The toughest part of grad school

I'm late to the party, but I want to write on Candid Engineer's Scientiae topic, overcoming challenges. So far, the most challenging thing I've had to do in grad school is assemble and meet with my committee. I think that sounds pretty lame since it's an integral part of doing a PhD, but the process of building my committee hit an irrational nerve (subject for another post) that had me nervous for weeks.

I know part of a professor's job is to serve on thesis committees. Some of them even like doing it. But everybody always seems so busy all the time, and I really hate the guilty feeling that comes with the notion of wasting someone's time. I think really the problem stemmed from the fact that there weren't many faculty for me to choose from. Thus I had to ask people whose interests don't overlap much with mine, which means I have a committee partially populated* by people who don't really get what I do, don't have a whole lot to offer, won't get a whole lot from me, and don't know me all that well. It makes me dread my meetings with them, and it makes the meetings a lot less pleasant than they should be because it takes so much effort to get anything done.

I have learned from this though. There have been several subsequent occasions where I've had to ask people to help me with something in a way not completely different from my thesis committee. I'm happy to report that I was much more confident, the interactions went better, and I actually enjoyed the experience of having a reason to talk science with some different people. So I may not have overcome the challenge directly with my committee, but I did overcome my fear and inhibition. I'd say I even learned a skill, and now I'm much more comfortable dealing with the interpersonal parts of doing science. I'm still trying to find a way to get out of my next committee meeting, but I'm excited by some new relationships that have recently developed. Yet another reason I can't wait to graduate!

*Of course, I do have my two advisors who are both great. Plus an outside committee member who is great but also very far away and s/he doesn't know me all that well.

scientiae-carnival

Now I have my own reviewer anecdote

My paper was rejected. I'm invited to resubmit, but I'm not sure if I can adequately address the criticisms. I'll need to think it over and talk to the Advisors.

It's one of those situations people complain about where the reviewers had polar opposite opinions. The first said everybody knows this and the second said this is really important new and exciting information. Unfortunately, the subject editor appears to agree with Reviewer #1. Reviewer #2 also made extensive, constructive comments. Some of them are a little unexpected, but most of them are not. They are all polite and I think they will be very useful.

I'm bummed that it wasn't accepted, of course, but I don't feel outraged by the reviews. The paper will certainly be improved by the reviewer's comments and I will try to deal with them all. I'm not sure if I'll be able to address them well enough for this journal, though. But if not, there are other good journals I can try, and in fact we debated about starting with this one so I'm sure it will all end up fine. I will put it all aside until Monday and then see what I think.

Internets, what's your opinion?

Do you think a reference list counts toward the page limit of a document? Assume the guidelines don't specify anything other than the page limit ("N-page proposal" and that's all).

What happened to Adoptic?

I suddenly realized the blog-advertising website Adoptic disappeared. Did they announce they were closing down, or did they just fade away? When did it happen, and how come I didn't notice?

And now I'm 30

I just had a lovely time celebrating a big birthday. Last weekend Ecogeomom, S1, S2, and S4, and S4's little baby came to visit. There were only here for about 24 hours but we had a lot of fun. We don't make a big deal about adult birthdays in my family unless they end in zero, so their visit made my 30th really special. Ecogeoman, who typically f's up my birthday, had a thoughtful present (wrapped even!), a book to organize all the loose recipes I have floating around the kitchen, ready in advance and he took me out to dinner on my actual birthday. Awesome Technician made brownies, which she knows are the signature birthday dessert in my family instead of the much-less-delicious birthday cake.

I have many friends who look at 30 as some major milestone. They say it marks the time when one should be married, have a house, finished a Ph.D., whatever. Or it defines adulthood. I have never looked at 30 this way, probably because there are other ways I think those life events should be defined. For example, I considered myself a full adult when I graduated from college because that was the time when my parents stopped contributing to my livelihood; I had to get a job, fund my own life, pay my own debts, and thus they ceased to have a say in my decisions other than offering advice that I could either take or leave. I don't feel like an old maid because I'm not married yet; EGM and I will do that when the time is right for both of us and our families. I don't feel like a failure for not owning a house; I'm quite comfortable renting for the time being given both our personal circumstances and the shitty market.

On the other hand, I feel a little disappointed with myself for still being in grad school. I remember swearing up and down that I would be finished before I was 30. This had less to do with a particular age and more to do with thinking it was ridiculous for grad school to drag on and on. Yet here I am, approaching year 7. To be fair, I've been held up by some things out of my control, like an "act of god" that drove me to shift the focus of my project and probably cost me a year, or the slow manuscript reviewing that held my attention on one aspect of my project for too long. But really, I want to get on with my life. I'm tired of knowing there are still hoops to jump. I want a real salary. And a 401(k). And the peace of mind that comes from knowing that if the shit hit the fan, I could quit without losing everything I've worked toward for the last dozen years.

