sciencewoman | August 19, 2008
'Twas the week before classes and all through the hall,
the students were scurrying to register for fall.
The syllabi were printed on many colored sheets
and the profs were already tired of needing to meet....
The textbooks lined shelves in neat little rows,
just waiting for students to open, read, and doze.
As hard as it is to believe that I've been on the job a year, I'm about to roll into my second fall semester. People keep asking me if I'm ready for classes to begin, and I'm honestly not sure how to answer. I've got my syllabi written, but not photocopied. I've read a couple of chapters…
skookumchick | August 18, 2008I'm very excited how many of you have said in the comments that you'll be joining me as I explore how to use Robert Boice's Advice for New Faculty Members (AFNFM) to help me with my writing during this semester. Even if you didn't delurk in the comments, you're welcome to join in. Hopefully your book has arrived, and your week didn't start off as mine did with two dead laptops (one is now revived; the other one, with all my research files on it, is at the Apple Shop and I bought a Time Capsule this afternoon).
I started off reading the introduction to the book as an overview, and then dove…
sciencewoman | August 14, 2008I'm in the midst of going through reviews on a rejected proposal. I got the reviews back in the winter and didn't even seriously look at them until this summer, because it's a yearly RFP and I already had a good idea why I didn't get funded. So mostly, I'm pretty mellow about these reviews. They did a good job at finding the weaknesses in the proposal and giving suggestions for improvement. They all said that the proposal was well written, well organized and addressed an important topic. So, yay me!
But I'd like to take just one moment to whine about one reviewer comment. Because I can, it's…
sciencewoman | August 13, 2008One of the joys of being on Scienceblogs is getting to watch the ever-changing banner and sidebar ads that are placed by the marketing folks at Seed. Unfortunately, the people making the advertising decisions are not scientists, nor do they vet their ad choices with us before running them. So, sometimes we bloggers aren't so thrilled with what pops up alongside our writing.
And right now, I'm not so thrilled with the ad for Bjorn Lomborg's book, Cool It! showing up in the side bar. Now, I'll admit that I haven't read the book, but what I've heard of it tells me that Lomborg has cherry-picked…
sciencewoman | August 13, 2008I work in a three story building. My office, lab, and teaching space are on the first floor. The departmental office, kitchen, and chair's office are on the second floor. The third floor contains some colleagues' offices, labs, classrooms, etc.
Obviously, most of my time is spent on first floor, but most days I wander up to second floor at some point. I get to third floor <1 x per week. And >90% of the time, on my way back down, I get off at second floor rather than first. Despite the fact that the doors are painted different colors coming off the stairway. And I always feel like an…
skookumchick | August 12, 2008Astrodyke reminds us that we're mid-Perseid meteor shower these days. I actually woke up at 3:30 am this morning (NOT on purpose) and thought about going to look, but I was too dog tired from the move out (move in is tomorrow).
Did you see anything?
Apparently we have another chance tonight! Yay! (Zzzzz....)
skookumchick | August 12, 2008 Seed is trying to figure y'all out with a little official reader survey (in contrast with our threads asking you to introduce yourselves, which were not prompted btw by the Seed overlords, in case you were wondering). Apparently the reader survey takes only 10 mins to fill it out, and their numbers are way down, so if you complete it you have a good chance of winning an iPod AND a MacBook Air AND an Apple TV! (Apparently the Sb gods are Apple geeks, eeeeexcellent.)
I'd fill it out myself, but apparently I'm not allowed. If you complete it, I hope you win!
skookumchick | August 12, 2008As I'm transitioning away from an academic/personal life of long-distance commuting, I thought this would be a good time (or perhaps the last good time?) to share some of my tips for how to help one's marriage/partnership survive two academic careers in two cities.
Of course, I only have this last year as experience with faculty life (although my husband has been a faculty member for 5). But before that, there was 4 years of my commuting as a grad student (a 3.5 hr commute), and 1.5 years of LDR (a plane trip) as an undergrad. But that was a long time ago, and I was a different person then…
sciencewoman | August 12, 2008One of the nicest things about being a PhD level scientist is that I don't have to go in the field all the time anymore. (Trust me, I paid my dues during graduate school.) Mostly, I sit in front of a computer and write proposals (and eventually papers). But sometimes I do get to go out into the field, the place that inspired me to do science in the first place. Last month I had just such an opportunity. I needed to be the second person on a field crew for a graduate student's project. Over the course of one very long, very hot week, we got treated to wonderful beauty (both grand and intimate…
sciencewoman | August 11, 2008Thank you all so much for introducing yourselves and telling us why you read this blog. Its been incredibly reassuring (at a time when I'm feeling a bit insecure about my research output) to know that I have been doing *something* good with my time. In return for your sharing, I'm going to tell you a little bit more about what I do in the real world.
