One of my new year's resolutions was to conduct my daily life in a little more environmentally friendly way. One of the changes I've made is to replace personal care products with natural versions; as I run out of my preferred brand of something, I buy a greener option. For example, I bought Tom's of Maine (ToM) bar soap, Trader Joe's hand soap, and ToM deodorant. The soaps are fine, but the deodorant sucks. I will be returning to Degree when the ToM runs out or the weather gets hot, whichever comes first.
Anyway, I now need some advice, Dear Readers. I'm about out of face lotion and scrub. I've been using Aveno Positively Radiant lotion and St Ive's Apricot Scrub and I love them both. But this website (h/t Nina) tells me that they aren't such green choices. I have oily, break-out prone skin that needs to have the top 5-10 layers scrubbed off twice a day if I want any hope of keeping the acne controlled. Any recommendations?
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
RBOANTM
- Seriously, I think Tyra Banks' inner monologue doesn't stay in. Pretty soon she'll be singing the entire deliberation.
- Fo needs to get over it. The short hair looks awesome. Suck it up.
- Why did they make the tanned girl look just like Lindsay Lohan?
- The Girl With The Eyes looked better in her photo than real life, but it was not very nice of them to say she looks like an alien.
- Piss that there's not a new Lost tonight.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Whew!
I was, unfortunately, at work for ~15 hours today and have to go back for another long day tomorrow. However, the cannon is just about one of the fucking coolest things I have ever seen. The data are so awesome that it's totally worth it to spend my weekend at work. Totally HOT science, yo.
Friday, March 6, 2009
RBOGood Enough
- I have been mildly sick for the past several days, but it hasn't turned into a full-blown anything.
- I get to do some super cool science this weekend using a really cool instrument. Let's call it the cannon. We've talked about doing work with the cannon for years but never made it happen. Until now. The downside is that I have to be available to work 24/7 for the next four days.
- I am this close to finishing the lab work for Chapter 3. Or was I calling it chapter 2 here? This last bit has been dragging on, but it's getting close.
- Lost is still interesting. Will the love quadrangle be resolved?
- Our symposium proposal was accepted in a revised form.
- We still love our tv.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Log jams
As hard as I try to follow great advice to push through the tough times in my work, I still find myself periodically stalled by difficult tasks. I get in a psychological situation where I can't get myself to do the task at hand, yet I won't let myself do anything else instead. So nothing gets done. It will end when I finally force my ass to stay in the chair and just do it, and it usually ends up less painful than I anticipated. In fact, the process of dreading the task is usually worse than actually doing it.
I have various tricks to get myself to just do it. Sometimes I think of a treat that I will give myself when I finish. Or Awesome Technician and I will make a bet over who will finish what we're doing first, or issue a Twix Challenge. Sometimes it works to set a timer and decide that I can't work on anything else for a certain amount of time. Or I disable my internet for a while. These tricks have variable success.
The thing is, I always feel so good when I finally finish the thing and relieve the log jam. It's always awesome to get back to the work I'd rather do and feel like I've made progress. Why can't I just get over it and take care of these things before my anxiety expands to make a log jam? How do you get over the inertia? How do you get yourself to work on something that feels so hard?
I have various tricks to get myself to just do it. Sometimes I think of a treat that I will give myself when I finish. Or Awesome Technician and I will make a bet over who will finish what we're doing first, or issue a Twix Challenge. Sometimes it works to set a timer and decide that I can't work on anything else for a certain amount of time. Or I disable my internet for a while. These tricks have variable success.
The thing is, I always feel so good when I finally finish the thing and relieve the log jam. It's always awesome to get back to the work I'd rather do and feel like I've made progress. Why can't I just get over it and take care of these things before my anxiety expands to make a log jam? How do you get over the inertia? How do you get yourself to work on something that feels so hard?
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Learning to review
Yesterday I said how my work is all log-jammed by an overdue review. I feel bad that I haven't finished it, yet I can't get myself to get it done. I think the reason is that I feel unsure about my comments. Although I'm still green enough to feel sort of honored to be a reviewer, I hate doing it because I'm not sure if I know what I'm doing. Chuck recently wrote a nice post (with some good advice) about how learning to peer review is a major gap in grad student training. I agree.
This is not my first review. Occasionally, Research Advisor will get asked to review a paper that looks straightforward but she doesn't have time to read. If she thinks I can handle the content, she'll suggest me as a reviewer, letting the editor know that I am her student and that she will assist me if needed. So I read the paper and write the review, asking her questions as necessary. I also rely on her vast experience to help me determine how serious any errors are. I know that grad students are notoriously harsh reviewers and I have to admit I don't always have the judgment to decide if the fact that the authors used technique x instead of y is enough to kill the paper*.
