Double whammy weekend

This year, I share my birthday with Jesus' resurrection (zombie day?), so Ecogeoman and I are dutifully off to my hometown for the weekend. I think we'll have fun. We're going to spend Saturday evening with my BFF and some other friends and then Sunday will be a family Easter extravaganza, complete with an egg hunt and many arguments over peanut butter eggs which are the centerpiece of our candy cap-and-trade system. We're taking Monday off to drive back home at a leisurely pace.

I'm really excited about going away for the weekend. EGM has been so stressed and busy with work and I could use a break as well. I am not, however, too excited about this birthday, 29. I have clear childhood memories of my mom teasing my sister-in-law about aging, saying she should say she was 29 when she was well past 30. Not an novel joke, but one I heard so young that it stuck with me. It makes me feel now that I have only the last crumb of my youth left to savor. But, I can take heart that no matter now old I get, I will always be fresh compared to my siblings!

Medium and Good

The Medium:

1. We discussed the first draft of my manuscript at lab meeting (led by Academic Advisor, not Research Advisor). It was a good experience; I got lots of constructive comments. I had asked them to focus on big picture issues, like organization, consistency, data interpretation, main themes, etc., rather than details since the paper is at an early stage (I don’t want to polish sentences that might just get deleted). Some people marked up stupid style and formatting stuff anyway, but at least they read it. We haven’t discussed many working drafts in our lab meetings, so AA used my manuscript as a tool to teach everyone some broad writing lessons. Some examples:

• Title, abstract, first pragraph of intro, first paragraph of results, first and last paragraphs of discussion, and conclusion should all match and contain the same point(s).
• Avoid starting major sections with “negative” statements. For instance, “this bad disease disfigures hundreds of people every year” is not positive. AA claims that the papers that come off as most exciting and interesting phrase things in a positive way.
• This one is more obvious, but apparently I had trouble with it: determine your audience and write with the appropriate degree of detail. I guess I mixed general ideas that would appeal to a broad audience with finer points that would bore everyone but specialists in my subdiscipline.

So the lab meeting was mostly good, but today I felt a little overwhelmed when I started to attack the problems. I will basically have to rewrite the paper, which is fine because it will get so much better, but I need to develop a strategy. AA said he would email me his specific comments – they might help me figure out where to start. I currently feel frustrated.

2. I have been making slow progress on the crummy, tedious, boring, dirty project (see progress meter at sidebar). Today I worked on the Worst Samples Ever. My plan was to chip away on this project while working on manuscript revisions. It’s bench work that I usually sort of enjoy and that a trained monkey could do, so I figured it would be a good way to spread out the difficult rewriting while still moving forward on something. But today’s samples were so crappy that it only added to my overall frustration. I really want to finish with these fuckers.

The Good:

1. My fellowship got renewed for one more year. Yay! This is a big relief.
2. My BFF invited me to go on vacation with her and her parents this summer, at the same time that Ecogeoman is going to Far Off Land. I’d only have to pay for myself to get there and maybe chip in for food. EGM and I had basically decided that I should not go to Far Off Land with him (too expensive) so I’m excited to go to Florida instead. :)
3. I was in a really sour mood when I got home today, so EGM and I got beer and dinner at our favorite neighborhood bar. Then we got ice cream -- yum. I feel much better now.

Another kind of balance

We talk a whole lot about work-life balance, but lately I've been thinking about how challenging project balance is to learn. Knowing when to devote time to different projects is tricky. Currently, I'm working on the manuscript for project 1, lab work for project 2 when bench space is available, totally different lab work for project 3, and helping Awesome Technician with lab work for one of Research Advisor's projects when both of us have time. Ecogeoman is juggling two manuscripts, TAing, and writing one small grant proposal after another. This is nothing compared to all the balls our advisors keep in the air all the time. It's like playing Tetris with projects across time.

I like having several things going on at once. Any of it gets tiresome after a while, so it's nice to mix up computer work with different kinds of bench work. If space or equipment is unavailable I can always do something else, so my efficiency is not at the mercy of other people. Also, I like making progress on several things concurrently. But sometimes, I just want to buckle down and get something done. It takes so long to finish things.

Perfectionism

I followed this link I saw at Rising To the Occasion and thought it was interesting enough for a post. It's a booklet from the University of Texas Counseling and Mental Health Center titled "Perfectionism: A double-edged sword". Some excerpts:

Those who strive for excellence in a healthy way take genuine pleasure in trying to meet high standards. Perfectionists on the other hand are full of self-doubts and fears of disapproval, ridicule and rejection. The healthy striver has drive, while the perfectionist is driven.

