Richard is not funny

I've gotten about two dozen calls in the past two days from online universities recruiting someone named Richard.  I do not know anyone named Richard.  But now I hate Richard. 

It seems that Richard requested information from a shit-ton of for-profit colleges.  He entered the wrong phone number -- my cell number -- for all of them.  These institutions are wicked aggressive in their recruiting, and do not let up.  I tell each one of them to remove the entry from their databases, and although the frequency of calls has slowed, I'm still getting them.

Makes me wonder if Richard is someone I know who hates me and gave these college my number as a mean joke!

Wedding dresses

It's poll time, Readers!  But I'm looking for input on my dress, not the bridesmaids'.  Several of you commented that I should ask them what they would like to wear.  I have.  In fact, I suggested that they choose their own dresses--just find something black and knee-length that flatters and feels comfortable--but they said they wanted me to pick out matching dresses for them to order.  Their main concern was looking age-appropriate since they are a bit older and most bridesmaid dresses are designed for women in their 20's.  We all went out shopping together over the summer and found a couple of dresses that everyone seemed to like, so I'll pick the least expensive of those.  By the way, I'll note that I wore dresses they each chose for their own weddings.  :)

Anyway, I've been looking at wedding dresses online, but they're starting to all blend together.  I guess that's not a big surprise, because as you'll see, I have a pretty narrow search image.  I never would have predicted that I'd go for a lace dress, but that's what I want.

To help you make an informed vote, I'll say that we are having the wedding next fall at a forest preserve.  The ceremony will be outside on a stone patio (under a tent) and the dinner will be in an old lodge building with a big wrap-around porch, tons of wood paneling, and fireplaces.  I'm wanting a romantic, low-key, vintage feel.  I'll also tell you that I'm very petite but with curvy hips. Surprisingly, since I'm bigger on bottom than on top, the trumpet silhouette was pretty flattering when I tried on dresses last summer.  I also discovered that I look better in white white than off white.  I do not intend to wear a veil.  I'm also not too keen on trains--I think they overwhelm my short frame and look too formal--but there seem to be few dresses without them.  I can always bustle. Also, I want to add a sash. 

So, which dress do you prefer?


Dress 1:

 Dress 2:

 Dress 3:

 Dress 4:

 

Dress 5:

 

See the side bar to vote! I'm going to close the SurveyMonkey poll because it's way too lame that you all can't see the results.  I'll add the votes already cast to the blogger poll.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

A into G

Well, I didn't manage to get my ass into gear with respect to my work yesterday, but I have big plans for personal stuff this weekend.  EGM is away at a meeting and I don't have any social plans this weekend.  So, I'm going to take care of a bunch of stuff that really must get done.  In the style of JaneB, here's a list.

• I'm taking my car in this afternoon (oil change, and something is up with the heat and thus, defrost - yikes).  Tomorrow I'm scheduled to get new tires.  These two appointments should ensure that I actually leave the house rather than sitting around all day "in my afternoon pajamas" as EGM likes to say.
• Christmas shopping.  As usual, I don't have to buy for all that many people, but I need to get it done nevertheless.  
• EGM and I decided to get a Wii instead of buying each other gifts, so that's that.  
• I have a great idea for a funny t-shirt for PI, but that means I have to get something for the tech too.  He's a 22-year-old guy who I don't know very well because he acts rather reserved.  Ideas? 
• Unlike most years, my parents didn't ask for a big gift for which my sibs and I can go in together.  But they shouldn't be too difficult.
• My sibs and I draw names (by couple), so I have to buy for B2 and his wife.  I'm think camping gear or maybe some kind of cool yard game.   Ideas?  They have a pop-up camper, two little kids, and B2 uses a CPAP machine so we're talking stuff for car camping. I should spend $45-75. 

•  Wedding-related shopping.  
• I want my bridesmaids, who range in age from 31 to 48, to wear black (or maybe brown) cocktail dresses and to have wraps in fall colors.  We found a couple of dress options we liked at a wedding dress place so they'll order the dresses from there, but I'm going to get the wraps from a normal store.   I'm sure I'll have better luck finding something I like now rather than in the spring, and the wraps will determine the colors for other decorations and such so I can't put it off too long.  
• Wedding dress.  I think I'm going to buy it online.  I've found a few I like and they are much cheaper than in stores.  Perhaps I'll do some more searching and then put a few options to a vote here?
• Housework!  They still haven't finished all the work to put our apartment back together after the flood.  We haven't been very motivated to clean because we figured workers could be coming in any time and kicking up more dust.  But, I've reached my limit and some cleaning has to happen.
• Groceries.  Although I don't have plans for the weekend, my social agenda for next week is jam packed -  four holiday parties plus book club.  That's a lot of snacks I have to be prepared to bring.

On an unrelated note, this post is too funny.

December slump

Last week I posted my ambitious list of goals for the month.  Since I claimed that post was meant to provide accountability, I will now give an update on my progress.

1. Submit a commentary piece based on the meeting we hosted.  It's written, but I'm waiting for feedback from two coauthors.  I expect them to make few comments, so with any luck this will go out early next week.

2. Turn around the manuscript that was rejected over the summer.  Working on it.  I did all the easy changes, but I'm having trouble getting my A into G to tackle the harder ones (e.g. rearranging the discussion).

3. Draft manuscript for special issue paper.  Started today.  I put the text from my thesis chapter into a new document, formatted it to meet the journal requirements, and generally refamiliarized myself with the work.  I also made a first pass over the new data.

4. Work with PI to revise big manuscript.  Done!  He's waiting on feedback from a couple of people but intends to submit (to a GlamorMag) on Monday.  Unfortunately, I think we'll start pretty much straight away on reformatting/revising for a more attainable journal.  Good practice, of course, but I'm so sick of this paper right now!

5. Establish protocol for sample processing.  Part 1 is done.  Part 2 is drafted, and PI and I have discussed it but a few kinks remain.  I think one more (focused) discussion and one practice session ought to take care of it.

6. Finalize protocol for lab experiment.  All I've done so far is gather up all the stuff I had spread in multiple labs and move it to a new lab space I'll be using for this project.  I hereby downgrade my goal for this item to get shit organized and make a plan for developing protocol in January.

I could have done more in the past week, but my predictable December slump is in full swing.  When I feel all blah like this, I'm happy to get anything done at all even if I'm not functioning in high gear. Like, I'll suddenly realize I've been sitting at my desk for an hour just spacing out/making sure the Internet doesn't disappear/looking at colleagues' publishing records/whatever. Thus, although I intended to finished and submit the first manuscript before I started on the second, the edits on the first seemed too hard and I figured I should get something done even if the order of tasks didn't make the best sense.  I know that if I just chip away at things and leave work each day a little further ahead than when I arrived, it will all get done. 

End-of-year ambition

It's December tomorrow, which means there is just one month left to meet my 2010 goals.  I failed miserably on whatever New Year's resolutions I made, but I do have some goals for the next month that are attainable, if a bit lofty.

1. Submit a commentary piece based on the meeting we hosted in October.  Today I finished a draft and sent it to the coauthors.  This has to get done quickly no matter what, since timely publication is vital.

2. Submit the paper that got rejected this summer to a different journal.  I revised it and got comments back from my coauthors over break, so now it's time to dive back into it.  There's more work to do than I expected, but it's not insurmountable.

3. Write a manuscript for a special issue associated with the meeting I attended in September.  I have a decent draft from my thesis, but right before Thanksgiving I got new data to incorporate into it.   I want to have a complete draft to give to the coauthors before winter break so I can deal with their comments before the January 31 submission deadline.

4. Continue helping PI revise a major paper that needs to be submitted -- when else? -- before winter break.  The data were collected before I started in this lab, but the manuscript was a total mess.  We've been working on it together for several weeks and it's looking a whole lot better, but there's still plenty of work left to do.

5. We completed a major field sampling a couple of weeks ago.  I need to get the protocol in place so that technicians can get sample processing underway.  It's unclear how involved I'll be with the processing, so I might need to make time for that, too.

6. Finalize the protocol for the lab experiment that was giving me grief earlier this year.  It kind of went by the wayside between late summer travel, the meeting we hosted, and the field work.  I know PI is very anxious for me to make progress on that project now.

So that's what's on my plate for the next few weeks.  I'm hoping that sharing here will give me some accountability, and I intend to post updates throughout the month.  I really want to accomplish all of this before January, so I think I'll be able to do it!

