Archive for March, 2007

Just wish I knew

admin March 28th, 2007

So I have peed on three sticks now, all of which tell me that I am not pregnant. The thing is though, I am four days past my cycle time last month, and no sign of a period. So, that’s odd. Every time the stick shows a single pink line, I feel a kind of let down, and then relief. I think I would just like to know FOR SURE. The other thing that I’m worried about is that I managed to convince myself I wasn’t, and then went ahead and had a beer one night, a couple of margaritas two other nights, and now I’m wondering if that was a big mistake. Please forgive my stream of consciousness run-on sentences. Sigh… No wonder I seem completely unable to do anything constructive these days. Well, maybe that and my allergies. But the plants, they are gorgeous!

I’m also thinking quite a bit about what I want to do when I grow up. I have always wanted to be a professor. Always. It seemed like such a nice life: teaching and research, school holidays, distinguished colleagues, bright young pupils, freedom to be an individual, job security, travel, and time and flexibility for a family. This is why I am in grad school, this is why I am working on my PhD. But, I keep reading about how difficult it is, how women must fight to maintain work-life balance, how the money isn’t bad, but it’s not great either, how there is no guarantee of tenure, how I will most likely after all this work STILL need to go post doc, uprooting myself for low pay, how so many women have fled for law, business, or medicine, and I start to think maybe I should flee too. It doesn’t help that all the very distinguished professors around me seem to have sacrificed almost every other aspect of their lives, and many still don’t live that well. You still have to work like a dog in business or law, but at least you get compensated for it. You might never get tenure, but then you don’t have to worry about not getting it, and best of all, you don’t have to ask the government for your money. People actually pay you. If I want to have a kid soon, I will either have to usurp my husband from his job and somehow survive for a while on just my pay with the added cost of a child, or I will have to live apart from my husband and constantly worry that my child either won’t know me or my husband. I just don’t know if I am willing to do that. Plus, once the stint is over, we will most likely have to move AGAIN. Now, I love to move from place to place and to travel, but that unknown, that horrible possibility in which we don’t have enough money for ourselves, much less a family, terrifies me. And I shouldn’t have to worry like this. I am smart, creative, and spunky. I work hard. At the end, I will have a PhD in the sciences, and I will have to worry about FEEDING MY FAMILY? I am all about deferred gratification. But how long must one defer? I have worked my ass of for years, and I am getting the feeling it is high time to get some reward.

On the other hand, if I leave, I can never go back. And that scares me crazy too.

Where is the career fairy when you need her?

On the pipeline

admin March 22nd, 2007

I just finished reading a great essay on the state of science PhD students in the US. I applies equally to men and women, and boy does it ring true to me. Maybe we don’t need to only concentrate on pushing more women into the pipeline; maybe we need to make the pipeline a more attractive place to be.

http://www.phds.org/reading/guirr2002/teitelbaum.html

ENTJ I Am

admin March 21st, 2007

I am an ENTJ. For those of you who don’t know, this combination of letters, standing for extrovert intuitive thinking judging (Not ear nose throat and other junk) , says quite a bit about my personalty, my value system, and how I think. Apparently very few people are defined by this combination, though I have read that young MBAs often try to fake it.

According to the “personality page” online:

“ENTJs are very career-focused, and fit into the corporate world quite naturally. They are constantly scanning their environment for potential problems which they can turn into solutions. They generally see things from a long-range perspective, and are usually successful at identifying plans to turn problems around.

There is not much room for error in the world of the ENTJ. They dislike to see mistakes repeated, and have no patience with inefficiency. They may become quite harsh when their patience is tried in these respects, because they are not naturally tuned in to people’s feelings, and more than likely don’t believe that they should tailor their judgments in consideration for people’s feelings. ENTJs, like many types, have difficulty seeing things from outside their own perspective.

