Scientist Rising

Twitter me up

2012-01-23T17:04:00.000-06:00

I finally did it. I joined Twitter. I decided that if I want to be a journalist, I should be familiar with common social media outlets. Join me in another potential time sink! :P

Breakfast of Monkeys

2012-01-18T09:04:00.000-06:00

I've been in a rut with breakfast lately. It's a really tasty rut involving oatmeal, chocolate, peanut butter, and bananas. I call it Monkey Oatmeal (or Chunky Monkey if you use chunky peanut butter) in honor of Not Licked Yet's sundae. If you're ever in Door County, Wisconsin, pay them a visit. It's well worth it on a hot summer evening!

Anyhow, here's how I make my Monkey Oatmeal:

1/2 cup quick oats
1 Tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp sweetener of choice
dash of salt
pinch of vanilla bean or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Mix all those together and add perhaps a cup of hot water (or enough for whatever texture you like). I microwave mine for 30 seconds and add a little more water to make it extra creamy. Then...

1 Tbsp peanut butter
1 sliced banana

Mix these into the chocolate oatmeal and enjoy!

Let me know what you think. I have a few more of these up my sleeve.

Do you have a favorite breakfast item or recipe?

Is grad school worth it?

2012-01-14T13:31:00.000-06:00

Recent bit of conversation:

Me: Aw, crap.
J-man: What?
Me: I've been in college for nine years. I'm in 21st grade.

Yep, that's the size of it. Ten years ago I my highest academic aspiration was to go to the best state university my state had to offer. Now I'm four and a half years through a PhD program in a neighboring state, contemplating a second master's degree while I finish the PhD.

Is it all worth it? The master's degree(s), yes. The PhD, I'm not sure.

Alyssa at Apple Pie and the Universe posted an Economist article about "why doing a PhD is often a waste of time." She nicely highlights some of the main points of the article, mostly focusing on what's wrong with academia. I'd like to draw attention to part of the solution:

There is an oversupply of PhDs. Although a doctorate is designed as training for a job in academia, the number of PhD positions is unrelated to the number of job openings. Meanwhile, business leaders complain about shortages of high-level skills, suggesting PhDs are not teaching the right things. [emphasis mine]

I've been confused by the seemingly conflicting views that academia produces too many and too few PhDs. That seems impossible, unless the sources of these criticisms are different. Academics say too many, businesses say too few. The solution? Train PhDs to work in business, not just academia!

I am not the only grad student in my department who does not aspire to follow in our advisors' footsteps. However, my training so far has perfectly groomed me to become a researcher and has made me fairly certain that I don't want to be a researcher (or professor at a research university). Almost daily I question the personal benefit of what I'm doing, but I figure I have a year or year and a half left so I may as well finish. It probably won't close any doors and may even open a few.

During the time I have left, I have to cobble together supplementary education to make myself marketable outside the academy. I have no solid mentors (so far), only a smattering of people whose personal interests I feel I have to account for when I receive advice from them.

Maybe my inexperience in post-secondary education is making this more difficult than it needs to be. My undergrad self was certainly not as well-informed as she could have been. Or perhaps this is a failing of the PhD training grounds. Perhaps there just isn't much support for those looking outside the traditional career tracks.

Nature's "Womanspace" controversy

2011-11-19T10:37:00.000-06:00

As many of you are already aware, Nature published a piece of fiction titled Womanspace. It talks about a wife who sends her husband and his friend to buy knickers for their daughter because she was busy making supper. In the end, the men return empty-handed because they cannot fathom how to complete such a simple task. Their conclusion is that "women can access parallel universes in order to find things."

First, let's neglect the quality of the piece and focus on what it says.

Why, again, is this offensive? What if the roles were reversed and the wife couldn't find the knickers? Would the blogosphere cry about the author portraying women as useless? Nowhere does it say she is a housewife. Cooking may simply be one of her household duties that they equitably split after they both get home from work. As far as shopping, I see it as women being better at multitasking, while men can only focus on the single goal at hand. Honestly, the men seem rather like troglodytes while the women operate in the modern world.

This article essentially pokes fun at men, positing that men are unable to complete a straightforward household task and then having them invent parallel planes as an excuse. Yeah, that's gotta be it. Because they can't just be incapable.

My recommendation: Try to find the humor and be more selective in what offends you. Like crying wolf, you will not be taken seriously if too many things get you up in arms.

Other blog posts on this:
Scientopia, who has her own list of related blog posts
Contemplative Mammoth
Doing Good Science at Scientific American, who makes a good point that sexist stereotypes hurt men, too, and male and female stereotypes are present in this story.
Science Sushi at Scientific American
JAYFK, though I don't think it is appropriate for futures or pasts. Perhaps satire.
Principia Discordia (forum, not blog)
On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess

Reducing obstacles: TG edition

2011-11-18T11:27:00.001-06:00

Over at Making a Living Writing, Carol Tice posted on How to Eliminate All Your Freelance Writing Obstacles. She questions, does it seem overwhelming, too hard? These questions are not only for freelance writers. They are universal to challenging, valuable pursuits, and so is the prescription.

She opens with a Yiddish folktale, which is well worth a minute to read. Then her suggestion: change your attitude. To get perspective on the obstacles in your life, list what you have going for you. As the first commenter said, it's just in time for Thanksgiving.

I don't think it directly addresses the feeling that something is overwhelming, but it does make one feel better to take stock of good things. Feeling happier can make difficult things seem more approachable.

Here's my gratitude list:

Wonderful, supportive boyfriend who adores me
I'm in the best shape of my life
My mom may have health and potential financial issues, but she's still alive and in good mental health
I have a large, loving family
Even if it is occasionally stretched by unexpected expenses, my boyfriend and I both have secure income
I'm going to be an aunt for the first time in January, and two of my closest friends are having babies around the same time
Everyone believes I have a bright future and many of them gladly help me along the way
I have affordable basic healthcare

What's on your list?

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

2011-11-08T23:55:00.001-06:00

I intended to knock off an essay for my journalism class today with plenty of time left to work on research. I ended up crafting a lengthy email on a personal matter and finishing my essay, but little else. I do not feel efficient or terribly productive.

Organizing past and future research

2011-11-04T15:53:00.000-05:00

I'm having trouble splitting my attention between two projects, PhD research for AGU in December and the project with geology. I've always been good at organizing things, but it's more difficult when the goals are hazy and the scope seems overwhelming.

J-man likes to clean by a method he calls "convergent messes." He sorts things into piles based on where they go. First maybe it's by floor, then by room, then by place in the room. Eventually everything is put back where it goes. Planning my PhD should be similar. First I define specific, detailed research questions. Then I decide the experiments I'll use to answer them. Or do I choose data sources? When do I outline the papers I'd like to publish based on my work? I feel like I'm flailing after defining the questions, simultaneously trying to plan everything else without being sure exactly what I need to plan. It's the prelim again and again. So far my plan is to start with what I turned in for that and refine, even though revisions are not required since I passed. At least it provides a starting point.

On top of planning, I also need to record what I do as I do it so I don't get lost along the way and make writing my dissertation an epic nightmare. I've never been good at keeping records. I don't remember if I ever even balanced my checkbook (though I know how). I record the checks I write only because I don't have duplicate checks.

I've skimmed several sites that tell researchers how to keep a useful notebook, but they don't seem to address some of my questions. What do I write about research as I do it when my work is mainly programming and computer modeling? Surely I don't need to document every step of debugging a program, but I'm sure I need to record when we make a major change, such as adding random noise to the initial conditions of a simulation, and why we change it. Should I keep a separate notebook for each project or one master notebook?

I asked my advisor about keeping records and he relies on comments in code and TimeMachine backups. He doesn't seem to keep general notes in one place. He also often seems disorganized. I suppose I'll take a hack at it and make up the rest as I go.

Yeah, that usually works out.

NaBloPoMo & Students with bikes

2011-11-03T12:30:00.004-05:00

~~I signed up for NaBloPoMo for the heck of it. That means you'll hear from me a lot more during November. Every day, in fact.~~ (11/15/11: Nevermind. Not working.)
- - -
Bikes are near and dear to many students as a form of transportation. They're cheap and quicker than walking. But have you seen the chaos that ensues? I've spotted people talking on cell phones, smoking, and riding with hands stuffed in pockets because the cyclists doesn't know how to dress himself properly for the weather. Don't get me started on bike lanes and sidewalk etiquette!

Oops, too late.

Yesterday's post on Road Rights showed a map of sidewalk laws in the U.S.:

I grew up in Wisconsin, so I'm biased against riding on the sidewalk unless one has a good reason. In Illinois, however, riding on the sidewalk is allowed and students take all the rights of that without the responsibilities. Cyclists are required to yield to pedestrians on sidewalks.

I by no means blame only cyclists for the problems between bikers and walkers. People walk on the bike paths all the time, sometimes making them inaccessible because they refuse to move. Have you ever noticed that people seem to think you can't hit them if they don't look at you? It works when they walk in front of your car, too.