Not quite write

When you are going to, say, add text to a document, do you say you're going to flush it out?  Or flesh it out?

When you've had a little rant about something, would you write that you've said your piece?  Or said your peace?

I say "flesh" and "peace".

I'm sure you can think of many other examples.  These little things drive me nuts.  

That's why I'm here

Today PI and I did some major work to get a new project going.  It relied heavily on my expertise, which is quite different from that of anyone else in the group.  My old lab group could have done what I did, but they just don't have the time to help initiate new projects like this one.  The whole point of me doing this postdoc was to bridge between my old group and the new group to make work like this happen.

It felt really good to use my skills to do the thing I was hired to do.  I felt valuable.  In addition, it felt good to do something familiar after months of working outside my comfort zone.

fuck time

Ecogeoman recently got a new laptop.  Remember how our apartment flooded due to a burst hot water pipe?  Well, his laptop was in his backpack on the floor and was ruined.  Fortunately, our renters' insurance covered a new one (plus a few small items that were also damaged).  It came with Windows 7, which EGM is not quite used to yet.  He was bitching about it tonight and I said, "time marches on.  you'll get used to it."  To which he replied, "fuck time".

Today I tried to set up a new instrument that is best operated remotely using a Palm Pilot thing.  It is the least intuitive POS I've encountered in about 5 years.  I messed around with it and the instrument for a couple of hours this evening but got almost nowhere.  I wanted to have the thing ready to use tomorrow morning, but I ran out of time.  Fuck time.

Last place

Since sharing my experience with switching fields seems to be my favorite topic since I started my postdoc, how about a discussion of how authorship conventions differ between fields?

My new field works like many of you are probably used to.  There are often many (>10) authors on a research paper.  The first author did the experimental work and probably wrote the bulk of the text.  The second author did something substantial.  The middle authors, usually alphabetized, touched the project in some way - maybe they did one analysis, contributed a reagent, or did some important literature searches.  The last author is  the "anchor", the one who conceived of the project and got the funding.  It seems to me that people sometimes fight more over the last author spot than the first author spot.  The last author is usually the corresponding author.

In my old (still interdisciplinary, but less so) field, papers typically have fewer than 10 authors.  I don't have any data, but I'd guess that 4-6 authors is the norm.  The first author is the one who did the most work and wrote the paper.  The second author did the next most work.  The last author did the least work. Typically, the first author is the corresponding one.  When the corresponding author is somewhere else in the list, it's usually because of a scenario where the first author left research after a master's or something so they get credit as lead author but bear little responsibility for getting the paper through the publishing process.

I guess the anchoring author/lead author thing helps squeeze more credit out of papers with long lists of authors (two important positions instead of one).  Still, I'm having such a hard time getting on board with the way it goes in New Field.  I'm sure I would think it was just fine if I had grown up with that convention and it's a matter of not liking change, but right now I think this anchoring author stuff is kinda annoying.

November Scientiae: love it and loathe it

At long last, I give you the November Scientiae Carnival!  I was a little distracted this month, so if I missed your post please let me know.

The theme this month was best and worst.  I asked, "What is the best part of your job/life as a scientist, and what is the worst part?"  There were some great responses, many of which will probably sound awfully familiar.

Several of us reported that people are either the best or worst parts of our jobs.  Podblack Cat shared a particularly trying (and rather comical) experience trying to teach to a group of high school students obsessed with The Human Centipede*.  I really can't fathom the patience it must take to deal with this kind of nonsense!  Rebecca wrote about her recent experience conducting interviews for postdocs.  While she many wonderful people in the process, she also encountered some truly wacky candidates -- go read to learn another entertaining example of what not to do if you want a job.  I expressed my frustrations with waiting for other people to do their bits, which was pretty similar to Rocket Scientista's complaints about slow vendors.  On the other hand, she loves her awesomely awesome colleagues.

Several of us also wrote about about getting the data, which can be teh suck or teh joy.  Patchi's described her trials with a challenging lab protocol.  She had an experience we all dread -- getting unsatisfying results.  You know the kind, when you feel like you didn't do enough but you can't realistically do more.  Victor Poor offered a somewhat more lighthearted treatment of a related event--probably the worst moment in science--when you realize that months (or years) of hard work resulted in flawed data and no new knowledge.  Sad.  On a happier note, I shared how the thrill of intermittent inspiration keeps me going, and Rocket Scientista reminded us how great it is to get new! data! and gain new! knowledge!

Silver Fox and Karina both have significant field components to their work, and not surprisingly, identified that as both a source of joy and frustration.  Karina loves the exotic places where she gets to work, but misses home and her husband while she's away.  Silver Fox has lots of favorites about her job and finds that they mostly negate the sucky aspects.  After all, it's the sucky stuff that makes the fun parts possible. That's lemonade for you!

If Silver Fox has trouble finding fault with her work, ScienceGirl is momentarily at the other end of the spectrum.  New baby fatigue has her feeling like the incentives for her work have disappeared, leaving her motivated only by avoiding negative consequences.  We're sure this will pass, ScienceGirl, and we're rooting for you!  Likewise, in another post Podblack Cat wrote about her exasperation at being encouraged by Oprah, of all people, to go beyond the call of duty when really the call of duty is quite enough in itself.

Finally, A Life-Long Scholar described her favorite thing about academia - the freedom to set one's own schedule.  I couldn't agree more!  Of course, that comes with the risk of feeling guilty for not working enough (as a commenter noted), but it 's a risk worth taking.

Thanks to everyone who contributed!  The next installment of Scientiae will be hosted by Pat of Fairer Science.

*I saw this movie as a birthday gift to Ecogeoman who loves horror flicks.  The trailer pretty much covers everything.  Ick.

The carnival will be late

I anticipated posting the Scientiae Carnival today, but I'm not going to get it done.  Feel free to send me any last minute posts!

Best and worst

There are plenty of aspects of my job that I really love.  Among them is the tremendous variety in the tasks I do: field work, all different types of lab work, data analysis, reading, writing.  I rarely have to do the same thing for more than a few weeks at a time, so I don't get tired of the things I enjoy and the things I dislike are mostly over before I know it.  My favorite thing of all, however, is the thrill of inspiration.

I love it when a colleague or I have a new idea to discuss.  That feeling of excitement and possibility that comes from seeing how the pieces can fit together to show you something new about nature.  The daydreaming of how the experiments will go, what you'll learn from potential outcome A vs. outcome B, how you could build the story out of various pieces of literature, what journal it could go to.  I really like going to conferences for many reasons, but a big one is that they so often inspire new ideas.  The exposure to the latest research, expressed in a way that is much more lively that a journal article, combined with the opportunity to interact with the scientists presenting that research is so conducive to developing new ideas.  I always come home chomping at the research bit.

At the other end of the spectrum, I really dislike the frustration of waiting for other people to do their parts.  A couple of years ago I would have said that my least favorite aspect of my job is the guilt - of not working enough, working too much, whatever.  Now my ire is much more practical.  I just want to get shit done.  There's still an element of guilt wrapped in this, though, because sometimes people are waiting on me to get my bit done and I feel bad when it takes longer than it should.  And I feel bad for nagging people who I know are orders of magnitude busier than I am.

As I get more involved in the bench work necessary to my new field, I'll be curious to see how much my likes and dislikes might shift.  I think the moments of inspiration will remain the best part, but I wonder if bench frustrations will surpass collaboration frustrations in my new, more sophisticated and finicky lab work.

Don't forget!

Get your Scientiae posts in today! 

What is the best part of your job/life as a scientist, and what is the worst part?

The answer

I really dislike this completely empty advice: "publish, publish, publish".  In almost any conversation about career issues, someone is bound to say it or something similar.  Isn't publishing critical for success for almost any research career?  

Publish, publish, publish?  Oh, so that's the key to solving my two-body problem?  If only I had known sooner.  You mean that's all I have to do to be competitive for funding and jobs?  No problem!  I'll get right on it.

While I'm at it, I think I'll eat less and move more.  Oh, and I can buy low and sell high, too.  Life is so simple!

I heart flash mobs

Totally fucking cool.

http://mashable.com/2010/06/20/flash-mob-videos/


I want a dancing one at our wedding.  Real bad.

Isn't that most, to say the least?

