seem disconnected but now I feel like they need to be pulled together with some synthesis in a conclusion chapter. How to deal with all three of these potential writing projects before next summer, when I want to defend?

I woke up all flush on Wednesday night knowing just what to do. I figured out how I can satisfy my desire to review the literature for topic one without doing an all-out meta-analysis -- it will be to make a specific point related to topic two, a point I don't think I could make very well without the review of topic one. By combining them, I don't think I'd overshoot by status as a student in my particular sub-sub-subfield, either. I think it would tie up my dissertation so nicely and be a kick-ass contribution to my science. And, it would only be one paper instead of three.

I know we're all going apeshit for hot shoes lately. But seriously, I don't know of any Naughty Monkeys that can compete with that kind of total science hotness.

scientiae-carnival

Final InaDWriMo

I'm certainly not the winner of the InaDWriMo challenge, but it was good for me nonetheless. I had set aside all of November for writing with the ultimate goal of a complete first draft of a new manuscript. I did produce a draft but it is still very rough. My word meter reports my progress at ~50%. Since I only have one other completed (but not submitted) manuscript, I had a hard time estimating a word goal. I think 8000 was too much. In fact I'd say my word count won't change much but that 50% finished is pretty accurate.

November wasn't a total failure though. I heavily revised a paper I'm working on with Awesome Technician (the ball is currently in her court) and I made lots of progress on the Paper That Will Never Get Submitted. It was that diminishing returns stage of progress though, so it didn't necessarily feel like a lot for the amount of time I spent on it. Anyway, Academic Advisor says he has nothing more to contribute so now I'm waiting for Research Advisor to read it. still.

I had intended to go back to lab work in December but I'd like to push ahead with the paper as well. My goals for the year included finishing the lab work for Chapter 3 and I might be able to do that with some concerted effort. I think I'm going to work on the paper for a few hours each morning and then shift to the lab for the bulk of the day.

Oh yeah...

I almost forgot to tell you -- I got one of the little grants I applied for last month! I feel especially proud because no one read it besides EGM. He provided very useful comments about the presentation, but since both advisors were too busy to look over it at the time, nobody critiqued the science. It makes me feel good that it was my idea and that it was good enough to be funded. Granted, it is only a tiny award in a competition that likely has a very high success rate, but still. Unfortunately, EGM was not so lucky. He took it well though and was happy for me instead of being bummed for himself. What a guy.

The reason I didn't get all excited and post about this sooner was that they put me in a very strange category. This is semi-annual competition by my university graduate college. There is one application for more than one award, so you check the box for the one you're applying for. I got the other one. It is donor money earmarked for a type of research I most certainly do not do. I called the dean's office because I thought it might be a mistake (maybe there is another ecogeofemme who applied?). Nope. I guess there weren't too many fundable applications (or any at all?) that they could justify as meeting the requirements for this award. It seems like a major stretch to give it to me, but whatever. I'll take what I can get!

I'll pick your nits, mate!

With Thanksgiving upon us, I thought I'd talk about one of many things I appreciate about my current lab. You may recall that I do most of my research at the non-university research institution where Research Advisor works. There are hardly any students there full time, so the staff is an assortment of PIs, post docs, and technicians. It has a much more collaborative culture since lab groups aren't comprised of several students who are all responsible for different projects. We are more or less focused on the same goals and since the techs are paid to do the work they are assigned, there aren't the territorial conflicts that can crop up in university labs. One of the benefits of this structure is that everyone is interested in what you're doing.

It can be very isolating to be in a lab where your project is a little different from the principle themes of the group. Or to be in a department where the faculty research interests are diverse so no other labs are doing work similar to your lab. It can limit collaboration and hamper enthusiasm if no one ever wants to talk shop with you because they work in a different shop. Sure, exposure to different ideas can be great, but if the ideas are so different that no one wants to explain them to you, it doesn't do much good to be in a diverse department. And it can really suck if most other people are doing similar work but yours is very different. Then you just feel left out. You suffer a little when there's no one to pick your nits.

