Read that paper and then you can have your dinner

I think reading papers goes into the important-but-not-urgent category. Reading lots of papers gets you really immersed in the literature and that, I believe, a good scientist makes. Reading before it's urgent (like for a proposal deadline) means that you ruminate on the ideas and assimilate them into your own work over time.

But it's just so difficult to read papers regularly and well.

To combat this problem and help relieve some guilt, EGM and I decided we're going to read together every night. He's about to go on a whole bunch of travel, so we'll probably start when the fall semester begins. We don't have details worked out -- I think we'll read for an hour an night or something -- but we'll keep each other accountable. Science can't happen on an island. Unless it's funded by the Dharma Initiative.

I used to worry that I might make a poor PI because I get so bogged down with reading and writing. I love lab work. I really enjoy thinking about and discussing science, and I often find it delightful to listen to research summarized in a talk. But reading papers is a chore. I sometimes fret that I'm doomed to be a Ph.D. Technician. However, in another example of how much this blogging community rocks, reading other blogs written by people who seem to be awesome scientists has made me realize that many people have a hard time reading as much as they should. And many people procrastinate, feel inadequate about, or actually dislike writing. So maybe I'm not doomed to failure after all. Thanks, guys.

Fast cash

I made the easiest money of my life last week.

A friend called me two weeks ago to invite to participate in a focus group she was hosting at her apartment. She had to get 7-8 of her friends to call the market research company and they would choose 5 of those to go to her place for two hours to discuss alcohol. My friend said she didn't know what exactly it was for, but the participants had to be screened by the market research people; she told me exactly what I had to say to qualify.

I felt terrible after I called because I had to lie about almost everything. I had to say I was older than I am, make more money than I do, go to the bar more often than I do, drink more than I do, and drink mostly cocktails, especially appletinis, which I had never even tasted. But I got in! I felt so bad about it that I went out and bought liquor to make appletinis because I was so afraid I would be asked something that I didn't know. What an over achiever I am!

I had to do "homework" before the focus group met. I had to print a picture of my liquor storage area and respond to questions like, "what is your favorite drink to have at the bar and what do you love about it?" I've had a house guest for the last month (hence my lighter-than-usual blogging) so we made cocktails every night so I'd have something to say that wasn't a total lie.

It turns out that I did represent the intended demographic pretty well even though I had to fib to qualify. Although they didn't come out and tell us their purpose, I'm sure the researchers were for a company that makes fruity liqueurs that you're all familiar with. The focus group started with my friend making cocktails for everyone (I had a chocolatini which I had never had before despite telling the phone screener it was one of my favorite things to order at the bar) while a man and woman from the market research company asked us questions. They mostly had us talk about our drinking and shopping habits and asked us questions to get us to elaborate. They wanted to know things like how we find out about new drinks, how we know how to make drinks, when we have different drinks, etc. We brought up how we drink differently now than we did in college and they wanted to know a whole lot about that. The most interesting part was when they got out a bottle of watermelon schnapps and asked us how we would redesign the product/package to better market it to people like us. The package is really stupid, so we had a lot to say. They liked that and had us do two more. I'm pretty sure the point of it all was for the company to learn how to better market its fruity liqueur line to older people (35-year-olds instead of college kids).

In the end, I got $20 for cab fare (much more than the cab cost) and $175 dollars for participating. How cool is that? I hope I'm in the database now so I'll get called to do more focus groups!

I'm a trained monkey

I'm off to the lab this afternoon to do some seriously mindless work. If I'm lucky I'll tick off 6 more samples from the counter at the sidebar. Even though this task is crummy, tedious, boring, and dirty, I enjoy it as long as I don't have to do it every day for weeks on end. Candid Engineer has a post about why big brain thinky types like to do repetitive lab work (actually, there are a bunch of great posts at Candid Engineer in Academia) that I think is pretty much spot-on. It feels good to see the work get done. Also, I like to get my hands dirty with the project so I develop a more intimate knowledge of it.


So you say, "EGF, you don't work on weekends! That violates your 40 hours rule." That's true, but I do want to graduate and the only way to do it to get things done. However, unless I have a huge and looming deadline, when I work on weekends I reserve the right to choose whatever I feel like doing rather than worrying about what has highest priority. I figure it's bonus work so whatever I get done is great. I don't want to be resentful of being there; I want to be pleased with myself for getting something extra accomplished.

Every thing I do today is one thing I don't have to do tomorrow.

Vacations

Several bloggers have discussed the dilemmas surrounding students’ requests for vacation time, like whether or not the advisor should be consulted, if the time must be "made up", etc. I have two week-long trips planned for this summer and felt compelled to run my plans by both advisors, though not necessarily ask for permission. Research Advisor didn’t seem especially interested and said fine. I must have had an apologetic look on my face when I talked to Academic Advisor today because he said, “why are making that face? Why do you feel bad about taking time off?” How great is that? He’s right, I shouldn’t feel bad.