I'll be hosting the November Scientiae Carnival, and it's high time I announce a theme. 

Day after day on our blogs, we all write about the trials and triumphs of life in science. The guilt, the frustrations, the jackasses.  And the gratification, sense of importance, the pride.  But when you boil it all down, I wonder,

What is the best part of your job/life as a scientist, and what is the worst part?

How do these things motivate you?  Do the good parts function as a carrot and the bad parts a stick?  Or are the bad parts simply something you endure knowing that no job is perfect? 

As always, women and men both are encouraged to post for the carnival.  And if you have something you'd like to share but you don't have a blog, I'll consider guest posts here.  Get your posts in by midnight (American Samoa time) on October 31.

Flood

Not the They Might Be Giants Flood, but our apartment filled with water flood.

We went out for dinner tonight.  After eating, we contemplated a second beer but decided to go home instead.  Good thing we did!  When we got to our floor of our building, there was all this water in the hallway.  We stood there, dumbfounded, until the elevator doors closed.  When we got our wits back, we entered the hallway to find that a utility closet next to our unit was spewing water into the hallway.  Our neighbors next door were running around trying to figure out what to do.  Our unit was rapidly flooding. 

For some reason, no one could get in touch with anyone who had a key to the utility room responsible for the deluge, so the neighbors called the fire department.  In the meantime, we started sweeping water into the stairwell.  The firemen came pretty quickly, broke into the utility room, and shut off the water.  Then they busted out these huge squeegees and quickly pushed most of the remaining water into the stairs.  We took care of the rest of it with mops.  At the peak, I think we had about 4 in of water in our apartment. 

Fortunately, the bedroom stayed completely dry and it doesn't look like there's any real damage to our furniture.  The wood floors are totally fucked, but that will be the unit owner's responsibility.  We had a large rug that is totally soaked, but it's currently on the very windy balcony so it might dry out fine.  The only real thing of value of ours that might be damaged is EGM's aging laptop, but our renter's insurance should cover that and it was on it's way out anyway.  There are a few other odds and ends that will might try to get replaced via the insurance, but nothing too huge.  Several of our neighbors weren't home tonight, and I don't envy the mess their going to find when they come home to standing water.

I'm just so grateful that it wasn't something that we caused.  I remember ScienceMama's awful experience after her laundry exploded; I think we'll be able to avoid that drama, at least.

I'm back, and France was great!  Getting to the conference venue was a bitch, but once we were there is was completely awesome.  It was one of those smaller (<200 people), highly focused meetings where they have you at an isolated place so you stay together a lot.  We had all our meals together instead of breaking off into groups going to different restaurants, so there was tons of opportunity to interact with all different people.  The pacing of the program was really good too, with tons of time for poster viewing and discussion.  That worked because the posters were super good.  Surprisingly, I had lots of traffic at my poster which I hadn't expected given its topic.

I made kind of a personal breakthrough at this meeting as well.  I recently read the book Who Moved My Cheese? and the line from it, "what would I do if I weren't afraid?" really stuck with me.  I kept that in mind as I reminded myself not to be Advisor Junior.  In other words, when I go to meetings with Research Advisor, I tend to stay by her side a lot.  She's great and all, but this means that I don't carry on my own conversations with people and they probably remember me as someone from her lab rather than as someone who is interesting in her own right.  So this time, I made a concerted effort to gracefully walk away to start my own conversations or sit with other people during meals.  It worked really well and I felt like my networking was really effective.

After the conference, I made my way to EGM's sister's place and had a fantastic weekend visit with her and her family.  I'm grateful that we get on so well given that I've only met a few times.  And I'm happy that I made the effort to see his family since we have so little opportunity to visit them.

Now, I hope that the meeting we're hosting next week will be anywhere near as successful!

Prepping

This fall has brought me way more travel than I'm used to.  I went to a meeting a several weeks ago, then there was a departmental retreat, and now I'm getting ready to go to France on Friday!  This is my first international travel for work and I'm super nervous about it.  At least Research Advisor is going too.  I'm happy about that because it will make the travel easier and because it will be nice to have some quality time to catch up.  Like about how we're both so sad about Awesome Technician leaving (I cried at her good-bye lunch, which is the first time I've ever cried at work about anything).  After the conference, I'm going to travel to another French city to visit Ecogeoman's sister.  That should be great fun as well.

All this has been happening in the midst of intense planning the conference we're hosting, working out the kinks in a lab experiment, and planning a major field experiment.  That is to say, I'm juggling way more balls than I have before.  That's cool because this kind of multi-tasking is what I'm supposed to be learning as my career progresses.  On the other hand, the stress makes me wonder if I would be happy with a job like PI's with this kind of stress day in and day out except times ten. 

Currently watching

Stomp the Yard.  This movie totally satisfies my desire to watch people doing things in unison. I love having cable. 

Stomp the Yard is right up there on my guilty pleasures list with Mean Girls and Stick It (although there isn't much moving in unison in those movies). 

Did I mention I'm super excited for the new cheer leading show on the WB this fall?

The Question

The most important component of any research project is The Question.  The Question is the little aspect of Nature that the project aims to understand.  It informs the development of testable hypotheses that, in turn, influence the experiments to be run.

The Question is always a challenge to define for any new project.  I've noticed that it is particularly difficult in very interdisciplinary research because the questions that each person thinks are important differ widely.  I want to tackle issues central to ecogeoscience, whereas my collaborators would like to go after statistical/computational problems using the same data.  Other collaborators have yet more ideas about what the primary purpose of the project should be.  Working out how to expand and divide up the project so that everyone gets piece (i.e., a paper) is a real challenge.

Jumping ship

Everybody is leaving.

The wonderful technician in my postdoc lab left a few weeks ago to start grad school.  I'm happy for him to start the new phase in his life, and I think he will be a very successful student.  At the same time, I was so sorry to see him go.  He was my scientific buddy in the lab, as our interests were more similar than to the other lab members.  We also got along very well personally.  Fortunately, I think we'll stay in touch, and might even have opportunities to collaborate while he's in school.

The other postdoc in my postdoc lab is also about to leave.  She found a full time position in industry after just short of a year in her postdoc.  I think the new job will be a great match for her, but we'll be fucked without her skill set around (PI will replace her, but he has made no moves to do so yet).  In addition, she breathes life into the social atmosphere of the lab, so things will be a lot more dry after she's gone.  On the other hand, she tends to be a bit of a drama queen and I don't think I'll miss that component of her personality so much.

Lastly and most disappointing, Awesome Technician is leaving.  I'm devastated and so is Research Advisor.  I'll be lucky if I ever work with someone as competent, nice, consistent, positive, and non-judgmental as her again.  It's going to have a huge impact on the productivity of RA's lab.  She is leaving for a better compensated position in an area she has wanted to get into for a long time so I am happy for her even if I'm super sad to see her go.

Time marches on.

Mantra

Most of you have probably read Ambivalent Academic's terrific post for Samia's excellent zomg grad school!!!1 carnival.  My favorite part of the post was her recommendation to have a mantra.  I had a mantra in my pre- and early grad school days, which was "Take care of it!" but it was usually directed at someone else rather than used to motivate myself.  In contrast, I had a motivating mantra for grad school, and now I have a different one for my postdoc.

The grad school mantra was "you're a Good Scientist".  It came up one day with my science best friend (SBF), a colleague from an institution in another state who was visiting to learn a lab technique. We started saying things like, "a Good Scientist would stay and finish this" or "you're such a Good Scientist for learning that statistical analysis", or "I'm a Good Scientist, because I did everything on my list".  That held over after SBF left and helped get me through my thesis writing: "a Good Scientist would write one more paragraph".  Since I very much wanted to be a Good Scientist (and still do!), I would find a way to rustle up some more concentration and write another paragraph. 

Now my mantra is "put on your big girl panties".  I love this one, which I got from my sister-in-law.  It means, "grow up! stop being a whiny baby wearing diapers, put on your big girl panties, and get it done" It means you need to do the things you are capable of doing even if you don't want to do them.  I have to say this to myself a lot these days because I have to do a lot of things that are outside my comfort zone.

