Gratification!

I'm sure everyone is totally over these blogging awards, but it took me quite a while to get though the hundreds of blog posts I missed while I was away so I didn't know I got them . I really appreciate the honors and will pass them on even though this seems to have been round and round. Thanks so much to the bloggers who nominated me, and sorry for my belated acceptance.

I got the weird swoopy angel from Stepwise Girl and ScienceGirl and Jennie.

And the sparkly pyramid from ScientistMother and DancingFish (who has since moved).

Your blogs are awesomely awesome too!

Many of these bloggers have probably already had this memey prize but I've lost track.

I pass the angel to

Rebecca

Styleygeek

Propter Doc who's back! Under a new name.

Sciencemama

Karina

Unbalanced Reaction

Dr. Brazen Hussy

And the pyramid to

DrDrA

Amanda

Kate

JaneB

Isis the Scientist

And although there seems to be some unspoken (uh, unwritten) rule not to tag Sciblings, I still nominate

Sciencewomen and

Jane

Symposium proposium

Since a few of you seemed interested in the process of proposing a symposium, I thought I’d write a post about it. I spent a lot of time struggling with it this week, so I’d like to talk about it here anyway. I am working on this proposal with a collaborator, Cauliflower, who works in another state and just recently finished her Ph.D.

I’m sure the way that symposia make it into meetings varies dramatically among societies. For this particular society, anyone can propose a symposium topic. Proposals are comprised of a 400 word description, a 250 word justification, and a list of speakers. They are due 11 months before the meeting. They are competitive; however I do not know the success rate. I do know that some symposium ideas are rejects and some end up as the less prestigious but similarly formatted Organized Oral Session.

This society is divided into subject sections that can endorse one symposium proposal and provide secondary endorsements for two more. This doesn’t ensure success, but it helps. There are two relevant sections for us, one of which had already committed to another proposal but agreed to give a secondary endorsement, and another that wants to evaluate all ideas it gets before it decides on one. If that section decides not to endorse our idea, I think we will try for an OOS. This is fine, but it appears to be a little less credit for about the same amount of work.

So, what’s the work we have to do? Well, first we pitched the idea around to our colleagues to see if it was something they thought would generate interest, be appropriate for this particular society’s meeting, etc. They liked it, so we crafted an email with a brief description to send to the section chairs. They liked it, so we began working on the proposal itself. We wrote a draft that we sent to Academic Advisor (who is very good at this sort of thing and did one himself a few years ago). He suggested some retooling.

It’s rather difficult to write about a big (sort of technical) knowledge gap in less than 400 words that will appeal to a broad swath of a large society. We had identified a good problem, but needed to state it more broadly. And we hadn’t really said what we hoped to achieve with the symposium -- how we would address/solve the problem. On top of that, Cauliflower is currently overseas working with collaborators, so there is a big time change that is inhibiting our communication. Both of us really struggled with the ideas this week, but after much back and forth I finally emailed what I think is a much better draft to Cauliflower last night. If she likes it, I’ll send it to our advisors for comments. We need to have a pretty final version finished early next week to submit to the subject section chair.

Okay, what else? We have to work with the section chair who happens to be a big famous scientist who I have never met (Cauliflower has) and intimidates me somewhat. Then we have to invite all the speakers, some of whom we know and some we don’t. The more speakers we have committed, the better. Some are famous big-wigs and some are quite early career. This is scary. However, it is exciting to have a reason to contact people I’d like to know. I think this is a major benefit of trying for a symposium, even if it is unsuccessful. I also think this is the part that will foster the most growth for me. If our symposium is selected, we have to write a short blurb for the program, work with the speakers to make sure they know what we want from their talks, make sure they get their abstracts in, and run the show the day of the session.

There were some comments alluding to the fact that it is surprising for students to be taking on a symposium proposal. That’s true – I fear I’m just at the brink of having bitten off more than I can chew – this is very challenging for a grad student and early post doc. However, the society always wants to encourage participation from new scientists so our proposal will actually be favored to some extent because we are so early in our careers. I think we have good people around us who think our idea is good and will help us along or at least keep us from falling on our faces. Let's hope, anyway.

Say fromage!

Here are a few of the photos I took in France. Some of them will poof out in a couple of days. I might post more another day after I see what I've got.



This is the little house where EGM, his parents, brother, sister-in-law, and I stayed. It's tucked into a vineyard just outside a castle (with a now-dry moat!).


*POOF!*

This is us at the bridge over the moat to the fields behind the castle. Sigh...



The view from a high point in St Emilion, with endless vineyards in the distance.



So much cheese at a stall at the Libourne market.



So much wine at a winery we visited.



The 86-year-old winemaker is on the right. He seriously is wearing a beret.


*POOF!*

And finally, EGM and me at the wedding. The expression on his face is fairly representative.

uh-huh-huh

Holy crap, France was awesome! Aside from some unbelievably lumpy beds, the trip was just about perfect. So much cheese. In 5-7 course meals. With wine. And sunshine. And everyone mostly getting along swimmingly.

I had intended to post some photos tonight, but apparently the camera battery needs to charge first. And I'm way too jet lagged to write anything coherent so instead I'll spend the evening ready the bazillion posts I missed on other blogs.

Summer is flying by!

It's already time for our France trip! I can't believe it. This trip seemed like something in the distant future until like, yesterday.

