Six Word meme

ScienceGirl tagged me for this cool meme:

Here are the instructions:1. Write your own six word memoir 2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like 3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere 4. Tag five more blogs with links 5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play


My path is guided by opportunity.


I tag Alice, Stepwise Girl, AcmeGirl, Karina, and Janus Professor.

Earth Hour was underwhelming

My city made a pretty big deal about Earth Hour, saying the whole place would be dark and it would make such a statement and as bonus we'd get to see the stars for once. I was driving home at the time and didn't notice a big difference. A few buildings were darker than usual but still had plenty of nonessential lights burning. Ironically, one of those electronic, back-lit billboards was advertising Earth Hour in bright lights -- during Earth Hour.

Once, I was a fool

Well, I still can be a fool sometimes. But this story is about a time when I was biased against a woman doing science, which I thought would be appropriate for Peggy's Scientiae Canival theme. I can’t believe I ever felt this way. I won’t do it again.

When I was in college, I worked in the lab of a brand new assistant professor. I went to a smallish school with no PhD program and a limited number of master’s student in the department, so undergrads had great access to research opportunities. Because this professor was new, she was still setting up her lab when I joined it. And because the department was small, she was doing most of it by herself. I recall one day I was there during the installation of a fancy piece of equipment that I now know is pretty standard fare for labs in our subfield. There were problems with the installation that required much troubleshooting during the first weeks she had the instrument. As this bright, capable women was buried up to the elbows in tubing and electronics, performing major surgery on the new instrument, I thought, Can she really fix this? She needs to get a man to deal with this. She’s going to break it! Of course, she didn’t break it. She fixed it. And when I moved on to the next lab, I met several very smart and technically savvy women who did similar work and expected me to be able to use and troubleshoot just such an instrument. Which I did, thank you very much.

I shudder now to admit those thoughts even crossed my mind! I would never think such a thing now. There’s no job a woman can’t do with the right tools. But knowing that someone like me could have had those thoughts once upon a time makes me realize that lots of people still have them. I think that’s why I’m drawn to women-in-science issues even though I rarely feel bias myself. Hopefully, women doing great work and speaking out about these issues will shown the remaining fools just how foolish they are.

scientiae-carnival

Is your inner monologue cool?

I am neurotic about my efficiency in the lab. I don’t like for anything to take longer than it needs to take, so I figure out ways to shave time off of every procedure. I pride myself in being fast at particular tasks and have been known to toot my own horn about it.

One of the technicians is learning a procedure that Awesome Technician and I mostly do. I mentioned a short cut for one step and they marveled at my anal retentiveness -- “you have a protocol for that?”. Yes, I do. Just as I have a preferred sequence for every series of steps, a seamless choreography that lets me get just one more sample done.

AT and I considered why I am like this. I suggested it’s because I have a boring inner monologue, so I have to think about how to get done faster, while she can luxuriate in her interesting and creative thoughts. But it probably has more to do with my overwhelming desire to finish my damn thesis.

Mmmm, w(h)ine.

Ecogeoman took me out to dinner tonight to celebrate my birthday. We had a coupon (coo-pon, q-pon?) for one of our favorite restuarants, which included a bottle of wine. That wine will explain any misspellings or irrational thoughts in this post (ha-ha, EGF wrote a drunk post!). Here's what's on my mind:

EGM and I went on a big long walk before dinner and I dominated our conversation with my anxiety over paper revisions. I'm feeling a little depressed about work, mainly because rethinking everything I wrote seems hard. Here's an insight into me: I tell horrible, long boring stories with anticlimactic endings. Every group of friends I have ever made has come to the same conclusion. So while EGM tells me every details of his work, I end up not talking about work stuff so much because I'm worried about being boring. But tonight I let loose and it helped me work out some ideas. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day for rewriting. Also, I hate admitting that the revisions feel hard because I feel annoyed when other people whine (too much) about this sort of thing.

