jane

Four years and four months ago, almost to the day, I started a humble little blog way over in a tiny corner of the blogosphere. Back in the day, there were few voices of women scientists in the blogosphere, and even fewer of women computer scientists. I had never had much luck keeping any…

Recently b* (who is my tenure buddy, apparently! we're going up at the same time! w00t!) wrote a post that, I think, captures perfectly the angst, anxiety, stress, and mental craziness that the tenure process induces in otherwise sane people. In her case, it was a procedural change that sent…

I have a To-Do list that's longer than my arm. I have multiple deadlines that are Looming Large this week. My scholarly materials are due fairly soon, and there are a couple more things that need to be sent out into the Great Reviewing Stream ASAP. I have about 20 research-related tasks that must…

Today, as I was driving around and flipping through the radio stations, I heard a song from late in my college days....on the classic rock station. (At least it wasn't the oldies station?) I've recently been friended on FB by friends from waaaaay back....and they are all posting hideous photos…

I probably should have noticed the warning signs about my graduate program earlier---like, in the first week, when I went to meet my temporary assigned advisor and he said "Oh, uh, I don't want any more students right now. Go find yourself another advisor." (I guess he didn't really understand…

For my Ada Lovelace Day post, I wanted to focus on someone who is doing interesting and interdisciplinary work in computer science, and whose work has interesting and important applications. Justine Cassell, Director of the Center for Technology and Social Behavior at Northwestern University, is…

Just a friendly reminder that tomorrow, March 24, is Ada Lovelace Day, a day devoted to highlighting women in technology. Get your posts together! (Even if you didn't sign the pledge, please join in on the fun!) Details on how to post and tag are here. I am so excited about my own post---the…

One of the questions on the exam asked the students to explain the efficiency of a particular solution to a common problem. We've been doing variations of this analysis since Day 1 in this class. I believe we even did an almost identical problem in class one day. Two-thirds of the class got the…

Um, hi. Apparently I've been gone for a while. Yeah. Sorry about that. Life's been a bit crazy around here lately, and I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water. I'm not sleeping. I'm not taking care of myself. I'm sick. I'm stressed to the gills. I have way too much to do. I…

I'm supervising a few independent studies this year, with groups of students working on fairly large and fairly fuzzily-defined design projects. These groups couldn't be more different from each other in terms of the way they act as a group, act as individuals, and interact with me. It's got me…

Dear Circadian Rhythm and Brain, Cut it out, both of you. I don't know if this is your idea of a sick practical joke or what, Circadian Rhythm, but I really, really, really do not appreciate being jolted wide awake at 4am. The first time it was regrettable, but now that it's been happening for…

I don't normally ask you, my dear readers, for help, but this time I think I need some. You see, my motivation seems to have taken a loooooong vacation. (I mean, who can blame it, really---it's February, which is a really sucky month, so why not disappear until it's over? I hope at least that my…

Sometimes, when I look at Toddler Jane*, my heart aches over how beautiful she is, inside and out. Nothing in the parenting books, nor the advice and stories from other parents, can prepare you for what that feels like. Call me crazy, but I really do enjoy advising undergrads. It's a different…

Well. It certainly was not my intention to go more than a week without blogging, particularly with all that's been going on around here lately. I'm ok. I'm coping. I'm still micro-managing everything way too much (out of necessity, unfortunately). But on top of that, I've just been too damn…

I'd really like a do-over on this week. This was probably the least productive, worst week I've had in a long, long time. It started with this lovely incident, and went downhill from there. Astute readers may recall that I really couldn't afford any distractions this week, so the fact that I…

Long time readers of my old blog may remember that earlier in my career at my institution, I was the recipient of a number of harassing phone calls. And that the resolution of these calls was largely unsatisfying. But it's been three years since the last one, and so I thought that maybe that was…

I did something this weekend that, to be honest, I'm not sure I could afford to do: I took the entire weekend off. Now, lest you get the wrong idea, I have a ton of work that I could be doing. But, by some strange act of the universe, none of it is due immediately. And I spent basically all of…

Text messages from numbers I don't recognize. One of them was creepy enough to put me on edge for the rest of the day. This is especially annoying because I don't have a text plan, so I end up paying for every one of these messages.* Hey stupidheads, stop texting me already! Having to…

I've been in a situation this week where I've had to give my elevator pitch about my research quite a few times to quite a few people. Now, I have the standard spiel that I give, with various tweaks depending on how tech-savvy my audience is, that has evolved over time. But as I was repeating and…

I am fortunate in that in general, I deal with very few grade-grubbing students. Way back when I was a brand-new assistant professor at my current institution, I dealt with quite a bit of grade-grubbing, along with a host of other let's-test-this-chick's-authority shenanigans, from my male…

I just found out about this very cool idea, a sort of a call to arms to address those old, tired statements "where are the women in tech? why aren't there any women in tech? there are no women in tech! there are no women tech pioneers/innovators/role models because women don't like tech/are not…

For a few years now, rather than making new year's resolutions, I've been doing new year's themes. I've found it more rewarding to go with the theme idea, which is more like a principle for living one's life and guiding one's actions overall, rather than choosing specific behaviors on which to…

In the midst of all of the end-of-classes and journal deadline and too-many-projects and holiday and general craziness around here, it was almost lost on me that I have inadvertently let a door close this year: I apparently have decided, by my inaction, not to go on the market this year. Now of…

I have a number of friends at various institutions that are up for tenure this year. Every school is on its own unique schedule, of course, so some of my friends are finding out right about now, officially or unofficially (mostly unofficially) whether they will be tenured or not. I am going to…

No, really, I have been boring lately. No drama (well, unless you count the day one of my senior colleagues came into my office to announce that he had nothing to do....as I'm in the midst of slogging through my R&R and the other approximately 10 million things on my to-do list....I am really…

Prioritizing is good. Prioritizing is absolutely necessary in this job. But what do you do if you have time this month to do X projects, but X+1 projects are "high priority"? Is cloning legal yet? Number of high priority projects = X+1 because a journal article I sent out for review before its…

For the past 18-ish months, I have been nursing Baby Jane. For the last few months, we've been down to 1 nursing per day, in the mornings. I knew that I'd wean her eventually, sometime around the 18 month mark, but wasn't sure when or how that would happen. My original plan was to nurse for a…

In the past week, I've had to have some uncomfortable conversations with students. In each case, the student is failing my class. (And we're not talking barely failing....we're talking obviously failing.) In each case, the student had no idea that s/he is failing my class. The student had no…

I've been tagged for the 5 things meme by GirlPostdoc! And heck, this is way more entertaining than the oodles of work I should be doing, so here goes... 5 Things I was Doing 10 years Ago: 1. Getting ready for a trip to Australia. 2. Wondering if staying in grad school to get the PhD was the right…

Mr. Jane and I are so, so fortunate that we have good quality, affordable daycare for Baby Jane that we absolutely, positively love. It is so wonderful to drop Baby Jane off in the mornings and know that she is in a secure, loving, enriching care situation. It frees up so much of my mental energy…