ENTJs are very forceful, decisive individuals. They make decisions quickly, and are quick to verbalize their opinions and decisions to the rest of the world. The ENTJ who has not developed their Intuition will make decisions too hastily, without understanding all of the issues and possible solutions. On the other hand, an ENTJ who has not developed their Thinking side will have difficulty applying logic to their insights, and will often make poor decisions. Although ENTJs are not naturally tuned into other people’s feelings, these individuals frequently have very strong sentimental streaks. Often these sentiments are very powerful to the ENTJ, although they will likely hide it from general knowledge, believing the feelings to be a weakness.

ENTJs love to interact with people. As Extroverts, they’re energized and stimulated primarily externally. There’s nothing more enjoyable and satisfying to the ENTJ than having a lively, challenging conversation. They especially respect people who are able to stand up to the ENTJ, and argue persuasively for their point of view. There aren’t too many people who will do so, however, because the ENTJ is a very forceful and dynamic presence who has a tremendous amount of self-confidence and excellent verbal communication skills. Even the most confident individuals may experience moments of self-doubt when debating a point with an ENTJ.”

Yup, that pretty much sounds like me. I took the test in high school and recently again online with the same result each time. I really like getting things done, and hate inefficiency. I have had to work hard during my life to be attuned to other people’s emotions, and my sentimental side is strong but revealed only to the closest friends, as I certainly see this as a weakness. People who don’t know me well enough are often very surprised that this side exists at all.

Why do I write about this? Well, I think it is very interesting that a simple test can get to my underlying mechanisms so well. Parts of me that are not well-explained by these four letters mostly came about through repetition and concerted effort, not naturally. I like to figure out what really drives people, and feel that they should know what’s driving me. Also, I have some fear about how people will take my motherhood status when (hopefully when) it comes. I have heard people express doubt, (her, coo at a baby? I see them thinking) and while I have no doubt that I will be a good mother, it will take me showing my vulnerable side for them to see. I’m not sure I want or need to do that. Finally, a rather shameless request. I do enjoy writing and find it fun blogging even to a dark and empty room, but I am an extrovert. I love feedback and discussion and people. So please, if you read this blog, post a comment, let other people know, just say something. Cause I’d love to hear from you. Really, it would make my day.

Sick, in the morning

admin March 21st, 2007

As I told you in my previous post, I am cultivating a rather nice list of blog topics for future postings. I tend to have my best ideas in the middle of completely inappropriate times, like say at group meeting, or driving, or in the middle of a day of seminars in which the presenters try to convince a panel to fork over more money. Not exactly great times to pop open my computer and begin typing away. At any rate, they can pop up at any time so I like to keep a paper pad handy and write short topics to go on my list.

I had planned to post according to some of the items on my list today, but I was surprised this morning by something rather unexpected and I decided that I should instead share this with you as it will be new and fresh and you can get my unreflected, untainted gut reaction. What was this unexpected occurrence that I decided I just could not not share with the infinite blogosphere? NAUSEA.

Now, while certainly unpleasant, nausea is something that I have experienced in the past and don’t usually take too much note of once it is gloriously over. Times of past occurrences I can immediately recall are at about 10PM one night following an early wrap up to my bachellorette party (followed shortly thereafter by nausea’s close cousin, vomiting), just before one of my horrible thermo tests, or after some questionable cooking at a greasy spoon. Never do I recall getting nausea like this after a perfectly normal morning on a perfectly normal drive to work. I was perhaps a bit hungry after my small breakfast of a diminutive banana, but felt otherwise completely normal. Husband is sick, but has had no sign of nausea. So you see it was odd, and rather unexplainable, except…*grins*

Aside from odd timing of this sensation, there is a particular fact that I have been withholding that may make this event one of some note, a fact which I have considered off and on for the last few weeks or so, and that fact is that I AM GUILTY OF UNPROTECTED SEX. Yes, dear readers I did it, once, with my husband, without a condom, in the absence of hormones, and what a glorious occasion it was. Why, you say. Why would an educated woman do such a thing? Well, first of all, it was with my very loving and trustworthy husband so get off my back a little. Secondly, we only had one condom left, and we kinda thought, well, maybe we should save that one for next time (yeah, I know). And mainly, we were in the moment, which the stopping for the condom tends to kill, and boy is it ever better without that little rubber friend between us. Also perhaps we are secretly and subconsciously trying to get pregnant. I don’t think so, but then isn’t that just always the way with your subconscious? I mean, I want to get pregnant, and soon, but right at this moment really doesn’t fit our time line. Still, since it happened I have been avoiding caffeine and alcohol like a good little girl just in case, but I really didn’t think that one time, just ONE TIME would make it happen – until this morning. Sickness, in the morning, about a week before my period should start. Wow.

