Sorry that I don't have kids...

I've recently become quite the broken record.  I didn't mean for it to happen.

Usually it starts with a coworker or friend (or both??) asking me if I had a relaxing weekend.  These days, my response is some variation of the following:  "It was good, but really busy.  I had ____ to grade and ____ to prep, and the dog got me up early."

If the coworker/friend that I am talking with has kids, I *always* follow up with my No-Kids Disclaimer.

You don't know the NKD?  It goes something like this (and always veryveryfast):

I mean, I shouldn't complain 'cause it's not like I have kids so I can't imagine-how-you-do-it!!




I never really mean to use the NKD.  Why do I invoke it?

But it does make me wonder:  do people with kids have their own disclaimer running through their heads?  When you hear someone without kids complaining about not sleeping or being busy, do you thing gee, and you don't even have kids, you lazy nitwit?  

If I was dead....

....I hope my students would be notified in person and not by email.  Or by text.

I mean, seriously.



(although at least I wouldn't have to pay back my student loans or finish all this grading.....not sure which is better!)

Oh, for the love of punctuation

I have noticed "recently" that I have begun using the dreaded "extraneous" quotation marks.


And I "supposedly" know my grammar, like, really gooder than most "people."





Are quotation marks a sign that I am starting to lose it??!

Choose your own adventure

Have you ever woken up from recalling a vivid dream and then had it stick with you ALL. DAY. LONG?

Have you ever had a dream that flipped back and forth from first to third person, so much so, that ALL. DAY. LONG. you second-guess if the event really happened? (although, deep down, you absolutely know that it didn't).

Have you ever had a dream that played out the Other Possibility?  The what-might-have-happened-if.... option?

Have you every had that dream reoccur three times in 10 days?




Yeah, I totally haven't, either.




Sweet dreams, friends.

Squirrels are taking over

...but you already knew that.

At the library, there are skylights above the study carrels.   These study spaces are my refuge, a little oasis of quiet surrounded by slightly musty books.  I can hide from students (and faculty) here.  I get my writing done here.

The squirrels are on to me.  And just like they have done to everything else that is good and perfect in this world, squirrels set out to destroy my perfect writing spot.

The squirrels run to and fro across the skylights.  What would be little pitter-patters on a normal skylight become giant, migraine-inducing thumps on these oversized plastic architectural "features".

The little rodents ignore my glares.  In fact, an especially fat one likes to sit in the middle of it, giving me a great few of his, um...stuff...as he eats...well....nuts.

Today I made a swiping motion at the little fattie.  Enough!  I will not let these squirrels ruin my happy place!

I swear he appeared to smile at me in jest before scampering away.



Leaving behind a pool of squirrel pee.



Bastard.

What are you worth?

I've been thinking a lot about my work/life balance.  Or lack thereof, depending on what day it is.

The aspect of my non-work life that stresses me out the most is my house.  Although I love my home, taking care of it seriously stresses me out.  The changing of the seasons always causes some insects to come inside from the surrounding woods, an event that only makes me feel worse about my housekeeping skills.

As for the yard... oh, man.  I am thisclose to hiring someone to do the yard work for me.  One of my coworkers commented that it was ridiculous to pay someone else something I could do perfectly well on my own.  Up until recently, I agreed with him.  It would be a waste of money, right?

But this week I got to think about it more.  Sure, it might cost 50 bucks to have someone do my yard.  That would be 25 bucks per hour.  Could I do the yard myself in two hours?  Probably.

But you know what?  My time is worth more than 25 bucks an hour.  That's right.  I'm worth more than $25/hour.


What are you worth?




In other news, I deleted (and then reinstated) my blog list in an attempt to fix the glitch with backlinks.  (Was I successful?  Who knows.  Thanks, blogger.)  I'm slowly repopulating it, so please leave a note if you haven't been added yet!

Smile-- you're on candid lab video!

Excimer over at carbon-based curiosities recently wrote about the lab sabotage scandal at UM.

The sabotage was ultimately confirmed by video from some hidden cameras. One was placed by a lab fridge and the other in the cold room.

After reading about the situation, two thoughts immediately popped into my head:

1. Wow, I'm glad the culprit got caught.

2. I wonder how many saboteurs do NOT get caught?

After stewing on the latter for a bit, I had to wonder about the hidden cameras.

There were times in grad school that I could have sworn that The Boss had us under surveillance. We as a group often joked about it.

But what if there really WAS a lab version of a Nanny Cam? Where would it go? A beaker wouldn't work, but the back of the hood has some possibilities. Or a pipet stand. Or one of the empty boxes that get stored on the top of the reagent shelves for three years for no good reason.

Just imagine the things a PI would suddenly be privy to. Happy data dances? Tears of frustration? Lab altercations?