Refreshing the feeds

I've been meaning to shift over from Bloglines to Reader for ages, and I finally did it today.  I started out using Bloglines, and tried Reader some time after but I never really liked it.  The sort-of-annoying way that Bloglines has you add feeds made me decide to finally switch.  This also means I finally updated the feeds of all the blogs that moved this summer, so I can get up-to-date on all my blog-friends I've been missing.  I added some new-to-me blogs too, and I might add some more soon; I've been noticing lots of new folks around in the comments of other blogs very consistently but I haven't added any blogs to my list in a long time.  It was time to freshen things up, especially since the posting frequency of many of my old favorites has dropped off in the last 6-12 months.  I need to update my blogroll too, and maybe change my template.

Blogging hasn't been as much fun lately as it was when I started, so maybe some changes will help get me back into it.  It's never something I want to feel like I have to do, or guilty about.  However, I did find it to be a great source of camaraderie and reassurance as well as a nice way to practice regular, low-pressure writing so I think it's worth it to renew my interest in it, for now.

Email

One of many things I took for granted about my old advisor was how attentive she was in emails.  She always answered my emails and always actually responded to what I wrote.  I'm finding that is relatively rare.

It is so fucking annoying to send emails that I think are important (like when someone specifically asks for an email with certain information) and have them ignored or under-answered.  Example: "do you want me to do A or B?" response: "yes".  Or a message comprised of several items gets the reply "go ahead".  Go ahead and charge your account?  Go ahead and take the day off?  Go ahead with the experiment?  WTF!?

I get the feeling that people get annoyed with me for sending emails that are too long ("I can't read that much on my iphone" - gimme a break!).  But I also feel like people don't have time to talk to me, so I send emails because that seems more efficient, especially when several people need to get the information simultaneously.  I try to make them as streamlined as possible, with bullet points or numbered lists.  Sometimes they get answered well and it's awesome, but plenty of times I get some kind of confusing bullshit.  And then people complain when they feel left "out of the loop".  I've also noticed that other people send the biggest piles of steaming nonsense in their emails to me, so I guess they do think I'm overdoing it.  But when I can't even figure out what the point of your message is, as though you are continuing an in-person conversation that I didn't hear, I think you're doing the shitty job, not me.

End of rant, thank you.

P.S. Comments telling me that senior people get so many emails that they might just die if they have to reply to my (solicited) message are not welcome. 

Want

For this month's Scientiae carnival, Karina asks what sorts of supplies we crave for back to school.  I'm not much of a school supplies kind of person.  I don't need highlighters and special pens and fancy scissors and tape dispensers.  I have some of those things on my desk as I need them, but when I think of back to school shopping I think of clothes.

When I was a kid, I always got new clothes at the start of the new school year.  My family never had much money, so new things mostly came at birthdays, Christmas, and back to school time.  My mom would take me out, sometimes via the city bus to the downtown shopping area (so exciting!), and I would always want to accumulate as many bags as possible (how un-eco!).  Even now when the weather cools, I fantasize about new jeans and sweaters.  I try to restrain myself these days, due both to my budget and my ideals, but I do indulge a little.

On another supplies-related note, I'm finding my new lab is missing so many basic things!  They aren't basic to my new PI, of course, as the lab is outfitted quite nicely for the kind of lab that it is as far as I can tell.  But I keep coming up empty handed when I open drawers looking for the things I expect to be in a lab.  Fortunately, a new PI just joined our department and will be pooling resources somewhat with our lab.  This new person might do some things in my old discipline, so I might get to recommend some items for the start up.  Methinks this is a good opportunity to get some of the things I need while forging collaboration with the new person.

Anticipation

I'm going to a conference soon. It will be my first time attending a major meeting without presenting anything, and my first meeting in my new field.  I'm super excited.

There is a reasonably large group from my institution going to this conference, so I feel like I'll have lots of opportunities to tag along and get introduced to new people without following one person around like a puppy.  Also, there are a number of familiar names in the program (others like me that cross this particular disciplinary boundary) so I think I'll have a place to start with networking.  The session are quite varied, so I think that there will be slugs of people going to the same sessions on similar topics together.  Or not, if the meeting is really huge.  I'm not sure what to expect.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to expanding my network, getting to know the people at my institution better, and most of all, learning a shit-ton from the talks.  I've always learned easiest by listening, so I think I'm going to come away having made significant personal progress.

On organizing a meeting

I'm organizing a small conference.  Sweet Jesus is it a lot of work.  And anxiety.

One of my first tasks when I started my postdoc was to organize this thing.  What an intimidating, enticing challenge.

In addition to managing all the logistical decisions (what space will we use? what is the budget? how much will the registration fee be? will we have a poster session? how will we solicit and review abstracts? how will we determine the invited:contributed speaker ratio? how long will the talks be? and on and on), I had to develop the themes for each session and the meeting overall, invite the invited speakers, solicit industry sponsors, and write proposals for funding.  It's weird and hard to assemble the right mix of speakers in a field that you have only just entered.  Oh, and trying to stick to my principles and make sure there is good representation by women when I don't know enough players in the field to suggest any.  Boo!

Of course I'm not doing this totally on my own. I've had lots of input from my colleagues, and critically, other people have laid the groundwork for invited speakers, or funding, or lent clout to my emails with their names in the cc line.  Still, on the whole, I've been the lead on this thing.  My influence has probably shifted the focus toward my old field a little bit, so I'm curious to see how that will play out in the quality and cohesion of the program.

In sum, I wish I hadn't had to spend so much of my precious postdoc time on a service task, but I'm glad to have tried something new and to gain so much visibility in this new field.

Flocculating

I feel equal parts curious, irritated, and bored by the dissolution of ScienceBlogs and creation of the new blogging collectives.  Apart from Zuska and the occasional lateral click, I didn't read anything on ScienceBlogs that I hadn't already been following before the blog joined the collective.

The internet is a dynamic thing; I'm looking forward to innovation that might come from the change in the science blogosphere culture.  On the other hand, the situation smacks of cliquishness that I find unbecoming.

Vacay

I'm going on vacation next week!

My parents' 50th wedding anniversary is coming up and they are having a big party.  Everyone is coming.  It's going to be a full chaotic week of family, family, family.  It will be intense, but I'm really looking forward to it.  I haven't been to visit since New Year's, which is the longest I've ever gone without a trip home.  I'm especially looking forward to seeing my nieces and nephews who live far away and I rarely see.

Extra fun: we're going wedding/bridesmaids' dress shopping!  It's going to be so fun.  We've gone shopping together for each of my sisters' weddings so it's something of a tradition.  Except the family has grown, so this time there will be at least 10 of us.  Can you say cluster fuck?

Bonus: I get to spend the weekend with my BFF.  Maybe we'll go to the pool.  :)

Cultivating allies

I'm not aggressively feminist at work, but I do preach from a low level women-in-science soapbox pretty consistently.  Sometimes it's met with resistance, other times empathy, and many times with a blank stare.  I worry a little bit that it's annoying, but I figure sexism is such a pervasive problem that it's worth it to irritate people a little bit.

It seems my persistence has paid off.  I work with a male technician who, as far as I can tell, was brought up in a fairly traditional family with pretty typical gender roles.  This guy is terrific -- super cool, quite competent, excited by science, and respectful of me as someone senior to him -- but had never really been confronted with feminism and so had never really considered that the way men and women navigate the world, especially the science world, may differ. 

Today this colleague made a point of telling me about his recent experience with an auto mechanic.  His sister's car broke down, so he drove her to the shop to pick it up after the repairs were done.  He said that although the car was clearly his sister's and she paid for the work, the mechanic looked at him as he explained everything.  No eye contact at all with the sister.  My colleague said this was the first time he had noticed such an injustice, and thought it was because he was more aware of it now after all my bitching and not because it had never happened before.  Very cool.

Asphinctersayswhat?

I work in a really interdisciplinary group, where several labs in disparate fields work together and it's not possible for our projects to move forward without everyone cooperating.  I think (we all think) that the biggest challenge to this kind of collaboration is communicating across disciplinary lines.  In fact, that's part of why I was hired - to be a bridge between two of these labs.

There is a spectrum of miscommunication.  Some situations have glaring communication issues, where you can tell that people just aren't understanding each other at all.  Other times, we are using two different words for the same concept, or more commonly, the same word for two different concepts.   This one is particularly insidious because you don't necessarily realize that it has happened until much later.  My best example of this one so far is "open system".  I bet many of you have some context for that phrase, and they all refer to something different.  The mildest situation is when it simply takes more words to get your point across but the listener gradually understands.  That last one happens a lot.