Why, oh why, do I feel like I'm getting bigger yet I continue to wear the same size pants? I've gained a few pounds, probably less than 10, since college. Yet, I periodically feel like my jeans get too tight and I phase them out. I buy new pairs, but they are the same size in the same brands! WTF? Do they shrink over time with multiple washings? Do the sizes vary pair-to-pair? Does the fashionable cut change over time such that what seems tight is actually just a little out of style? It's possible that the sizes are increasing (i.e, today's 6 is tomorrow's 8), but it seems unlikely over the 2-3 year period that I'm making observations. On the other hand, I don't think I used to have this muffin top. :(

It feels like spring is never going to arrive. There is still snow on the ground and more is forecast for Thursday. Jenny F., maybe you should reconsider the Midwest, because it really sucks this year, even though I was one of those people who said it was just great and winter is no big deal and you get to wear fun hats.

We learned this weekend that S4 is pregnant with her third kid. yay! But it means that my parent's house is going to be even more jam packed with people at holidays. I love our fun and chaotic gatherings, but boy are there a lot of people.

Double whammy weekend

This year, I share my birthday with Jesus' resurrection (zombie day?), so Ecogeoman and I are dutifully off to my hometown for the weekend. I think we'll have fun. We're going to spend Saturday evening with my BFF and some other friends and then Sunday will be a family Easter extravaganza, complete with an egg hunt and many arguments over peanut butter eggs which are the centerpiece of our candy cap-and-trade system. We're taking Monday off to drive back home at a leisurely pace.

I'm really excited about going away for the weekend. EGM has been so stressed and busy with work and I could use a break as well. I am not, however, too excited about this birthday, 29. I have clear childhood memories of my mom teasing my sister-in-law about aging, saying she should say she was 29 when she was well past 30. Not an novel joke, but one I heard so young that it stuck with me. It makes me feel now that I have only the last crumb of my youth left to savor. But, I can take heart that no matter now old I get, I will always be fresh compared to my siblings!

Medium and Good

The Medium:

1. We discussed the first draft of my manuscript at lab meeting (led by Academic Advisor, not Research Advisor). It was a good experience; I got lots of constructive comments. I had asked them to focus on big picture issues, like organization, consistency, data interpretation, main themes, etc., rather than details since the paper is at an early stage (I don’t want to polish sentences that might just get deleted). Some people marked up stupid style and formatting stuff anyway, but at least they read it. We haven’t discussed many working drafts in our lab meetings, so AA used my manuscript as a tool to teach everyone some broad writing lessons. Some examples:

• Title, abstract, first pragraph of intro, first paragraph of results, first and last paragraphs of discussion, and conclusion should all match and contain the same point(s).
• Avoid starting major sections with “negative” statements. For instance, “this bad disease disfigures hundreds of people every year” is not positive. AA claims that the papers that come off as most exciting and interesting phrase things in a positive way.
• This one is more obvious, but apparently I had trouble with it: determine your audience and write with the appropriate degree of detail. I guess I mixed general ideas that would appeal to a broad audience with finer points that would bore everyone but specialists in my subdiscipline.

So the lab meeting was mostly good, but today I felt a little overwhelmed when I started to attack the problems. I will basically have to rewrite the paper, which is fine because it will get so much better, but I need to develop a strategy. AA said he would email me his specific comments – they might help me figure out where to start. I currently feel frustrated.

2. I have been making slow progress on the crummy, tedious, boring, dirty project (see progress meter at sidebar). Today I worked on the Worst Samples Ever. My plan was to chip away on this project while working on manuscript revisions. It’s bench work that I usually sort of enjoy and that a trained monkey could do, so I figured it would be a good way to spread out the difficult rewriting while still moving forward on something. But today’s samples were so crappy that it only added to my overall frustration. I really want to finish with these fuckers.

The Good:

1. My fellowship got renewed for one more year. Yay! This is a big relief.
2. My BFF invited me to go on vacation with her and her parents this summer, at the same time that Ecogeoman is going to Far Off Land. I’d only have to pay for myself to get there and maybe chip in for food. EGM and I had basically decided that I should not go to Far Off Land with him (too expensive) so I’m excited to go to Florida instead. :)
3. I was in a really sour mood when I got home today, so EGM and I got beer and dinner at our favorite neighborhood bar. Then we got ice cream -- yum. I feel much better now.

Another kind of balance

We talk a whole lot about work-life balance, but lately I've been thinking about how challenging project balance is to learn. Knowing when to devote time to different projects is tricky. Currently, I'm working on the manuscript for project 1, lab work for project 2 when bench space is available, totally different lab work for project 3, and helping Awesome Technician with lab work for one of Research Advisor's projects when both of us have time. Ecogeoman is juggling two manuscripts, TAing, and writing one small grant proposal after another. This is nothing compared to all the balls our advisors keep in the air all the time. It's like playing Tetris with projects across time.

