admin April 3rd, 2008
Dear Internet,
I am addicted to you. I would much rather interact with you than write my thesis. But I really need to write my thesis. Therefore, I am asking you to please leave me alone. Let me write my thesis. A good way to do this would be to deliver a light shock every time I tried to access you for non-research work before my daily goals are met. I would really appreciate the help. Thank you.
-me
admin March 19th, 2008
We are a people of firsts. First steps, first words, first days at school, first kiss, first car, first love…
Rarely do we recognize lasts.
And not because we don’t care, but because it is so difficult. Only death row inmates recognize their last meal. And “living every day as if it was the last” really is a recipe for disaster. If today was my last day I certainly wouldn’t worry about going to work, paying bills, eating right, making lists, meeting tomorrow’s deadline, laundry, resume prep, cleaning the bathroom, or all those other “planning ahead” things that make our lives run smoothly. I’d be eating pints of ice cream running naked through South Beach and skydiving. Still, sometimes I wish I remembered a few more of my favorite lasts.
I wish someone had told me to remember the last time my father would be able to flip me over his head, or the last time I would dance standing on his feet. I wish I had known that when my best friend moved we’d never really get back together. I still refuse to believe that I have played in plastic balls or collected static from a plastic slide for the last time. (Just you wait Burger King Kid’s playhouse!).But I do wish I had known the last time I would pet my childhood dog before she died. And I always make sure to tell my husband how much I love him before he leaves somewhere without me, just in case. Maybe knowing too many lasts would dampen the happiness in some moments, but sometimes I wish someone had told me at those instants to pay more attention, that just perhaps, I could try to commit this to memory.
This is why the lasts we do recognize are so very important. I truly enjoyed the last class I would ever have to receive a grade in. I can’t say I enjoyed my last final, but I did enjoy it being over. The last meal at the kiddy table was certainly appreciated, as was the last year I had to ask someone older than me for permission to go to the bathroom. My bachelorette party was most likely the first and last time I will ever compete in a wet T-shirt contest, and probably this is a good thing.
I think the idea of getting another chance to participate in some of these “lasts” is part of the reason why people consciously have children. I really hope to be able to at least look on as my son flies weightless in a swing, builds a rocket, catches bugs, sells lemonade, eats sand, and enjoys his grandparents. I will of course celebrate the firsts, but I hope I can also help him enjoy some of his lasts. Maybe I will tell him to pay attention, to commit the moments to memory, but most likely even if I knew a moment was a last, and even if I told him, he wouldn’t listen to me. Time is so infinite for children.
In the same spirit, I am really looking forward to my graduation ceremony coming up (hopefully) in a few months. Graduations are some of the few times we really get to sit up and acknowledge the end of something important. Graduation marks a last of achievement, not just growing up or growing old. This will most likely be my very last time to don a silly hat and cape, walk across a stage, and publicly acknowledge a job well done. I can understand those who would rather not deal with the crowd, the waiting, the thousands of other names called out monotonously just like theirs. But this, I think, will be it. And just in case, I don’t want to miss it.
Graduation, though, is never only about finishing, it is about starting something new. I hope to be able to walk across that stage wearing not only my cape, hat, and hood, but my baby as well – a last and a first simultaneously.
admin March 14th, 2008
- I love that my husband still thinks that pregnant me is hot
- This peeing all the time thing is really annoying
- When do I have to start thinking before saying certain things to my husband as I get ready in the morning?
- Does anyone have anything better than shea butter for stretch mark prevention?
- I love that my dog groans out loud when I rub him
- I completely do not get the bumper sticker “Save a cow, eat a vegetarian.”
admin March 11th, 2008
I am slowly working on preparing my resume and sending out a few feelers so that I have good contacts when it comes time for me to find a new job. While as I have noted before I am pursuing science writing and would love to freelance, my lack of journalistic experience is realistically a big disadvantage. So, I am working on networking to secure a few good mentors, and even perhaps a position for a year or two in which I can learn inside information about how the reporting and publishing processes work.
Due to all of this career preparation, I have been thinking about common interview questions, and specifically what is to me perhaps the most difficult question of them all.