The option I most use is riding on the road. I figure a car is not likely to expect someone moving 10-15 mph on the sidewalk and I'm safer on the road. A lot of cyclists join me on the road. But again many of them take the rights without the responsibilities, and they blow through stop signs and lights without so much as a glance at cross traffic. If they don't look, the car can't hit them. I sense a theme here.

The bottom line is that, whatever your local cycling laws say, act like a car on the road and a pedestrian on the sidewalk with the caveats that you are much smaller than a car and bigger than a pedestrian. Adjust your risk assessment accordingly and be respectful of others.
- - -
Illinois Bicycle Rules of the Road

Adding Journalism

2011-11-02T11:02:00.000-05:00

My uni has five weeks of classes left this semester. Where did the time go? I would swear we were only five weeks into the 15-week semester. I don't know if I like that or not.

On one hand, I have a heap of research to complete in the next few weeks, both for AGU in December and for a collaborative project with a geology professor. I hope and pray and beg that I have enough time to do both and not let anything else slide (too badly). My Great Books of Journalism class takes a lot of time. Because I enjoy sitting around reading, I still have difficulty convincing myself it's okay even for a class. Strange...

On the other hand, I'm looking forward to winter break (though I could do without winter) and spring semester. I finally get to take the introductory reporting class for journalism majors. I have wanted to take that for six or seven years, but they're usually restricted to majors. I talked to the journalism department and the grad coordinator will give me permission to take whatever classes I want as long as I meet the prerequisites. Que bárbaro! She also left the option open that I can transfer those credits to a master's in journalism if I want to finish the entire degree. J-man says I just want to have more letters after my name than he has (with MS and PhD).

Speaking of J-man, we're approaching one year together in less than two weeks. Tempus fugit!

Prelim = Success!

2011-08-22T12:54:00.000-05:00

I passed! It sounds like the written portion was closer than the oral portion, but as long as I pass, the number is only a matter of pride.

The main comments from the oral portion were that I needed better focus and to limit the scope of my project. Regarding the written proposal, my committee wanted more detail and focus. Apparently I succeeded on the details, but didn't get as far as they wanted on the focus. They also gave me ideas on how to proceed so my degree should be easier and timelier that it would otherwise have been. That is the purpose of a prelim and committee, right? My adviser told me the committee was impressed with my knowledge of the subject :). That's good.

I am fine with these comments. Most scientists seem to have problems with focus and scope. Have you experienced this?

July 28 (I know that's not today's date)

2011-06-01T09:15:00.000-05:00

I finally got four scientist to agree on a two-hour meeting for my prelim defense. It's scheduled for July 28. According to department guidelines I need to send them the written proposal by July 14. Which is effectively July 12 since I'm driving to Colorado with J-man and his kids July 13-14.

I have just under a month and a half to write the long-overdue research proposal for my PhD (I was supposed to do it last year, but my dad's illness came first). It seems like a long time and too soon all at once. I'm supposed to use an atmospheric model that I still don't have running reliably. Before I send my proposal to the committee I need to do some test runs to gauge how much computer time I'll need, which may in part determine which experiments I conduct. Can't if the model's not running right.

Regardless, I am excited to get this out of the way. It's the second big hurdle towards a PhD (first was the qualifying exam). Once I pass the prelim, all I have left is research and final defense. I don't even have to take any more classes (though I probably will because I'm me and there are lots of interesting classes at colleges).

What are the rites of passage on the way to a PhD in your department?

Flying, fitness, and food

2011-05-26T11:53:00.000-05:00

Not-work has been excellent the last few months, especially regarding exercise. Except biking. I've slacked in biking. Gotta fix that.

But I have a good reason that I haven't biked as much. Several, in fact.

I've attended every possible jujitsu practice save one when I was sick in early February. I spent most of the semester teaching lower belts the basics. As the end of the semester approached, I asked J-man (aka sensei) if I should test for green tip or green belt. He confidently said green belt. Green is the last step below brown and the first color that the home dojo recognizes. I wasn't sure I was prepared for that since I'd missed so many new techniques while teaching newbs, but I trusted his judgement.

My fellow (former) blue belts and I practiced a bunch to prepare for the belt test. Green is a rough test. Suffice it to say that I had a lot of weight driving me into the ground and flew through the air somewhere between waist and chest level. All that practice ended in a sprained ankle right before the test. I hopped up on only my left foot after my first few landings. Sensei asked if I was okay and I said, "I'll be fine." No way am I giving up on the test for a sore ankle!

After a few more landings he stopped me from receiving throws and only had me demonstrate that I could execute the techniques. Our work and perseverance paid off and we all passed. Unfortunately I have to cut out parts of my training for a month or so until the ankle fully heals. Rest assured, I have plenty to work on that don't stress my ankle.

I've also started a new exercise routine outside jujitsu. J-man introduced me to an excellent sports trainer in a city a couple of hours away. Every four to six weeks the trainer gives me a new workout routine geared specifically toward my physical imbalances and goals. For example, my lower back and shoulders are exceptionally flexible. While that is not a bad thing in itself, it leaves me more vulnerable to instability in those areas. The trainer gives me exercises to correct for that. The workouts are challenging and very doable. I can feel and see the results, which is satisfying and a nice change from the murky path of research. I never thought I'd like working out at a gym.

Among other things I never expected is J-man, of course. We've been dating for about six and a half months and it has been so good for me. Not only has he supported me through professional and personal struggles and gotten me to work out regularly, but he can cook! And I mean well. Pasta primavera, pad Thai, pork loin--all of it has been tasty. He roasts coffee, grinds flour, makes yogurt, and bakes fresh bread. The only thing he doesn't do is rhubarb, but I'm working on that ;). He recently admitted that rhubarb crisp is tasty.

In light of that delicious thought, I'm off to the gym. Food tastes so much better when I'm ravenous after a good workout. That wouldn't skew my opinion of J-man's cooking prowess, would it?

FCIWYPSC: The happiest grad students

2011-05-25T09:13:00.000-05:00

I'd like to call attention to a great post by Cherish over at Faraday's Cage: The happiest grad students.

It's an interesting idea that the happiest grad students are employees elsewhere. Most grad students I know are the traditional sort for whom being a grad student is school and job. Most of them are jaded after a few years. In my office I'm surrounded by disparaging comments about classes, research, and academia in general. Most of us seem to look not to our jobs for satisfaction, but to everything else in our lives. While that is not necessarily a bad thing, our job as students seems more like a trial than professional fulfillment. If we can withstand several years, our vocational horizons broaden and we never have to go back.

I cannot speak to being a grad student while employed elsewhere because I have seen very few examples of that. Those I have seen have been at a distance. The students are rarely seen around the department. It seems nice, but I've never been sure if it is a grass-is-greener case. At least I'd have better pay and insurance (probably).

Do you agree with Cherish's assessment? Why?

Strides in research

2011-05-23T14:17:00.000-05:00

Research is moving. In December of last year (a whopping five months ago!) my adviser and I planned to submit a paper. Well, we just submitted it last Monday. Finally. After working on the darn thing for a year and a half! Now it's out of my life for at least a couple of months. Good riddance.

On a related note, I recently received a request to review a manuscript for the journal to which I submitted my paper. I didn't realize that they would ask a grad student to review a paper before she even has a publication through the peer-review process. This will be new. Luckily I have an adviser to shadow me so I do it right.

I gave my first conference talk in January. I uploaded it two hours before my presentation time and didn't practice at all. Though my talk was the last one of the session, I entered the room at the beginning of the session. I watched as the seats slowly filled and people gathered along the walls throughout the session. The talk before mine must be really interesting!

As the applause faded and I heard my name spoken into the microphone, few people left. They came for my talk? I hoped for a clear mind and calm nerves. My talk came out reasonably cogent and perfect length. My adviser was relieved, as was I. No one asked a question, though the person running the session tracked me down later and said he enjoyed my talk and that I was doing important work. Neat! I survived my first conference talk, and perhaps made waves in the process.

I hope to continue that smidgen of momentum. My PhD research direction changed a bit, much to my satisfaction. I'll still work with the WRF model, but the standard version instead of a special climate version. It is much easier to get my hands on and has better support. The results should be relevant to many mountainous areas around the tropics, which makes me feel like the research is more worth doing.

That's not all, folks. I'm trying to schedule my prelim (again) while I try to help a visiting undergrad (I'm learning alongside him), work with a geology student on a side project, and now review a paper. Do you know how difficult it is to get four scientists to agree on a two-hour block of time to meet? If one's not in DC, another is in Fiji. Or maybe India.

My adviser wants me to finish by December 2012. I have a start on some of the background work, but I'm still having trouble running the model. I haven't decided yet if that's a delusion. How long should the research and writing portion of a PhD take? Eh, I'll give it a shot anyhow. I certainly don't want to be the perpetual grad student.