I told the husband and went home for lunch to pee on the stick. Sadly? Happily? It yielded only one pink line, but since it really is too early to tell, that doesn’t give me conclusive evidence either way. I have to admit I was a little disappointed at that measly single line, but putting off a few months really logically would be the best. So there it is, readers, what do you think? Am I pregnant?

Busy not Dead

admin March 13th, 2007

In the interests of saving my job in case this blog gets identified, and to be strictly ethical with the use of department resources, I have decided to only post from home. The problem is that recently I am never home except to fall into bed, and shower in the morning. This makes other activities, like writing, much less frequent. But do not despair, oh my thousands of adoring PA fans. I continue to come up with exciting, invigorating, fresh, and insightful post topics, that I will share with you soon, (soon, I tell you) for your reading pleasure. I even have a list.

The Good

admin March 4th, 2007

At one point during my grad career, about two years in when I was watching everyone around me belch up publications while I was desperately trying to get someone to believe in my work enough to let me do it, when co-workers were hinting that I wasn’t working up to par, when one in particular told me I was only there because I was a woman (jokingly, but..), I hit bottom.

Now, I am normally a very confident, very positive person. If worrying doesn’t help, don’t do it. Quit whining. FIX THE PROBLEM.

But this time was different. It snuck up on me. It was as if each morning someone placed another pebble on my shoulder, until one day they combined to crush me. I would have moments of joy, but they become more fleeting. I would pick fights with my husband, blaming him for my bad moods. I was constantly exhausted. I felt like crying but didn’t have the energy. I couldn’t do anything. It was an effort just to hoist myself out of my chair long enough to walk to the bathroom to pee. I remember being hungry but not being able to find the energy to make something to eat. At home I would just sit for hours staring. I looked up depression online and began recognizing more and more symptoms. When it got really bad I tried to make an appointment with the counseling center but they told me I had to walk over there to get an appointment. What kind of place makes depressed people WALK A MILE to make an appointment?! A place with a serious priority problem, that’s where. But I digress… The point is I was spending hours and hours a day doing nothing but sitting in my chair in front of my computer, trying hard to look like I was working.

And what was I doing while I was sitting there in my chair in front of my computer screen? I was reading. I was reading anecdotes of woman engineers, and woman mothers. I was reading about the state of women in the pipeline. I was reading about job satisfaction of these young academics. I was reading statistics about academic women and children. I was reading about the funding situation, and about stress in academia. And you know what? The picture was dismal. The internet tells me that in general academia is a sorry state of affairs, but women in particular might as well just go ahead and start chopping off fingers. It told me: Women can’t make it or don’t want to, and if they do, they can’t have kids, and if they have kids they will never get what they want and they will make less money. The internet was telling me to throw in the towel, that there was no light at the end of the tunnel, that I would work and strive and sacrifice and make less money and have less fun and achieve less than everyone else. I would work my ass off to be unhappy. It would never get better. Every day was near to living in hell. This is what the internet told me.

And then one day I was sitting in my car with my husband, and I looked out into a deep ravine, and I said, “You know, I could just push my foot down and we would go into that ravine. But then I would hurt you. I’ll have to do it after you get out of the car.” And he looked at me with such hurt and concern, that I knew I had to do something about this problem. And the next day my adviser sat me down, told me what he expected, and sketched out a plan of how we were going to do this. (WHY hadn’t we done this two years ago??) And then things got better. Slowly, it got better.