So 30 is fine. But I really want to graduate.

Egg pie

I love Sciencemama's idea for a weekday recipe carnival. I don't mind cooking, but it can be so hard to come up with what to make, especially through the week. I like to make meals that are very simple (i.e. complete enough in one dish that I don't need sides), inexpensive, and take <30 min.

I whipped this up last week when I had a frozen pie crust, eggs, cheese, and not much else. It's not my best work ever, but it was pretty good. One of Sciencemama's requirements is high nutrition; I'm not sure this qualifies, but it's not bacon and tator tots either. Since I don't know what defines a quiche, I'm calling this dill and asparagus egg pie. Please don't judge me for using asparagus when it's terribly out of season.

Ingredients: splash of olive oil, 2 gloves minced garlic, 1 bunch asparagus (~ 2 c after trimming?), dash of salt, 8 eggs, 0.25 c grated Parmesan, 0.5 c mozzarella, 1 T (or more) dry dill weed, 1 pie crust (I buy it prepared but you can make you own).

1. Preheat oven to 350F or so.
2. Trim asparagus and cut into ~0.5 in pieces. Saute with garlic and salt in the olive oil until not quite tender.
3. Whisk eggs, cheeses, dill, and half-cooked asparagus in a medium bowl.
4. Position the pie crust in a pie pan. Pour in the egg mixture.
5. Bake for 30-45 min, until the crust is golden and the center is set and a little puffy.

The grass is always greener

Why is it that every task looks better than the one I'm doing? I would almost always prefer to be working on something else. It happens at all scales. For example, when I'm processing a sample, I'll be itching to work on a different part of the same sample. Or I'll wish I to be processing data when I'm at the bench. Or longing to be in the lab when I'm writing. I'm never satisfied.

Currently, I'm torn between two writing projects and I fear it's developing into a log jam. I had been working on my next paper/dissertation chapter. I had gotten kind of stalled by some difficult yet very relevant papers, but I was making good progress of taking notes on them. I was just about to begin working the notes into text when I learned I should drop everything to work on a complicated fellowship application. I spent most of last week reading up on a new subfield so I could put together a proposal. Now I want to work on both. Or not on either of them. Or both.

I'm hoping that writing this post will help be refocus. I need to just decide what I'm going to do today and break it down so I get something done. Not really want I want to do on a Sunday (especially after having worked 27 hours last weekend), but I'm feeling so much anxiety right now that I think only some progress will give me any relief.

Natural deodorant sucks

One of my new year's resolutions was to conduct my daily life in a little more environmentally friendly way. One of the changes I've made is to replace personal care products with natural versions; as I run out of my preferred brand of something, I buy a greener option. For example, I bought Tom's of Maine (ToM) bar soap, Trader Joe's hand soap, and ToM deodorant. The soaps are fine, but the deodorant sucks. I will be returning to Degree when the ToM runs out or the weather gets hot, whichever comes first.

Anyway, I now need some advice, Dear Readers. I'm about out of face lotion and scrub. I've been using Aveno Positively Radiant lotion and St Ive's Apricot Scrub and I love them both. But this website (h/t Nina) tells me that they aren't such green choices. I have oily, break-out prone skin that needs to have the top 5-10 layers scrubbed off twice a day if I want any hope of keeping the acne controlled. Any recommendations?

RBOANTM

• Seriously, I think Tyra Banks' inner monologue doesn't stay in. Pretty soon she'll be singing the entire deliberation.
• Fo needs to get over it. The short hair looks awesome. Suck it up.
• Why did they make the tanned girl look just like Lindsay Lohan?
• The Girl With The Eyes looked better in her photo than real life, but it was not very nice of them to say she looks like an alien.
• Piss that there's not a new Lost tonight.
  

In other news, there is a postdoc fellowship that I really, really want. I thought the application would be due in several months, but it turns out that it's due much, much sooner. Yikes.

Whew!

I was, unfortunately, at work for ~15 hours today and have to go back for another long day tomorrow. However, the cannon is just about one of the fucking coolest things I have ever seen. The data are so awesome that it's totally worth it to spend my weekend at work. Totally HOT science, yo.

RBOGood Enough

• I have been mildly sick for the past several days, but it hasn't turned into a full-blown anything.
• I get to do some super cool science this weekend using a really cool instrument. Let's call it the cannon. We've talked about doing work with the cannon for years but never made it happen. Until now. The downside is that I have to be available to work 24/7 for the next four days.
  