What lab behaviors do YOU hope stay hidden from your PI (or from your students)?

Do you have academic dreams/nightmares?

It's the start of the year. Again.

Time for available parking to shrink, cafeteria lines to grow, and my free time to evaporate.

It's also time for classroom-related dreams. And nightmares.

I've had academic-related dreams before. When I first started my visiting ass. job, I had the same dream, every night, for weeks on end:

In my dream, I'm in a very large lecture class. One of those huge bowl-shaped lecture halls that can seat hundreds of students. The problem is, I've been skipping class. I've missed the midterm, not turned in papers, and I heard a rumor that the final was this morning. By the time I showed up, grades were already turned in, and there is no recovering my failing grade.

After the first year, my academic dreams switched from me being the unprepared student to me being the unprepared professor. The dreams only start around the first week of August and end after the first couple of classes. I wonder how my school dreams will change over the course of my career. Will they eventually go away completely?

Do you have a recurring dream around the start of the academic year?

You some fine lookin data

...now back that...stuff?... up!

A colleague at a semi-nearby university now faces my worst nightmare. His computer died, and he hasn't backed up his files-- teaching powerpoints, exams, or even research data-- since last summer. Fall, spring, and a summer all lost.

I am sure many of you are rolling your eyes at his carelessness, wondering how a person could let something as important as their teaching documents and research data go unprotected.

But I'll bet that a few of you are like me: well-intentioned but have no real process to backing up your stuff.

Prior to this week, some of my stuff was saved on a flash drive and some on my personal computer. Now I have the secretary ordering me an external flashdrive. (hooray! I found something for her to do!) Time to back dat data up.

Note: Don't youtube "back dat azz up." Don't. Stop. Unless you need some kitchen stripper pole action. In that case, knock yourself out. After all, it sounds like some of you need to take the edge off (due to the start of the semester).

so! many! changes!

It's no secret that I don't handle change very well.

So how can I possibly wrap my head around all the changes going on? Need examples? How about here and here and what?! no more blogging here and did I mention here??!

Okay, tell me something that is staying the same.

Why flighttracker was my best friend in grad school

Professor in Training recently posted about how the mice react at the prospect of the cat going away.

I was in the first group of graduates of The Boss. The Boss was very hands-on (which was great at times, annoying at others, and occasionally prevented me from getting ANYTHING productive done).

When other PIs left town, their graduate students breathed a sigh of relief. Work hours were more relaxed. Group meetings weren't held. Kegs appeared in the cold room (that was only a one-time event, I'm told).

In our group, it was a HUUUUUUGE relief when The Boss went out of town.... at least while the plane was in the air. Once electronic devices could go back on, the barrage of email requests began. Is the manuscript draft ready? Make this figure for my talk. What is wrong with you?

Since the only time The Boss unplugged (and therefore left us alone) was when a flight was in progress, we all became fans of flight tracking programs. Other graduate students thought we were total freaks (true) for knowing the flight details of The Boss, let alone would track the actual flight for precise landing times.... but we relished our freedom. Flight delays were celebrated....with impromptu happy hours. We savored our beers all the more with the knowledge that we weren't missing emails or calls from The Boss.

A few months ago I received the saddest email from a former group member who is still in graduate school with The Boss:

Hi Unbalanced,

The Boss has wi-fi on the flight. Our safe time is no more.

~Coworker



On the plus side, now coworker won't need to panic when the flight tracker fails.

menacing machines

I think that it is pathetic that I can confidently use mind-boggling instrumentation in the lab, yet the prospect of using the weed whacker makes me desperately scan the radar for rain...any excuse to avoid having to attempt to edge my yard.




Guess it's time I serve myself a big cup of "suck it up."

They coming a-marching...

freakin' ANTS!

I already feel like I'm half assing both my professional and personal life. If I'm working too much, I'm not at home enough. If I'm at home with N.A. and Puppy, then I'm not getting enough work done. What a cycle.

And now, ants. Tiny, mobile reminders of how half-assed my housekeeping is.


At least I have a few weeks before my summer students start marching back in.

There's no crying in finals!

I've had students cry before. I've had students blur their work with their tears.

But goodness.


I gave a final last night. At 7 pm. On the last day of finals. I knew my students would be exhausted from a week of finals (and partying). I knew their nerves were frayed.

Boy, did I underestimate the situation.

As the minutes passed, the waterworks started. To their credit, none of my students broke out into full sobs. They all hid their reactions (no pun intended!) quite well behind their hair. (I did not have any males cry...at least during the exam.)

I think that if my exam had been on the first or second day of finals, there would have been far fewer tears. I'm sure that with a little sleep and perspective, they will all be feeling better soon.