Which brings me to my future after grad school. I have not yet decide how or when to integrate communication and education into my degree, though I it is important that I get that experience before I graduate. I don't know what kind of position I'll look for. Scientist, programmer, communications... who knows. If J-man and I stay together in Grad School Town, it depends on what's available in the area. Post all that under future work.

Next time: personal progress, and there is plenty to be had ;)

Busy, busy!

The semester I almost didn't have

2011-05-19T13:27:00.001-05:00

My last final exam was last Friday. I dropped Spanish, and German and hydrology were uninspiring. I made it to the end of my "at least one more semester" semester. I'm hanging in here. It's a job, it pays, and I'll get a fancy piece of paper at the end.

I've also found a reason to stay in Grad School Town. Yes, it's a man. A sweet, sensual, stable man. He's the saving grace of this town right now, and a major reason I'm still in school. He also runs my jujitsu dojo. (If we do leave, the head of the dojo comes with me and I effectively don't have to leave the dojo--bonus!)

If J-man wasn't here, I'd probably keep looking for jobs around DC. I still think about DC often. I'd love to live in that area, but instant gratification in where I live is not worth giving up what I have here. I can make do in this little town for a while longer and see what the future brings.

Since I seem to be staying, my adviser wants me to finish by the end of 2012. That leaves me two summers and three semesters, the same amount of time I have left on my fellowship. He wants me to defend my prelim in late June or early July. Sure, why not? I've pulled off crazier things. My approach to school and my degree has changed enough that I think I can do it. My frame of mind regarding school gets a little shaky here and there, but J-man helps me stay on track.

Okay, back to work. My prelim is nearly upon me and J-man's and my schedule keep us running, engaged in the world, and happy. I'll tell y'all more details from this past semester sometime in the next week.

Making fun

2010-12-17T16:21:00.000-06:00

It's official: I'm staying in grad school at least one more semester. I'm submitting a paper with my adviser early next week, then submitting my fellowship renewal. If next semester goes well, I'll just finish grad school. If it doesn't... well, I'll have to face that later. I'll assume for now that it will go well. At least I've learned about academic bureaucracy through this whole process.

In order to do what I can to have a productive semester, I intend to make it fun. I will make fun in my research life, my non-research academic life, and my personal life.

Research is still a question mark. I need to do something related to my proposal, but it does not have to follow it to the letter. In my last post I mentioned that education and outreach may be a good supplement to keep me interested in my research. I don't know how to do that specifically, but I will definitely think about it over the holiday break. Any ideas from the peanut gallery? If I make research fun, I will have no problem completing my PhD.

I'm registered fifth-semester German and third-semester Spanish. I miss languages, so it'll be nice to work with them again. I'm not too concerned about the classes' difficulty because I catch on to languages pretty quickly. I'm also taking a hydrology class. Hydrology will be a new subject for me. I hope it will give me a better sense of nature as a system. Most of my classes only touch on the atmosphere's relationship to the rest of the Earth system.

Making my personal life fun is (for once) the easy part. Jujitsu, biking, cooking, friends... easy :).

Huh, maybe not. Oh well.

2010-12-05T14:27:00.000-06:00

Moving to DC doesn't look like it will work by January. That means I will most likely commit to another semester (at least) of grad school soon (i.e., renew the fellowship).

Fortunately, other developments have made that more palatable. It turns out I have more leeway in my fellowship and proposal than I thought. That may be enough to find a way to get through the PhD as a grad student. It'd sure be quicker than doing it alongside a full-time job.

Grad school would also leave me time to do some education and outreach work. Based on a conversation last night during which I briefly explained global climate models and how hail forms to a friend who is not in my field, doing that more may keep me excited about atmospheric sciences. I enjoyed talking about it in that way to an interested (or at least semi-interested) audience. It's been a while since I enjoyed talking about my field.

I don't think I have a bad option right now as long as I can approach it with the right frame of mind. Not to mention, staying in Grad School Town lets me continue with my jujitsu dojo, which I really like :D. I may have to take some day trips for suitable biking terrain.

Quote on taking chances

2010-11-10T08:00:00.000-06:00

‎I ran across this in my Google Reader this morning (I like well-said phrases):

"I guess what I'm trying to say is, I don't think you can measure life in terms of years. I think longevity doesn't necessarily have anything to do with happiness. I mean happiness comes from facing challenges and going out on a limb and taking risks. If you're not willing to take a risk for something you really care about, you might as well be dead."

-- Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider

The sentiment sounds familiar ;).

A big departure

2010-10-22T10:54:00.000-05:00

I'm finally ready to share my plans with the world. I just needed to ask my adviser and the department head for their approval first. They're both very supportive and sorry to see me leave.

I'm planning to start a leave of absence from school in January. That will give me up to a year to return to PhD studies without having to reapply. In the mean time, I can take time away to reassess what I want to do and if it requires a PhD and if I have the drive to finish the degree without wasting any more of my or my adviser's time.

I am applying for jobs in the Washington, DC, area now in hopes that I will find something I can start with the new year. I am focusing on this area because I like the city, I'm familiar with it, one of my relatives lives there, and several friends live along the East Coast.

I also want to keep the option open to pursue a master's degree in science writing with Johns Hopkins. They have a part-time evening program that I could work through while I work a normal daytime job. Ultimately, I want to communicate science to non-scientists, so this path makes sense.

It will also help me financially. Though my tuition is fully covered and I'm paid a livable salary in grad school, it still costs me to be here. I have a lot of debt from undergrad that is accruing interest. These are mainly loans with Sallie Mae, which must be run by soul-sucking profiteers the way they've handled my loans. With a job I can start paying the loans off and perhaps even take them away from Sallie Mae. I don't know how the loans work yet because my dad helped me with that. I may borrow a friend's mom to help me weed through my options. If that doesn't pan out, I may be on my own to figure it out.

So for the next two or three months I'm finishing everything I need to in order to minimize the impact this has on my adviser, who is going up for tenure this year. One of my biggest concerns is that I don't cause him a problem because he's only along for the ride this time and I'm grateful to his flexibility and understanding through the most difficult three years of my life.

I'm nervous, scared, and excited. This is the biggest departure I've ever taken from the established path through school to a career, but I truly feel this is the right decision for me right now.

Settling back in

2010-10-17T23:24:00.000-05:00

Due to scheduling issues, my prelim will not happen this semester. My school-related goals now include finishing the interminable paper and completing enough of my PhD research to give a talk at AMS in January. And catching up with class.

My house is getting messier, but I spent most of the day cooking so it's okay for now. I made a beef roast, chicken soup, salmon, and cookies. I have more cookies planned so I can use some nifty little fall cookie cutters I bought while I was in Wisconsin.

Personally, I'm doing okay. I'm still low on patience. I've run my patience to the brink of losing it over the past five months. (I wasn't very involved in the first few months of my dad's treatment, so it wasn't as difficult then.) I think I'm just emotionally burnt out. And tired. And still stressed, in good and bad ways. I don't know how to recover from this besides wait and hope it doesn't take too long.

In other news, change is in the air. I'm not ready to release my ideas to the world until I'm more sure of them, but they are big. I'll let you know when they're ready.

I hereby declare...

2010-10-10T22:52:00.000-05:00

...that I have the best friends ever!

Three flew to the Midwest from the East Coast on short notice for my dad's funeral and stayed with me through the weekend, six drove almost 300 miles from Grad School Town, and one drove almost two hours to stay overnight the night with me and my mom and made us breakfast the morning of the funeral. On top of that, I came home to a clean house because three of the friends from Grad School Town cleaned my house while I was gone.

I dare you to deny that they are the best!

Upcoming return to pseudo-normal

2010-10-06T16:36:00.000-05:00

I will return to school at the end of this weekend. I will have to make up for three missed weeks of classes and research.

I still plan to complete my prelim this semester. Excuse after excuse has delayed it for a year. No matter how valid they've all been, I'm tired of putting it off. I want it done so it doesn't hang over my head anymore and so I won't have to take more classes. I also learned yesterday that I am scheduled to give an oral presentation at the AMS Annual Meeting in January. On top of those, I need to renew my fellowship at the end of the calendar year.

Lucky for me, all of these goals are related to the same work: my PhD research. If I make good progress on that, all of these should be within reach. For the prelim, I add a proposal and oral defense. For the meeting presentation, I put together a short talk. Last, and probably least demanding, I write a progress summary to renew my fellowship. Sounds like a tall order, but those are my specialty.

That leaves writing and class out of the mix. I don't know what my new class deadlines will be, but they should be flexible since my adviser teaches the class. I don't know about writing. I really want to continue with everything I planned before. I think I'll try to and hope for the best.

Four days and I return to my life. It will be much the same as before, and yet forever different. More different than I have ever experienced. I never imagined life without my dad find me this soon.