I am thankful that I can talk to Awesome Technician about any little issue and she'll both know what I'm talking about and be interested. I like that everyone faces similar practical problems so we can all tackle them together, or at least get decent advice because other people have thought about the problem too. I also like that since we don't operate in separate little domains, we team up when work really needs to get done (e.g. it's pretty easy to assemble a crew for field work). Money is allocated from several different projects, so there is some level of assigning effort to particular grants, but overall we operate as a unit.

There are downsides to anything, however, and this is no exception. For example, I think we are prone to isolation. And we all get along pretty well, but I could imagine that one bad egg could really hinder productivity in a situation like ours. Also, it takes strong leadership to direct people who don't take ownership of their work like grad students do. Scientists aren't trained to be managers. I think professors can get away with poor management skills because their staff -- grad students and post docs, mainly -- really want to accomplish things and meet goals. Technicians, on the other hand, typically don't have that same motivation. That it how it should be, but it changes what the PI needs to do to keep the lab rolling.

In summary, I like my lab because we share common interests. Happy Thanksgiving.

InaDWriMo update and stuff

It has been ages since I last posted. We had a visitor from Far Off Land staying with us last week, which kept us pretty busy. Then this weekend I put off posting because I felt bad about my InaDWriMo progress. I thought I'd write on Saturday, so I decided to wait until Saturday night to post. Then I didn't even open my document on Saturday, so I promised myself I'd work on it on Sunday. You can guess how that went. No writing progress. No posting.

I think this is the exact behavior that frequently inhibits many of us. And I suspect it's the reason a certain person has still not read my paper.

Anyway, the week before last I sent a strongly worded email to my advisors to urge them to comment on my paper (not my InaDWriMo project, but the paper I've been working on all year). So last week Academic Advisor found some time for it. We spent Wednesday afternoon sending pieces of the draft back and forth, picking away at his last criticisms. I continued with those on Thursday and then sent a corrected version with comments in the margins on Thursday night. Friday we met again to discuss these last concerns. Now I have just a few last tweaks before I send it around again. Academic Advisor thinks it's ready to submit, pending one final read-through after a few days. Now it's up to Research Advisor to put it her two cents. Or suggest a dramatic overhaul that will take at least 3 weeks.

I worked on my InaDWriMo project a little bit too. I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere until today, actually. I had bits and pieces of disjointed thoughts scattered through a rough, bullet-point outline. Today I fleshed it out a little and joined the pieces together so that it now sort of resembles a draft. A very rough draft, but a draft nonetheless. Now comes the process of working through the literature I've compiled to find all the best references. There will be lots of revision to the text as that happens.

We're having friends over tomorrow, then going to my home town for Thanksgiving, then on Sunday EGM leaves for a 6-week field trip. Time is flying! I hope the time he's away goes just as fast.

Five Things Meme

Sciencewoman tagged me for this meme. Here we go.

5 Things I was doing 10 years ago

1. Applying to spend a semester studying in a Scandinavian country (and convincing my parents it could be possible)
2. Discovering ecology
3. Wishing I had more female friends (a perennial problem)
4. Wishing I could buy beer
5. Watching Austin Powers at least once a week

5 Things on my to do list today

1. Work on the results section of Chapter 2
2. Outline the intro and discussion sections of Chapter 2
3. Transfer some money around so EGM can take advantage of the currently awesome exchange rate
4. Watch Dancing with the Stars and Boston Legal, two of my favorite shows (if the t.v. actually works)
5. Hang out with EGM

5 snacks I love

1. Ice cream
2. Chocolate malts
3. Cheese
4. Cheesy potato chips
5. pistachios

5 things I would do if I were a millionaire (this means many millions, right?)

