This fall has brought me way more travel than I'm used to. I went to a meeting a several weeks ago, then there was a departmental retreat, and now I'm getting ready to go to France on Friday! This is my first international travel for work and I'm super nervous about it. At least Research Advisor is going too. I'm happy about that because it will make the travel easier and because it will be nice to have some quality time to catch up. Like about how we're both so sad about Awesome Technician leaving (I cried at her good-bye lunch, which is the first time I've ever cried at work about anything). After the conference, I'm going to travel to another French city to visit Ecogeoman's sister. That should be great fun as well.
All this has been happening in the midst of intense planning the conference we're hosting, working out the kinks in a lab experiment, and planning a major field experiment. That is to say, I'm juggling way more balls than I have before. That's cool because this kind of multi-tasking is what I'm supposed to be learning as my career progresses. On the other hand, the stress makes me wonder if I would be happy with a job like PI's with this kind of stress day in and day out except times ten.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Currently watching
Stomp the Yard. This movie totally satisfies my desire to watch people doing things in unison. I love having cable.
Stomp the Yard is right up there on my guilty pleasures list with Mean Girls and Stick It (although there isn't much moving in unison in those movies).
Did I mention I'm super excited for the new cheer leading show on the WB this fall?
Stomp the Yard is right up there on my guilty pleasures list with Mean Girls and Stick It (although there isn't much moving in unison in those movies).
Did I mention I'm super excited for the new cheer leading show on the WB this fall?
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
The Question
The most important component of any research project is The Question. The Question is the little aspect of Nature that the project aims to understand. It informs the development of testable hypotheses that, in turn, influence the experiments to be run.
The Question is always a challenge to define for any new project. I've noticed that it is particularly difficult in very interdisciplinary research because the questions that each person thinks are important differ widely. I want to tackle issues central to ecogeoscience, whereas my collaborators would like to go after statistical/computational problems using the same data. Other collaborators have yet more ideas about what the primary purpose of the project should be. Working out how to expand and divide up the project so that everyone gets piece (i.e., a paper) is a real challenge.
The Question is always a challenge to define for any new project. I've noticed that it is particularly difficult in very interdisciplinary research because the questions that each person thinks are important differ widely. I want to tackle issues central to ecogeoscience, whereas my collaborators would like to go after statistical/computational problems using the same data. Other collaborators have yet more ideas about what the primary purpose of the project should be. Working out how to expand and divide up the project so that everyone gets piece (i.e., a paper) is a real challenge.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Jumping ship
Everybody is leaving.
The wonderful technician in my postdoc lab left a few weeks ago to start grad school. I'm happy for him to start the new phase in his life, and I think he will be a very successful student. At the same time, I was so sorry to see him go. He was my scientific buddy in the lab, as our interests were more similar than to the other lab members. We also got along very well personally. Fortunately, I think we'll stay in touch, and might even have opportunities to collaborate while he's in school.
The other postdoc in my postdoc lab is also about to leave. She found a full time position in industry after just short of a year in her postdoc. I think the new job will be a great match for her, but we'll be fucked without her skill set around (PI will replace her, but he has made no moves to do so yet). In addition, she breathes life into the social atmosphere of the lab, so things will be a lot more dry after she's gone. On the other hand, she tends to be a bit of a drama queen and I don't think I'll miss that component of her personality so much.
Lastly and most disappointing, Awesome Technician is leaving. I'm devastated and so is Research Advisor. I'll be lucky if I ever work with someone as competent, nice, consistent, positive, and non-judgmental as her again. It's going to have a huge impact on the productivity of RA's lab. She is leaving for a better compensated position in an area she has wanted to get into for a long time so I am happy for her even if I'm super sad to see her go.
Time marches on.
The wonderful technician in my postdoc lab left a few weeks ago to start grad school. I'm happy for him to start the new phase in his life, and I think he will be a very successful student. At the same time, I was so sorry to see him go. He was my scientific buddy in the lab, as our interests were more similar than to the other lab members. We also got along very well personally. Fortunately, I think we'll stay in touch, and might even have opportunities to collaborate while he's in school.
The other postdoc in my postdoc lab is also about to leave. She found a full time position in industry after just short of a year in her postdoc. I think the new job will be a great match for her, but we'll be fucked without her skill set around (PI will replace her, but he has made no moves to do so yet). In addition, she breathes life into the social atmosphere of the lab, so things will be a lot more dry after she's gone. On the other hand, she tends to be a bit of a drama queen and I don't think I'll miss that component of her personality so much.
Lastly and most disappointing, Awesome Technician is leaving. I'm devastated and so is Research Advisor. I'll be lucky if I ever work with someone as competent, nice, consistent, positive, and non-judgmental as her again. It's going to have a huge impact on the productivity of RA's lab. She is leaving for a better compensated position in an area she has wanted to get into for a long time so I am happy for her even if I'm super sad to see her go.
Time marches on.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Mantra
Most of you have probably read Ambivalent Academic's terrific post for Samia's excellent zomg grad school!!!1 carnival. My favorite part of the post was her recommendation to have a mantra. I had a mantra in my pre- and early grad school days, which was "Take care of it!" but it was usually directed at someone else rather than used to motivate myself. In contrast, I had a motivating mantra for grad school, and now I have a different one for my postdoc.
