ScienceWoman is a first-year assistant professor in -ology. She blogs about the intersection of science and real life - primarily based on her first-hand experiences. Her older posts can be found 
Alice Pawley is an assistant professor of First, note the time stamp on this post. I have just now succeeded in getting Minnow to sleep and have sat down with a cup of tea and tomorrow's lecture to prepare. It's going to be a long short night. And I'm already tired.
I'm tired because for some inexplicable reason, Minnow couldn't sleep last night between 3:15 am and >5 am. And when Minnow can't sleep, neither do I. This afternoon as I tried to start writing tomorrow's lecture and preparing this week's lab, I was overcome by exhaustion and I broke down and bought a bottle of Coke. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but in retrospect I'd have to say that the caffeine passed right through to the breast milk and that the stimulant effects were longer lasting in the toddler than the mother. (Someone else can check PubMed, kellymom suggests that this is in the realm of reasonable.) Now, I'll have to stay up quite late to finish the work for tomorrow and I'll be more likely to resort to caffeine to get through the day....hence, the vicious cycle of the title.
But there's another vicious cycle at work here too...and that's the unrelenting stream of preparations that accompany teaching 4 days a week with a new prep. I am *so* ready for the semester to be over and some of that supposed flexibility and freedom in an academic's life to seep down to me. At the very least, when the semester ends, maybe I'll get a wee bit more sleep.
But for now, the lecture writing awaits.
Education & Careers
Comments
I had that experience with a Code-Red Mountain Dew. Luckily it was at lunch time so it didn't impair bedtime, but I didn't get a nap out of the baby that afternoon! Haven't had that much caffeine at one sitting since.
Posted by: Natalie | April 1, 2008 9:09 AM