I still have my off days now, but I can recognize it when it comes, and most of the time I can run the other direction. But I have noticed that every time, I go back to the internet, looking for some good news, looking for some happy anecdotes, looking for those happy stories in which it is all worthwhile, and I’m telling you that they are out there but they are VERY HARD TO FIND. It makes sense really. We can vent here when we can’t vent to anyone else. We write it down to get it of our heads. When things are good you don’t feel like telling everyone. No one wants to brag. No one wants to rock a happy boat. But those days when I am sitting at my chair, unable to finish the work I am supposed to be doing, searching for hours to find one ounce of positive feedback, just a bit of anonymous encouragement, I understand exactly why so many women leave academia before they even get started. You can only work so long before you have to see the light at the end of the tunnel. You can only search so long without finding gold.

So please, all you young academics out there, going through the motions, having families, getting tenure, raising students, tell us about the good. Tell us why you haven’t left to open a bar in Tahiti. Tell us why you don’t use your equipment to start a meth emporium. Tell us why you don’t read palms over the phone. Tell us why you love being a scientist. Tell us about that moment of discovery, the paper that got published, those students that you reached. Tell us about how much you enjoy your children, how they are doing well despite your continued ambitions, how it can be helpful to be able to explain the phases of the moon, or why the crickets are chirping. Tell us about how you travel and attend conferences and meet cool people, about how when you walk around campus there are people speaking five different languages, and some with T-shirts that make references to sex with integrals, and some with pink hair. Tell us when the birds sing, and the flowers bloom, and you get a pat on the back. Because these are the things we need to hear. We need the good as well as the bad. We need to know why we should do this. Please, for the sake of those people sitting in their chairs wondering why the hell they are there, print the good.

Shortly Therafter

admin March 3rd, 2007

So i just read my first post. I think I must be in love with my blog. Does it read this way to you too? Is this odd? Does writing a second post this soon mean that I am a nut? More aptly, does writing a post this soon entirely based on what I wrote in my first post mean that I am a nut? Possibly. Very Possibly.

Read at your own risk - it could be contagious.

The Beginning

admin March 3rd, 2007

Hello to you all, my dear future readers.

I must admit to some amount of uncertainty and apprehension in writing this first post. It is afterall, my very first, and I have not a clue what I am doing.

On one hand, I am quite sure that unlike those already successful individuals tapping away in the blogosphere, no one will check my website this evening as the day winds down and the sun’s wane signals the end of another day, no one will stop here tomorrow morning, their hot coffee cup delivered mechanically back and forth while their eyes flit across these words, and no one will flip to this site from their list of favorites in between a phone call and that afternoon meeting, and be glad that this person they keep on hand to inform, to entertain, to inspire, has added one more piece of their life to the screen. I know I will post this and not a single person will read it. I have no admirers. I have no defilers. I have no casual observers. My website is the loner child. I am speaking in the dark.

But then again, this is the beginning. This is the post that will be read (hopefully) by those seeking to see how it all started, to see who I was when I began, and how I have changed. This post will be the appetizer, the first dance, the one that sets the flavor, whether complimentary or jarring, for all the rest. I reconsider. Perhaps this is the one that matters most.

Therefore, whether awful or enlightened, I feel that this post must stand as a marker. I must here define who I am so that you may judge what I write in the future, against who I was in the past. I do not expect you, dear reader, to read my words in a vacuum. You must file me according to your system and decide what you will take from me, and what you will leave be. You must determine my place among those millions of others. Let me introduce myself.

Hello, I am a
daughter, wife, woman,
artist, scientist, engineer,
writer, reader, singer
tree-hugger, photographer, student,
home-owner, thinker, agnostic,
lover, striver, friend.

I love animals, fast cars, plants, bright colors, beautiful people, unusual books, dark movies, flowery scents, grease, dirt, the feel of cashmere, warm sheets, hot showers, mornings spent outside, new shoes, dogs, running, the beach, dark chocolate, clean lab coats, cinnamon, and being naked.

I dislike cold showers, people who don’t respect children or animals, frilly girls, arrogant men, days without sunlight, litterers, people who don’t use turn signals, inefficiency, willful ignorance, popcorn dripping in butter, weak handshakes, treeless housing developments, and pointy-toes.

How very nice to meet you.

I think this should do for now. The rest you’ll just have to figure out for yourself.