Thank you

Dr Becca has a nice reminder to send thank you notes after you interview.  Totes.  After the workshop we hosted last year, I sent hand-written, snail-mail thank you notes to every speaker.  It might have been overkill, but I think it left a positive impression.  In fact, a few of the speakers emailed to thank me for the thank you note!

That workshop was a ton of work.  Work that kept me from doing other things, like research.  It was worth it, though, because I got a ton of visibility and really expanded my network.   I sent the thank you notes because we were genuinely grateful to have such great talks, and because I wanted to reinforce my new relationship with the excellent scientists who gave them.  On the flip side, I think there was some risk of seeming like a secretary with the hand-written notes.

We'll probably have another workshop this year.  I'm trying to decide how much involvement I want (to the extent that I'm allowed to decide).  I have lots of ideas for how to improve it, I'm intensely interested in the topic, and it's an amazing opportunity for networking.  But: I don't want people to think I'm a postdoc who organizes meetings instead of doing serious research.  I think the key is to approach it as a group effort by the organizing committee instead of one person (me) being the obvious lead.

Keywords

Does anyone have a good strategy for choosing keywords for papers?  I can never decide on the best 4-6 words that are informative but not already in the title or abstract.  Sometimes I'm perplexed at the keywords on papers I read, so I think other people also find it challenging to pick good keywords.

Just ask

I just read Kate Clancy's excellent post summarizing the panel to which she contributed at Science Online 2011.  The post is awesome, and the comments are great too.  I found the discussion of self-promotion by women compared to men particularly interesting.  I started the book Women Don't Ask a while back, and although I still haven't finished it, it had a big impact on how I think about getting what I want.  For instance, I negotiated for a slightly higher salary than I was offered (although a man probably would have gotten even more), and I feel less guilty than I used to about asking for things at work. 

Still, like many of Kate's commentors, I am amazed at things a man will have the nerve to request.  One man actually asked to be invited to speak at the meeting we had last year, and so we did!  It would never occur to me to do something like that. 

My favorite comment there (so far) was this one by Stephanie Meredith:

And now I realize that when a woman hears the message, "You have to self-promote. Don't be afraid to self-promote," she may interpret that in a completely different way from the man who's sitting beside her getting the same pep-talk. Now I realize that I need to ask my male colleagues for specific advice in this area. Now I realize that when a man encourages me to self-promote, I should be asking "How? What would you recommend in this situation? Are there any other things you think I should do?"

For realz.

Writing highs and frustrations

The paper we submitted to the GlamorMag is going out for review!  We're ecstatic.  Everyone cross your fingers for the next six weeks or so.  kthnx.

On the other hand, all the other papers are such a struggle.  And you know, getting feedback, or even a rejection, doesn't bum me out in a defensive way.  I rarely feel like the reviewers are stupid or assholes or whatever and the comments almost always make the paper much stronger.  But frankly, I'm over it.  I'm tired of most of the papers I'm working on.  My reaction to substantive comments is can't it just be done? Can't I just not have to look at this fucker anymore?

I'm making it sound worse than it is, of course.  I'm venting my frustrations because what's a blog for, after all?  In addition to finding out about our paper's progress at the GlamorMag, there has been movement on a couple of other publications this week.  I submitted the meeting report on Monday, and we already heard back that they don't want it as is, but they invited us to try again with a change in focus (requiring major revision).  That's fantastic and the paper will be much more interesting, but can't I just be done with it?  I also tweaked a draft of a manuscript from my thesis work and resent it to the coauthors today, but I'm expecting requests for big annoying changes.  Can't it just be pretty much fine?

I say, it's a hard knock life being a scientist with stuff to publish.

Progress

So I didn't meet those goals I had for December, but I'm still chipping away at them. Let's revisit them, shall we?

1. Submit a commentary piece based on the meeting we hosted.  Waiting for the last coauthor!

2. Turn around the manuscript that was rejected over the summer.  Stalled.  It's next up.

3. Draft manuscript for special issue paper.  I sent a very decent draft to the primary coauthors today!  Cross your fingers that they will turn it around in time for the deadline.