Whether or not he is here, I will continue to make him proud of me. I am thankful for the time we had together and all he taught me.

Bye Dad

2010-09-27T18:37:00.000-05:00

My dad passed early this morning.

I will always love you, Dad. I will always miss you.

Family comes first

2010-09-24T17:17:00.000-05:00

Over-commitment gets interesting when I suddenly leave town for the fourth time in a little over three years. I'd give it all up to get rid of my dad's cancer. It's the only thing wrong with him.

My mom called me Saturday because she had to call a non-emergency ambulance for my dad. He couldn't stand up, which meant he couldn't get out of the house for treatment. When my mom called me to tell me about it, she was obviously having a very hard time with it. She couldn't even choke out that she wanted me to come home, but I knew she did. I packed a few changes of clothes and whatever else I thought I might need or want, washed any dirty dishes that might grow, and drove north.

My dad is not doing well. The doctors say he has weeks left at the most.

My mom and I are sharing primary care of him as part of home hospice care, which is more than a full-time job for each of us. We are glad we got to bring him home. Now family can visit whenever they want, Mom and I have more support, and we have better food. He is also more comfortable and receives closer attention. I know this is the best place for him.

I cannot fulfill my copyediting duties because I can only do them in the newsroom. I may be able to write for the university engineering and science magazine. I can work on research and news bureau stuff from here, too. However, I have no idea when I can fit it in between all my other responsibilities right now.

I'd like to keep up with my commitments, but family is priority right now. My adviser said to focus on family, that everything else is extraneous. I intend to follow that advice. Most of my time here I watch after Mom or Dad. Most of the leftovers I make sure legal and financial affairs are in order for my parents and for me or call friends for support and a break.

I am glad I have a big family so we can help each other through this hard time. They are invaluable in my Dad's care. We could not have brought him home without their help. Aunts and uncles help third shift, more aunts and uncles help first shift, and we have a full house second shift.

Even though this is a heartbreaking situation, I feel lucky for everything else in my life.

Intentionally over-committing

2010-09-18T00:12:00.002-05:00

Have you ever intentionally taken on a little more than you think you can handle? If you have, why?

I'm doing it this semester because I don't want to give my mind time to wander. My dad is not doing well. I don't want to publicize the details, so you'll have to believe me. The doctors either cannot or will not tell us what his current group of diagnoses mean in terms of prognosis except to say, several times, that it's not good. I don't want time to consider possible implications of his current health beyond an initial thought. Oddly, this situation seems to help me concentrate on work most of the time. I'm making progress on most fronts.

In pursuit of the goal to keep myself busy, here are my major work-related activities this semester:

Prelim: The proposal write-up is due November 23, and the oral presentation is tentatively schedule for December 9. That leaves me a little over two months to write it. My to-do list says "come up with plan for prelim."
Research for AMS 2011 in January: I don't know if I have a poster or oral presentation yet, but it doesn't matter. I need results to present either way. The first step is downloading data. Thankfully I wasn't optimistic enough to believe I could have model results in time.
@#$% MS paper: Yep, still going. The Energizer paper. At least I'm working on a first round of revisions to most of the text. Computers still are not cooperating to finish the final two figures.
Copyediting for the school newspaper: This only consumes three hours one night a week. It'll give me a taste of what working on a tight deadline is like without too much time commitment.
Writing for the school STEM magazine: Only one issue will be published this semester, so I will write one article for print, one article for the web, and two blog posts. It should be straightforward and relatively quick since the articles are supposed to be short. It'll challenge me more to choose a topic than to write the articles.
Intern as a science writer with the university news bureau: I'm excited about this. My mentor actually gets paid to write about science! And she's professional about it! How refreshing. The internship can take as much or as little time as I let it because I accept (or turn down) assignments as they crop up. Finally, some reliable mentoring in writing.

The work for my only class should pull double-duty with my PhD research, so I don't count it as a major commitment.

I also intend to help my family as possible and as needed, attend all the jujitsu practices I can, and occasionally go rock climbing, ice skating, and biking. Oh, and cook tasty food. I have to eat, right?

If you think I'm crazy, you're not alone. I think my mom is the only person who doesn't question me anymore. She's learned that many of my seemingly crazy ideas are some of the ones that work out the best.

My go-anywhere "lab" tools - Scientiae, September 2010

2010-09-01T22:48:00.002-05:00

This month's Scientiae topic is research equipment. For me, it's pretty simple. My main equipment consists of my laptop, research group computers, the department computing clusters, and a supercomputer or two. So, yeah, computers. "Lab" is a foreign concept.

This setup lets me work from many locations. In the past few months, I've worked from Wisconsin, Illinois, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland (I was too tired in Ohio and refused to open my computer in New York). I can log on to any of the big computers through the internet. Even the data I use is available remotely. I download it to my laptop or directly to one of the other computers from whoever stores it (usually some government organization).

I use the terminal window religiously. I recently added nxclient to my repertoire, which gives me a GUI desktop for an interactive node dedicated to my research group. That's handier than I expected. Between these two interfaces, I can run programs interactively or in batch mode (submit a job that will run when the resources become available).

I reroute the output into a text file so I don't have to babysit the program, I can review the output later, and the program will not crash if my laptop dies or I lose my network connection. If I had to run everything interactively and couldn't record the output, I would have violently and permanently killed at least one computer by now. As it stands, I have non-violently killed several computers several times (including single-handedly jamming the department cluster), but I, my adviser, or the sys admin were always able to bring them back.

And my little macbook is the portal to it all. It's wonderful and dangerous at the same time.

Finding motivation in observing science

2010-08-19T15:03:00.001-05:00

I didn't present at the workshop in Knoxville. I wish I had something from my PhD work to present because I was a minority in focusing on the physical and dynamical aspects of climate science rather than the chemical and biological. I think I would have added breadth to the two days of talks.

Since a lot of them focused on chemistry and my last chemistry class was introductory chemistry for science majors six years ago, I did not understand many details of the studies. Nonetheless, I found the workshop valuable beyond the basic conclusions I gleaned from each talk. Hearing about other's work inspired me to return to my own research. Perhaps Musings of a Life-Long Scholar hit on a good motivational tip: read 1000 words of scientific literature at the start of each work day. I might remember more of the literature that way, too.

Ironically, it is difficult to work while at a workshop. I attended talks all day and networked/socialized in the evenings. It was a perfect time to run programs that require hours of computer time and little babysitting. Running those programs gets me much closer to finishing the figures I need for the MS paper. I hope to have a full draft by Labor Day weekend, if not earlier.

I realize I've set goals like this before and missed them. Too often. I need to meet one of them to restore confidence in myself as a self-driven student. I used to know that without question. I'm not always sure anymore. I keep telling myself that I need time to adjust to the personal upheavals of the past year. At what point do reasons become excuses?

Whirlwind to whirlwind

2010-08-09T13:51:00.000-05:00

My brother's wedding was not perfect but it was close. We only had a few minor problems that were easily remedied. Music and toasts were good and dinner was excellent. My mom and I hosted the gift opening yesterday morning (with a lot of prep help from family). Everyone liked the food there, too. My family likes food.

I enjoyed the whirlwind wedding weekend. I'm also glad it's over. My abstract for the 2011 AMS Annual Meeting is due today and I'm still short on sleep. Today I'm free to rest, bike, and work. Tomorrow and Wednesday I'll take my dad for treatment. Wednesday evening I will return to Grad School Town for a few meetings and to prepare for my Great East Coast Tour.

I haven't told you much about that yet, have I? It involves six cities over fifteen days: Knoxville, TN; Charlotte, NC; Hampton, VA; Alexandria, VA; Adelphi, MD; and New York City.

Family and friends keep asking why I decided to take this trip. It started when I realized that Knoxville, where I'm attending a professional workshop, is halfway to the East Coast. I may as well drive the other half to visit my friend in Adelphi. And since I'm in Adelphi, I should visit my friends a few hours away in Hampton. Then my brother's mother-in-law invited me to visit her in Charlotte. I couldn't pass that up. After all that, I thought about the one friend on the coast that wasn't part of my travel plans. Why wasn't he included? No reason, so I decided to drive to NYC to visit him, too. I convinced my Adelphi friend to meet me in Hampton and accompany me to NYC. Yay, more friend time!

I'll miss the first week of classes, but that's not a big deal. I'm taking my adviser's class. He'll be gone for most of the first week, and when he returns he'll cover some computing basics that I already know.

Of course my road bike will come with me. I plan to ride the Apple Cider Century in southwest Michigan on September 26, so I need to incorporate training rides into my travel. Between the Tour and the Century, my jujitsu dojo is attending a big workshop in Ohio the second weekend of September. Stories will surely ensue. I'm excited on all counts!

I hope I'm still alive at the end of it. I need to do some serious work this fall. I will also try to work on my handy dandy laptop during my travels. Will I ever leave work at home when I take a vacation? I cannot escape this love-hate relationship with technology.