1. Fund my lab's research
2. Give to established charities and endow a fund for small research grants for scientists in my field to work in developing countries
3. Set aside money for more frequent trips to Far Off Land
4. Have a big fancy wedding, including flying family and friends from FOL to my home town in the US.
5. Buy a house or condo

5 places I've lived

1. Large Midwest City
2. Medium Midwest City
3. Small Midwest City
4. Scandinavian country for a semester (see above)
5. Far Off Land, briefly

5 jobs I've had

1. One-hour photo technician
2. Restaurant server
3. Lab technician
4. Grad student
5. Unsolicited advice giver

5 people I'd like to share this meme with

1. Kate
2. Liberal Arts Lady
3. Fia
4. Unbalanced Reaction
5. Ambivalent Academic

InaDWriMo update

I have actually made some progress this week! Being accountable to InaDWriMo has helped me get over it and start chipping away at this writing project that seems a little daunting. I spent most of the week working up data. I gave a presentation on this study at a meeting in August, but at that time I had processed the data very quickly and knew there were some things I needed to work out. It's interesting how time can change things, though, because a few issues that I thought were real dilemmas in August strike me as obvious decisions now. I have now decided to handle the data analysis one way, however, I think that could change later when I discuss it with my advisors.

Anyway, by deciding to just deal with the data instead of reworking it over and over, I was able to make some progress. Most of the figures are made. I still need to decide about some tables, but I think what I need will become clear as I finalize the results section. So far I have written out sentences systematically describing most of the results. I need to complete that section and edit it into something readable.

My word meter is at 30% which I think is a little misleading. I've been jotting down paragraphs here and there to record ideas and that's starting to turn into an outline. I think most of that text will be entirely rewritten though.

My goals for next week are to finish the results section including the figures and tables, come up with an outline, and draft a few key paragraphs that I'm positive I will need. I have already gathered the literature I need for each of these paragraphs so it shouldn't be all that hard to write them.

In other writing news, I had to lay down the law in an email to my advisors, one of whom has still not read the paper I've been talking about here all year. The other one promised comments on my latest draft by Monday and scheduled a meeting for Tuesday to discuss it. Great! Now if I could just get the other to do the same, I'd be in business.

Playing the field

I just remarked over at River Tam's place that no one would ever call me mannish. No one would ever think I'd be good at field work, either. I'm petite, just 5'1" (155 cm) with a really slight frame. Field work in my discipline relies on one crucial activity* that is most efficient when the worker has height, mass, and strength on her side. I have none of those qualities, unless you're comparing me to a child.

I hate field work, mostly because I'm just not built for it, or at least not for the key tasks. I almost always need a helper in the field. A few years ago I was engaged in a project that required frequent field efforts that I could not do alone so one of the technicians came with me. He could have done this job on his own but since it was for my PhD, it was my fieldwork and I had to be there, turning a one-person job into a two-person job. It frustrates me that I can't be more self-reliant. I also dislike the one-and-only-chance nature of field work; the conditions today will not be the same as tomorrow or next week, so if you fuck it up, you can never really redo it.

But. Field work takes more than just the brute force tasks. It takes a lot of organization, good judgment, and for some things we do, the ability to stay crouched on the ground for hours on end. I can do those things. So even though I can't do that one crucial task, I can do many of the things that go along with it that are also essential. It's hard to remind myself that I'm useful, even good, in the field without the ability to do the big strong stuff, but I am.

One of the benefits of being in a female-dominated lab is that no one connects my poor aptitude for field work with being a woman. Blame it on being small -- yes, but on being a woman -- no. Research Advisor is a machine in the field, while one of the male PIs is worthless. On the other hand, our one male technician is excellent in the field. Some of the female techs can hold their own, too. It's just not a gender thing.

I'm still last picked for field work that's not for my PhD, but that's partly because everyone knows I hate it and partly because no one is paying me to help with other lab projects (in contrast to the technicians who are paid for that). And who am I kidding, it's still partly because I'm a wimp, but whatever. I'm happy I'm not on the trip to do crappy field work this week, like many of my lab mates are.

