December slump

My whiny post yesterday was a little bit of foreshadowing. Today I will discuss how I always feel crappy in December.

I have gone to a meeting in each of the past 3 or 4 Decembers. It sucks. There is always so much else going on with the holidays and scrambling to meet year-end goals. And I am never motivated in December. I'm either feeling lousy because it's dark and dreary or distracted because I'm excited about the approaching break/holiday. Every year I vow I won't do it again and then the next year I see myself hitting submit on an abstract for a December meeting. But I didn't this year! I'm blissfully deadline free until February. In any case, since it's so hard for me to set and stay focused on reasonable writing goals even when I'm feeling good, I think it's prudent for me to spend some time in the lab during a time when I know I'm easily distracted.

On top of my normal December yuck, EGM is away for 6 weeks (have I mentioned this yet? I'm one of those people who tells the same stories over and over and sometimes I worry I do it on the blog, too). I dropped him at the airport last weekend and now he's gone and I'm sad. I've never liked living alone. It's hard for me to resist turning into a giant stain when I'm home alone.

I mentioned the other day that I since I want to continue making progress on my new paper, I intend to write for the few first hours of each day and then move on to lab work. I think this is a great plan for my December because it should keep me moving. I think I'd spend a lot of time spacing out in front of my computer if I planned to just write this month. My idea is that if I plan to be at the bench, I'll at least be doing something. Seeing some measurable results will make me feel good about myself and perhaps keep me from slumping more. And it will be great to have something to show for myself when EGM returns.

Trying to channel my grouch

I'm in a pissy mood, that's what I'm in tonight. Things that are irritating me:

• Winter weather has begun. I had to walk on some treacherous footpaths. Some sections were covered with solid sheets of ice. It's only a matter of time until I fall, probably with my giant-ass red packback containing my laptop. This happened once before and I got stuck on the ground like a flipped-over turtle with my stupid backpack.
• Apparently we are still debating the best journal for my paper. I thought we had decided.
• There is a concert I REALLY want to see this weekend but I have no one to go with. Anyone like TMBG?
• EGM is away.
• I need to visit the grocery store but I'm so not interested.
• The t.v. is not working tonight.
• 
  

SO. I'm trying to direct my anger toward production. I'm so agitated right now that I won't do any relaxing for a while, so I might as well polish off some last paper revisions and then bust ass on the new paper. What else can I do? Not watch t.v., that's what.

Finding your bee-people

While we're on the subject of fitting in, did you feel a little like this when you first discovered your science? When you first learned people actually devoted their lives to studying the thing that had long fascinated you but that you may not have even known had a name?




I really like this video and the song happens to be my all time favorite.

Can your stilettos do this?

Last week, something I've always wanted happened to me in the night. It was way hotter than a certain pair of teal sequined pumps and it got me all hot and bothered in the bed. And no, it wasn't Ecogeoman (although he's definitely way hotter than sequined pumps too).

I got an idea while I was sleeping. An idea so sexy that it kept me awake for hours.

I've often been impressed by people's stories of their nocturnal inspiration. Of how they woke up, startled by their own fabulous idea, and positively could not go back to bed until they put fingers to keys and laid that sexy science down. But I'm just a run-of-the-mill scientist making incremental advances to a lab research program that is itself making incremental advances to our sub-sub-subfield. I never though that the science muse would visit me in the night and give me my own STEM version of a wet dream.

I had been mulling over ideas for two different review/synthesis papers. Both are related to my PhD work, but neither one really fit well enough into my thesis topic to warrant inclusion in my dissertation. Plus, I think someone else is working on a meta-analysis on one of the topics so there's no point for me to do it too. Another concern I had been pondering was how to connect two distinct pieces of my dissertation. At the outset, it didn't seem like the two parts would seem disconnected but now I feel like they need to be pulled together with some synthesis in a conclusion chapter. How to deal with all three of these potential writing projects before next summer, when I want to defend?

I woke up all flush on Wednesday night knowing just what to do. I figured out how I can satisfy my desire to review the literature for topic one without doing an all-out meta-analysis -- it will be to make a specific point related to topic two, a point I don't think I could make very well without the review of topic one. By combining them, I don't think I'd overshoot by status as a student in my particular sub-sub-subfield, either. I think it would tie up my dissertation so nicely and be a kick-ass contribution to my science. And, it would only be one paper instead of three.