A year makes all the difference - Scientiae, August 2010

2010-07-28T18:39:00.003-05:00

I celebrated the first anniversary of depositing my master's thesis a few days ago. Reading my posts from a year ago, it would seem that I have gotten nowhere in the last year. I just started writing my prelim proposal and have yet to submit the paper based on my thesis. Despite my lack of visible productivity, I have accomplished a lot in the past year personally and professionally.

On the personal side, I went from living with my ex-boyfriend and two cats to living alone. That involved a drawn-out transition that I believe is finally coming to a close. My house is much cleaner and more peaceful than before, and I'm confident that I've made good, if difficult, decisions in light of the circumstances life handed me. I am now free to help my family on short notice if my dad's condition suddenly changes. When I'm not visiting family, I am able to focus more on myself and redirecting my life along a more satisfying path. I am becoming more the me I want to be by the day. That involves new career goals, new and renewed hobbies, and learning from all the trials of recent years.

Professionally, I admitted my passion for language and broad learning. As a scientist, I'd face deep learning and technical, utilitarian writing--not the best fit. Because of this seemingly obvious epiphany (as so many are in hindsight), I began to seek training in journalism. A couple of the instructors from the journalism department at my school are working with me to plan a curriculum that will fit with my PhD work. I'm really excited to meet with them in a couple of weeks! I feel more certain in my career plans than I have in years even though they're still developing. I'm running on pure faith that I'll find a way to pay off my undergrad loans (I suppose that's not much of a change).

My hobbies and hope for the future carry me over all the hurdles I face. Part of my life is unpredictable right now because of my dad's illness, but it does not comprise my life. In pursuit of being the best me I can, here some of my goals:

Six months
pass my prelim
complete the first objective listed in my PhD research proposal and present the results at a national professional conference
submit the MS paper
ride a century (100 miles)
gain experience in journalism and/or science writing, either through a class or an internship
test for my blue belt in jujitsu (a stretch, but not impossible)
continue to read as if my books are disintigrating before my eyes
One year
complete more of the PhD-specific goals I'll come up with as part of my prelim (TBD)
have a portfolio of usable writing clips
start working on the first paper based on my PhD research
ride my bike a bunch--at least one century next season
gain proficiency in jujitsu to at least the level of green tip
travel somewhere new

Instead of feeling lost as I have for many months, I'm excited for all the opportunities coming this year. I only dread two possibilities: letting fear get in my way and my dad's treatment not going well. The former I can prevent. The latter I will ignore unless it happens because there is no way to prepare for it.

To end on a positive note, I am elated about my upcoming tour of the East Coast. I can't wait to visit so many places and good friends. It'll be a great adventure!

Posted for the August 2010 edition of Scientiae, hosted by Alyssa at Apple Pie and the Universe.

2010 ranks high in global temperature records

2010-07-17T06:15:00.002-05:00

This year is setting a variety of records for global average temperature, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Much of the record high global average temperature is because of unusually high land surface temperatures. This June exceeded the previous record, set in 2005, by 0.20°F. Ocean surface temperatures placed fourth.

Not everywhere is experiencing record heat. Spain recorded its "coolest June temperature anomaly since 1997," and Guizhou, China, saw record low June temperatures. Despite that, June 2010 was the 304th consecutive month with the global average surface temperature above the twentieth century average.

Near where I live, March, April, and May were all warmer than average. Most of the prior eight months were below average (November was a prominent exception). The High Plains Regional Climate Center has a neat tool to look at a bunch of climate variables across the U.S. How does your region jibe with the global average?

Macs win

2010-07-14T12:42:00.001-05:00

You know that program that's been regularly crashing the department computer cluster for at least a couple of months? It runs fine on a Mac (thanks, adviser!). Go figure. At least I can make the final figure for my paper now.

Speaking of the paper, I have something resembling a draft. I haven't written the conclusions or abstract yet because I want to clarify the focus of the paper with some revisions before I try to summarize it. I'm having trouble with the organization. Each figure shows a series of six times for a level of the atmosphere. I used the figures to make a paragraph-by-paragraph outline that the adviser said looked good. After the introduction, data, and methods, I point out the significant features at each level and follow them through time. Now I want to connect the levels of the atmosphere to show a somewhat cohesive system and address teleconnections to show that the phenomenon I'm studying affects areas outside my focus region. Despite my seemingly logical outline, the discussion seems haphazard. I hope it only needs some heavy editing, but what if all the editing in the world will not make this organization scheme flow?

From NPR: The Writer Who Couldn't Read

2010-07-09T21:01:00.000-05:00

Did you know that writing and reading are distinct processes in your brain? Howard Engel, an author of detective stories, lost his ability to read when he had a stroke, but he could still write. Check out how he relearned to read through writing: The Writer Who Couldn't Read.

Found on the Writers Write blog

Writing my first paper: Oh, the pain!

2010-07-09T18:00:00.001-05:00

I am in the midst of editing my first scientific paper, and it's painful! I'm sure most of the pain is self inflicted. It's not bad once I sit down and start working, but it seems like the work never ends. I've been working with the same (last) figure for the paper for many weeks, fighting computer problems that defy explanation. I finally moved the scripts to a different machine. I don't think it's working. Though the program is still listed as an active process, the output file is showing no progress.

The part of the paper that I can write without the last figure is coming along. I'm flailing a little because I'm not sure how to write it. I suppose I'll find out if I'm doing it correctly when I send my polished-as-I-can-get-it draft to the advisor. To do that, however, I need to plot the last figure.

I have completely given up hope of finishing the prelim before the end of summer. I'd have to figure out how to run a model, generate preliminary data, write everything up, and figure out what else I have to do for a prelim in the next two weeks before my adviser and I are both out of town for the majority of August. Dammit!

As a result, I am registered for a class this fall on using the WRF model. I suppose it'll be a useful class. I still don't want to take it.

In positive news, my journalism (copyediting) professor invited me to chat with her about finding a way to get the experience and knowledge I need to break into science writing. I'll definitely take her up on that.

My house gets clean when the computer dies

2010-07-03T00:56:00.000-05:00

Ahh, the pleasure of a clean house and the sinuses to prove that I did the cleaning! I still have to clean the bathroom, the bedroom, and a few things in the kitchen, but I've made huge progress over the past couple of days. Pretty soon my house will be ready to host even those who are allergic to cats. (I gave my cats to a good home since I will not be here consistently enough to take good care of them.)

On the research front, the cursed paper I've been writing for the last mumble, mumble is delayed yet again. This time it has nothing to do with motivation or distractions. The department computer cluster doesn't play well with my code. I may have single-handedly frozen the file system several times. The cluster is now down for service. I'm going to start working on my prelim in the mean time since I feel like I'm wasting time waiting for technology to work. I don't have much hope of getting it done before the semester starts anymore, but I should be able to make a significant dent in it.

In other news:

I'm still enjoying my class. It turns out that I'm pretty good at copyediting (when I pay attention to such things).
My dress for my brother's wedding should be ready Tuesday, which is in plenty of time for the wedding. I need light gold shoes. Let's not discuss my progress on that
Dad's doing well for someone on a heavy chemo regimen.
I'm riding 62 miles on Sunday in the JBC 4th of July Metric Ride. This time I'm riding solo--no family, no friends coming. I guess I'll have to talk to strangers!
I have not yet turned my AC on despite some days above 90°F. I'm enjoying being stubborn.
I like fireworks.

Subjunctivitis and participle popsicles

2010-06-21T11:54:00.000-05:00

Even though my copyediting class has taken up time that could I could theoretically have spent on research and paper writing, I think the class is well worth it. (For one thing, I probably wouldn't spend the extra time on research stuff anyhow.) I never felt like I learned English grammar and syntax very well. My teachers often praised my writing, but I wrote on intuition. "Hmm, that sounds about right." I didn't even learn what adjectives and adverbs were until I studied German in middle school.

The copyediting class is illuminating all those dark corners of English usage. Did you know that the word republican should be capitalized when referring to a member of the party but not when referring to a type of government? It's humbling to realize how many constructs I've avoided or desecrated. Some of the rules have historical or logical reasons and some are simply grandfathered into the language. All this examination of the details of English can't help but improve my writing, and I find that a rather stimulating prospect. (The construction of that last sentence is itself a point of contention. Follett's Modern American Usage does not approve of the phrase cannot help but, but Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage does.)

This week we read the chapter on grammar. It was the most difficult chapter (so far) for me to understand. Part of it talked about the subjunctive mood. What is that? It sounds like a crabby mood. And what's a participle? Is it soem sort of popsicle?

I'm sure I use these things. I feel like I should have learned at some point in my education what the are, but I have no clue. In order to learn how to use them correctly, I need to figure out what they are. Double-duty this week!

Blogger updates

2010-06-14T22:29:00.000-05:00

Blogger added new format options. What do you think?