That brings me to a thought I’ve had for a while: why do scientists feel like we need to justify their vacations? Why do we have to rationalize our fun?

I’ve noticed that people will say they need to take time off in order to be a better scientist. Vacations “recharge the batteries” so one can return to work in super production mode. Time off during evenings or weekends will “refresh creativity” and “clear one’s head”. These things are all true. But is the only reason we take vacations so that we can be better workers? Why don’t we take vacations just because it’s fun or to spend quality time with our families? I don’t feel like my whole point of living is to be a better scientist. There are lots of things that contribute to making me a good person and member of my community besides my work.

I get so sick of the notion that if I’m serious about my career, then the core of my identity should be as a scientist and that everything I do should be to fortify my worth as a worker. I think that’s bullshit. I’m glad that my advisors don’t seem to have that attitude.

I think I should be able to take a vacation just because I want to. If it happens to make me a better scientist, all the better.

Writing a Lot

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

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

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

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

Guilt

I almost never remember my dreams, but I had one last night that came back to be this afternoon. In the dream, I had a new born baby. I nursed it, laid it down to sleep, and then forgot about it for many hours. When I remembered it, I fed it again, then put it down and forgot about it again. This kept happening, once overnight; I woke up after sleeping for 10 hours and realized I had never woken up to feed the baby during the night. Each time, to my relief the baby was fine but I felt terrible for forgetting it.

I feel this has something to do with my guilt over not working during the snow day yesterday. Something about ignoring my research and worrying it will die. Or something.

It just nags at me. I had a really productive day today, which you would think would make up for yesterday. My goal is to feel like if I work hard during "work time", i.e. 40 hours or so each week, then I can forget about work during "play time." This is fine, but if I slip up at all, like yesterday, it all falls apart. Plus, it doesn't work in reverse -- I don't get give myself much extra credit for working on a Saturday. And, I feel bad that I'm not passionate enough about my research that I want to work on it more (like Ecogeoman and many friends seem to do).

If I'm going to continue in science, I need to get this guilt thing sorted out. There's no way I'm going to live the rest of my life this way.

Inferiority Complex? Impostor Complex? Lazy-Ass Complex?

Many, many people feel inferior compared to others in their field. Or they feel like they have no business doing the work they do, that they aren’t qualified to teach, or that nobody has realized how much they suck but as soon as the cat’s out of the bag, they’ll be fired. I don’t really feel this way. I feel lazy. I think I could be every bit as good as anyone else but I don’t really work hard enough, so I’m just mediocre. Interestingly, I don’t have a big problem with that, at least not at this point. Maybe when it’s time to compete for jobs I’ll be cursing my mediocrity.

I think if I put in really long days and was just obsessed with my research, I could turn out awesome papers that would earn me a great reputation in my field. But I don’t do that. I want other things from my life, too. Frankly, I don’t think I’m capable of working that way, either. I just don’t have that kind of concentration or endurance. Maybe that’s what separates the women from the girls.

But then I wonder if this, in fact, is an inferiority complex. I’m saying to myself that I’m not as good as some people because I can’t/don’t want to work that hard. Inferiority is sneaky.

I wonder: if everybody feels inferior, who feels superior? This isn’t just restricted to women, so we can’t say the men are all feeling great. Does everybody feel like she can’t live up to the productivity of her colleague? Or is it a game we play with ourselves to deal with the self-motivation necessary for research? I thought I'd try a little poll to see where people stand. I use the phrase "better than me" in the context of comparing your work to that of your colleagues, i.e., I don't mean to say that other people are of higher quality overall.

Binge working

Yesterday, ScienceGirl commented here that, "As a grad student, it is so easy to fall into the procrastinate/work all the time, and never really have guilt-free time." How true. Without a boss who dictates your work hours and monitors your time, it's so easy to procrastinate. Often, the procrastination takes the form of work avoidance, where a less urgent/important task is done first at the expense of something more important but less appealing. Yet, since the important job never got done, there is the lingering weight of Unfinished Work. It's a nasty cycle because you've been working all day but not getting the high priority jobs done, so you have to work more. After many days of not really getting much done, an approaching deadline will trigger many people to really cram the work in. They will pull an all nighter to end up with a less-than-perfect product that they aren't 100% proud of. Binge working. It's so inefficient.