I had a big long convo with my old advisor a couple of weeks ago and it felt so relaxing.  I'm sure it was largely because it was so easy to communicate.  There wasn't any need for back stories to fill in weak conceptual understandings, words were used in contexts common to us both, and words loaded with other meaning were understood with all that extra meaning intact. 

It's getting better, though, as I'm learning both the science of these other labs and their way of speaking.  We recently had a meeting with members of my old lab and my new lab.  I could see when things were getting confused due to word choice and then intervene to keep things on track.  It's slow, but I'm learning to be the bridge.

Very cool

My diploma arrived today.  :)

Tired with a side of disappointed

Today I found out that a paper I submitted a few weeks ago has been rejected.  It was the weakest of my thesis chapters, but we aimed low journal-wise so I'm surprised the reviews were as bad as they were and the rejection was as solid as it was.  So far I have only skimmed the review comments and they struck me as comprehensively negative but polite.  Research Advisor thinks they were mostly constructive--some complaints were refutable, some were founded and can help us revise, and some were flaws were knew were there--and that we can reframe the story for another journal.  I'm less disappointed about the rejection itself than I am bummed that it's going to take that much longer to shore up my weak publishing record.

In other news, today I learned a lab technique that is very new to me.  The technician who trained me is just as fantastic as Awesome Technician so it was a pleasant enough experience, and I am thrilled to be learning new skills.  Furthermore, this is the first lab work I've done as a postdoc and it felt great to be away from my desk for a spell.  However, I was awkward and uncertain about the choreography of the protocol and it is always exhausting to learn brand new stuff.  On top of that, by the end of the day I was so frustrated with the scale of everything.  I had to stand on a step stool to do several different tasks, and some critical tools didn't fit in my hands very well which contributed to my lack of coordination.  So irritating. 

To avoid going home and wallowing, I went shopping after work.  On the bright side, I found bargains. I got some low-heeled, moderately dressy shoes that I've been looking for for a while ($13), socks to wear with them ($5 for 6 pairs), jeans ($33 for two pairs), and a big splurge, perfume ($25).  I'm disappointed with the jeans though and bought them because they were on clearance and I was pissed off; I had tried on some cool designer ones at another store and there were comically long, reinforcing my disdain of being a short person in a tall-person world.  Phooey. 

Wish I could unhear it

A coworker told me something that I wish he hadn't.  Let's say he admitted to me, in an after-hours phone call, that he likes cheese, and that cheese is something a little inappropriate.  Suppose that it's okay for people at my work to like cheese, but that since everyone is lactose intolerant, it's not okay to eat cheese.  I had suspected that he liked cheese for some time, but I didn't know for sure and it was easy for me to happily assume that there were no cheese-liking issues in our department.

Once I knew this person liked cheese, I couldn't stop wondering if it was interfering with our work.  Did he make that decision because it's the best move for the project, or because he likes cheese?  Is he volunteering for that task because he wants to be involved in the project or because he hopes to get some cheese out of it?  And so on. It was driving me nuts!  I just want to go about my business without having to analyze everyone's motivations before I make my own decisions.

Fortunately, my coworker called again tonight to say that he had an epiphany and he no longer likes cheese.  I'm a little skeptical, but it's good if it's true.  I'm curious to see how it plays out: will this new feeling persist, and will it have a noticeable impact on his behavior?

It would be nice to know that no cheese is clouding anyone's judgment, including my own.

Sweaty mess

Ecogeoman and I were just remarking that when we fall asleep someplace other than the bed (e.g. couch, car), we inevitably wake up at some point drenched in sweat. In contrast, I never wake up a sweaty mess when I sleep in bed, where I typically sleep through the night without interruption.

Why is that?

Working without a net

I think we can all agree that writing grants mostly sucks.  But: would you feel comfortable starting a new project without having first formally proposed it?  Would you feel ok about carrying on with an idea without spending time on a comprehensive literature review?  without crystallizing your ideas in a structured document? without the approval of peer review?

I'm in a position to do some new experiments without having to get funding for them.  That's very, very cool for so many reasons, so trust me when I say I'm not complaining.  I'm just observing that writing a proposal has its merits.

Science is hard

I'm struggling with my research, Dear Readers.  I'm supposed to be setting up a basic experiment as a platform for some flashy new tools, but it's just not working and I can't figure out why.  This sort of experiment has been used since the begging of ecogeoscience time, yet for some reason I can't repeat what's in the literature.  On top of that, I've been asked to turn my attention to several different projects, so I can't ever seem to dive in deep enough to get the problem solved.

Although I'm feeling frustrated as all get-out, in a strange way I'm enjoying the challenge (sort of).  There are people around I can ask for advice, but no one to really hold my hand.  In contrast, my PhD work was so close to my advisor's research that I didn't have to do much trouble shooting or practical experimental design on my own.  I'm super-glad to be gaining new skills, but I'm really, really looking forward to solving this problem.

Groundhog day?

One of the principal reasons I don't want to teach is the Groundhog Day Feeling.  Teaching multiple sections of the same course simultaneously sounds dreadful.  Offering the same courses semester after semester sounds even worse.  I like the feeling of progress I get with research projects -- an idea manifests into experiments that develop into presentations and papers, and then you build on those results for the next project so that ideas and knowledge grow over time.  I like that feeling of moving forward.  I think teaching would feel like starting over time after time without making progress. 

I talked about this with a friend who loves her job as a university lecturer.  She like the sense of renewal she gets at the start of each new semester -- the clean slate to try new things, improve on last semester's disappointments, and influence a new set of students.  I imagine she also feels some measure of personal progress as she polishes her syllabi with each new course.

I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder.

Noise

As it happens, I have always lived on the top floor of whatever mulit-unit building I have lived in.  Dorms, apartments, whatever.  I never demanded the top floor, it just always worked out that way. 

Having never had anyone living above me, I'm not really sure how much noise transfers to the people below.  I think we're pretty quiet - no shoes indoors, no loud music, mostly just sit with our laptops in the evenings - but I just have no sense of what they can hear.  It makes me nervous to have parties.  I really really want to have lots of parties but I'm too worried about my neighbors.

Now we're on a middle floor, but in a building that is much better noise-insulated than our last.  We haven't heard a single noise from any of our neighbors.  Until today.  Today I can hear all manner of noises from above.  I wish I knew what they were doing!  Are they just moving around (so that means the people below can hear us moving around)? Or are they, like, moving out or something that requires moving all the furniture (so a party wouldn't be so bad)? I can hear a mechanical sound - is that the vacuum or a floor sander?  I wish I knew!

Packing sucks

I think EGM packed the coffee filters last night.  He's still asleep, although I don't know how since we packed the curtains yesterday and it's super-bright in our bedroom.


P.S.: we're not packing up the tv until after Lost.

Moving

We're moving on Monday!

A list of things I will miss about our current place, in no particular order:

• Lots of space, including plenty of closet space and beds to accommodate a visiting family of 5
• Beautiful original woodwork
• Tree-lined streets, including big trees right outside the window that make it feel like we live in a treehouse
• Relatively inexpensive rent
• Wonderful neighborhood -- very safe and quiet-ish yet very interesting with lots to do
• Excellent natural light

A list of things I'm super excited about in our new place:

• Shorter commute!!!!!
• Dishwasher!
• Laundry in unit!
• Elevator
• Pool and sundeck
• Pool table room in the building
• Gym, with a view, in the building
• Party room, with a view, in the building
• Garage parking space
• Lots of kitchen counter space
• Decent water pressure
• A toilet that flushes properly
• Bathroom door that latches and locks
• Busy, super-hot neighborhood
• Incredibly convenient access to public transit
• Closer proximity to many of our friends
• Shorter commute!!!

Life has been really out-of-whack for us lately.  I really thrive on a solid daily routine.  I'm hoping that the move, with its resultant shorter commute, will offer a clean slate for getting myself back into a comfortable schedule.  I'm surprisingly stressed about the move itself, but so excited to do it.

The pace of things

My new subfield moves really fast.  New technology is continually rolling out, such that you might start a project with one technology and finish it with another.  That goes for the literature too.  Other Postdoc said that the oldest paper she's ever cited is from 1990.  PI told me his thesis is totally out-of-date, maybe even obsolete.  Year-old data starts to smell stale.