Technology's toll on my time

2010-06-12T18:17:00.003-05:00

Technology is often my lifeline. Especially recently (because I've been helping care for my dad through his cancer treatment), I have relied on it to keep up with friends, family, work, and the world at large. I also use it to read and listen to music, among other entertainment. Am I a technology addict?

A recent article in the New York Times, entitled "Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price", focuses on the technological habits of the Campbell family. I've noticed similar habits in myself. I have a hard time not answering my cell phone when it rings, and I compulsively check my numerous email accounts throughout the day. The Campbells do this to the extreme. Kord Campbell, the father of the family, sometimes sleeps with his laptop or iPhone on his chest. I may have slept next to my computer a few times when I was on a tight deadline for school, but I have never slept with my computer on top of me.

I admit that I spend a lot of time on my computer more days than not. But I have reasons. My job requires that I write and run computer programs, write papers, and communicate with colleagues across the country. Some of my best friends live several hundred miles from me and are very busy. I use email and occasionally instant messaging to keep up with them, and I don't receive a paper newspaper, so I read my news online. Of course, I also use my computer to write these posts. All those add up to a lot of screen time.

They are also excuses. A lot of my computer time does not work toward any of them. A certain amount of time for non-productive entertainment is permissible, if I can keep it under control and realize how much time I'm really devoting to it. When I catch myself spending several hours on my computer with nothing to show for it, not only do I feel apathetic from having my eyes adhered to the screen for so long, but I also feel terrible for wasting so much time. I usually can't name anything I enjoyed during that time. It was mindless. On the other hand, some of my best days are the ones devoid of technological gadgets. Are you seeing a trend?

That's not even when it started. Growing up, I waged a second-hand battle with the TV. My dad watched it a lot. When I tried to talk to him, he frequently shushed me because I was interrupting--that is, if he heard me at all. I missed going on bike rides and talking with him like we did when I was younger. I was angry with him for that, but I was also angry at the TV. I swore I would not do the same to my friends and family. I would not let TV rule that much of my life.

Now I barely watch TV, so it certainly is not ruling my life. It still drives me nuts when someone reflexively turns on the TV. I wonder, though: have I have simply supplanted one technology for another? One of the first things I do when I wake up in the morning or get home is open my laptop to check the latest of everything online. Will I let my computer and cell phone distract me from my friend sitting next to me or my family sitting around the table? I ask myself these questions nearly every day.

I am certainly not claiming that technology is inherently evil. It provides many benefits. The way people interact with it is what causes a problem. I fervently hope that, by noticing and questioning my tech-related habits, they will not become a problem.

My fifth longest ride ever this year

2010-06-06T21:56:00.008-05:00

(Note the lack of hyphen between the words fifth and longest in the title.)

I am happy to say that I lived through 75 miles of biking and 5.5-6 hours in the saddle. It went better than I expected. I now have more confidence that I'll reach my goal to ride a century this summer. I'm tired and a little delirious between the ride and not getting enough sleep this week, but a good night of sleep tonight should do worlds of good.

Before I incur the wrath of the weather gods for granting my wishes, I must credit them for giving me and my fellow riders a beautiful day. The rain held off until well after the ride was over, the temperature was perfect, and the sun was shining. The wind was a little bothersome at times, but nothing to incite crankiness. I've had much worse riding near Grad School Town.

Lastly, I giggled with excitement yesterday when I saw that the great goddess Dr. Isis kindly mentioned my little blog. Perhaps she spoke with her colleagues in godliness?

Ride On!

2010-06-05T21:34:00.004-05:00

Tomorrow is the infamous 30th annual Miller Lite Ride for the Arts. I'm crawling into bed early tonight since I have to get up by 5am to drive to the startline at the Summerfest grounds. My group, those riding the 75-mile route (which is actually 77.5 miles), depart at 7am.

This is a fundraising ride. All the proceeds help pay for fine arts programs in the Milwaukee area. I'm particularly interested in helping the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra (aka MYSO). I played string bass for two years in the Philharmonia and two years in the Senior Symphony.

Despite my continual grumbling about practice, I loved being part of the group. Being the backbone of the symphony, anchoring the sounds of brass, woodwinds, percussion, and strings all in harmony, was intoxicating. Through all the trials of high school--a part-time job, no study halls in school, a few health problems, and conflicts with friends--music was always there for me. We made great music, too. My gramma overheard a passerby at one of our playathon concerts at a local mall say, "why, they're just kids!"

Unfortunately, I had to give up playing when I went to college because of time and money constraints. A string bass is amazingly expensive and difficult to transport. I keep telling myself that someday I will return to a symphony. Someday when I have $4000 to plunk down on a bass and a few hours free each week for practice and rehearsals.

Even before I was part of MYSO, I wanted to participate in this ride because I liked biking. All this time, I figured I'd try the 25-mile route on my mountain bike and see how that went before doing more. Nope. In typical NJS fashion, I'm diving head-first into the longest route available. I bought a road bike earlier this spring and I've been riding consistently since then to prepare for this ride. It is my first big step towards my ultimate road biking goal this summer: riding a full century (100 miles). I'm really excited!

May the weather gods smile upon me tomorrow.

Celebration (Scientiae, June 2010)

2010-05-31T16:13:00.004-05:00

This months Scientiae topic is "celebration." I'm facing a lot of personal and professional challenges right now, so it's a good time to force me to look at what's going well.

Professionally, I feel like I'm finally seeing where I want to go. I love writing and words. I always have. But I have also always loved learning how things work and analyzing the bejeezus out of them. In undergrad, I chose to pursue science because I knew I'd get to learn about and analyze the natural world. I also that scientists have to write a lot. Little did I know of the chasm between the writing I loved in English class and scientific writing. If I wrote a paper in scientific style for any other audience, it'd be burned in horror.

I've also noticed throughout my education that scientists and non-scientists often have difficulty communicating effectively. Each side has a hard time putting themselves in the other's shoes. Scientists want the public to be more informed, and the public wants scientists to explain things more clearly. When one side or the other lacks the ability or inclination to remedy the situation, an intermediary can help.

That's what I want to be. I want to be the middle-(wo)man who helps people see how science impacts their lives and helps scientists understand the needs of society. I want to write about science for a less specialized and non-scientist audience. Given my recent aimlessness, this realization is certainly cause for celebration. It has renewed my enthusiasm for learning and research. I'm really enjoying my copy-editing class and I'm making much better progress toward my PhD on a more consistent basis.

I don't need a PhD to be a science writer, but it wouldn't hurt to have the credential and the time in graduate school may supply many more professional development opportunities. With those extra experiences in hand, I'd have a better chance of finding a suitable job when I graduate, and I'd maintain financial security and flexibility in my schedule and location in the mean time.

Personally, I've been committing more time to things I enjoy. I'm writing more, I'm reading more, I'm traveling more, and I'm more physically active. I've read more books this year so far than I did all of last year, or maybe even in the last two years. I'm riding 75 miles next Sunday. I recently received my yellow belt in jujitsu, which I attend reguarly when I'm in Grad School Town. I spend all of spring break on the east coast with friends just for fun. Before last November, I don't remember taking any trips that were just for fun. They were all family vacations or work-related.

It's incredibly liberating to chase my dreams and passions. None of it is without stress or worry (because those are present no matter what), but it is all completely worth it. I am much happier for following my heart even if it means taking a (sometimes significant) chance and hoping it works. After all, if I won't take risks to be happy, what's the point in having dreams?

See the rest of the carnival, June Scientiae Carnival: We’re Having a Party, at Rocket Scientista.

Catching up

2010-05-24T23:34:00.007-05:00

Today was a mixed bag. I got some work done, but not as much as I hoped. I'd be working on some programs right now if I could log in to the damn department computer cluster!

Despite my modest programming progress, I don't feel too bad about today. I replaced a few parts on my road bike so it's ready to ride and possibly ready for my big ride in a couple of weeks. I'll take it out for some laps around a park up the road even though it'll be hot again tomorrow (mid-80s for a high and sunny). I also got some much-needed extra sleep this morning.

I'm working on finding a routine here even though it's kind of futile when the circumstances are so fluid. I at least set up a pseudo-office in my bedroom: an office chair and a couple of TV trays. If I run out of "desk" space, my parents have two more TV trays :P. At first I was annoyed with the arrangement, but I think it's growing on me. It's kind of cozy.

Tomorrow will be a bit of a broken day with a doctor appointment and a bike ride, but that may not be bad. It won't give me enough continuous time programming to want to beat myself over the head with my laptop.

I'm really excited to get out on my bike tomorrow :D.

Summer... break?

2010-05-21T22:13:00.005-05:00

The semester is finally over and I have chaotic plans for the summer. The foundation involves bouncing around the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic US. Then I'll fill time between travel with everything else.