This system works, I guess. It gives me an opportunity to cut my teeth on reviewing, a job I'm going to have to learn sooner or later. It's great to have a safety net. I think I'd be paralyzed with nerves if I had to submit the review without confirmation that it was sensible.
On the other hand, I would have really liked a little more training for this. If feels weird to me to write reviews when I have not received any for my own work. Sure, I've seen the reviews from a few of my colleagues' papers, but that's different from reading comments on your own work, which you know much more intimately (I hadn't even read the versions of my colleagues' manuscripts that were reviewed). I think the best scenario would be -- with the editor's blessing -- for RA and I both to review the same paper, with her having responsibility for it. We'd both write comments, discuss them, and then she would submit the review but I would get to read what she wrote. Perhaps we could do it that way a couple of times and then switch roles so that I would submit the final comments. After that, I could do my own reviews with the opportunity to check things with her as needed. I know that creates a lot more work**, but this is such an important part of the way we do science that I think it's worth it to take the time to properly train new students how to do it.
*I know the editor makes the final decision and all, but reviewers are still asked to give an overall judgment of the paper.
** I haven't asked her to do it this way because usually if she passes a review to me, she's totally swamped and I feel bad asking for her time. Plus, by the time it occurred to me to do it this way, I had done enough that I think she probably thinks I'm doing just fine.
This is not my first review. Occasionally, Research Advisor will get asked to review a paper that looks straightforward but she doesn't have time to read. If she thinks I can handle the content, she'll suggest me as a reviewer, letting the editor know that I am her student and that she will assist me if needed. So I read the paper and write the review, asking her questions as necessary. I also rely on her vast experience to help me determine how serious any errors are. I know that grad students are notoriously harsh reviewers and I have to admit I don't always have the judgment to decide if the fact that the authors used technique x instead of y is enough to kill the paper*.
This system works, I guess. It gives me an opportunity to cut my teeth on reviewing, a job I'm going to have to learn sooner or later. It's great to have a safety net. I think I'd be paralyzed with nerves if I had to submit the review without confirmation that it was sensible.
On the other hand, I would have really liked a little more training for this. If feels weird to me to write reviews when I have not received any for my own work. Sure, I've seen the reviews from a few of my colleagues' papers, but that's different from reading comments on your own work, which you know much more intimately (I hadn't even read the versions of my colleagues' manuscripts that were reviewed). I think the best scenario would be -- with the editor's blessing -- for RA and I both to review the same paper, with her having responsibility for it. We'd both write comments, discuss them, and then she would submit the review but I would get to read what she wrote. Perhaps we could do it that way a couple of times and then switch roles so that I would submit the final comments. After that, I could do my own reviews with the opportunity to check things with her as needed. I know that creates a lot more work**, but this is such an important part of the way we do science that I think it's worth it to take the time to properly train new students how to do it.
*I know the editor makes the final decision and all, but reviewers are still asked to give an overall judgment of the paper.
** I haven't asked her to do it this way because usually if she passes a review to me, she's totally swamped and I feel bad asking for her time. Plus, by the time it occurred to me to do it this way, I had done enough that I think she probably thinks I'm doing just fine.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Dry spell
Man, I got nothing tonight. It goes along with nothing all day. I've had lots of post ideas floating around, but then when it's time to write them I can't think of anything. It fits with a general pattern of low productivity lately. I've had lots of odds and ends sorts of tasks to do. This kind of work can sometimes make me feel hyper productive because I'm constantly crossing items off the list, but lately it seem like these tasks are taking longer than they should, I'm flitting from one thing to the next, and I'm not getting any of them all the way to completion. It feels like one key thing that is semi-out of my control is missing from each little project.
Then there's the real roadblock: an overdue review. I'm having a serious flare of impostor syndrome that is making this thing take a million years to finish. I got some (editor-approved) guidance from Research Advisor today, so maybe I'll be able to wrap it up soon. I might write more about this topic, but I dunno. Feels a little inappropriate for this blog somehow. More impostor syndrome, perhaps?
Then there's the real roadblock: an overdue review. I'm having a serious flare of impostor syndrome that is making this thing take a million years to finish. I got some (editor-approved) guidance from Research Advisor today, so maybe I'll be able to wrap it up soon. I might write more about this topic, but I dunno. Feels a little inappropriate for this blog somehow. More impostor syndrome, perhaps?
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