• I am this close to finishing the lab work for Chapter 3. Or was I calling it chapter 2 here? This last bit has been dragging on, but it's getting close.
  
• Lost is still interesting. Will the love quadrangle be resolved?
  
• Our symposium proposal was accepted in a revised form.
  
• We still love our tv.

Log jams

As hard as I try to follow great advice to push through the tough times in my work, I still find myself periodically stalled by difficult tasks. I get in a psychological situation where I can't get myself to do the task at hand, yet I won't let myself do anything else instead. So nothing gets done. It will end when I finally force my ass to stay in the chair and just do it, and it usually ends up less painful than I anticipated. In fact, the process of dreading the task is usually worse than actually doing it.

I have various tricks to get myself to just do it. Sometimes I think of a treat that I will give myself when I finish. Or Awesome Technician and I will make a bet over who will finish what we're doing first, or issue a Twix Challenge. Sometimes it works to set a timer and decide that I can't work on anything else for a certain amount of time. Or I disable my internet for a while. These tricks have variable success.

The thing is, I always feel so good when I finally finish the thing and relieve the log jam. It's always awesome to get back to the work I'd rather do and feel like I've made progress. Why can't I just get over it and take care of these things before my anxiety expands to make a log jam? How do you get over the inertia? How do you get yourself to work on something that feels so hard?

Learning to review

Yesterday I said how my work is all log-jammed by an overdue review. I feel bad that I haven't finished it, yet I can't get myself to get it done. I think the reason is that I feel unsure about my comments. Although I'm still green enough to feel sort of honored to be a reviewer, I hate doing it because I'm not sure if I know what I'm doing. Chuck recently wrote a nice post (with some good advice) about how learning to peer review is a major gap in grad student training. I agree.

This is not my first review. Occasionally, Research Advisor will get asked to review a paper that looks straightforward but she doesn't have time to read. If she thinks I can handle the content, she'll suggest me as a reviewer, letting the editor know that I am her student and that she will assist me if needed. So I read the paper and write the review, asking her questions as necessary. I also rely on her vast experience to help me determine how serious any errors are. I know that grad students are notoriously harsh reviewers and I have to admit I don't always have the judgment to decide if the fact that the authors used technique x instead of y is enough to kill the paper*.

This system works, I guess. It gives me an opportunity to cut my teeth on reviewing, a job I'm going to have to learn sooner or later. It's great to have a safety net. I think I'd be paralyzed with nerves if I had to submit the review without confirmation that it was sensible.

On the other hand, I would have really liked a little more training for this. If feels weird to me to write reviews when I have not received any for my own work. Sure, I've seen the reviews from a few of my colleagues' papers, but that's different from reading comments on your own work, which you know much more intimately (I hadn't even read the versions of my colleagues' manuscripts that were reviewed). I think the best scenario would be -- with the editor's blessing -- for RA and I both to review the same paper, with her having responsibility for it. We'd both write comments, discuss them, and then she would submit the review but I would get to read what she wrote. Perhaps we could do it that way a couple of times and then switch roles so that I would submit the final comments. After that, I could do my own reviews with the opportunity to check things with her as needed. I know that creates a lot more work**, but this is such an important part of the way we do science that I think it's worth it to take the time to properly train new students how to do it.

*I know the editor makes the final decision and all, but reviewers are still asked to give an overall judgment of the paper.
** I haven't asked her to do it this way because usually if she passes a review to me, she's totally swamped and I feel bad asking for her time. Plus, by the time it occurred to me to do it this way, I had done enough that I think she probably thinks I'm doing just fine.

Dry spell

Man, I got nothing tonight. It goes along with nothing all day. I've had lots of post ideas floating around, but then when it's time to write them I can't think of anything. It fits with a general pattern of low productivity lately. I've had lots of odds and ends sorts of tasks to do. This kind of work can sometimes make me feel hyper productive because I'm constantly crossing items off the list, but lately it seem like these tasks are taking longer than they should, I'm flitting from one thing to the next, and I'm not getting any of them all the way to completion. It feels like one key thing that is semi-out of my control is missing from each little project.

Then there's the real roadblock: an overdue review. I'm having a serious flare of impostor syndrome that is making this thing take a million years to finish. I got some (editor-approved) guidance from Research Advisor today, so maybe I'll be able to wrap it up soon. I might write more about this topic, but I dunno. Feels a little inappropriate for this blog somehow. More impostor syndrome, perhaps?