For those of you who haven't been hanging on my every word for months, we're going to France for EGM's sister's wedding. She lives there and is marrying a French man. She made our lodging arrangements so I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I'm pretty sure we're staying near here. Looks splendid to me! Also, I got this dress on sale (but still expensive to me) to wear at the wedding. They had it in petite and it actually fits which is rare so I'm happy.

I'm also pleased with myself because I feel like I left things in pretty good shape at work. I sent another draft of my paper to my advisors and another colleague. I also sent a draft of our symposium proposal to Academic Advisor, who is particularly good at seeing the big picture to make things sound sexy and he makes good general comments on early drafts of text. We let the Society people we're working with know where we are in the process and told them we're pausing work for the next week (Cauliflower will be traveling as well, although probably with better Internet access than I'll have). I feel like I accomplished a lot this week.

I think I'll write a post sometime soon about the symposium stuff. I've had a few observations I'd like to share and a few people seemed interested in the process.

Turning tables

I'm really excited about the symposium idea I developed with a friend at Big Meeting. We've had nothing but positive feedback on it, so we're going to move forward and propose the idea for next year's meeting. I'm super jazzed about the idea as well as a little thrilled at the prospect of putting together the session -- having a legit reason to interact with famous scientists, getting additional exposure, etc. Of course, the proposal has to pass review, so our chances aren't outstanding, but just making an attempt will be good for us.

This friend needs a pseudonym. I'll call her...Cauliflower. She is a pretty close colleague despite working several states away. We had the same fellowship that required us to attend yearly workshops so we've been seeing each other annually for that in addition to seeing each other at other conferences. Our advisors collaborate, and now Cauliflower is collaborating with my advisor on a dissertation improvement project that had her staying with me while she worked in our lab for a month. She has graduated now, but she will return again during the winter to finish the project. We do extremely complementary work, so I can see us having a very long-lived collaboration.

Anyway, I had an interesting revelation today. It's possible that every speaker we invite to participate in our symposium could be a woman, without us even trying. We've been brainstorming names for several days, so today I started to make a list to organize our ideas. Almost every candidate is female. Since I don't want to be a hypocrite, I will try for better gender balance in our session. Plus, there are a few men who would make excellent contributions. But still, that's pretty cool, huh?

Meeting notes

Oh my, have I been dragging my heels about posting my experience at the Big Meeting last week. I have been thinking about all the things I want to share, so this post is a little rambly and I might write more later. Plus I'm so excited about some of it that I've wanted to work rather than blog. So out of character!

First of all, thank you for all the well-wishes before I left. My talk went reasonably well, I think. Not outstanding, but not a flop. I felt very lucky because I was in one of the few rooms that was an appropriate size for the attendance at my session (most sessions were in rooms that were pratically empty or had people sitting on the floor in the aisles). While I was speaking, I noticed that the audience was very still and quiet. I took this as a good sign, since people tend to get fidgety if they are bored during a 20 min presentation (rather than falling asleep in that short time).

As for the science, I saw some good talks and posters, but no standouts that really blew me away. There a few clunkers, but mostly what I saw was solid but not ground breaking. Where I really benefitted was the networking.

When people asked about my timeline, I was able to say I'd be graduating soonish and I am starting to think abut post doc opportunities, so hopefully I'm on the radar for some labs. I think a few people might be interested, but it's still a little far off. I also tried to talk up a new experiment that my research group has recently established, the kind where we do the most central aspects of the research and others come from elsewhere to use the study site to perform related work in a somewhat synergistic way. I think at least one person will be contacting Research Advisor about a possible collaboration. I also had an idea for a symposium that I think I'm going to propose with a grad-student friend. Everyone I have suggested it to has encouraged us to pursue it, so I feel really excited. It will be a lot of work and it will probably get rejected, but it makes me feel really good to have come up with something that people think is a good idea.

This meeting is by far the most fun of all the big meetings I typically attend (it's rivaled by a small, biannual meeting that's my favorite). I always come away feeling super exhausted, yet energized by the connections I make both to new people and to new ideas. I ended up staying out till between 12 and 3 am every night, then getting up between 7 and 8 am each day. I have made some good friends with people I see at meetings year after year and then we introduce each other to new people each time. It has become easier for me since it doesn't take as much effort to meet everyone new for the first time, but it remains fresh. Still, I was postively wiped out by the end and pretty much slept and slothed all weekend.

One thing I have learned about myself is that although I'm pretty outgoing, I'm not really an extrovert. It takes a lot of energy for me to interact with so many people so intensely. I really enjoy it and the experience invigorates my work, but I don't feel like I obtain energy from the people time. I often think how difficult meetings must be for really shy people. It would really be a challenge to get the most out of a meeting if it was hard to talk to new people.

Oh, and I got to briefly meet Addy N. We didn't make a plan for meeting up, but she had told me her name when we emailed about the possibility of meeting, so I checked out her website for a photo. I was just standing talking to a friend when I looked up and recognized her. It was very cool to meet her and D., but too bad we didn't get to hang out more.

In other news, I had a great meeting with Academic Advisor about that paper I blogged about months ago. He suggested some relatively straightfoward changes, some of which I did right away and get this: he commented on my changes right away too! He says he thinks it's nearly ready, so cross your fingers that Research Advisor will agree when she reads it.