skookumchick | May 7, 2008The newest Scientiae Carnival has been posted by Flicka Mawa at her blog, A Cat Nap. Flicka has been going through some trials at the same time as getting Scientiae together, so her carnival is doubly-fabulous. Thanks for the great reading, Flicka, and good luck with your next steps!
sciencewoman | May 7, 2008It's finals week here at Mystery U and I am noticing perceptibly different reactions on the parts of the students and the faculty. The students walk out of an exam joyful and free, while the professor gathers up yet another stack of papers to grade and thinks longingly of the research she *still* doesn't have time to do.
But there is a common thread in these exam experiments...the nightmares about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's probably a variation on the classic nightmare about suddenly finding yourself naked in a public place.
My two exams are two days in a row at the same…
skookumchick | May 6, 2008I got back into town at about 1:00 pm on Monday from a weekend at my other house. I ate lunch from leftovers in the fridge from at least 1.5 weeks ago (ack), and proceeded to waste much of the rest of the afternoon. While I did call some landscapers for help with our blank-slate back yard, and go to the grocery store, and make risotto and sauteed cauliflower for dinner (with leftovers!) and eat it outside, I did no *real* work - ie, work for which I am being paid. And while I should indeed have time without work in order to recharge for the next day, I don't yet feel enough on top of work…
sciencewoman | May 5, 2008I'm still processing Thursday's events, and I'm busy writing finals, grading papers, and hosting a prospective student...but that doesn't mean that other people aren't writing about things totally perfect for Mommy Monday.
Here are some of my recent* favorites:
Jenny F. Scientist discovers that biological clocks have a way of dinging when they want to.
Am I a Woman Scientist flew transatlantic for a job interview with a newborn...and got the job. (Hmm...sounds familiar.) Huge congratulations to Am I a Woman Scientist!
Janus Professor reminds us that while some of us may be able to stop the…
skookumchick | May 4, 2008Right, so I now live (most of the time) in Indiana. We're up next, along with North Carolina, in the presidential primary spotlight. I've been getting multiple mailings every day, we've got ads on TV, the cities are being visited by major players; while I'm new to Indiana and am coming from the battleground state of Wisconsin, this is apparently a new experience for most Hoosiers.
So, as we progress through the last weekend before the primary on Tuesday, how am I thinking about who to vote for?
Let me first make a disclaimer which otherwise should be obvious: I'm a Democrat.
How do I…
sciencewoman | May 2, 2008Yeah, yeah, why is she blogging about Thursday, when it's already Friday?
Well, folks, it's gonna take me more than one night's sleep to lower the cortisol levels that shot up in my body yesterday. Lemme share the highlights.
An 8 am meeting with the dean.
A meeting in which the dean turned the whole organizational structure of the department inside out and left some of us wondering about our professional futures at Mystery U. I'd love to say more, but I think it's probably unbloggable for now.
An apparently missing $2000 piece of field equipment purchased with my start-up funds. 45…
skookumchick | April 30, 2008
Redbud blossoms seem so odd to me - coming straight out of the branch or the tree. But they make for a beautiful effect...
sciencewoman | April 29, 2008In 10 minutes, I will be done writing this post.
In 10 hours, I will have delivered my last lecture of the academic year.
In 10 days, my grades will be turned in.
In 10 weeks, I will have two more papers and at least one grant proposal submitted.
In 10 months, I will be 30.
In 10 years, I hope to have two healthy wonderful kids, a happy, stable marriage, and tenure.
What about you?
skookumchick | April 29, 2008No, really! My first meeting of the Three Days of Meetings that I thought started at 8 am, does in fact start at 8 am, but I don't have to be in it! So I get an hour back!
Just thought I'd share. :-) I take the good things where I can get them, even if they're little.
skookumchick | April 28, 2008
... despite how miserable and cold it was today. My mom said she even saw snow!
skookumchick | April 28, 2008I'm moving into the last week of the semester, and I have been having blog posts swirl around in my head for weeks now, haven't found the perseverance to sit down and write about them yet. But after this weekend, a few things have settled down.
