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sciencewoman | July 13, 2008HI everyone,
Sorry for the silence...I expected to be able to get at least one or two blog posts off in the past two weeks, but being away from home, with no childcare, and with the added demands of being a daughter and a sister, on top of the usual roles of mother, wife, scientist, and professor, have left me feeling quite overworked. I'm looking forward to returning to the routine of life in Mystery City in a few weeks.
But actually, I am having a great deal of fun: reading books, playing with Minnow, talking with family and childhood friends, and enjoying different scenery. Some people…
sciencewoman | July 1, 2008
The Science family is somewhere near here...where the hills are steeper, the rocks are flatter, the green is bluer, and the weather is a good 15 degrees F cooler than Mystery City.
Our trip so far has been a bit rocky...It took us 31 hours to accomplish what should have been 8 hours door to door. Let's just say that I've been left rather unimpressed by Chicago's weather, air traffic control, and a certain airline. But at least I didn't have to deal with any currency exchanges...
Posting is going to be sporadic for the next few weeks, as my internet access and time without a clingy,…
sciencewoman | June 26, 2008For the last two weeks, I have been utterly consumed by logistics. I've come home from a trip to Utopia and a research project there, have been in the field twice locally scouting a project here, and am preparing for field work in Midwest next month. I'm starting to have dreams about losing boxes of field equipment to the airlines. At the same time, I've been continuing to do lots of thinking about "what I want to be when I grow up" - when I go up for tenure, or go back on the job market, what will my research program have become, in which subfield will I fit or which subfields will I…
sciencewoman | June 24, 2008In a few days, I'm leaving Mystery City for a whole month. Wow, that's a long time. It's a trip combining visits to family with a workshop and some field work, and Minnow will be along for the whole incredible journey. Fish will be with us for a week and then he'll return home to care for the Princess Pup.
Needless to say, I've got a lot to get done before we go. In lieu of real content today, below the fold, I've got a partial to-do list for today. Maybe I'll update this as I proceed through the week, maybe not.
Set up bill pay to cover the household bills while I'm gone.
Fix the Endnote…
sciencewoman | June 19, 2008Katie @ Minor Revisions has decided to take the good job close to her family, rather than the dreamy job many states away. She sounds a little sad about the decision, but I am rejoicing for her.
The lack of a support network in Mystery State is one of the things that has and will continue to make my life harder over the next few years, and it is a big reason for pondering whether to go on the market again eventually. Here in Mystery City, we are 1100 miles from my parents and 1400 miles from Fish's parents. Our closest family of any sort is an aunt and uncle 200 miles away, and we have very…
sciencewoman | June 12, 2008
The view from a friend's house. If you look closely (or embiggen) there's a snow-capped peak in the background.
Early this morning, Minnow and I returned to Mystery City from a week-long trip to Utopia, land of my former inhabitance.The trip was a fully-integrated mixture of business and pleasure.
The ostensible purpose was a to write a paper from work that I did during my post-doc. Not a single word was actually written, though we certainly did work hard on refining (making more exciting?!) the project. I also got some materials to use for my new prep next semester and a chance to meet…
sciencewoman | May 21, 2008I've just come out of a general positive annual review meeting with my departmental chair and it seems like an appropriate time to take stock of the year and think about where I am heading. At the end of my first academic year as a faculty member, I'm way ahead of where I was nine months ago, but I still have a lot to learn.
This year has seemed like a whirlwind, at times over-whelming, at times exhilarating. Everything has been new: new teaching duties, new colleagues and university structure, new research requirements and direction, new geographic location, new toddlerhood. I often felt…
sciencewoman | May 9, 2008I'll be in Atlanta next Tuesday and Wednesday to help judge the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, a collection of the brightest and most dedicated high school science students from around the world. I'll also be blogging about my experiences there (h/t PZ), so look for an uptick in posting next week.
There's still the opportunity to help judge the fair. Judges are still needed in lots of areas, because they try for a ~1:1 ratio of competitors to judges and there are >1500 finalists. It is a substantial committment: you need to register on Tuesday afternoon and then work all…
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…
sciencewoman | March 20, 2008
Apparently Purdue and Mystery U coordinate their "overwhelm the new faculty" schedule.
Had lunch with the provost this week. Take home message: time would have been better spent bringing in oodles of grant money. Avoid desert.
Have been consciously avoiding blogging as part of a get-things-done mode.
Unfortunately, last night I got sucked into the worst show on television last night. Did not help get-things-done.
We have tomorrow off. Yay, no meetings. (well, one, but it's off campus).
I am thinking about rearranging my office. It's Jane's fault.
I actually have a number of posts in my…