4. Work with PI to revise big manuscript.  Done!  Submitted to GlamourMag the day before break!  So far it hasn't been rejected.  Even if it gets denied without review, it's a HUGE relief to have this thing basically done.  PI has been in a great mood this week all because this giant log-jam is gone.

5. Establish protocol for sample processing.  We tried out some things, and hopefully will have it finalized tomorrow.

6. Finalize protocol for lab experiment.  I got my shit organized.  Next thing is to make it happen in the lab.

Wiiiiiiiiiii!

Instead of buying each other Christmas presents, Ecogeoman and I decided to get a Wii.  We'd been wanting one for quite a while -- I wanted it to play games and EGM wanted it to watch instant Netflix movies.  I love it!

We've already watched a bunch of movies.  That's great because we've been paying for Netflix for ages without actually exchanging many movies.  The selection of instant movies is disappointing, but I'm confident that they will be adding lots more soon since they seem to be really pushing the streaming format.

Playing games is fantastic too!  We got Just Dance 2 for Christmas from my mom and it is fun fun fun!  There's a really diverse selection of good songs and the choreography is mostly pretty easy to follow, plus it's a great workout.  We got a Zumba game as well, but I haven't tried that for more than a few minutes yet (Just Dance is too much fun).  EGM and I have also had fun playing the basic sports games too. 

I'm so glad we got the Wii instead of stressing about shopping for surprise gifts.  I really hope we continue to use it as much as we have been this last week.

Welcome 2011

I love New Year's resolutions (NYRs), but I'm having trouble coming up with good ones this year.  I've had really good success with NYRs in years past, notably the year I paid off a bit of stubborn credit card debt thanks to the motivation from a NYR.  Last year I made a few that I really liked, but I abandoned them almost immediately. This year, rather than setting super-specific rules for my behavior, I need an over-arching theme. 

This year needs to be about getting my shit together.

On paper, 2010 was a really good year for me.  After defending late in 2009, I finished my thesis revisions and deposited in January.  I went on a fantastic cruise vacation with my BFF.  I started my postdoc.  I'm making way more money with better health insurance.  We moved to a great new apartment, which improved my quality of life dramatically (I should write a post about that improvement).  We got engaged.  I had a success with a big responsibility at work.

But I felt kind of off all year.  No, not off.  Just not quite on top of it.  We didn't visit my family frequently enough, which has made me feel kind of out of touch with them and my BFF.  Although some things at work have gone very well, I still haven't collected any new data.  We have a venue for our wedding, but no other plans.  I haven't gotten any more of my thesis papers published since I defended, although I submitted one that got rejected.  Nothing went badly at all, but I feel like I could be doing better.

My work-related goals are twofold.  First, I will publish the rest of my thesis, damn it.  My thesis should generate four papers: One is published; Two is going in a special issue related to a conference and is due January 31; Three has been rejected once and is almost ready to resubmit; and Four might go to another special issue and in that case would probably be due in March.  If Ecogeoman and I want to have any hope of finding decent jobs together, this just absolutely must happen soon.  Second, I need to be a bit more aggressive with my lab work.  I've got some cool things started, but now it's time to make data happen. 

I have a longer list of personal goals. The highest priority is to not let wedding plans fall though the cracks.  I don't want to feel like decisions and preparation for this wedding are a big ball of guilty blah because I waited too long.  I'll probably have to make more trips to my hometown to make arrangements, but that will will also address the issue of not seeing my fam enough.  I'd also like to entertain more.  Our social life, frankly, is pretty good.  However, I think we're kind of passive socializers, so having friends over more often should help me feel more in control of our plans.  And it should go a long way toward another goal: keeping the house in order.  We're messy.  I have to just accept that.  But just a tiny bit of effort could go a long way. 

All of this is about being assertive and proactive.  Time to take responsibility for how I want my life to be and make it happen.  Happy New Year!