In my struggle to adhere to a 40 hour work week, I have tried to reflect on how I spend my time so that I can feel good about what I do at work and then feel good about what I do at home, which I want to be not work. I have found that when I am really honest with myself about how I spend my day, I see where I waste lots of time*. I know when I'm "working" and when I working, really doing only the things that need to be done and nothing else. No checking google for an image I could kinda use, no playing around with numbers for the heck of it, and certainly no chatting about what I made for dinner last night. Sure, those things can be useful, but should not be done until the essentials are done. That way, I can go home at the end of the day and not feel guilty for relaxing, because I know I got my work done. It's amazing how I will rationalize to myself just like I would to a boss, like, I couldn't get those figures made today because first I had to blah blah blah. Yeah, right. I know what's up with those excuses I give myself. I just wish I could have a touch more self control so a greater proportion of my time at work could be working because man, I really want to graduate.

I suspect that this doesn't end with grad school but that the most successful people typically have good time management skills and thus, greater efficiency. There is a great article on this topic at Science Careers which is really worth a read.

*I only really have this trouble when I am working at my desk on data analysis or writing. I am very efficient at lab work.

That Nagging Feeling

We're still in my hometown enjoying the holiday with my family. On Thursday there were something like 30 people at my sister's house for dinner, which was fun. Yesterday, I went S1, S2, S4, and B2 to see our uncle who has been sick and living in a retirement/assisted living/nursing home for a little over a year. It was a great visit. Afterwards, we went out for pizza at my favorite place which is only found in this city. Then a long day of hanging out with a variety of family, with people coming and going from S2's new house until midnight. Ecogeoman got to see a movie with S2's husband, which is his favorite leisure activity. A great day. Today we don't really have any plans until my high school reunion this evening.

So it has been a good holiday and I haven't done any work or really thought about work too much. But it's there. That little twinge of guilt, the little nagging feeling is just at the very back of my thoughts. I guess I should feel good that it's not looming near the front as it is for ecogeoman, who has been studying his work stuff all morning. I am pretty good at turning it off most of the time. When I get home from work, I usually leave it behind and do home stuff at home. And it works the other way too, where all but the biggest life problems are forgotten when I'm at the lab. But I know that I have a TON of work to do before the big meeting in December at which I am giving my first big oral presentation. I feel guilty that more isn't done already, that I won't make my (self-imposed) goals for the year, etc. I would feel equally guilty if I tried to work on my presentation here, since that's not what I am supposed to be doing over Thanksgiving. I wish I didn't carry this guilt and I wonder if people with other professional jobs have it as well. Certainly it's not exclusive to scientists, but I wonder if it is as strong in early stages of other careers as it is for us. I also wonder what's going to happen when (if) I have more responsibility, like children or my own lab.


Well, that's a downer. For the rest of the day, I'm just going to be thankful that I'm here, my parents are healthy, my family is happy, and ecogeoman is with me. And that I have something interesting to say about myself and something cute to wear and a boyfriend with a cool accent to bring to that high school reunion.

Struggling with ambition

I was just out for beers with some science friends and initiated a conversation inspired by Female Science Professor's recent posts on ambition. One friend is a post doc who is applying for jobs and is rather down about it. He also really, really likes beer. Scientists will often say that they are lucky because their hobby is their job, but for this person, science is his job and beer is his hobby. So I asked if he thought he would be happier working as a beer buyer or opening his own bar. After some consideration, his answer was an emphatic yes. However, he said he would never actually pursue that type of job because he would feel too guilty leaving science. He felt he owed it to his PhD and post doc advisors to stay in science. Then he added up all the money taxpayers had spent educating him via stipends, fellowships, and research funds and said he owed it to America to be a scientist. I countered that the publications he generated during his PhD fulfilled his obligation and that he had made no long term commitment for the money he had received (unlike say, an M.D. who agrees to work in rural areas in exchange for med school tuition). He was unconvinced.

Even more interesting, when I described FSP's post about ambition and the narrow definition of success for PhDs, this guy agreed that he felt that his ambition of teaching at a small university was not so respected. He said that he would feel successful if he "reached" just one student. When asked how he would know he had reached someone, he said that the best evidence would be if they chose a career like his. So it's just like the faculty at R1s! Everybody wants their students to be just like them. This guy wants to be like the professor who most influenced him at the small university he attended and his dream is to influence another student in the same way.

One important point I'd like to make is that these issues of ambition and such affect men in science too. My male scientist friends suffer from imposter complexes and feel like they are no good sometimes, just like us women. It's the lucky few who can escape the negativity and pressure.

Working on the weekend

I'm working on a Saturday. I dislike working on weekends because I believe I shouldn't have to. I try really hard to shake the guilt that comes with working banker hours, but it still creeps up sometimes. Currently, I'm desperate to finish something (anything!) so I've been working every weekend. At least today I won't be here for so long and I'm working on my very favorite task. It involves doing the same little tiny movements again and again, but I get to sit in a comfortable seat, listen to streaming broadcast of my favorite NPR shows, and it has an obvious end. Plus I get to race myself which is a surefire way to boost my efficiency and make me feel like I got something done.