The grad school mantra was "you're a Good Scientist". It came up one day with my science best friend (SBF), a colleague from an institution in another state who was visiting to learn a lab technique. We started saying things like, "a Good Scientist would stay and finish this" or "you're such a Good Scientist for learning that statistical analysis", or "I'm a Good Scientist, because I did everything on my list". That held over after SBF left and helped get me through my thesis writing: "a Good Scientist would write one more paragraph". Since I very much wanted to be a Good Scientist (and still do!), I would find a way to rustle up some more concentration and write another paragraph.
Now my mantra is "put on your big girl panties". I love this one, which I got from my sister-in-law. It means, "grow up! stop being a whiny baby wearing diapers, put on your big girl panties, and get it done" It means you need to do the things you are capable of doing even if you don't want to do them. I have to say this to myself a lot these days because I have to do a lot of things that are outside my comfort zone.
The grad school mantra was "you're a Good Scientist". It came up one day with my science best friend (SBF), a colleague from an institution in another state who was visiting to learn a lab technique. We started saying things like, "a Good Scientist would stay and finish this" or "you're such a Good Scientist for learning that statistical analysis", or "I'm a Good Scientist, because I did everything on my list". That held over after SBF left and helped get me through my thesis writing: "a Good Scientist would write one more paragraph". Since I very much wanted to be a Good Scientist (and still do!), I would find a way to rustle up some more concentration and write another paragraph.
Now my mantra is "put on your big girl panties". I love this one, which I got from my sister-in-law. It means, "grow up! stop being a whiny baby wearing diapers, put on your big girl panties, and get it done" It means you need to do the things you are capable of doing even if you don't want to do them. I have to say this to myself a lot these days because I have to do a lot of things that are outside my comfort zone.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Refreshing the feeds
I've been meaning to shift over from Bloglines to Reader for ages, and I finally did it today. I started out using Bloglines, and tried Reader some time after but I never really liked it. The sort-of-annoying way that Bloglines has you add feeds made me decide to finally switch. This also means I finally updated the feeds of all the blogs that moved this summer, so I can get up-to-date on all my blog-friends I've been missing. I added some new-to-me blogs too, and I might add some more soon; I've been noticing lots of new folks around in the comments of other blogs very consistently but I haven't added any blogs to my list in a long time. It was time to freshen things up, especially since the posting frequency of many of my old favorites has dropped off in the last 6-12 months. I need to update my blogroll too, and maybe change my template.
Blogging hasn't been as much fun lately as it was when I started, so maybe some changes will help get me back into it. It's never something I want to feel like I have to do, or guilty about. However, I did find it to be a great source of camaraderie and reassurance as well as a nice way to practice regular, low-pressure writing so I think it's worth it to renew my interest in it, for now.
Blogging hasn't been as much fun lately as it was when I started, so maybe some changes will help get me back into it. It's never something I want to feel like I have to do, or guilty about. However, I did find it to be a great source of camaraderie and reassurance as well as a nice way to practice regular, low-pressure writing so I think it's worth it to renew my interest in it, for now.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
One of many things I took for granted about my old advisor was how attentive she was in emails. She always answered my emails and always actually responded to what I wrote. I'm finding that is relatively rare.
It is so fucking annoying to send emails that I think are important (like when someone specifically asks for an email with certain information) and have them ignored or under-answered. Example: "do you want me to do A or B?" response: "yes". Or a message comprised of several items gets the reply "go ahead". Go ahead and charge your account? Go ahead and take the day off? Go ahead with the experiment? WTF!?
I get the feeling that people get annoyed with me for sending emails that are too long ("I can't read that much on my iphone" - gimme a break!). But I also feel like people don't have time to talk to me, so I send emails because that seems more efficient, especially when several people need to get the information simultaneously. I try to make them as streamlined as possible, with bullet points or numbered lists. Sometimes they get answered well and it's awesome, but plenty of times I get some kind of confusing bullshit. And then people complain when they feel left "out of the loop". I've also noticed that other people send the biggest piles of steaming nonsense in their emails to me, so I guess they do think I'm overdoing it. But when I can't even figure out what the point of your message is, as though you are continuing an in-person conversation that I didn't hear, I think you're doing the shitty job, not me.
End of rant, thank you.
P.S. Comments telling me that senior people get so many emails that they might just die if they have to reply to my (solicited) message are not welcome.
It is so fucking annoying to send emails that I think are important (like when someone specifically asks for an email with certain information) and have them ignored or under-answered. Example: "do you want me to do A or B?" response: "yes". Or a message comprised of several items gets the reply "go ahead". Go ahead and charge your account? Go ahead and take the day off? Go ahead with the experiment? WTF!?
I get the feeling that people get annoyed with me for sending emails that are too long ("I can't read that much on my iphone" - gimme a break!). But I also feel like people don't have time to talk to me, so I send emails because that seems more efficient, especially when several people need to get the information simultaneously. I try to make them as streamlined as possible, with bullet points or numbered lists. Sometimes they get answered well and it's awesome, but plenty of times I get some kind of confusing bullshit. And then people complain when they feel left "out of the loop". I've also noticed that other people send the biggest piles of steaming nonsense in their emails to me, so I guess they do think I'm overdoing it. But when I can't even figure out what the point of your message is, as though you are continuing an in-person conversation that I didn't hear, I think you're doing the shitty job, not me.
End of rant, thank you.
P.S. Comments telling me that senior people get so many emails that they might just die if they have to reply to my (solicited) message are not welcome.
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