*If you're positively dying to know what it is, send me an email.

One year on

Yesterday I noted that it was my blogiversary. I have really enjoyed developing this new hobby over the past year, not to mention getting to know all the wonderful people in this corner of the blogosphere. I was reading and commenting on blogs well before I started my own; my habits have changed dramatically since I started my own blog.

I started my blog shortly after we got internet access at home*. I had been reading a handful of blogs (FSP, Sciencewoman's old blog, Am I a Woman Scientist, Dr. Shellie, Ms.PhD, Jenny F. Scientist, PropterDoc) at work. I'd do like I do with email -- I'd keep a few blogs open and refresh constantly whenever I wanted a break. It was before I knew about services like Sitemeter -- those authors must of thought I was a freak! However, I tried not to read too many blogs since I didn't want to spend my entire day at work fluffing around on the web.

Once I got internet at home, I started following a much greater variety of blogs. I found new ones by moving laterally from my favorites and by checking out blogs of people who commented here. I really appreciate the community of which I've become a part and all the latent mentorship I've received through blogs.

Now I subscribe to many blogs (>90; I'm sure many of you read plenty more than that). I still read a few during work breaks, but only in my feed reader and I almost never take time to comment until I get home. It can be difficult to keep up with them all, especially when I miss a few days. Sometimes I get confused about who said what where. Yet, I'm constantly finding new blogs. I like getting to know new people plus I want to support new bloggers the same way that people so generously supported me by visiting and commenting when I first started (and still do!).

I feel torn about my anonymity, too. Sometimes (like after election day) I want to talk about where I live and other times I'd really like to say more about my work. I'm not too concerned with other bloggers or regular readers knowing who I am, but I don't think I want everyone I know to have access to the thoughts I share here and I certainly don't want this page to come up when someone googles my name. I know, same shit everyone says. On the other hand, I sometimes want to share the treasure of the women-in-science blogosphere with colleagues who I think could really benefit from the community. But I hesitate because I don't necessarily want them to read my blog.

So anyway, that's what I think about blogging right now. How about you? Has the way you use blogs shifted over time?



*Can I tell you how pissed I was when I had put off getting home internet because we were on such a tight budget and I thought it would be really expensive (at least $60) and then it turned out to be $17/month? I waited so long to save $17?!

On co-writing

The other day I mentioned that I am co-writing a paper with Awesome Technician. This is my second experience co-writing a document -- the first was the symposium proposal with Cauliflower -- and I really like it.

By co-writing, I mean that both authors feel responsibility for the work. In my experience, it has meant passing the document back and forth, with each person allowed the freedom to change it as she saw fit. I see co-authoring, in contrast, as a situation where one person is a lead author and does most of the drafting. The co-authors merely make suggestions for edits (however major) but it's ultimately up to the lead author to finalize the document. Of course the co-written papers have had a leader, but they have been much more cooperative than traditional collaborations.

There are several benefits to co-writing. When you get blocked or sick of looking at the project, you can pass it on to the other person. Or, you can sketch out ideas and let the other person develop them into something lovely. The reverse can happen too, where the other person does the hard work of laying out a concept and you have the fulfilling job of expanding it into something more articulate. It's also fun to have someone else really invested in the same project you're obsessing about (narcissism, anyone?).

Certainly, I want to have plenty of my own papers, but I have really enjoyed the more intense collaboration that co-writing offers.

Progress Update #1

Okay, so I know I sorta begged Dr Brazen Hussy for InaDWriMo and now it's already November 9 and I haven't even put a word counter up. Shame on me. I promise I'll get on it. For now, here is a summary of my goals.