I like having several things going on at once. Any of it gets tiresome after a while, so it's nice to mix up computer work with different kinds of bench work. If space or equipment is unavailable I can always do something else, so my efficiency is not at the mercy of other people. Also, I like making progress on several things concurrently. But sometimes, I just want to buckle down and get something done. It takes so long to finish things.

Perfectionism

I followed this link I saw at Rising To the Occasion and thought it was interesting enough for a post. It's a booklet from the University of Texas Counseling and Mental Health Center titled "Perfectionism: A double-edged sword". Some excerpts:

Those who strive for excellence in a healthy way take genuine pleasure in trying to meet high standards. Perfectionists on the other hand are full of self-doubts and fears of disapproval, ridicule and rejection. The healthy striver has drive, while the perfectionist is driven.

MYTH: Perfectionists get things done and they do things right.
REALITY: Perfectionists often have problems with procrastination, missed deadlines, and low productivity.

Psychologists find that perfectionists tend to be "all-or-nothing" thinkers. They see events and experiences as either good or bad, perfect or imperfect, with nothing in between. Such thinking often leads to procrastination, because a requirement of flawless perfection, in even the smallest of tasks, can become fearfully overwhelming. The perfectionist believes that the flawless product or superb performance must be produced every time. Perfectionists believe if it can't be done perfectly, it's not worth doing.
Such beliefs often lead to undesired results. A perfectionist student may turn in a paper weeks late (or not at all), rather than turn it in on time with less-than-perfect sentences. A perfectionist worker may spend so much time agonizing over some non-critical detail that a critical project misses its deadline.

MYTH: Perfectionists are determined to overcome all obstacles to success.
REALITY: Although perfectionists follow an "I'll-keep-trying-until-it's-perfect" credo, they are especially vulnerable to potentially serious difficulties such as depression, writer's block, and performance and social anxiety.

The good news is that there is a list of coping strategies. The first is

1. Make a list of the advantages and disadvantages of trying to be perfect. When you make your own list of costs and benefits, you may find that the costs are too great. You may discover that problems with relationships, excessive workaholism, eating and substance abuse problems, and other compulsive behaviors (plus the accompanying anxiety, nervousness, feelings of inadequacy, self-criticism, and so on) actually outweigh whatever advantages perfectionism holds for you.

All this smacks of imposter syndrome to me, while explaining a lot of the procrastination I witness (both mine and others'). And it sounds like so many people I know. Does it sound like you?

RBof Good Day

• My carpool buddy has been on vacation for 2.5 weeks, which means my rigid commuting schedule has been more relaxed. This is the last day of it, so EGM and I went out to breakfast with friends. I never do things like go out to breakfast on a weekday. Unexpected bonus: our friends picked up the check.
• I still managed to work a full day, so I don't feel guilty about going to said breakfast.
• I gave the first draft of my manuscript to my lab group yesterday, which felt good. We're going to discuss it at lab meeting next week. The How to Write a Lot book told me that only a fool celebrates achieving a writing goal by skipping her scheduled writing time, so I spent 1.5 hours doing writing stuff for other projects.
• I then spent the rest of the day in the lab, which I love. One of my projects involves doing a crummy, tedious, boring, dirty task on a LOT of samples. It's never ending. I spent big chunks of the past two summers working on this with intern helpers, but there's still about 1/3 of the samples left to do. Today was the first time I've worked on it since August and it went pretty quickly. I figure if I bust my ass on it, I could have it done in 6 weeks. It'll probably take 12. Anyone want to place bets?
• EGM and I still managed to make a dinner that didn't involve pizza.

love at first sight

Ecogeoman has discovered Google Earth. He has been saying things like, "I just can't believe how high tech this seems!" and "This program is awesome!" I agree, Ecogeoman.

Last night, he said, "so, is there some website or something where I can put in two cities, and it will tell me how far apart they are? Or maybe give me directions and the travel time?"

While living under his rock, EGM independently invented Mapquest.

I responded, "yeah, and wouldn't it be cool if there was a website where you could type in words and it would tell you all the websites that are related to those words?"
EGM said, "I know about Google, thanks."