In contrast, the oldest paper I cited in my thesis is from the 1930s.  In fact, one of the larger criticisms of my big paper was that I didn't cite enough of the pioneer literature; the reviewer suggested some papers from the 1970s.  Research Advisor's thesis papers are still frequency cited.  We have data that is several years old that would still get in very decent journals.

Just another example of how a shift in fields can have a major impact on how you do, and think about, science.

Science chat

I had a great conversation about Science with my boss today.  The best part was that I could tell he specifically made time to have the chat, in part because he knows that I need to get shit sorted soon if I want to do any significant field work this summer.  Still, it would have been easy enough for him to forget the urgency of the upcoming field season, as he is not a field scientist.

Our lab's work divides out into two vastly unrelated subject areas that are bound together by one broad theme.  The other postdoc's specialty is Area 1 and mine is Area 2.  The technician is also interested in Area 2, but he'll be leaving in a few months.  PI is a specialist in Area 1 but has dabbled heavily in Area 2.  I'm not sure which one he prefers; I think 1 but the other postdoc guesses 2 and PI himself says his passion is the broad theme that ties them together.  Recently, I was chatting with the other postdoc about how I would be sad when the technician leaves because I will be losing my scientific buddy.  I wouldn't be surprised if she conveyed this to our PI and that precipitated our conversation today.

Anyway, I'm encouraged because PI and I are on the same page about the kind of projects I should do.  Moreover, he seems very willing to give me the time I need to figure out experimental designs, gather preliminary data before we commit to a bigger project, and just learn some of this new stuff.  I'm really glad I took this job.

I must have pissed off the traffic gods

Life has been sucking a little bit lately, mainly due to traffic.  Long-time readers may recall that I have a nontrivial commute and that traffic in my city frequently blows.  However, if I leave early enough, I can beat the worst of it and stay relatively sane.

Or at least I could.

They started major construction on one of the other highways in my city, which has had a serious impact on many of the other main arteries.  Everything has been all jacked up such that I have to leave well before 7 am to beat the morning jam and if I don't leave work by 2:30 (unreasonably early), I'm stuck there until at least 6:30. 

I don't mind working long days when I've got something going on or it's on my terms -- a deadline, fieldwork, a really compelling project -- but I don't like feeling like I'm trapped at the lab.  This situation has increased my overall anxiety in part because it gives me less time at home for things I enjoy like blogging.

The good news is that we're going to move soon.  It won't solve my commute problem but it should shorten my drive time significantly.  And if it doesn't, I'm going to talk to my supervisor about some sort of flexible schedule, like four long days (thereby driving before the morning rush and after the evening rush and getting three-day weekends) or super early hours, or something.  I brought it up today and he very generously offered to personally facilitate a commute by public transit, but unfortunately that's not a viable option and there's no way I would impact his schedule with my shitty commute.

I really need to figure out what sort of offering will please the traffic gods.

Worn out

The past couple of weeks have been what my BFF's mom would call "fast".  When we were teenagers, she would say things like, "you've been pretty fast lately Young Lady, I think you better stay home tonight".  Being a not-quite-extrovert, this always comes back to me when I get too busy.

Work has been busy, but I think it was too many social obligations that wore me out.  I've had some lunches, a high school career fair, a few work dinners, normal social time with friends, and my sister visited last weekend with her husband and three kids.  Too much!  I really enjoyed most of these things but I was happy when more involved plans fell through last night so that Ecogeoman and I could go for a walk, order in Indian food, and watch a dvd.  Today we slept in, had dim sum, went clothes shopping for him, and ate our leftover Indian food while watching another video.

Now I think I'm refreshed enough to plow through the week.

Things I'm loving

Yesterday I discovered the Magic Eraser.  OMG.  It is teh awesome.  I deep-cleaned the kitchen and was able to get scuffs and stuff off the walls that I could never clean before.  The thing was amazing for places like the textured door handles on the fridge and oven, and pretty much everywhere else too.  And it had no odor.  Will definitely use again.

But I'm sure the thing you would much rather hear about is my ring.  We've been talking about getting married for a few years now, but it has seemed like too big of a thing to tackle, too expensive, and not urgent enough for us to actually do it.  Plus there has been some big event in our families each year that prevented us from hosting our own big event: EGM's sister got married two years ago, had a baby last year, and my parents are having their 50th anniversary this year which will get a big, wedding-like party.  Anyway, we were talking about the logistics of EGM's defense date, like how to balance the time he really needs to finish with paying more university fees and immigration issues, and we decided the time was right for us to start planning a wedding.

I didn't care either way if I had an engagement ring.  I would have been perfectly happy without one, but pleased to wear one too.  EGM wanted me to have one (a rare moment of machismo).  Because I didn't want a typical solitaire or similarly popular setting, I showed him some things I found online that I liked and didn't like.  That had minimal impact, so we went out shopping without a definite plan for how things should go.  It turned out that we both liked pretty similar styles but EGM claimed that what I liked specifically was not predictable and that he was sad that this jewelry was so gender-specific because he would like to wear it too.  At that point we decided that we would get something we both really loved.  Which was pretty much exclusively antique; there was almost nothing modern that we liked very much.  So we went to a bajillion jewelry stores, narrowed it down to two rings, and after agonizing debate finally settled on this 1920s art deco solitaire:

You can see more detail if you zoom in.  It's just right.  Very sparkly, an interesting setting with engraving and filigree, and it's a good proportion for my small hand.

So: there was no down-on-one-knee proposal, no asking my father in advance, no surprising me with a velvet box, but this was just perfect for us.  It suits our style of sharing responsibility, and we'll have a wonderful memory of shopping for this special item together, which with any luck will kick off a long and happy marriage.  I couldn't be happier or more confident in my decision to marry EGM!

Preview

I don't know why I haven't been blogging lately.  I'm going to list a few potential topics to maybe help me get back in the swing of things.

• EGM and I decided to get married, and together we picked out the most awesomely awesome engagement ring.
• I think I have finally experienced sexism at work first-hand.  I'm going to keep an eye on things before I decide if the situation represented something systematic or if it was merely coincidental.
• It has been a very nice spring, and I am just itching to get my garden started.
• Crafting emails that convey the tone I intend is apparently difficult for me.
• After being adamant that I'm not going to attend my commencement ceremony, I'm starting to think it might be a nice thing to do.

So hopefully I will find the motivation to expound on these topics very soon!

On waiting

How much time should a coauthor be allowed for reviewing a manuscript before it is submitted?  How long is too long? At what point do you feel it is appropriate to start complaining?  Or making ultimatums?

What if that coauthor is your advisor?

What if that coauthor is your student?

Personally, I think things are going pretty well if all coauthors respond to a request for feedback within a month. Gentle reminders are appropriate beginning about three weeks after the coauthors receive the manuscript, and can increase in frequency and sternness of tone after that.  I think three months is too long, unless there are extenuating circumstances, and is the point at which serious complaining may start.  I can't imagine making an ultimatum to an advisor or coauthor who made a major contribution, but I can imagine engaging in hard-core whining.

Am I off base?


In other news,  we successfully added a second computer to our wireless network with absolutely no drama.  The new router is teh awesome.

Research continuity

I've written before that my research is interdisciplinary, and alluded to the fact that my postdoc is taking that to a whole new level.  My PhD work crossed two main subjects: A and B.  My postdoc research is still about A and B, but also includes C (which I knew a little about from my work in A), D, E, and possibly a little bit of Z.  These letters stand for disciplines that could have their own department at any typical American university.  Z is radically different from the rest.

Learning all this new stuff is exciting and overwhelming.  Fortunately, I still get to work with my PhD research adviser on the A and B, so there is something familiar among all the new stuff.  In fact, a big part of my job is to help develop this new highly interdisciplinary research by building the relationships between the A+B people, the C+D people, the E people, and maybe even the Z people.  So far it's cool, but much more complex than anything I've done before.  The science is complex, obviously, but the interpersonal/management aspects are also tricky. 

I'm glad there are at least a few familiar personalities in the mix to ease the transition into this new research.  I'm finding that I'm more excited to go to work than I have been in a very long time, and that the days just fly by.  But I'm also so tired by the end of the week, even when it feels like I hardly did anything.  It takes a lot of effort to learn (which is probably why kids need so much sleep!), so it's good that my whole world didn't change all at once.  I'm still with EGM of course, we didn't have to move for this postdoc, I still get to interact with Research Adviser, and I still get to work on my PhD topic, albeit in a very expanded way.   It's comforting to have some measure of continuity as I embark on new research territory.

scientiae-carnival

ScienceGirl's Baby Shower!