I'd like to accomplish two writing tasks this month: 1) a very short paper I'm co-writing with Awesome Technician and 2) the first draft of the manuscript that will be Chapter 3 of my dissertation. AT gave me a very, very rough draft of the manuscript a few weeks ago and I think it will end up much shorter than the original so, although both manuscripts are InaDWriMo goals, I think I will base my word count goal only on the Chapter 3 paper. Let's say 5000 words. I already have a rough draft of the methods section, so I'm going to start my count with that even though it's cheating a little since I wrote it before Nov 1.

My progress this past week was pretty slow. I spent two days in the field helping with other lab projects and Tuesday was pretty much shot with the election hoo-ha. I did work on the short paper the other two days. I pretty much overhauled AT's draft -- reorganizing it, clarifying the logic, and working out some of the arguments. I had been working on a it before Nov 1, but I got it far enough to send it back to AT on Friday. It still needs lots of work, but I'm hopeful that we'll have a finished draft by the end of the month. The co-writing process has been pretty interesting so far, so I think I will write a separate post about that soon.

I did make some small progress toward the Chapter 3 paper as well. I had one last little bit of data to collect and now that's done! It feels fantastic to have every last number in the spreadsheet (I think). I'm really hoping to have a complete draft of this thing by Dec 1, but there is a lot of data crunching and interpretation that need to be done, so I think it will be slow going.

In other news, today is my 1 year blogoversary. I intended to write a post about how much my blog habits have changed since I switched from being a reader/commenter only to writing a blog as well. Perhaps tomorrow.

UPDATE: Um, so I just did a word count for the Chapter 3 paper and it's already more than 1000 words. I think I will up my goal to 8000. kthnxbai.

The trouble with novels

I am ashamed to admit that I am the kind of person who can abandon a novel before I reach the ending. For example, I started Catch-22 at least three times, once getting more than half-way, but never finished it. On the other hand, once I'm engaged, I have to simply give up on whatever else I have going on because I get totally enchanted by a good story.

Today I spent about 7 hours engulfed in The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, which I acquired at a book exchange at work. I started it a few days ago and today I gave in to the decadence of spending the whole day curled up on the couch, not even showering until I was through. Now I'm still stuck in a fog from the story and my inner monologue has taken on the voice of the narrator, as it usually does when I read fiction.

So much for InaDWriMo progress.

There was an interview with the author at the end of the volume. Apparently she used to be an academic specializing in French literature. I thought this question/answer was particularly interesting given how much time I spend reading blogs about balance:

You were an academic before becoming an author. What promoted the change in careers?

British universities are not very happy places for their staff currently, and I gave up academic life for the same reasons as many other do and would like to do. In particular the erosion of my private reading time made me unhappy -- if I cannot escape for an hour or two every day by reading for pleasure, then small problems seem to grow large, and I begin to feel enormously burdened. After five years in the profession I was plagued by the feeling that by some absurd mistake I was leading someone else's life, and was desperate to find a path back to my own. I had always wanted to be a writer, but was impeded by the belief that to be a writer one had to extraordinary, and I knew I wasn't. By the time I was ready to give up my academic career I had realized that while books are extraordinary, writers themselves are no more or less special than anyone else.

Me-meme

Karina, Sciencegirl, and almost Acmegirl tagged me for this meme.

1.Link to the person who tagged you.
2.Post the rules on your blog.
3.Write six random things about yourself.
4.Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5.Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6.Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

My version will be 6 things I've never done.

I've never...
1. learned to drive a manual transmission car.
2. had a proper job interview. or a formal performance evaluation.
3. been responsible for children overnight.
4. voted for a republican.
5. lived in the same home as my oldest brother for more than ~3 months.
6. met either of my grandmothers.

I'm so behind on blog reading that I have no idea who's left to tag for this so I'm not going to tag anyone. But if you'd like to do it, go for it and you can say I tagged you.

Juiced up!

My new power cord came! I can once again connect to the sweet sweet interwebz. Hopefully the chills and shaking will stop now. :)

More to come.