So tonight, he downloaded Google Earth and is still discovering its treasures.

Sometimes it's pretty fun at our place.

Interdisciplinary

I am firmly planted between multiple fields, as my pseudonym might suggest. I don't really have an opinion about whether this is good or bad. I got into this research before I really knew exactly what different disciplines did, so I didn't realize when I started that it didn't neatly fit anywhere. My undergrad major was interdisciplinary too (in a different way), so I guess it makes sense.

My work isn't radically interdisciplinary, like Am I a Woman Scientist? discussed a couple of months ago. Rather, if I wanted to be a professor, I'm not sure which kind of department would want me. It most certainly would depend on the individual department, since not all departments with the same title do the same work. Indeed, people who do work similar to mine are in a wide array of departments, even falling into different colleges of universities.

In one sense, I have more options. In another, it adds to the impostor complex because I'm not so familiar with the fundamentals of the traditional disciplines. I noticed that I am included in a Geoblogosphere blogroll and thought Whoa, I should tell them I'm not a geologist! But whatever. I'm not really anything else either.

Production is up!

I had a small breakthrough today. I took some advice from How To Write A Lot and ended up writing a lot this afternoon.

First, I got permission to turn off my internet connection and did so for several hours. It made a huge difference, even though I could easily turn it back on when I wanted. When I'm working on data analysis or writing, I often briefly check my email whenever I get to something that requires a little thought. Not having that option really kept me on task.

Second, I re-read the bit about writing introductions. Silvia recommends a three-section template for intro's: stating the problem, expanding on the problem, and stating how the present study will address the problem. This sounds so simple it's verging on silly and of course the advice in the book was more elaborate. I have always struggled with intro's because I have a hard time seeing them as a whole. I can write good paragraphs presenting the relevant ideas, but I have trouble organizing them in a logical structure. I shuffled around some text I already had and then wrote some more. I think my draft is much better now.

I told Academic Advisor that I would be giving the lab group a draft of my manuscript on Tuesday so we can discuss it at lab meeting the following Tuesday. I think I really need a deadline goal. Undoubtedly, it will also be extremely helpful to get the comments of all those readers, even if they don't read it very thoroughly (which I doubt they will).

Finding the good in the boring

Today I went to what I thought would be a professional development seminar but it ... wasn't. It was a presentation utterly irrelevant for me and I don't mean it in the I'm-too-cool-for-this-seminar-because-it's-not-quite-in-my-subfield sense. This presentation just had nothing to offer for me. I guess I did learn that there is a group that sometimes engages in professional development activities. Also, I got free pizza.

Aside from the pizza, I got a reminder that my research is cool and important. Lately, I've been feeling like my work can't possibly solve the problems it's funded to solve and it's all a farce. Sure, the research we do to address programmatic goals generates new and vital information. But in some ways, the programmatic goals are a little stupid. Anyway, I was sitting next to this guy who wanted to chat so he asked what I do. He was enthralled as I explained my research. He had heard a little about the topic in the media and was interested to meet someone actually working on it. He asked all these great questions and appeared to be genuinely intrigued. His research, theoretical physics, was so far from my expertise that I could barely ask any questions at all but he didn't seem to mind. He told me how cool it is that my research has real world applications that are meaningful to society since his apparently doesn't.

What a wake up call. I was just last week feeling like I want to branch out so that my work has more applications that are meaningful to society.

It's all relative.

Student vs Employee Part 2: Work Hours

One of the perks of an academic job is the flexible schedule. That creates ambiguity for students, who may not know the expectations for grad student time. It seems that many advisors are reluctant to directly address the questions: how should a grad student define her/his work schedule? How much work is expected? Do they get vacation time? Sick days? Comp time?

Typically, if you have a job at an organization as large as a university, the HR department controls your compensation, including schedule and fringe benefits (at least I think that’s how it works since I’ve never had a regular job!). But grad students fall through the cracks and it can be confusing.

As I’ve said before, I spend most of my time at a place outside the university, so I work among people who have regular 40-hour work weeks. I feel like an ass if I’m not there approximately when they are even though my status and compensation are totally different. So I work 40 hours/week plus some weekends and figure I’ve done my duty*. I figure I can take 2-3 weeks vacation each year (including the winter holiday break but not the holidays themselves) and if I want more than that, I need to make up the time by working nights and weekends. Actually, I probably work enough beyond my regular 40 hours to make up at least part of those 2-3 weeks without tracking it. I do not log sick days, but I don’t take many of those.

