Almost ready

My talk for the big meeting is pretty much done. Today I went through each slide with my advisor (she's a saint) and now I feel much more confident about it. She made some suggestions, mostly just tweaking things here and there, mostly for the sake of time. We think that I will be really pushing the 15 min time limit.

While I usually get a little nervous about public speaking, I am always more concerned about the content of my presentation than with the act of giving it. Talking to a big group of people can be thrilling if I feel good about what I have to say. I was feeling really anxious earlier this week because I'm scheduled in a session with many big name presenters that I expect to be well attended. I need to be really confident about my talk.

Tomorrow I need to make some changes, then send it to my other advisor. After that, practice, practice, practice. I often get criticized for having too much for people look at, e.g. the judgement on my most recent poster was that it was "congested". So this time, I have very few words on my data slides, which means few reminders of what to say. I wrote out everything I want to say for each slide so I can get really comfortable with all the points I want to make since there will be no extra time for fumbling.

Now that I have my advisor's blessing, I am looking forward to the meeting and maybe even a little excited about giving the talk. Much better than I felt on Tuesday.

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.

Carpooling

I live 35 miles from where I usually work. Not so green, huh?

I used to live much closer to work, but it was in a place with few public transit options. Then I became all gaga for ecogeoman and we decided to move in together. Ecogeoman, having only a driver’s licence from Far Off Land and having heard horror stories about frivolous law suites in America, doesn't drive here. Just as well, since he can't really afford a car. There is no (well, very, very limited) access to my workplace via pubic transportation, but ecogeoman's work has great access to public transit. So, we moved to a really wonderful neighborhood from which ecogeoman can either a. get a ride with me b. take public transit or c. ride a bicycle. We figured I had to drive to work no matter what, so living where he could get away with no car made up for my new 35 mile commute that would be 45 minutes in pristine traffic. He was happy, but I was rotting in my car for 1:15 twice a day since traffic is usually lousy.

Then in January, the lab hired a new technician who lives very near to me and doesn't have a car. She began riding with me and after a few months, we added another person. This one has a car so we take turns driving. However, he has to be home at a certain time to relieve his kids’ nanny. At first, I didn't want to get involved with this man because I felt resistant to the responsibility of daycare issues when I don't have kids yet. But, it's well worth it. The nanny’s hours force us to leave early in the morning so we can be back early in the evening, letting us beat the worst of the traffic.

The downside of carpooling is that I can never stretch the day if I'm in the middle of something. If it weren't for the nanny issue, I could ask my carpool buddies to wait 15 min for me to wrap up, but if we're late, the nanny is disgruntled and gets overtime pay. There is no flexibility.

The upsides are many. The commute is much more environmentally friendly, we save money, and I spend less time in traffic than I used to. Interestingly, it has made me more efficient as well. Knowing that I will have to leave at a certain time means I plan my work better and don't goof off as much. I used think I could just stay late if I wanted to surf the web or something, but now staying late is not an option. I have become better at judging what takes 8 hours of work, which has helped me set more realistic goals, at least short term ones. In all, the advent of my carpool was a positive change in my life. I highly recommend it.

It's definitely winter

This is the view out our front window right now. Sigh... Despite its beauty, I don't like snow. My mom has something of a phobia about driving in snow or ice. When I was a teenager and we had a snow day, not only did she not allow me to go anywhere, but my friends were not allowed to come to our house either because she didn't want anyone on the road. Now we tease her by calling snow the "white death". It kind of ruined snow for me forever.

The snow is an obvious indication that winter has fully arrived. Unfortunately, I have the listless mood to accompany it. Today was a no carpool day for me because I had to go to the university rather the research institute where I normally work. That meant I could take my time this morning. Knowing no one would be waiting on my doorstep for a ride, I hit the snooze for 45 minutes. When I finally did get up, I couldn't get motivated. I floundered all morning, feeling ashamed that I wasn't eager to write my talk for next week's conference. But it got me thinking about this same time last year when I was preparing an oral presentation for a small local meeting and feeling so down about my work and life in general. That's how I felt this morning. So maybe this mood is seasonal. I'm not usually a depressive person, but right now I'm not interested in anything but snuggling on the couch and reading blogs or watching tv. Or maybe it's because I'm presenting the same damn data I presented at last year's meeting.

I will try to remember this when the time comes to sign up for next December's conference. This is not a good week for me to work hard for a deadline. I just don't care about it.

Things improved when I found out a grad student friend just got a cool job. But that's another post.

The Five Love Languages

Have any of you read The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman? I’m not really into self help books, but this is one that really resonated with me. The premise of the book is that there are five main ways that people give and receive love and each of us has one that is most important, or our primary love language. The five languages are physical touch, quality time, acts of service, gifts, and words of affirmation.

To determine your primary love language, ask yourself how you knew your mother (or other caregiver) loved you. A response like, “She hugged me” probably means it’s physical touch. “She told me” is likely to indicate words of affirmation. Or “she always packed a note in my lunch for me” could mean acts of service or gifts. Conversely, one may think about what punishment inflicted the most emotional pain. For example, the child who is devastated by being sent to her room probably has quality time as her primary love language. The book talks about how in many relationships, the same primary language is not shared by both parties. In those cases it’s important to learn what each person’s main love language is to keep everyone feeling loved and happy. The book also discusses how when people aren’t receiving the kind of love they need, they don’t feel much love at all. The person giving the love may be perplexed by the lack of recognition shown by the recipient. While giving and receiving love in a perceivable way is absolutely vital in a romantic or parenting relationship, it crosses over to all relationships, even those in a lab.

I wonder if some of our unhappiness in our jobs stems from not getting positive feedback in a form we can perceive. Perhaps some of the friction in lab relationships (and we do spend a lot of time with our labmates!) comes from miscommunication of love. Or maybe not love, but the professional equivalents like appreciation, respect, and gratitude.

Anyway, the book is worth a read. There are several of them actually. I have read the one for raising children and for married couples. The author is a pastor and definitely incorporates Christian ideals and Bible passages, but it’s not too intrusive. I’m not interested in religious teaching at all and I was able to ignore those parts.

7 more facts

• Ecogeofemme detroyed the periodic table, because Ecogeofemme only recognizes the element of surprise.
• Ecogeofemme can do a wheelie on a unicycle.
• Ecogeofemme is so bad she makes viruses sick. As such, ecogeofemme is also responsible for the eradication of smallpox.
  
• When Ecogeofemme enters a room, she doesn't turn the lights on. She turns the dark off.
  
• Ecogeofemme crossed the road. No one has ever dared question her motives.
  
• Ecogeofemme can strangle you with a cordless phone.
  
• Ecogeofemme can tie her shoes with her feet.
  

As seen at Thoughts From the Waiting Room
Get yours here.

I finished something!

I made the final payment on my credit card yesterday. Yay! In January, I made a new year’s resolution to pay it off. It was really hard but I had a plan, stuck with it, and now it’s over. I think it’s the only new year’s resolution I’ve ever kept.

I would describe myself as a saver, not a spender, so suddenly having credit card debt was both shocking and highly uncomfortable to me. I didn’t build the balance by buying a bunch of stuff. First, there was the big first trip to Far Off Land that I couldn’t quite cover up front. Then there were several instances of car maintenance and the deductible for body work after my car was hit while parked. Then an expensive last minute plane ticket for a funeral. All the while, I was still making car payments, so I quickly blew through my paltry emergency fund. That’s how I came to have credit card debt.

I paid off the car last year and now the credit card is paid off too. Finally, I can bask in the joy of completion. Ahhhhhhh.

Too bad my research projects still have months of work left to do.