Geography of my visitors

In response to a comment I left on this post, Cath posted a chart showing the location of her 500 most recent visitors. Here is a similar graph for this blog.





Maybe not surprisingly, Cath gets a lower proportion of US visitors compared to this blog. My last 500 visitors have come from a greater variety of countries though (17 for Cath vs. 21 for me). However, I hypothesize that Cath's lower number of countries is attributable to a (presumably) much higher visit rate. In other words, her last 500 probably come from what, a couple of days (?), whereas at the low posting frequency I've been maintaining lately, it takes almost two weeks for me to get 500 visits. I imagine she gets a much broader audience by virtue of having a bigger audience. Her non-American-ness probably contributes as well, but I bet her awesomeness is the real reason. I think we'd need to sample a longer time span and use visit rate as a covariate to know for sure. :)

Anyway, interesting stuff! I wonder if most English-language science related blogs have a mostly American readership, and if it makes a difference if 1) the author lives in the US or 2) the author is not American. I'm sure I've heard that the overall blogosphere is largely American, but I'd think that would be somewhat less true for science blogs, since science is such an international business.

Time for sprinting

Today on the way to work, we heard the results of some marathon and I thought, "I have absolutely no desire to ever run a marathon." I get the idea of training really hard and consistently for many months, and then having an enormous sense of achievement and personal satisfaction upon finishing the race. Even though I hate running, I can see the appeal. But after doing this stinking phd, I never again need to prove to myself that I can achieve a long-term goal. I know I can cope with delayed gratification. And I know that it kind of sucks.

From now on, I want everything RIGHT NOW!

Well, maybe not everything right now, but I know I never need to run a marathon.

Theme song for job searching

Craving a break

I've heard lots of people exclaim, "I NEED a vacation!", which I always thought sounded a little melodramatic. I love taking vacations, I like breaks from work, but I've never felt like I needed a vacation. Until now.

I'm sick of work, sick of the pressure of finishing, sick of the worry about finding jobs, sick of the looming deadline. All of it. I want a break. But, I want the break to come with the relief of knowing grad school is over. I've been fantasizing about vacations, looking at travel websites when I should be working. My current favorite is a Caribbean cruise in mid-January with either EGM, my real-life BFF, or both. BFF, you in?

My ideal post-defense scenario involves staying a while in my hometown at Christmas break, then lazing my way through January taking said cruise, maybe going to the science blogging conference thing in NC and visiting a friend who lives in that area, and visiting a research institute in another state to give a seminar. Then I'd like to work part time through, say, March. I want to earn enough money to pay my basic bills while having time to polish my diss chapters for journal submission at my leisure. Actually, if I don't have a job lined up before I graduate, I think this scenario is a real possibility, but we'll see.

PhD Mommy made a good point in the comments on my last post -- that not having a contingency funding plan forces you to finish. I think this is another reason I've been reluctant to make arrangements for next semester - I don't want to give myself the option of pushing my finish date back any further. However, today I got news that changed that. I have a committee member in another state who wasn't sure he could make the trip here for my defense. Without his travel plan in place, there was still room to change the date. Now he has decided to come and has paid for a flight, so the date is final. I'm really going to do it this time!

Craving legitimacy

I am just dying to be done with grad school, to the point where I'm irrationally reluctant to make contingency plans for next semester. It's been a source of mild conflict with EGM, I think because I couldn't really articulate why I'm being so weird. But I think I've finally figured it out.

Academic Advisor, who never ever lets a student suffer through university-related financial issues, has wisely counseled me to keep all my options open. Thus, I'm trying to sort out exactly how to plan defense-related events to maximize my flexibility. If I defend at the right time, I won't have to register for spring, and I will have met the requirements of a PhD so I can take a job. But, I won't technically be graduated, so I would be able to register and get a TA (or more of my external fellowship if they'll give it to me) if I don't have a job yet, or if I want to hang around until EGM is ready to move in late spring. Makes sense, but is causing my anxiety.

I have been saving money like crazy for the past year or so to pay for a big trip to Far Off Land or to fund a period of unemployment. I am so desperate to be OUT OF GRADUATE SCHOOL that I almost don't even want the option of continuing next semester, even as a cushion. EGM can't understand this -- why would I want to live off savings if I don't have to? He's right - it's totally irrational. But I think it has to do with the desire to feel entitled to my pay and to feel legitimate at my institution.

Earning my income

I feel like I should feel guilty or ashamed for my funding. That other people don't get as much, or that I'm keeping another student from getting funded because I'm taking too long. I know that no one else thinks this, but I feel like they do. That I'm lucky I have anything at all so I should just be happy with it. I understand that many people share this sentiment in this economy, but that doesn't make me feel less this way.

I want to get paid a regular salary with real benefits and a 401(k) and all the rest of it. I want to feel like I earn my money, that I'm getting a paycheck because I did a job I was hired to do. I want to be in the HR system for heaven's sake.

Legitimacy

I had the experience recently of being told that under no circumstances should I make it look like I am employed the institution where I do my research. That stung a little, since I spend nearly every day there and they fund all my work. They don't pay for my time, however, which makes me kind of second-class there, a ghost worker. For instance, I'm not listed on the department's webpage. Thankfully, the people I directly work with dont' have this attitude, but still. It's like this to a lesser extent at the university too, where grad students aren't like real students but also aren't employees.

I'm tired of being caught in the place between a student and an employee. I'm tired of not knowing what to write for "occupation" on surveys. I'm tired of feeling illegitimate, that I don't deserve my (paltry) salary or that I'm not really part of my institution. I'm also sick of having all the responsibilities of being an employee, like training, but not getting the full benefits in return.

Also, I want a BREAK. More on this in another post.

Interests and hobbies

Community gardening, knitting, hiking, playing party & variety games, hosting & attending dinner parties, book club.

Thanks for the advice, Readers. And don't tell me I'm lame now, 'cause the app is in.

Not so fast

On Monday, I emailed a draft of another diss chapter to Awesome Technician (AT) and my advisors. AT sent me comments on Tuesday, but I didn't look at them right away. Today when I came in, there was a book on my chair with an unsigned note marking a page saying something like "this might be a good reference for [statement X]" (I had some sentences in the discussion that still needed references). I thought the handwriting was Research Advisor's, and I got super excited that she had read my draft already. There was a problem with my email server this morning, so I couldn't sign in right away to see if she had emailed full comments, but the fact that she had left this book indicated that she had read the draft. I wanted to thank her straight away, but she was in a meeting.

I stopped my AT's office a little later to talk about some lab things, and I mentioned how happy I was that Research Advisor had already read my draft and that I couldn't wait to thank her. AT made this odd face and said, "well, I left a book on your chair. Were there two books?" uuuooooooohh. It wasn't my advisor after all. But AT did make a bunch of really helpful comments, so that's good.

I'm glad that Advisor was in that meeting, because I would have felt like a total jackass if I had barged into her office with a big grin, thanking her for her prompt feedback, and put her in the position of saying that she hadn't done it. That would have been awkward.