Very cool

My diploma arrived today.  :)

Tired with a side of disappointed

Today I found out that a paper I submitted a few weeks ago has been rejected.  It was the weakest of my thesis chapters, but we aimed low journal-wise so I'm surprised the reviews were as bad as they were and the rejection was as solid as it was.  So far I have only skimmed the review comments and they struck me as comprehensively negative but polite.  Research Advisor thinks they were mostly constructive--some complaints were refutable, some were founded and can help us revise, and some were flaws were knew were there--and that we can reframe the story for another journal.  I'm less disappointed about the rejection itself than I am bummed that it's going to take that much longer to shore up my weak publishing record.

In other news, today I learned a lab technique that is very new to me.  The technician who trained me is just as fantastic as Awesome Technician so it was a pleasant enough experience, and I am thrilled to be learning new skills.  Furthermore, this is the first lab work I've done as a postdoc and it felt great to be away from my desk for a spell.  However, I was awkward and uncertain about the choreography of the protocol and it is always exhausting to learn brand new stuff.  On top of that, by the end of the day I was so frustrated with the scale of everything.  I had to stand on a step stool to do several different tasks, and some critical tools didn't fit in my hands very well which contributed to my lack of coordination.  So irritating. 

To avoid going home and wallowing, I went shopping after work.  On the bright side, I found bargains. I got some low-heeled, moderately dressy shoes that I've been looking for for a while ($13), socks to wear with them ($5 for 6 pairs), jeans ($33 for two pairs), and a big splurge, perfume ($25).  I'm disappointed with the jeans though and bought them because they were on clearance and I was pissed off; I had tried on some cool designer ones at another store and there were comically long, reinforcing my disdain of being a short person in a tall-person world.  Phooey. 

Wish I could unhear it

A coworker told me something that I wish he hadn't.  Let's say he admitted to me, in an after-hours phone call, that he likes cheese, and that cheese is something a little inappropriate.  Suppose that it's okay for people at my work to like cheese, but that since everyone is lactose intolerant, it's not okay to eat cheese.  I had suspected that he liked cheese for some time, but I didn't know for sure and it was easy for me to happily assume that there were no cheese-liking issues in our department.

Once I knew this person liked cheese, I couldn't stop wondering if it was interfering with our work.  Did he make that decision because it's the best move for the project, or because he likes cheese?  Is he volunteering for that task because he wants to be involved in the project or because he hopes to get some cheese out of it?  And so on. It was driving me nuts!  I just want to go about my business without having to analyze everyone's motivations before I make my own decisions.

Fortunately, my coworker called again tonight to say that he had an epiphany and he no longer likes cheese.  I'm a little skeptical, but it's good if it's true.  I'm curious to see how it plays out: will this new feeling persist, and will it have a noticeable impact on his behavior?

It would be nice to know that no cheese is clouding anyone's judgment, including my own.

Sweaty mess

Ecogeoman and I were just remarking that when we fall asleep someplace other than the bed (e.g. couch, car), we inevitably wake up at some point drenched in sweat. In contrast, I never wake up a sweaty mess when I sleep in bed, where I typically sleep through the night without interruption.

Why is that?

Working without a net

I think we can all agree that writing grants mostly sucks.  But: would you feel comfortable starting a new project without having first formally proposed it?  Would you feel ok about carrying on with an idea without spending time on a comprehensive literature review?  without crystallizing your ideas in a structured document? without the approval of peer review?

I'm in a position to do some new experiments without having to get funding for them.  That's very, very cool for so many reasons, so trust me when I say I'm not complaining.  I'm just observing that writing a proposal has its merits.

Science is hard

I'm struggling with my research, Dear Readers.  I'm supposed to be setting up a basic experiment as a platform for some flashy new tools, but it's just not working and I can't figure out why.  This sort of experiment has been used since the begging of ecogeoscience time, yet for some reason I can't repeat what's in the literature.  On top of that, I've been asked to turn my attention to several different projects, so I can't ever seem to dive in deep enough to get the problem solved.

Although I'm feeling frustrated as all get-out, in a strange way I'm enjoying the challenge (sort of).  There are people around I can ask for advice, but no one to really hold my hand.  In contrast, my PhD work was so close to my advisor's research that I didn't have to do much trouble shooting or practical experimental design on my own.  I'm super-glad to be gaining new skills, but I'm really, really looking forward to solving this problem.

Groundhog day?

One of the principal reasons I don't want to teach is the Groundhog Day Feeling.  Teaching multiple sections of the same course simultaneously sounds dreadful.  Offering the same courses semester after semester sounds even worse.  I like the feeling of progress I get with research projects -- an idea manifests into experiments that develop into presentations and papers, and then you build on those results for the next project so that ideas and knowledge grow over time.  I like that feeling of moving forward.  I think teaching would feel like starting over time after time without making progress. 

I talked about this with a friend who loves her job as a university lecturer.  She like the sense of renewal she gets at the start of each new semester -- the clean slate to try new things, improve on last semester's disappointments, and influence a new set of students.  I imagine she also feels some measure of personal progress as she polishes her syllabi with each new course.

I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder.