Time to play!

Good idea or bad idea: defending my thesis on my birthday.



Thoughts?

A MeMe!

I got this from EcoGeoFemme over at The Happy Scientist. (You should check her blog out; it is lovely.)

I love memes because they often give me more ideas for posts plus they give me an extra day or two to let my little thoughts percolate a bit more.


My answers are in no particular order, by the way.

8 passions
1. teaching
2. cheese
3. my research project
4. travel-- I love planning trips and love exploring new places and cultures
5. family-- I only see them once a year, but they mean everything to me
6. college football
7. blogging (mostly reading them)
8. flickring

8 things to do before I die
1. get married
2. have/adopt children
3. visit my sponsor child in Africa (the agency I go through absolutely supports/encourages this)
4. learn Spanish
5. cook for myself
6. live near my family!
7. go to Japan
8. wear a bikini in public

8 things I often say
1. seriously
2. like (it's soooo bad, I know. Luckily, this obnoxious habit usually disappears when I give presentations or have scientific discussions)
3. f*ck / sh*t (I have a terrible mouth. Bad, I know)
4. dude
5. nuts
6. no
7. oh, cute!
8. cool

8 books I recently read (yeah, I'm going to count magazines, too, because I seriously (see?!) don't read pleasure books except when I fly)
1. Newsweek
2. C&E News
3. The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton (finished by Marion Mainwaring)
4. Thermodynamics, Statistical Mechanics, and Kinetics by Engel and Reid
5. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
6. The Nanny Diaries by Emma Mclaughlin and Nicola Kraus
7. Sushi for Beginners by Marian Keyes
8. National Geographic

8 songs that mean something to me
1. “Brown eyed girl" by Van Morrison ('cause I am!)
2. “Maneater" by Nelly Furtado (do I really need to explain?)
3. Anything from Sound of Music. (It all actually makes me cringe, but it makes me think of my mom because she can watch that movie over and over and over.)
4. "I f**king hate you" by Godsmack (because sometimes it's necessary...this gets played a lot at work and at the gym)
5. “Crazy b*tch" by buckcherry (reminds me of a summer of years past)
6. “Every day should be a holiday" by the Dandy Warhols (because it SHOULD)
7. "Bueck Dich" or anything else from Rammstein's Live Aus Berlin album (reminds me of how I feel after finishing a manuscript--awesome!--because I seem to only be able to write when listening to really angry German music)
8. "Jugo a la Vida" by Los Tucanes de Tijuana (such happy, happy music!)

8 qualities I look for in a friend
1. loyal
2. smart
3. open minded
4. hard working (yeah, that might be a little odd, but I really have a hard time not judging people by their work ethic)
5. funny
6. kind
7. down to earth
8. common interests

8 people whose blogs I enjoy
1. an englishman in osaka
2. brazen hussy
3. disgruntled julie
4. female science professor
5. profgrrrrl
6. post doc ergo propter doc
7. the happy scientist
8. young female scientist

Stranger in a strange land

My mom came to LargeUtown to stay with me during Thankgiving. This gave her an opportunity to tackle one of my biggest flaws (in her eyes): that I'm not a cook.

Sure, I may be a whiz in the lab, but when it comes to the kitchen, I literally don't know how to properly chop an onion.

As we prepped the turkey (ew! ew! Are you all aware that you have to pull the NECK out? SICK!), we talked about a recent techie conference she attended. One of the speakers discussed the differences between younger and older generations in terms of their digital technological savviness and how one must take different approaches to educating the younger generation. This latest generation of students are so-called "digital natives," while others are known as "digital immigrants." For example, current college students grew up with cell phones and the internet. I'm just on the bridge between the two, so while I might say "I'll call your cell phone," a digital native (like my youngest brother) would say "I'll call your phone"--he was too young to remember when we had a landline in my house!

In the midst of our discussions, my mom kept asking if I had various cooking items, such as a meat thermometer (um, no), timer (doesn't the microwave count?), or a knife sharpener (I thought only hunters used those!). She patiently made do without until she asked me to hand her some flour.

"Um, yeah, Mom? I don't have flour."

"You don't have flour?! Who doesn't have flour??!"

Embarrassed, all I could stammer out as an excuse was "Mom! I'm a kitchen immigrant!"


She found this amusing, and I was off the hook (okay, I still had to get my coat to go out for flour, but at least I didn't get any more grief from her!).


Are you a digital native or immigrant? And do you think scientists should be naturally good cooks? Many, many people tell me "oh, you just have to follow protocols, you should be good at it"..... but maybe cooking just feels too much like work, so I avoid it at home? c

Gimme, gimme....okay, now I wanna drink!

Oh, LargeU undergrads.

They skip classes the Friday before fall break because they NEED to get home.

And then they come back early in order to drink bud light and take Jaeger shots.

So much for quality time with their families. GO HOME! I demand a full week of an undergradless town!

We're having a baby...named Tenure

On a recent weekend, I ran into some fellow grad students heading into the building as I was heading out to watch football. They (semi) jokingly chided me for leaving work so early on a Saturday (in our department at LargeU, the average work week is ~65 h/week, but in my particular area it's usually more like 75, getting in the upper 80s during grant time).

I (semi) jokingly replied, "No one in my group has to work weekends anymore, now that we have tenure."

"'We?' So you all get tenure once The Boss does?" They grinned at what they though was my misspoken pronoun.

"Well, yeah, actually. We all got The Boss tenure. So we are all tenured now!"


And don't you think that's only fair? We all stressed, pushed, and bled for The Boss to get the publications out in time for the tenure packet review (culminating in 12 papers submitted in 3 weeks, thank-you-very-much!). I bribed students in a class of The Boss with pixie stix and put in extra office hours to ensure high teaching marks. We all endured three submission rounds of The Biggest Grant ever, requiring 14+ hour days (for two weeks straight) to get data analyzed and figures made in time.

So yes, just like men often say "we're having a baby," I'm going to proudly proclaim, "WE just got tenure."


Unfortunately, I don't think that's something I can list on my CV, huh?

(Not) making the grade

Grading is becoming a huge pain in my ass. This particular class is full of very bright, (mostly) hardworking upper-level students. Although these particular students are blessed with good math skills, they are not-so-blessed in the handwriting department. To make it worse, many of them do their problem sets in very fine, flowing ink pen (on both sides of the paper!), making it nearly impossible to decipher a 7 from a 9 or "does not agree" from a "consistent with theory." Seriously.

So I usually try to grade homework in the hour or two immediately after class, sort of like ripping the bandaid off quickly. I was several papers into the most recent problem set, when I reached one student's assignment that I couldn't read at all.

Then I realized why.

The pages were full of upper level math proofs, most decidedly NOT what my course covers.

The next problem set in my pile contained much of the same. Apparently, as my class was leaving, the next hour's class had begun filing in. I was so preoccupied with answering one of my student's questions that I failed to notice that two of the incoming students had tossed THEIR homework on MY pile. (Now as to why a student would just place their homework in front of an unknown TA is beyond me, so let's just add that to my list of Things I Will Never Understand About LargeU Undergrads).

Of course, the two wayward problem sets had their owner's names on them. Unfortunately, each student gave a slightly different course number. One listed the class as in the math department, while the other placed it in a division of engineering. After scrolling through the LargeU course catalog, I failed to get a match on either. After calling the math departmental office as well as several other engineering offices, I finally managed to get the professor of the course on the phone.

He had a very pleasant, British accent, so it instantly neutralized my growing annoyance at myself for being so anxious to get these stray homeworks into the proper TA/prof's hands. He thought the whole thing hilarious, and even offered to fax over the key so that I could grade them if I wanted.

I passed.

But seriously, are my expectations of LargeU undergrads too high? Is it too much to expect them to be able to recognize their TA (at least in a classroom setting...it still freaks me out a bit when I run into students at LargeU bars) and get their much-labored over (or perhaps copied) problem sets turned into the proper person?

Gimme, gimme more vacation!

There is one thing about LargeU undergrads that I will never understand (okay, so there are MANY things about LargeU undergrads that I will probably never understand, but let's just take one at a time).

LargeU students have a whole week off for Thanksgiving. A week. Seven days.

Yet most LargeU students feel entitled to take off the Friday (as in tomorrow) off as well, like this is a mandated travel day (I should point out that most live within three hours of LargeUtown, so it's not like they have to compensate for flying time or anything). In fact, they act completely shocked if you decide to have class at all. You can't even THINK about having homework due, a quiz, or, God forbid, an exam.

Back when I was an undergrad at TinyCollege, we only got Thanksgiving Day and Friday off. Think I ever made the 12 hour drive home? No way. Did some of my friends skip their afternoon classes on Wednesday to fly home? Sure.

But a week? A freakin' week?? If they had two weeks off, there would probably still be LargeU students skipping classes.


Oh, and I should mention (I think some of you will find this amusing) that after this week's only slightly unfair exam, Prof. Teacher decided to cancel class this Friday. Sheesh.


How about at your school? Do undergrads expect classes to be cancelled to facilitate their holiday plans?

Do grad students get sick days?

Small hint that my raging head cold is making me look and sound as bad as I feel: the pharmacists at the drug store noticed and expressed their concern.


BIG hint that my raging head cold is making me look and sound as bad as I feel: my STUDENTS noticed and expressed their concern.



Is it bad that my motivation for getting better is solely driven by the desire to watch a lot of football this weekend with a clear head and not wanting to get back to delicate experiments or write coherent job applications?

Out of bounds?

The course I'm TAing for this semester is the second half of a bigger sequence. The two courses are extremely related in overall concepts yet are distinct in their individual content. I recently sat down with the professor to discuss the upcoming exam. Prof. Teacher was upset at the students' lack of participation in a lecture this week, so Prof. Teacher decided to make the test very hard and including material from the first half course (which was not taught by Prof. Teacher).

I argued that this wasn't a fair treatment of the current material, which of course got Prof. Teacher a little perturbed (since TAs are supposed to agree with all Prof. Teachers, even if their opinion is asked...right?).

But is it fair to test students on material from a previous course, without warning? The way this sequence is set up, it would be very analogous to testing a history class covering post-Enlightenment topics on information from the pre-Enlightenment class.

We're meeting again later this week. Do you think I should just give in and agree with Prof. Teacher, or is PT expecting too much?

Time to unplug?

Facebook didn't come to be until after I graduated college, so I'm only a recent convert. I've enjoyed reconnecting with high school friends, seeing how many of my college friends have babies, and even linking up with grad students I meet through work.

But sometimes I think I might need to unplug.

Take tonight, for instance. I scanned my Friends' status updates, and saw one from one of my closest friends from high school, who also happens to be finishing up his own graduate work. "Mr. Bear is almost done with experiments," it read.

I shot off a quick FB message to him, jokingly asking if he meant he was done forever or just done for the night. He messaged me back that he was indeed done taking data. Next stop, dissertation.

I'm happy for him.


Really.


Deep down.

But seriously.... first people were using FB to post status updates about prelim status, now job interviews, and now thesis completion? For my own sanity, I might need to log off of Facebook....at least until I have a job offer to update my status with.

In this corner...

At a recent conference, I had the opportunity to have lunch with several professors that are well regarded in the field. When I introduced myself with a brief blurb about my research project, one inquired, "Oh, is the X group still working on that? What do you think of their work?"

(X group as in the research group of Prof. X aka Person Who Publishes in High-Impact Journals on (often) Over-Interpreted Data).

I felt this was an especially odd/awkward line of questioning given that
1. I have published work directly contradicting X group publications

and

2. X group hasn't published in my area since early 2006.


I think that there are three likely explanations:

1. The questioner is currently reviewing an X group manuscript on the topic. (semi-likely)

2. The questioner is a huge fan of my project and has read all of my manuscripts many times over. (not so likely)

3. The questioner is well-read in the field and so connected my project with Prof. X and was merely being polite, but I over-interpreted the question due to a delightful combination of sleep deprivation and not-yet-arrived coffee. (quite likely)

Fumbling in the dark

I don't like Halloween. I (now) fully realize that this makes me somewhat of a freak.

While the undergrads of LargeU did kegstands in whoreish costumes and the LargeU professors trick-or-treated with their kids, I sat in the dark.

Many of my neighbors went all out this year, putting cobwebs on the bushes and hanging orange lights in their windows. And like little moths, the children were drawn to the twinkling jackolanterns and came begging for sugar.

I wanted none of it. If I'm going to spend my measly paycheck on candy, then I'm going to be the one eating it. Pumpkin carving is not for me; the feel of the pumpkin goo under my nails makes me queasy. I'm not a fan of things that go bump in the night.

So last night I sat at my kitchen table and worked on more cover letters. Thank goodness for my MacBook Pro's illuminated keyboard!

So how about it? Did you go on Halloween strike, or are you one of the many who claim Halloween as their favorite holiday?