It's already started. Actually, it started before the semester truly ended. I spent a week and a half in Wisconsin, after the end of classes and before my sole final exam, helping my parents while my dad started chemo. I've been in Grad School Town for a week and a half. Naturally, I'm leaving again tomorrow for Wisconsin. I'll be there three weeks this time for various events that happen to be spaced a few days apart and another week of heavy chemo for my dad.

Beyond the next few weeks, I have a trip to Tennessee in August and a trip to Virginia and DC at some point. I don't have many solid plans--just an idea of what I want and need to do. The only reason I know when I'll be in Tennessee is because someone else planned the timing. I hope to make it to New York, too, but that might have to wait until the fall.

Filling in between the travel, I'm taking a class on copy-editing through mid-late July. I like writing and I want to take advantage of free classes while I have the chance. It can't hurt to improve my self-editing skills, plus I might want to be a science writer after grad school.

I also met with my advisor this week to set some research goals. We want a full draft of the paper from my MS by June 4th at 5pm. I know I've set goals like this before, but this one feels more reasonable. I really want to get this out of the way so I can move on to the next step. I'm talking about the prelim, of course. I'll spend the rest of the summer preparing that so I am not required to take a class in the fall.

Then there's random bike events, which are mostly not planned yet. I'm registered for a 75-mile ride in Milwaukee on June 6th as part of the Ride for the Arts. I'll attend jujitsu when I get a chance in Grad School Town. When I'm in Wisconsin, I'll spend time with my family and help my parents keep up with their lives. I also hope to fit in some cooking, reading, hiking, writing, movies, and dancing.

It'll be a packed few months, for sure! I think I'll make it... :P

Quick update, details in subsequent posts

2010-03-06T11:22:00.007-06:00

Sorry for the extended absence. I believe life is under some sort of control again such that I can return to blogging.

It turns out that my dad's tumor is more complicated than they originally thought. It is a mish-mash of three different kinds, so they can't tell us much about it. My family and I are forced to take the news as it comes rather than having some idea of what is next.

Dad is half-way through his first round of chemo and radiation. He's doing as well as we can expect given the fact that they're irradiating and poisoning his body. He's only had a little loss of appetite and some fatigue. We are happy with the state of things right now.

As far as school, I think I'm slowly getting back to where I was. I have new/additional plans to give me direction since the past plans didn't seem to help enough. I've enlisted outside help in the form of a career counselor. I want a better idea of my eventual career goal so I have a more solid idea of where I'm going.

In the mean time, I purchased a new-to-me bike for a very reasonable price: 2002 Giant TCR zero. If I plan to ride a century (100mi) this summer (which I do), a road bike is extremely useful. The only problem right now is that I don't know how much money I have due to slow university bureaucracy and I still need to buy some accessories for the bike (shoes, gloves, etc.).

In short, life is almost its normal, busy self and I'm enjoying it.

good and bad and lost

2010-01-21T23:11:00.004-06:00

My dad's brain tumor is cancerous and fast-growing. The surgery removed most of it. He went home from the hospital last Saturday and found out the basic diagnosis on Wednesday. He has an appointment next Tuesday to get the details and lay out treatment. I'm hoping for relatively good news and not bothering to prepare for bad news because I don't see any way to do that.

Silence due to intracranial mass

2010-01-16T01:01:00.002-06:00

While my silence here may not be unusual, the reason for it is. Here's the (abbreviated) story of the past few days.

My dad had a persistent headache for two or three weeks when my mom finally convinced him to see the doctor last week. The doctor scheduled an MRI for him this past Monday. The MRI showed a lime- or lemon-size intracranial mass (read: brain tumor) and he was immediately admitted to the hospital. I drove from Grad School Town back to Hometown on Tuesday, barely a week after I'd made the same drive the other way returning from my holiday visit. I packed enough clothes for a week since I had no idea how long I'd be staying.

The surgery to remove the tumor went "as well as [the doctors] hoped." They took out almost everything they intended to, leaving a little behind to avoid unnecessarily damaging his brain. Three hours after the surgery, my dad was looking around and chatting with everyone just as he was before the surgery. His recovery is going very well so far, so we are all relieved and happy. We still don't know what lays ahead for his continued recovery, but we are extremely thankful just to have him return from surgery as the same person.

I slept at the hospital Tuesday and Wednesday night. Last night I slept at my gramma's house since things seemed to have settled a bit more at the hospital. Shortly after I returned to the hospital today, Dad moved to the regular neurology wing. That means he has a private room, fewer monitors, and less frequent nursing checks. He and Mom should sleep better tonight. I'm sleeping at their house tonight and will return to the hospital tomorrow.

Dad will probably stay at the hospital at least through the weekend. We are taking it day-by-day until the pathology report comes in (probably by Wednesday). That should help us lay out a more long-term plan. Dad keeps saying he's going to fight this as hard as he can for his wife, his kids, and the rest his family and friends. "You can't hurt steel."

I don't know when I'll return to Grad School Town. Luckily, I brought everything I need if I get a chance to work or don't make it back in time for classes. Hopefully that will keep me from starting the semester too far behind. Posting may be sparse and/or brief.

New plan for a new year

2010-01-06T01:01:00.001-06:00

Welcome, everyone, to 2010! I hope your holidays went well.

2009 closed just the way I hoped it would: quiet, happy, with friends and family. I didn't even attempt work over the holidays, so I feel much refreshed on that front.

My biggest challenge last semester was that I didn't know where I was going or why I should care about my work. I wasn't sure I wanted to follow the professor path anymore, and I'm still not sure of that. But, I think I figured out a way to continue with grad school while exploring other options. It's at least worth a try. I should also get back to my motivational program from October. That was a good idea.

If I don't want to be a professor or researcher, why do I need a PhD? Maybe I don't, but it's not going to hurt. The experience of finishing a huge project can apply to myriad jobs. I'm particularly interested in science writing. I've always liked writing, and it's obvious that I like science enough to attempt a PhD. I also see poor or non-existent communication between scientists and the rest of the world. Perhaps I can make a real difference there.

I'm a little disappointed that I didn't try for a journalism degree in undergrad, but that would have added another year and another ~$17k in loans. I have enough school debt as it is. I'm not sure I can take J-school classes here, either. Most of them are reserved for journalism majors. (Why is that, by they way? It was the same in undergrad.) I emailed the teacher of an undergrad science writing course in a different department to see if the course would be useful to me. He suggested it'd be more useful to get an old journalism book and practice on my own since I already (presumably) know how to write. The Idiot's Guide to Journalism isn't exactly a textbook, but it's a start. And it cost me less than five dollars.

Here's my plan. I'll keep working on the PhD and try my darnedest to get the prelim out of the way before next fall semester starts. Then I'm not required to take any classes the rest of the time I'm in school. That will either free me to take whatever classes I want (whether or not they are related to my field) or to leave Uni-town altogether. I can treat PhD research more or less like a normal job, maybe even give myself a time sheet (that probably wouldn't last very long, but it's a funny idea). Then I can schedule at least a few hours a week to work on science writing type stuff. Those add to maybe 50-60 hours/week? If I decide science writing is not for me, I can easily replace it with something else and use the same general framework.

If my mom can handle a full-time job and two tech-school classes on top of normal life, I should be able to make this work, right? I just need a little more self-discipline than she does since I have much less accountability for my time and progress. Maybe a more quantitative plan... next post? We shall see.

Friday-Saturday, AGU 2009

2009-12-23T13:45:00.001-06:00

Friday was my big AGU day, the day of my poster session. One of my group's collaborators had a talk first thing in the morning, so we all got up early for that. It was quite good--one of the best I saw at AGU. We left a few talks later to pick up my poster from Kinko's. Along the way, we picked up some caffeine and breakfast from Peet's Coffee. I highly recommend the California Raisin Roll. It's like a honey bun filled with some creamy filling and raisins, then glazed. After all my (mock) worrying, the poster turned out fine. Huge, but fine. Like a good little group of lemmings, we all trooped back to Moscone South to put up my poster. The advisor had a lunch meeting planned and invited me and my lab mate to join them. My lab mate went along, but I declined. I wouldn't have as much chance to look at the posters in the afternoon as they would. That set me up for another solo lunch outing.

I wandered back to the hotel, checking menus posted in windows along the way to see if anything appealed to me. Cafe Mason seemed like a good option, so I grabbed my laptop and headed back there on my way to the afternoon poster session. I ordered a turkey club sandwich with fries. Not exciting in itself, but it was really well done. Thin sourdough toast, tomato, lettuce, turkey, and crispy bacon for the sandwich and light, non-greasy fries on the side. Perfect for a pre-poster session meal.

The poster session technically started a few minutes before I got back to Moscone South. This was my second poster presentation ever and I was late. Oh well. I met several scientists I knew only by name about my research. All of them gave positive feedback. If I told them my plans for wrapping up this work, they said they look forward to the publication. If they made suggestions before asking me about future work, it was already on my to-do list. In other words, I didn't get much new feedbck on my research, but the reassurance that someone values my work outside of my little research group was valuable, especially with my recent motivation issues. One of the scientists commented that my poster looked very nice, too (someday he'd learn to make a nice poster :P). If nothing else, I got to meet other people in my subfield and they got to associate my name with my work. I'd say the poster session was a success.