In particular, my husband has officially decided to go on leave next year (a few blog posts in itself), and his last week of classes was last week so there was considerable doubt and worry also swirling around. We're still trying to line up a job for him in the fall, if that's what he wants - although he also seems terribly burnt out and could also…
sciencewoman | April 28, 2008When I started my PhD, professors and fellow students would ask me what I was planning to do with my degree. I had a ready answer: "I'll either focus on teaching or on research, but I don't want a job where I have to be good at both." I felt confident in my answer, I'd done my research. I knew I wanted to be a mom, and having spent enough time in academia, I just seemed impossible to be a good mother, a productive researcher, and a committed teacher. I didn't want to do the impossible, so I was going to use the time during my PhD to figure out whether I wanted to go into teaching or whether I…
sciencewoman | April 28, 2008I see so much in Minnow that reminds me of myself as a child. She's enthralled by books and loves to put things into containers in a very particular (mysterious) order often stopping to take things out and then put them back in until things are just right. I loved to read and organize things (still do) and spent hours playing librarian as a child. So I could argue for nature, in that she's following in my footsteps. Or I could argue for nurture in that she (like childhood me) is surrounded by books and a mom who loves to keep things organized.
But then there's the whole issue of the mac n'…
sciencewoman | April 25, 2008I saw this over at Addy's and absolutely should not have spent the time on it. But I did. And here you go.
Step 1: Put your MP3 player or whatever on random.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 25 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: Strike through when someone gets them right I'm doing italics
Step 5: Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING.
Some of these are not very hard - particularly for the song title - though the artist to which I'm listening…
skookumchick | April 23, 2008I am tired. Dog tired. We're nearing the end of the semester, but not so near that I can see the light at the end of my tunnel of meetings. I've been traveling every weekend for the last month, the house needs to be cleaned, the laundry done, the fridge stocked, and the email responded to. And instead I have nothing but meetings all day. Job candidates, seminar candidates, prospective student meetings, end of year committee meetings, advisory board meetings and dinners, graduate recruiting meetings, task force meetings...
I also have two papers that I need to get out. How to schedule in…
sciencewoman | April 22, 2008Three years ago today I started blogging at On Being A Scientist and a Woman. I was a PhD student engrossed in field work and lab work and thinking about when to start a family. Fast forward three years and I am on the tenure-track with my own graduate students and I have a toddler. My how time flies!
The last year has seen big changes on this blog too. In September, I moved from Blogger to Scienceblogs, and while endeavoring keeping my old network of wonderful readers and commenters, I've gained a new family of Sciblings and hopefully brought my words to new audiences. An even bigger change…
sciencewoman | April 21, 2008The weekend weather finally cooperated and allowed us to introduce Minnow to the animals she had previously only seen in books. In the past few weeks, her vocabulary has improved immensely, especially in the department of animal sounds.
Her favorite animal to vocalize is the lion's roar, so we headed to the lion habitat first thing.
The lions were just settling in for a mid-day siesta and we got to watch the "mommy lion" cuddle up with the "daddy lion." Minnow was entranced.
Soon we ran into a carousel of carved animals. I was a bit unsure whether she would be into it, but she was…
sciencewoman | April 19, 2008Dear PhysioProf,
You're wrong. Here's why.
In the comments on a post about a forth-coming paper and it's possible impacts on my own, you said:
Getting completed work out the door should always be at the absolute top of the to-do list of junior tenure-track faculty, without exception. It should come before teaching, administrative, doing new studies, eating, sleeping, or even taking a ... whizz.
In the comments section, I defended myself by playing the mommy card...my previous paper was submitted mere days before Minnow was born. And I'll grant that you conceded that babies come first. But I'…
skookumchick | April 18, 2008I woke up at 5:30ish realizing the room was moving. Irrationally I thought it might be because of the geothermal installation - maybe the foundations had been disturbed and the house was going to fall down! Or maybe there were burglars, as I heard a crash downstairs. As my brain kicked into gear, I realized it must be an earthquake, leapt (I got air, I tell you) out of bed, and stood in a door, but it was pretty much over by then. I came down stairs anyway to see if it was burglars. It wasn't.
Nothing was damaged, so far as I can see. My first thought was to call my husband but I didn't…
skookumchick | April 17, 2008... as I'm sick. And swamped. And sick. And traveling again both this weekend, and next weekend. And last weekend. Did I mention I'm sick?
In better news, the bobcat guy flattened our backyard, so it's flat now from the geothermal installation, and looks like it has potential for gardening. A cheering thought. My good friend and colleague Donna Riley is visiting Purdue today (and giving this seminar), and dinner with her and a group of other folks is promised on another colleague's porch (it's going to be 70ºF!).
So that counterbalances a bit the sickness and swampedness. A little…