At least until they get their grades.

Ovary test: FAIL

These is perhaps no greater test of motherly instincts than a Christmas church service packed with infants, middle schoolers, and children of every age in between. I gazed around the church during an especially uninspiring sermon, observing my fellow parishioners as they kindly smiled at a squirmy four month or pulled faces at a two year old.

That many kids in one place should have, at least according to many of my peers, caused at least *some* reaction from me.


Nothing. Not even a twitch of an ovary.


While my college roommate is pregnant with her fifth (FIFTH!!!) child and my unmarried colleagues curse their ticking biological clocks (can we please talk about something else at lunch?), I'm unconcerned. I'm not yet 30. Should I be feeling the urge to reproduce?

So it's come to this...

...it's time.

I really didn't want this day to come, but I know it is necessary to maintain my mental health.


It's time to turn on word verification for my blog comments.


Spam in other languages I can ignore (and eventually delete). After all, if the only words in English are "sex", Viagra, or "hot girlz", then I know it really doesn't apply to me.

Spam in English is more annoying because I certainly don't want any of you, dear readers, to accidently click on a link and get a virus.


I've hesitated to turn on word verification because I really dislike it. The extra step is mildly annoying, but what really gets me are the "words" themselves. I *always* misread the word. Usually into something perverted. Every time. Without fail.


Am I the only word verification pervert out there, or is this just one more thing I should add to my list of Weird Things that Annoy Unreaction but No One Else ?

Boosting the Ego

I know that I'm an amazing professor. I prep awesome lectures, I'm insanely available for my students, my tests are hard but fair, and I even get some research done.

Still, whenever you start a new job, you always wonder: do my students know I'm an amazing prof?

This week several different students (from different classes, too) decided to tell me how much they liked my teaching style, lectures, sunny disposition (where did that come from??), etc. etc.


While I like to claim to be a very confident person, and that I don't care if my students like me or my class, I gotta admit it...... I was really freakin' pleased to get the praise.



I'm sure there are many (several?) of you out there that don't give a bleepity bleep about what your students think of you. If that's the case, I'm guessing that you are tenured. (Just a guess--- if that's not the case, please correct me.) But I'm not tenured. As a new prof, it's great to hear well ahead of midterms that I'm meshing with the department. Now I just have to keep this up for the rest of the semester....

A piece of (real estate) cake

We're taught that certain events or activities should stress us out. And some of these events do stress me out.

Stuff like tax prep. Or R01 submissions. Or finding a new hair stylist in a new city.


I was also told that buying a house would be extremely stressful. I've found that the process itself is actually not that bad. You find a real estate agent, they show you some houses. Some you like. Some you mock. Some should be condemned (the houses, not your real estate agent). Some of the houses get taken off the market before you even have a chance at them. Not that bad. Way easier than picking a grad school.

Once you make an offer, you have to wait around to see if they take it. Sort of like when you wait out in the hall for your thesis decision. Or, at some schools, when you have to wait for a PI to agree to let you in the group. Or waiting through any faculty meeting (UGH).

The inspection process is by far less painful than the song and dance routine at job interviews.

Now filling out and signing all the paperwork is certainly annoying, but it definitely was more enjoyable than grading!



Hmmm...I wonder if being a homeowner will be less taxing than crushing the dreams of premed students?

A question for the masses: how much vacation is too much?

Semi-recently (man, am I behind!) FemaleScienceProfessor gave her interpretation of a anonymous commenter's assertion that "if the average scientist took three months off nobody would know."

Some commenters agreed, and some disagreed.

With only one brief exception, if I (back in my grad school days) had disappeared for three months (hell, even three hours!!), no one would have known because The Boss would have tracked me down, yelled at me, made me write a grant or four, kicked me out of the group, and erased all traces of me from LargeU.

Of course, I never, ever thought about taking off without telling The Boss. The longest vacation I ever took was nine days...and that was only because the flight was 10 hours. I couldn't even take a weekend off without letting the group know.


If I disappear for three hours, weeks, or even months now, no one would care. Or perhaps notice. But we can come back to that in another post.


So how about it, grad students? Does your advisor care or notice if you aren't around? PIs, what is an appropriate amount of vacation time for your students? How about yourself?

A question for the masses: toeing a line?

I've seen a lot of gross behavior on planes. Tobacco spitting. Nail clipping. Nose picking. Questionable under-the-blanket motions. Large..um.... "presents" in the toilet.

But lately I've observed some (in my opinion) even more repulsive behavior: bare feet. Bare, naked feet being wiggled under seats, stretched out into the aisles, and, most horrific of all, rested on the arm seat.

Seriously. Is it possible that there is more disgusting plane behavior than bare feet on display?