ScienceGirl may not have a great big network in her new town to help her raise her new baby, but she sure does have a lot of love on the internets.  I want to thank everyone for contributing to our virtual baby shower for ScienceGirl, and making this a group of posts that she will be able to reread in the future.  Hopefully these posts will help her remember that even though we aren't there in person, she has many people all over the world who have her back.  We all seem to share a deep confidence that ScienceGirl will make a wonderful mother, and to want to remind her to trust her instincts while taking care of herself too.

Without further ado, let's get this party started!

ScientistMother says that a happy mommy leads to a happy baby, so remember to take care of yourself!  Chall adds that you shouldn't stress about being perfect, and recommends some clothing choices for when the baby is small. A couple of guests elaborated on the futility of striving for perfection by noting that early problems don't always persist. Beaker Half Full shared a story about the challenge of leaving her baby brother at daycare to illustrate that even things that seem heartbreaking probably aren't as bad as you think, and Short Geologist reminded us all that a perceived weakness in childhood don't always last into adulthood.  Very reassuring!

A baby shower staple is recommendations for good books. You undoubtedly already have plenty to read, but let us suggest some favorites. Amelie offered a list of her childhood favorites, encompassing a wide range of delightful stories that will be appropriate for your daughter as she grows up.  Karina recommended Free Range Kids, which she says is about raising "independent, confident kids".  I described a book that may help with showing love in your family when things get challenging.


Several seasoned moms offered some advice straight from the trenches.  LabMom says to trust yourself, don't fall into the martyr trap, accept help, be proud of your identity as a parent, and don't feel guilty to admit that some parts of the job suck.  BeanMom also offers some extremely practical advice, from poop to sleep to support groups to remember to enjoy it while it lasts (or be patient until it's over, if it's something suckful).  Rebecca too reminded you to remember that "this too shall pass" and to not be too hard on yourself.  In fact, the fleeting nature of child development seems to be an emergent theme at this party.  We're having a lengthy conversation at this shower about how you have to remind yourself that the colic and poop won't last and you have to savor the joys when they come.  Jennie  wants to be sure that you try to remain grateful for it all, and Mad Hatter thinks that won't be too hard if a baby is anything like a dog (as she suspects), since the things that suck (like waking up to the sound of vomit in the night) will pale in comparison to the joy your baby will bring.

A baby shower wouldn't be complete without some fun and games, and Fia and Cath came through with some laughs.  Fia suggested some hilarious-looking parenting aids, and Cath shared a great joke about the work load of a mother - funny, of course, because it can be all too true! Makita reminded us that kids have their own personalities from day 1, and made us laugh too with a story about how her kid could spill the soup before he was even born!  Banshee wanted to play a game, and so gave you some advice to draw from a hat when you need it.  I propose we play another little game--it's probably too late to start a pool on the baby's birth date, but we could guess her birth weight.  Party guests, please leave a comment with your guess, and hopefully ScienceGirl won't mind telling us who is closest.  I suggest we play for bragging rights rather than a potted plant.  :)

Lin and Amanda spoke for all of us, I think, when they expressed their confidence in your ability, ScienceGirl. Your training in grad school, your discipline in running, and your consistently balanced and positive outlook will no doubt be assets on your journey through motherhood!

So please, everyone, eat a cupcake in honor of ScienceGirl, her husband, and her very-soon-to-arrive baby.  On behalf of everyone, I'd like to say congratulations and best wishes in your new life with baby!

If I missed any posts, it was most certainly not intentional, so please let me know and I will correct my mistake!

Love Languages

After much thought, I decided to share my experience with a book, The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, for ScienceGirl's baby shower.  The thesis of the book is that how we give and receive love governs how we function in loving relationships whether that be with our spouse, our parents, or our children.  Basically, we all give and receive love in five main ways: physical touch, words of affirmation, gifts, quality time, and acts of service.  Everyone can experience all five love languages, but most of us have one that is most important, our primary love language. 

Think about this: how did you know your mother loved you?  Was it because she always told you? words of affirmation Or because she packed your lunch every day? acts of service Perhaps you had a morning ritual involving lots of cuddling.  physical touch/quality time You see where I'm going with this.  No love language is better or worse than any other, but we all have one (or maybe two) that we understand best.  It's nice if you and your loved ones share a primary love language, but it's ok if you don't. However, it's good to be cognizant of different love languages and how they can shape our behavior in relationships. Sometimes we are trying to show our love for someone, but that person has trouble feeling it because it's the wrong love language for her.

In addition to a primary love language, we all have an internal "love tank" that can empty and fill depending on circumstances in our lives and the health of our relationships.  Being spoken to in our primary love language is the best way to fill the tank and keep us feeling our best. 

Why I am I writing this for my baby shower post?  This love language concept can be particularly important and useful for raising kids.  In fact, Chapman has a whole book devoted to love languages in parenting.  Typically, an individual's primary language isn't evident until about age four, so it's critical for parents to "speak" in all of them when children are young.  Even after you think you have identified your child's primary love language, you should still use all of them.  But, you may want to emphasize the one that is most important to your child, and you may want to consider it when you invoke punishments.  For instance, a child whose primary love language is quality time will find being sent to her room particularly harsh.  By the same token, keeping a kid's love tank full can promote self confidence, good behavior, and healthy relationships.

There are a series of Five Love Language books targeted to the various types of relationships we encounter, including one specifically about children and one about teenagers.  They have a fair bit of Christian content, e.g. Bible quotes, but that's easy enough to overlook if you want.  Although the language can be a bit cheesy ("love tank"?), I have found the five love languages thesis has been crucial for my relationship with EGM as well as other important relationships in my life.

ScienceGirl, lots of other bloggers have offered their best practical advice - to take of yourself and your marriage so you can be the best possible mom to your little one.  I encourage you to read a FLL book (or visit the related website) to give you another tool to do just that.  Identify your love languages so you and your husband can keep each other's love tanks full throughout the very challenging (and rewarding!) time ahead of you, and you'll be able to keep your daughter's tank full too.   The rest should fall into place.

More burps

I spent two hours on the phone with Belkin (the manufacturer of my wireless router) tech support last night and my internets are still fucking broken.  In fact, it's worse now than before I called them; before I could at least connect using the ethernet cable, but now I can't even do that.  I spoke to two different technicians plus a rep from my ISP.  At last, after nothing worked, the Belkin tech said he was going to transfer me to a senior technician.  I was put on hold, and then I heard a message along the lines of "this is an unauthorized transfer. click".  The fuckers hung up on me!  So today I'm going to buy a new router, throw the Belkin router out the window, and maybe I'll be able to make the baby shower happen. 

Right now I'm breaking my personal rule and posting this from work, but I really don't want to handle the baby shower stuff here.  I'm really sorry for the flakiness.  I know everyone made a big effort to write posts for my deadline, and now I can't follow through.  ScienceGirl, don't have your baby yet, ok?!?!?

Internet burp

Um, I'm having a bit of trouble* with my connection, so the baby shower carnival post (and my post for it!) might be late.  Those of you who emailed me in the last few hours will definitely be in, and any stragglers can still sneak something in too!

* I think it's the same trouble I have every time someone adds a computer to the wireless network.  There's some issue with the computers competing for IP addresses or something, and they end up like, blocking each other.  The only way to fix it seems to be an hour-long call with tech support to completely reset the router or something.  What sucks is that my old computer is the one that has to do the reset, I guess because the network was initially set up on it.  But the reset thing requires plugging in an ethernet cable, and my old computer is literally crumbling around where the ethernet cable plugs in, so it's very difficult to establish a connection that way.  Sigh.  I'm currently sitting behind the tv with my laptop connected to the modem via a short ethernet cable, which just won't do for more than a few minutes, thus the delayed baby shower.  Sorry SG! 

Baby shower reminder

Thanks to everyone who has already written a post for ScienceGirl's virtual baby shower and emailed me the link.  If you intend to contribute to the baby fun, please send me a link to your post in the next 20 hours or so.   I think this "shower" is going to be really neat!

Thanks!