MYTH: Perfectionists get things done and they do things right.
REALITY: Perfectionists often have problems with procrastination, missed deadlines, and low productivity.

Psychologists find that perfectionists tend to be "all-or-nothing" thinkers. They see events and experiences as either good or bad, perfect or imperfect, with nothing in between. Such thinking often leads to procrastination, because a requirement of flawless perfection, in even the smallest of tasks, can become fearfully overwhelming. The perfectionist believes that the flawless product or superb performance must be produced every time. Perfectionists believe if it can't be done perfectly, it's not worth doing.
Such beliefs often lead to undesired results. A perfectionist student may turn in a paper weeks late (or not at all), rather than turn it in on time with less-than-perfect sentences. A perfectionist worker may spend so much time agonizing over some non-critical detail that a critical project misses its deadline.

MYTH: Perfectionists are determined to overcome all obstacles to success.
REALITY: Although perfectionists follow an "I'll-keep-trying-until-it's-perfect" credo, they are especially vulnerable to potentially serious difficulties such as depression, writer's block, and performance and social anxiety.

The good news is that there is a list of coping strategies. The first is

1. Make a list of the advantages and disadvantages of trying to be perfect. When you make your own list of costs and benefits, you may find that the costs are too great. You may discover that problems with relationships, excessive workaholism, eating and substance abuse problems, and other compulsive behaviors (plus the accompanying anxiety, nervousness, feelings of inadequacy, self-criticism, and so on) actually outweigh whatever advantages perfectionism holds for you.

All this smacks of imposter syndrome to me, while explaining a lot of the procrastination I witness (both mine and others'). And it sounds like so many people I know. Does it sound like you?

RBof Good Day

• My carpool buddy has been on vacation for 2.5 weeks, which means my rigid commuting schedule has been more relaxed. This is the last day of it, so EGM and I went out to breakfast with friends. I never do things like go out to breakfast on a weekday. Unexpected bonus: our friends picked up the check.
• I still managed to work a full day, so I don't feel guilty about going to said breakfast.
• I gave the first draft of my manuscript to my lab group yesterday, which felt good. We're going to discuss it at lab meeting next week. The How to Write a Lot book told me that only a fool celebrates achieving a writing goal by skipping her scheduled writing time, so I spent 1.5 hours doing writing stuff for other projects.
• I then spent the rest of the day in the lab, which I love. One of my projects involves doing a crummy, tedious, boring, dirty task on a LOT of samples. It's never ending. I spent big chunks of the past two summers working on this with intern helpers, but there's still about 1/3 of the samples left to do. Today was the first time I've worked on it since August and it went pretty quickly. I figure if I bust my ass on it, I could have it done in 6 weeks. It'll probably take 12. Anyone want to place bets?
• EGM and I still managed to make a dinner that didn't involve pizza.

love at first sight

Ecogeoman has discovered Google Earth. He has been saying things like, "I just can't believe how high tech this seems!" and "This program is awesome!" I agree, Ecogeoman.

Last night, he said, "so, is there some website or something where I can put in two cities, and it will tell me how far apart they are? Or maybe give me directions and the travel time?"

While living under his rock, EGM independently invented Mapquest.

I responded, "yeah, and wouldn't it be cool if there was a website where you could type in words and it would tell you all the websites that are related to those words?"
EGM said, "I know about Google, thanks."

So tonight, he downloaded Google Earth and is still discovering its treasures.

Sometimes it's pretty fun at our place.

Interdisciplinary

I am firmly planted between multiple fields, as my pseudonym might suggest. I don't really have an opinion about whether this is good or bad. I got into this research before I really knew exactly what different disciplines did, so I didn't realize when I started that it didn't neatly fit anywhere. My undergrad major was interdisciplinary too (in a different way), so I guess it makes sense.

My work isn't radically interdisciplinary, like Am I a Woman Scientist? discussed a couple of months ago. Rather, if I wanted to be a professor, I'm not sure which kind of department would want me. It most certainly would depend on the individual department, since not all departments with the same title do the same work. Indeed, people who do work similar to mine are in a wide array of departments, even falling into different colleges of universities.

In one sense, I have more options. In another, it adds to the impostor complex because I'm not so familiar with the fundamentals of the traditional disciplines. I noticed that I am included in a Geoblogosphere blogroll and thought Whoa, I should tell them I'm not a geologist! But whatever. I'm not really anything else either.