It’s different in a university setting because people are off doing all sorts of things that make them absent from the office/lab. Students are teaching or taking classes, faculty are teaching or in meetings. This makes it easy for people to breeze in and out with little accountability for their time. I have no doubt that many academics work an obscene number of hours. But I also suspect that many students (and faculty for that matter) would be surprised by how little they work if they actually clocked their time spent really working.

The tricky thing is that students don’t really have to work any set number of hours. Their TA or RA is probably for 50% time, which is pretty unclear since they are obviously expected to work more than that. Nobody tells incoming students how much they should work, so some treat it like undergrad, showing up for class and doing everything else at home. Others, like me, treat it like a job, which may inhibit their progress. And of course, work hours are a central source of conflict in many student – advisor relationships.

Just one more thing that new academics are stuck learning for themselves. How many problems could be prevented or solved by just telling people what they need to know?

*This is largely to deal with guilt about not working all hours, i.e. if I work hard during normal hours, any extra time is bonus.

Oops, brain fart!

I forgot to call out the March anniversary edition of Scientiae. If you haven't yet, go check it out at Rants of a Feminist Engineer. Skookumchick did a bang-up job compiling the carnival!

NYR February Review

Another month has breezed by; it's time to check in on my New Years' Resolutions.

Project Efficiency has gone downhill. I haven't been writing daily goals, which is the centerpiece of the program. I have also been checking my bloggy email and maybe sometimes peeking at bloglines during work. On the other hand, there hasn't been a lot of fake working. I think I can be proud of that. I'm optimistic about March after reading Silvia's book and getting Slimtimer. So my goals for March are to get in the habit of actually using Slimtimer regularly while establishing a writing routine.

Money went pretty well in February. In addition to the normal big-for-my-income sum that gets automatically transferred to my ING savings each month, I had a little bit leftover on the 29th to add to the kitty. Having two international trips planned really motivates me to save. In other news, Psycgirl and I are thinking about starting a multi-author blog (similar to the Active Academic ) to discuss all manner of money issues that academics have. Anyone interested in that?

We cooked most of our dinners, but there was more pizza than there should have been. Oh well, it was yummy.

Work has been medium. I made some more progress on Chapter 1 paper and discussed what I have so far with both advisers. There's still a lot to do though. There was a little progress for Chapter 2 as well, as I had to complete the final laboratory analyses on one chunk of samples and partially work up the data for a conference abstract. My goal for March is to finish a complete, decent draft of the Chapter 1 paper.

Overall, February was medium. I'm hopeful that the longer days of spring will revitalize me. But, who am I kidding? It won't be spring around here for another two months. I guess I may as well be working!

Writing a Lot

Yesterday, I went to this very cool new coffee shop around the corner and read Paul J Silvia's How to Write a Lot in two hours and ten minutes. Loved it. The book basically explains how to pull your thumb out and get your writing done by sticking to a schedule. Other bloggers have reviewed the book more thoroughly, so I won't do that here. I will say that my favorite aspect of Silvia's advice is that if you have a writing schedule and stick to it, there should never be any guilt or anxiety attached to writing and you won't feel like you should be writing in your free time. This is my kind of advice.

I usually get to work between 7:45 and 8:15. Other people in the lab roll in between 9:15 and 10:30. Typically, when I get to work the first thing I do is check my email while eating a portable breakfast (granola bar or english muffin). I also go through journal TOCs and download relevant articles. I could, however, easily schedule my writing time for 8 to 9:30 or 10 am. I could get to work and start writing right away, saving my email stuff for after writing time. I could keep my door closed during this time for extra focus, although few of my coworkers would be there to interrupt me at that time anyway. Plus, I would have the whole rest of the day for lab work. That would relieve the daily dilemma about whether to do labwork or writing.

Silvia also recommends a way to keep track of progress using a spreadsheet (not particularly novel but helpful nonetheless), which is cool since I was wondering about that recently.

I can't wait to get started with the new system. I think it will mesh well with my new work timer.

A monster in my midst

I am quite certain that there are no beavers around here.

What the hell is eating this tree? Squirrels? Gremlins?