What are your weaknesses?
No one likes to talk about their weaknesses, especially in an interview when you are supposed to be selling yourself as enthusiastic, confident, and knowledgeable. But you cannot tell an interviewer that you have no weaknesses, so what do you do? A counselor one time advised my entire student body to say that we sometimes procrastinate. Everyone procrastinates, she says, so it’s an easy out. I’m not quite sure that I agree. First of all, since almost everyone procrastinates, an interviewer may think if you bring it up that you procrastinate more than normal, which can be a huge problem if deadlines are an issue. Secondly, what if you don’t often procrastinate? This could be a strength, which certainly you cannot reveal if you reserve it as an easy weakness. This question is so tricky to me. I still don’t know if I have found the best answer.
If I was being entirely honest – and I’m not sure I could do this in an interview – I would have to say that a big weakness of mine is fear of failure. This fear can be at times annoying, and at others a real obstacle to my work. I really do not like to do things badly, and that can prevent me from doing things that I should be doing.
For example, there was some equipment in my building that I needed to use. This is rather complicated and expensive equipment. I have been trained to use it, so theoretically I should be able to operate it, but the thing is that I don’t use it often enough not to forget the finer points. For the last few weeks I have really needed to use this equipment, but I found myself putting it off. And off. And off. It was knowing that I should be able to use it but couldn’t that prevented me from doing some very important work. Finally last week I just spent a day troubleshooting and asking questions and re-learning how to use it. Now all is fine, it doesn’t seem so difficult, and I will be able to do this important work. But why didn’t I do this sooner?
Fear of Failure
Another example is sports. I’m a pretty athletic gal. I have trained and completed several competitive runs and one sprint triathlon, and I can’t wait to get back on the training circuit once this baby is born. I am good at these things. I enjoy them. But I do not participate in group sports. One time looking silly and doing badly as part of a TEAM where people are WATCHING is enough humiliation to keep me away from a sport forever. In school I did participate in a group sport, but I practiced and took lessons and worked every day to help ensure I did not fail at this sport. Still, on the days I did poorly, fun was the last thing I was thinking. Today, I refuse to play this sport unless I can get back to the level of skill I had achieved in school, which I know would take substantial time and financial capital. I am just not willing to do this. So I don’t play.
I honestly cannot understand people who enjoy just going out and doing something and not performing well. The only thing I can attribute this to is my fear of failure. I don’t fear failing at new things, but things that I think I should be able to do, I MUST do well.
Am I a complete nut?
admin January 23rd, 2008
These tests claim to probe your automatic tendencies. I find this very interesting. Although one of the great things about human intelligence is that it allows us to overcome such tendencies, it is still instructive to know that they exist.
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/
admin January 18th, 2008
It is my firm belief that if every piece of meat came with a picture of the animal, or the facility, it came from, if people actually listened to the information about how terrible the practices in the meat industry are, if people knew how smart pigs are, or how sweet cows are, or how much chickens suffer, our consumption would dramatically decrease. If you can not look that animal in the eye, and then kill it, you shouldn’t be eating it just because someone else made it easier. I am so glad that some people with good publicity are doing just that. If you can’t take it, don’t eat the meat. And really, who is really human who isn’t disturbed by something like this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/dining/16anim.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
(Thank you to Michelle at http://mihow.com)
admin January 11th, 2008
So I haven’t posted in a long while. Its funny how that makes me feel guilty even though no one knows who I am, and my readership pretty much consists of my husband who knows everything that is going on with me anyway. But just in case someone wants to read this later, or finds this website helpful or instructive, I feel compelled to post on recent events.
I’m pregnant. And on the whole, I’m very excited. This was something done mostly intentionally, though I really didn’t think it would happen so quickly. To that poor other woman out there for whom it is taking a very long time, I am very sorry. I am that lower outlier screwing with the average.
Why did I do this? I thought and researched and decided that now is the perfect time. I want to be a younger mother. I have friends my age with fertility issues. My husband has a good job and I am looking to start something new. I will have my PhD as backup. I don’t want to wait until the unknown of some most likely even more stressful postdoc. Now is the time.
I am very relieved and very lucky that my advisers are incredibly supportive. This might have something to do with the fact that I will have graduated by the time the baby arrives, but I think perhaps standards for young academic women might just be coming around. They want to see women like me make these decisions and succeed. I could take this sentence back tomorrow, but they both strongly support me reaching the top of whatever career I choose, and me taking a good long time off to have fun with the new baby. I was scared to death to tell them, but it has worked out perfectly. They were both happy about the news, congratulated me, and then talked as normal about my thesis, graduation, and how they could help me after I left.
I still think I want to be a science writer, so this also gives me the perfect “excuse” to take off for several months to give it a go. I just can’t wait. My only worry is that the combination of the newness of the career and the newness of the mother role might make things difficult. Still, enthusiasm is a powerful motivator, and I have never been so excited. I feel like I have put myself into some forced labor camp for the last 5 years and now, finally, I am going to allow myself to do what I really want to do.
The one thing I worried most after getting pregnant was the loss of control. While I’ve been wanting a baby for a while now, once it was confirmed I had the sudden realization that this was something that could not be undone, no matter how much I wanted it. If you really hate your job, you can quit. If you really hate your husband, you can get a divorce. You can move, sell your house, find a new family for your dog (if you HAVE to), throw out your wardrobe, dye your hair, and estrange yourself from friends and family. But you cannot (not ethically, morally, or legally) suddenly decide that you don’t want your child once it is yours. You can’t leave it on a doorstep. You can’t tell the baby you just don’t want it anymore, that this was really a big mistake. And you can’t choose. The baby I have will be the baby I have. You can choose your job, husband, dog, and wardrobe. You get no control over this baby. And that, for me anyway, is terrifying.
What I realized that I was most afraid of was not the child, that little person who I could take on walks and play with and talk to, but the baby. I am afraid of a perpetually screaming, inconsolable, energy sucking, libido killing, nipple biting, red in the faced baby. I was afraid that sleep deprivation coupled with constant screaming would make me hurt myself, my husband, my child, or something else I hold dear. That it would induce a deep depression. I am terrified of depression. I had a good long look at it once, and I will do whatever I can to keep that daemon far away. If you are reading this and having these fears, I heartily recommend “The Happiest Baby on the Block.” It is a book all about soothing your baby in the first three months. Of course I have no actual proof that what is in this book will help me at all once the baby comes, but I believe it will, and that makes me feel SO MUCH BETTER.
So here I am, a rat in the maze. Let’s see how far I go.
admin October 24th, 2007
Profgrrrl posted this professional fantasy today
“My current fantasy*
• The cleaning fairies show up and make everything spotless.
• The organizational fairies show up and do things like file, punch holes and stick things in binders, clean up the desktop of my computer, enter things in EndNote, etc. etc.
• I don’t have to show up to the office for a month.
• I wake every morning, go for a walk or jog, read at ‘bux for an hour or two with a cup of tea, and then write in my home office all afternoon. I write into the evening, too, because I simply cannot pull myself away from the work that interests me so much.
• I only receive social, informational, and intellectually stimulating emails.
• NO MEETINGS!
• My data analysis software does everything I want it to do, and more.
• I get enough sleep each night.
• I feel brilliant.
*professional/non romance personal version”
And I found myself completely agreeing, though of course I am no prof. I also found myself thinking, “Yep, that’s why I want to be a science writer. Most of this will come true for me.” Of course I am well aware that the grass is always greener etc etc, but really many of these issues are what are pushing me for a career change. I want to be my own boss. I want the ability to choose what I write about and investigate. When one topic begins to bore me, I want to move to something else. I want to be constantly learning. I want to be able to do something else one day if I like. I only want to go to meetings that I want to go to. I want to be able to work from home or a coffee shop if I wish. I want to set my own hours so that I can sleep when I need to.
In other words, I am SO EXCITED about the possibility of a change.
I had a great long talk with one of my advisers yesterday. I just walked into his office and started asking questions. This is one thing that I really value about this adviser. Not once has he told me he was too busy to talk, or tried to hurry it up so that he could go somewhere or do something else. Not that the man isn’t busy. The man works like a horse, but I can always talk to him. He was very honest with me. He told me all the negative things about his career, a career he loves. He told me about how he has seen it change since he started. He told me that of course he wants his students to become professors because he thinks it is a great job, and he would like to have a network of his protégés out there working.
But, he told me, you have to really want it. You have to work to beat out the other people, and you have to make sacrifices. I know this. I have observed it. It was nice, though, to hear it from him. Of course I wouldn’t have to be a professor at a large research university, but I also know that smaller universities come with their own set of problems. And though I don’t dislike teaching, I am not sure that I would want to devote my career to it. I admitted to him my interest in science writing, and he was very encouraging. It was great. Now I have an ally when talking to my other adviser, which should make it much easier. And I also have a little bit more confidence.
All in all, yesterday was a very good day. I think today just might be a good day too.
admin October 19th, 2007
After much angst, self reflection, book reading, internet surfing, and conversations with my husband, I am pretty sure that science writing is the way I want to go. I entered graduate school with the goal of becoming a tenure track professor at a large research university, a goal enthusiastically supported by my advisers. They continue to have this goal for me, although they warn that my publication list will need to be bulked up if I ever really want a good job.
This is something that I am well aware of, and something that used to make me question my worth as a researcher, but now I just can’t seem to get too upset about it. I am taking my lack of hysteria as another indication that my goals might have changed. My advisers want me to try for a postdoc with another big name research star, thinking that I will gain another valuable contact, and also that this star lab will help me boost my publication record. They probably also feel that such a place might motivate me to work more. What they don’t know about my low publication list is that it reflects many months of desperate self-doubt and depression, followed by an increasing understanding that I really don’t want to do this anymore.
The thing is that if I really wanted to, I could probably do exactly what they say and end up “successful” with a tenure track job at one of the top universities. Though my number of publications might be small compared to the people here, they have won awards, and I have a few things in the pipeline right now that should yield very good results before I leave. I continue to look through postings, and I have found what would a few years ago have been very exciting advertisements, but I just cannot get myself to apply. First of all, that publication list would probably put me out of the running, but even if I were to get a fellowship, I have serious doubts that I would accept it.
So now what I need to do is to tell my advisers that the path I started on when I first came here is no longer the one I think that I am on now. I need to tell them that their time and energy trying to guide me to what they thought I wanted will not be used in the way they thought. There is a recent article in The Chronicle in which a professor describes students who change their career goals as dishonest and a waste of time. Like many of the posters in the forum there, I think this woman has a severe misunderstanding of her role as adviser, and needs to consider that her students are adults, that people change, and that tenure at an R1 university is not the only way to claim success. Still, I feel like I will be a disappointment to my advisers who had such high hopes for me in academia, and who were so personally invested and excited about my future career.
One of my advisers, when I had thought that I wanted to go into business told me “gold will shine brightly no matter what it is fashioned into” which I took as a great compliment. I hope he still feels this way. I think that he will be supportive of my choice, but deep down I know that he wants all his students to go on to be professors, and it is those with these goals that he cares for the most. I am worried that when I tell him my new goals, I will meet with some kind of subconscious bias on his part, and I will not receive as much advice, consideration, and help with my graduation plans. Not that I really get that much advice anyway, but I sure do cherish what I get.
My other adviser is usually a little easier to talk to, but he has been on the warpath recently about my publication record. It is as though he stuck his head up, realized that I was to graduate soon, and completely freaked out. There is little I can do about this in the time I have left here other than to finish up the projects I am working on and publish them. Several I think are very good, but he is not impressed and so constantly reminds me of upcoming due dates for which I lack data. I have already lost sleep on this so his pressure really isn’t helping. As far as my long term goals, I breeched the subject of science writing with him recently, and he told me, “Well that doesn’t sound like much fun.” I am ashamed to say that I completely folded and didn’t say much more about it. Later I emailed him something relevant, and he wrote back a disparaging “What is it about estrogen that is attracted to this?” I am hoping he meant it as humorous.
I wrote back that although by nature I tend not to align well with other women, I was guessing that there are several both nature and nurture reasons why women may be attracted to these opportunities. I wrote that I would guess that there are a number of women who have received advanced degrees looking to do something else and see this as a good opportunity. I told him that according to the statistics I read, women in science continue to leave academia for many reasons, and they have to go somewhere. Choices are industry, marketing and sales, teaching at a lower level, policy, patenting, and writing. Since industry poses many of the obstacles and downsides that academia does (and by these I mean both those that only affect women, and those that affect all professors), there are fewer women in industry compared to other disciplines, but the disparity isn’t as large. Plus, with writing, there is the opportunity to freelance, and is not geographically restrictive, i.e. good for children.
Personally, I told him that it looked to me that I would be my own boss, could learn about new things constantly, get to meet interesting people, get to be creative on a daily basis, and could use it as a springboard to many other opportunities. I would not have to worry about moving all over the place, and wouldn’t stress about tenure or grants. I’d get to think about science all day and I would get to write. Since these are many of the things that also attracted me to academia, it seems natural that when I am sick of the lab, it looks pretty tempting.
Does this seem to you like someone who “just can’t cut it” in academia, or someone who is just looking for something easier so that she doesn’t need to work so hard? I have thought and thought about this issue, but I worry that these are the conclusions my advisers will come to when I tell them.
I long to “come out” to my advisers, since I value honesty, am awful at lying, and figure that they are there to help me whatever choice I make, but I also fear what may happen if I tell them what I want. I need to graduate and I would like to have some support in the next year to help me do that. I have seen what has happened to students who lost the respect of my advisers, and it is not pretty. I do not want to be this student. I need glowing letters of recommendation from both of them. It is just that I need to figure out how to mask the fact that they are for science writing, not R1 fellowships I am applying for.
So, I just don’t know what to do. I think about these things every. single. day. Science writing is the only thing that I have been able to get excited about since I starting thinking about what I want to do. I get animated and happy when I think about it. Here in the office or the lab, I feel bored and helpless. I have to force myself into the lab to get something real accomplished every day. I am hoping that maybe soon I will get pregnant, and I will be able to use this as an excuse to “slow down” my science career. At any rate, I need to tell them. I’m just not sure how.
admin October 16th, 2007
I don’t know why I didn’t post this when I wrote it. I am remedying that now.
So I am guessing that if anyone had been browsing through this thing, they have long stopped by now, owing to my complete lack of activity. It is not that I forget about my blog. No, in fact I visit most every day to click on my sidebar of links so that I can go and read everyone else’s successful series of posts. Reading is so much easier than writing, really. And I know what’s been going on with me. So what’s up with you?
But I started this thing to write. If all I wanted to do was click on links there are much easier ways to organize. And I can’t help appreciating those people who usually update once (sometimes twice!) a day. So, here is what is going on with me:
- Polictics! Yay! It appears that W Bush may be making history as one of the most disliked (and I think worst) ever Presidents. Thank you. Finally the rest of the country is wising up. I think the poor man really wanted to do good things, he just has no idea how. Don’t blame me – I voted, but not for him. On the upside, I don’t really think that we can do worse no matter who gets elected next. On the downside, it is going to take a while to get over the damage he has done to the country for 8 (8!!) years. Feel free to disagree. Apparently, though if you do, you will be in the 35 or so percent minority.
- Religion. I don’t like it. The God Delusion is a fantastic book. Go read it to learn why I don’t tend to like religion. I have plenty of religious friends, but there are just so many reasons why we don’t need it and why it can be detrimental. As a scientist I also just cannot understand what the beef is with evolution. If there is anything that we really have plenty of evidence for, it’s evolution. Get over it. Start arguing about gravity or something. Gravitation is a “theory” too.
- What do I want to do with my life? I have no idea. It changes daily. I keep coming back to the professor thing. Sometimes I think I want to be an architect, but I gather that life is still not all fun and glory. I hope to be soon meeting some successful happy professors who will tell me how they do it, how much they love it, and why I should do it too. And we will all live happily ever after, the end.