Here is the Wikipedia entry for baby shower if you don't know what one is.  Apologies for my Ameri-centrism.

Buzz totally sucks

I know I'm not the first person to post about the new Buzz app in gmail, but I'm annoyed enough to add to the dialog.  If you have ever emailed me from your gmail account, I can see your name and possibly your photo.  If you have ever emailed me from your pseudonymous bloggy gmail account but had your real name attached to the account, I can see your name and possibly your photo.

I will of course keep this info to myself, but it sucks, huh?  If you have your real name associated with your bloggy gmail account, I recommend changing it to your pseud.

Lame.

Thought of the day

If you have to say, "isn't that funny?!" after you tell a story, your story probably wasn't very funny.

Quiet time

I have taken a few casual personality tests over the years, and every time I come out right on the line between introvert and extrovert.  I think this is very accurate, as I enjoy the company of others but being around too many people or meeting lots of new people really wears me out.

I've met about a dozen new people since I started my new job.  I had actually been introduced to most of these people before, but even still it felt like a lot of effort to interact with them last week.  I had to give a presentation yesterday that I enjoyed, but performing for two hours--even to a friendly audience--wore me out.  To top it off, I'm not settled into my new office yet (necessary furniture isn't all there), so I have been feeling happy but at loose ends.

I had to take care of a critical errand this morning which was going to make me significantly late.  Between that and a major snowstorm, I decided to stay home.  I had a haircut appointment tomorrow evening for which I was going to have to leave a little early, but I was able to reschedule it for this afternoon instead, so now I'll be able to stay late tomorrow to make up some of the lost time today.  I haven't gotten much done today, but I think it will ultimately be a good thing.  I needed a day away from people and my chaotic office so I could recharge a little bit.  I think I'll be in good shape tomorrow to focus on some real work.

Postdoc pros (and cons)

 Here's what I have to say about my postdoc after one week on the job, presented as pros and cons:

• Pro: I have the most glorious office evah.
Con: But that is just one of three offices I'm expected to occupy on a regular basis.

• Pro: I have four bosses.  That presents an opportunity for major mentorship and collaboration.
Con: It runs a major risk of turning into a serious clusterfuck, or alternatively, letting me fall through the cracks.

• Pro: I'm working with people far outside of my field.  So far, everyone has been super nice and accommodating.  In addition, because I am the only expert in my area in our group, there is no one to second guess me.  Thus, at least I feel confident about the things I do know.
Con: It's a bit intimidating, and I'm worried about making sure I can pull my weight with these high-tech heavy hitters.

• Pro: They got me a fancy new laptop!
Con: It's a mac.  So far it's great (so fast! so quiet!) but I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do about some of the software I rely upon.  That's a real problem.

• Pro: My abs were sore by the end of the week from laughing so much with my new colleagues.  Not only are they funny, but they think I'm funny too.  Imagine that! 
Con: These people work crazy, crazy hours and I think they expect that I will too.

• Pro: I get to expand my PhD work into a new area that is right on the bleeding edge of what's being done in the field.
Con: I have SO MUCH to learn!  Eek!

So far I'm super happy with my job, and really excited to get the science ball rolling. Stay tuned.

It's a virtual baby shower!

Everybody needs a little help when she has her first baby (or second, third, and fourth babies, for that matter!).  Our lovely blogger friend ScienceGirl at Curiosity Killed the Cat is anticipating the arrival of her first little one, but unfortunately there is no baby shower in the works.  ScienceGirl recently described one of the pitfalls of the nomadic acdemic lifestyle--it's hard to establish a village to help you raise your child when you move all the damn time, your extended family lives in another state or continent, and your colleages are mostly men:

The problem is that I am new in this area. I only know a handful of people closely enough to possibly even ask for such things [baby supplies], and most (um, all?) of them are male and/or non-parents. So although my coworkers are all nice people, there won't be a baby shower, nor will I be able to ask someone to bring over dinner once the little one gets here.

Several of us responded to that wishing we could give her a shower.  After years of reading ScienceGirl's blog and her comments on other blogs, I think of her as a friend.  I'd just hate to see her have her baby without any fanfair first, and without the support of a network of friends.  So, we're going to have a virtual baby shower for her here!

Following the Scientiae model, I'm hosting a baby shower-blog carnival.  Please write a post on your own blog about something you might share at a baby shower: a funny story, your best advice, reassurance for ScienceGirl, etc.  It doesn't matter if you're not a parent yourself -- you'd go to a real life baby shower for a friend, right? and you've got nieces and nephews or godchildren or friends' kids or memories of your own childhood, right?  So you have content for a post!  Some of you are parents who have a lots of exellent parenting posts in your archives, so another great option would be to collect those links into one post.  I'll round up all the links for these entries in a summary post here, and ScienceGirl will be able to save them to read again and again in the future.  We also have a mechanism for sending gifts, so send me an email for more information if you'd like to hook ScienceGirl up with some baby goodies (no pressure).

ScienceGirl is due on March 1, so we need to hurry!  Please email me a link to your post by midnight on Saturday, February 20, and we'll "have the shower" on Monday, February 22.  The only thing we'll be missing is one of those creepy baby-shaped cakes, so everybody plan to eat a (non-baby-shaped) cupcake in ScienceGirl's honor on Feb 22! 

Email or leave a comment if you have any questions. I think we're going to have a great time showering ScienceGirl with support from her bloggy village!

Live blogging Lost

8:10:  WTF??????!!!!?!?!?!?!

8:23:  WTF?!?!?!

8:30:  Dude!

8:39:  WTF?!

8:51:  HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!!!  YAHOO!!

9:02:  Huh?

9:15:  Whoa! The Temple!

9:27: WTF?

9:41:  Oh Noes!

9:52:  Where?!?!

10:00:  ZOMG!  I CAN'T WAIT FOR NEXT WEEK!!!!!!

Enlighten me

I figure I'm going to be referring to my temporary-job-that-follows-a-Ph.D. fairly frequently in the coming months.  I tend to refer to such a job as a "post-doc", but I've noticed lots of people write "postdoc" and some write "post doc".  Please weigh in using the poll on the side bar, or leave a comment with your remarks.  Only vote once.  I will use whichever one gets the most votes after the poll closes.

Closure WIN!

I turned in my final thesis yesterday. All the tasks that I expected to be roadblocks -- obtaining forms, getting signatures, paying fees -- fell into place one by one. The grad college guy said he'd look over it early next week and then let me know if there are any formatting issues.

I'm so pleased to have this phase over, and to have it over before my post-doc starts. woot!

Closure FAIL

I thought I could deposit my thesis today. But I could not.

By the time I went home yesterday I had done all the revisions required based on the defense, checked over all the data, and did and most of the formatting. This morning I got a later start than I intended and then I had to stop to buy the fancy paper on my way to work. Buying the paper took a while, as I had to consult with two different associates to make sure I had the right stuff. When I got to work, I spent some time making the last of the formatting changes, and then decided I needed to read through the whole thing one last time to make sure I hadn't done anything weird during the revisions and formatting. Then I printed it. Then I did the copyright form. Then I did the Earned Doctorates form. Then I got it all sorted into the proper envelopes. Then it was almost 3 pm and I still had to get a money order for bound copies I want, drive to the university, pay the stupid get out of jail grad school fee, pick up the signed forms from my adviser, and hand it in at the graduate college office. Cutting it close.

I got on the highway without stopping at the bank for the money order, so I had to turn around and go back for it. Then I forgot exactly where the building with the cashiers' office is and lost some time circling it and finding a parking space. I thought that office closed at 5, but in fact it closes at 4 and I got there at 4:04. Fuck. And why the hell can't I pay this lame-ass fee online? So I went to my adviser's office to get the forms, thinking I'd at least be able to get the packets all ready. Nope, he wasn't there despite an email yesterday saying he'd be there all day. he was probably expecting me earlier than 4:15. Whatever.

I was inordinately disappointed that I couldn't just get it the fuck done. I even had a bit of a tanty in the car after I left the closed cashiers' office. I still have plenty of time before the deadline to graduate this semester, but I just wanted this phase of life to be over. I don't want it to drag on another day. And I really wanted to have it done and dusted before I start the post-doc.

But whatever. I'll suck it up, and go back tomorrow and try to take care of it.

The day did get significantly better after all that, however, since EGM made a positively outstanding chicken makhani. Yum!