I'm a geoscientist and I work at the intersection of three subfields. That's part of why I've gotten a kick out of calling myself an -ologist, because the unnamed prefix could change day-by-day depending on my mood. Working at an intersection…
skookumchick | August 10, 2008So Facebook's newest thing is this Blog Networks application thingie. Our blog has a page there, so if you use Facebook, drop on over for a visit!
skookumchick | August 10, 2008
Photo from 2005, before many paint, gutter, and plant upgrades
I'm sitting at our dining room table in Illinois, and the sunlight is slanting through the windows onto the wall where a favorite print used to live. The moving truck comes tomorrow to move the rest of our furniture to Indiana, and we close on the sale of the house on Thursday. So this is the last night we'll spend in the house that we moved into in 2003 (before we were married, or even engaged!).
I'm a little sad. Not because we're facing the end of the long-distance commuting (on and off for most of the 10 years we've…
sciencewoman | August 8, 2008One of our favorite books in the Science household is Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. This book teaches science, counting, fruits, and nutrition (when the caterpillar gorges on junk food he gets a tummy-ache) and it is beautifully illustrated. So when I found this wonderful fabric, and neither Minnow nor I could resist it.
With a coordinating dot print on the reverse, a layer of flannel in the middle, and a baby blanket binding on the outside (Minnow picked the color), ta-da we had a new blankie. I put the whole thing together in just a few hours, and it's the only sewing I've had…
sciencewoman | August 7, 2008
Dear ScienceWoman,
I am starting a career as a teacher and would very much like to enroll in a masters specializing in teaching high school science. I am wondering if you could help direct me to some grants or incentives that are geared towards encouraging women to pursue graduate teaching degrees in these areas. Any help you could give me would be much appreciated. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Future Teacher
P.S. I'd also like to stay in Texas if possible.
Dear Future,
That's fabulous that you want to be a high school science teacher. We need lots more enthusiastic and knowledgable science…
skookumchick | August 7, 2008A few weeks ago, Ed over at Not Exactly Rocket Science invited his readers to tell him a little bit about themselves. We thought that was a cool idea, and decided to ask y'all to do similarly as we go into the fall. So, in that vein...
Who are you? What brought you to read this blog? Why have you stayed reading this blog? Any requests for topics you'd like us to talk about this fall?
Also, please consider this an invitation to delurk if you are a habitual lurker.
We can't wait to find out more about you all! Thanks.
[Updated: similar threads for DrugMonkey, Blog Around the Clock,…
skookumchick | August 6, 2008ScienceWoman blogged about her thoughts about going into Tenure Track Year 2 in time for Cherish's August Scientiae on transitions. I've been thinking about it too, and in particular with respect to how I accomplish some of those academic goals - good teaching, good research, good citizenry - without killing myself. Having my husband in the same town and only one house to worry about will be a start, and it is that latter aspect which makes me propose a new book to discuss this fall.
I was packing a bookshelf this weekend, and I came across a book a friend gave me when I graduated last year…
skookumchick | August 5, 2008So on the bottom of our posts is a helpful little note that says "posted by" and either Alice or SW, as the case may be. We also occasionally tag our posts as coming from either Alice or ScienceWoman. And yet, it may be confusing who is speaking when, especially for those folks reading the blog with RSS feeds. So, taking a page from Shelley and Steve over at Two Minds, we're going to try to mark the beginning of our posts with a little icon from our profile photos. Voila. Let us know if this makes things better, or if it is really irritating. Thanks.
sciencewoman | August 5, 2008After my experiences a few weeks ago, and the ensuing discussion, I haven't been able to get the topic of childcare and professional travel out of my head. So here's a reckless proposal on the topic.
For everybody:
1) We need to recognize that to be successful, scientists, engineers, or academics need to engage in some amount of overnight travel to professional conferences, workshops, short courses, etc. Sure you might be able to go a year or two or even three without leaving your hometown, but at some point, in order to be successful at your current job or to advance professionally, you…
skookumchick | August 4, 2008Apparently the blogosphere is abuzz with McCain's recent disclosure that he has to force himself to use a computer, that the closest he comes to using email is his staffers showing him email, and that his wife makes all the online reservations when they go to the movies (source NYT). This is in stark contrast with Obama who, on top of looking super-presidential and cool, is apparently a whizz with the technotoys, and even had his own podcast since early days of his senatehood.
In the NYT piece, an interesting comment was posed by both the McCain campaign and a blogger associated with the…
sciencewoman | August 1, 2008Tonight marked another motherhood rite of passage. I'd been dreading this one, but it was truly time for it to happen.
I threw out the remainder of the breast milk in the freezer. It had been there five months and three weeks - dating to the period when Minnow had transitioned to the toddler room and I was trying to decrease my milk production enough to stop pumping during the work day. Shortly after that time, Minnow began refusing pumped breast milk at all, so all that lovely milk just sat in the freezer until it reached its expiration date. So I took the bottles out of the freezer and…