I know we're all going apeshit for hot shoes lately. But seriously, I don't know of any Naughty Monkeys that can compete with that kind of total science hotness.

scientiae-carnival

Final InaDWriMo

I'm certainly not the winner of the InaDWriMo challenge, but it was good for me nonetheless. I had set aside all of November for writing with the ultimate goal of a complete first draft of a new manuscript. I did produce a draft but it is still very rough. My word meter reports my progress at ~50%. Since I only have one other completed (but not submitted) manuscript, I had a hard time estimating a word goal. I think 8000 was too much. In fact I'd say my word count won't change much but that 50% finished is pretty accurate.

November wasn't a total failure though. I heavily revised a paper I'm working on with Awesome Technician (the ball is currently in her court) and I made lots of progress on the Paper That Will Never Get Submitted. It was that diminishing returns stage of progress though, so it didn't necessarily feel like a lot for the amount of time I spent on it. Anyway, Academic Advisor says he has nothing more to contribute so now I'm waiting for Research Advisor to read it. still.

I had intended to go back to lab work in December but I'd like to push ahead with the paper as well. My goals for the year included finishing the lab work for Chapter 3 and I might be able to do that with some concerted effort. I think I'm going to work on the paper for a few hours each morning and then shift to the lab for the bulk of the day.

Oh yeah...

I almost forgot to tell you -- I got one of the little grants I applied for last month! I feel especially proud because no one read it besides EGM. He provided very useful comments about the presentation, but since both advisors were too busy to look over it at the time, nobody critiqued the science. It makes me feel good that it was my idea and that it was good enough to be funded. Granted, it is only a tiny award in a competition that likely has a very high success rate, but still. Unfortunately, EGM was not so lucky. He took it well though and was happy for me instead of being bummed for himself. What a guy.

The reason I didn't get all excited and post about this sooner was that they put me in a very strange category. This is semi-annual competition by my university graduate college. There is one application for more than one award, so you check the box for the one you're applying for. I got the other one. It is donor money earmarked for a type of research I most certainly do not do. I called the dean's office because I thought it might be a mistake (maybe there is another ecogeofemme who applied?). Nope. I guess there weren't too many fundable applications (or any at all?) that they could justify as meeting the requirements for this award. It seems like a major stretch to give it to me, but whatever. I'll take what I can get!

I'll pick your nits, mate!

With Thanksgiving upon us, I thought I'd talk about one of many things I appreciate about my current lab. You may recall that I do most of my research at the non-university research institution where Research Advisor works. There are hardly any students there full time, so the staff is an assortment of PIs, post docs, and technicians. It has a much more collaborative culture since lab groups aren't comprised of several students who are all responsible for different projects. We are more or less focused on the same goals and since the techs are paid to do the work they are assigned, there aren't the territorial conflicts that can crop up in university labs. One of the benefits of this structure is that everyone is interested in what you're doing.

It can be very isolating to be in a lab where your project is a little different from the principle themes of the group. Or to be in a department where the faculty research interests are diverse so no other labs are doing work similar to your lab. It can limit collaboration and hamper enthusiasm if no one ever wants to talk shop with you because they work in a different shop. Sure, exposure to different ideas can be great, but if the ideas are so different that no one wants to explain them to you, it doesn't do much good to be in a diverse department. And it can really suck if most other people are doing similar work but yours is very different. Then you just feel left out. You suffer a little when there's no one to pick your nits.

I am thankful that I can talk to Awesome Technician about any little issue and she'll both know what I'm talking about and be interested. I like that everyone faces similar practical problems so we can all tackle them together, or at least get decent advice because other people have thought about the problem too. I also like that since we don't operate in separate little domains, we team up when work really needs to get done (e.g. it's pretty easy to assemble a crew for field work). Money is allocated from several different projects, so there is some level of assigning effort to particular grants, but overall we operate as a unit.

There are downsides to anything, however, and this is no exception. For example, I think we are prone to isolation. And we all get along pretty well, but I could imagine that one bad egg could really hinder productivity in a situation like ours. Also, it takes strong leadership to direct people who don't take ownership of their work like grad students do. Scientists aren't trained to be managers. I think professors can get away with poor management skills because their staff -- grad students and post docs, mainly -- really want to accomplish things and meet goals. Technicians, on the other hand, typically don't have that same motivation. That it how it should be, but it changes what the PI needs to do to keep the lab rolling.

In summary, I like my lab because we share common interests. Happy Thanksgiving.