My group left the poster session an hour or so early since we had dinner planned in Berkeley. Most of the attendees were in the free beer line anyhow. We caught the BART to Berkeley and found Beckett's Irish Pub for dinner. I ordered a fish fry, which was again excellent. (I'm fairly certain this area does not know how to make bad food.) I didn't intend to order a drink unless something sounded particularly interesting. Of course, my lab mate found a something that fit that description a few minutes after we ordered our food: hot apple cider with brandy. How could I pass that up? It was tasty! I was stuffed and happy by the time we left the pub. We had a bit of time before we needed to catch the BART back to San Francisco, so we wandered the Berkeley campus. Beautiful campus, at least in the dark.

We'd hoped to fit Muir Woods in somewhere, but our flight was too early in the day to make it on Saturday. My advisor suggested a self-guided bike tour of the city instead. Sure, why not? San Francisco only has a few hills. Eight miles later, we'd toured a good chunk of the city between our hotel and the Golden Gate bridge. We ran out of time to cross the bridge. My advisor was sore the day after the long bike ride. I was fine :).

After returning the bikes and retrieving our luggage from the hotel, we made it to the airport with just enough time to grab a bite to eat and board our plane. The San Francisco adventure wound down with a 15-minute delay on the tarmac for air traffic control delays at our destination and a quiet flight back.

AGU09 blogging delay

2009-12-21T01:08:00.003-06:00

My last day of AGU and last two days in San Francisco were such a blur that I didn't get a chance to blog about them yet. Rest assured, I will get to it. It might be a few days, though, because I'm leaving for the holidays on Tuesday and have a full schedule until then.

Thursday, AGU 2009

2009-12-18T00:55:00.006-06:00

I haven't picked up my poster yet. Kinko's called me this morning to tell me that they couldn't laminate anything larger than 36" and my poster is 48" on its smaller dimension. I chose to have them print it on the regular paper anyhow and just not laminate it. So, it's printed. I just didn't get a chance to get it today since I refuse to go there by myself. The advisor and I will get it first thing in the morning. I promise.

Other than the slight snag with the poster, my little group had an interesting start to the morning. Mostly my lab mate. She was supposed to be registered for the conference, but they couldn't find her name on any of their registration lists around 7:30am, when registration first opened. She had an early morning talk that still wasn't uploaded. Our advisor and I didn't have any problems with registration, so he took her presentation to upload it and I stayed with her to get the registration worked out. She ended up paying for it on the spot (again). If AGU later finds that she was charged earlier, they won't actually charge her card. This is not a helpful beginning to the day of her first talk at a major conference.

Once she got her badge, we headed up to the speaker ready room. Our advisor texted her to let her know that her animations weren't working. They eventually got the issue fixed and re-uploaded her talk. The people running the room said that even though they uploaded it, the revisions may not make it to the room she'd be speaking in by the time her talk started. *cross fingers that it works*

We all trooped up to the room where she and my advisor were presenting nearly back-to-back. Her turn came up and the animations worked flawlessly. *whew* The advisor's talk went fine as well.

By the time lunch arrived, my advisor had disappeared and my lab mate left to meet a friend. I was on my own. Since I've never been to San Francisco before, I didn't want to eat at a chain restaurant even if it would be cheaper. I walked probably half a mile in god-awful uncomfortable shoes. My feet were killing me by the time I collected my matzo soup, sirloin with Brie sandwich, and banana from Soup Freaks. Instead of being smart and heading back to the hotel to change my shoes when I was already part way there, I hobbled back to the conference center to feast. All of my lunch was tasty and out of the ordinary. Perfect! I saved the banana for an afternoon snack.

Half way through the afternoon I finally gave up on my shoes. I felt like I was walking on stubs and the bones in my foot were trying to poke through at my ankle. That can't be a good sign. I planned to catch the shuttle bus back to the hotel... until I found out the bus doesn't run during the day. I walked back to the hotel, about half a mile again (everything is half a mile today). It was quite a painful walk, so I wasn't walking very fast by the time I got to my room. My feet were relieved when I pulled off the the modern torture devices.

I hung out at the hotel for a bit to let my feet rest, then headed back to the conference with the intent to see a few more talks. Instead, I ran into the department head and followed him and another professor to the exhibit hall to find free stuff. My favorite two items were a NASA calendar and a star-shaped five-color highlighter from DoE GCEP. Then I joined a bunch of people from my department to find dinner.

We hopped the cable car to Fisherman's Wharf (my first cable car ride!) and decided on the Sea Lion Cafe. It was the most expensive dinner I've ever had at $55 and per diem certainly won't cover it, but it was scrumptious. I had a plate of squash and onions, baby lobster tail, prawns, salmon, sea bass, and jasmine rice. I'd never had lobster, prawns, or sea bass before. There was also a dish of some sort of creamy citrus sauce, which complemented the lobster especially well. A couple of friends insisted that I consume alcohol, so I ordered a Sunset Splash--essentially a mix of rum and vodka with a splash of cranberry juice for color. It was strong and it was yummy. I have yet to find bad food here.

Our department group scattered pretty quickly after a failed attempt to find an open ice cream shop. All my little group has left at the conference is my poster tomorrow afternoon. If it wasn't for that, we'd probably fly out tomorrow. As it is, we're leaving Saturday afternoon. We may work in a trip to Muir Woods Saturday morning. I hear it's all the rage :P.

Let the San Francisco adventure begin! (AGU 2009)

2009-12-17T00:36:00.006-06:00

I put the finishing touches on my poster for a Friday poster session while flying to San Francisco (my companions--my advisor and a lab mate--finished their powerpoints on the plane, too). Our plane arrived at the San Francisco airport a little late tonight because of air traffic control issues (read: it's foggy). Then my advisor looked it over and approved it after a couple of minor revisions as we rode the BART (like DC's metro) to the hotel. We knew there were several Kinko's within walking distance of the hotel, but first order of business needed to be food.

My advisor, a lab mate, and I dropped our luggage at our hotel before walking to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. I had some excellent Salmon Teryaki (served with a small salad, miso soup, and rice). I ate a whole dinner in a reasonable amount of time with chopsticks! That is nothing short of amazing to me since I've never been very good with chopsticks. My companions had sushi. I've never been a big fan of sushi, but I didn't mind one of the kinds my lab mate shared with me. I should check with her what it was.

After dinner, my advisor and I set out to have my poster printed. The nearest Kinko's was only a few blocks away... and closed 20 minutes before we got there. Perhaps a quarter to a half a mile away, there was a 24-hour Kinko's. That'd work. Our path took us into an area that had progressively fewer (working) streetlights. Perhaps half the windows had bars on them and there seemed to be an abundance of local spray paint artists. Regardless, we soldiered on and found the store.

A very friendly employee greeted us. He asked what we needed printed and took us right to the computer to look at the file. When he double-clicked to see the contents of the memory stick, the computer claimed it was not formatted and asked if he wanted to format it. He did not understand what the question meant. I informed him that we did not want to format the memory stick. I'm still not sure if this was a mac/PC problem (I have a mac, they use PCs) or something else. He asked if we could send him the file. Sure, as long as I have my poster printed by tomorrow evening and it turns out well.

After our lovely sightseeing on the way to Kinko's, my advisor grabbed a taxi to take us back to our hotel. I jumped through all the required hoops to get on the free wireless, emailed my poster as a PDF (which involved a bit of patience since I was emailing a 20MB attachment), and confirmed the printing options when the friendly employee called me. My poster should be ready by late afternoon tomorrow. Thank goodness! I hope they print it correctly.

The fun of coincident exams and big conference

2009-12-15T09:53:00.004-06:00

Flying to AGU tomorrow. Poster will be printed in San Francisco since it is not done yet. I beg the five Kinko's within a mile of my hotel to not have simultaneous printing problems or large orders.

Final exam due in two hours. Stressed? No, of course not.

By the way, I've added myself to the AGU blogroll. I will be blogging what I can during the time I'm at the meeting (see the blogroll for more coverage).

December Scientiae 2009

2009-12-09T20:27:00.004-06:00

The call for posts asks for my wishes that would make my professional life easier. I always hesitate to think of these things because I'm afraid it will make me less satisfied with the current state of things. Occasionally, however, I think it is good to take stock of what can improve to see if any of it can be addressed. In light of that, here's my list, in no particular order (I have an unhealthy fondness for lists):

My work computer dies and I get a new one. The keyboard and touchpad on my little macbook don't always respond very quickly and there are visible ripples that emanate down the screen. That can't be good. If it's going to die, it may as well do it before the warranty is up.
I regain motivation and excitement for research and classes. This semester has been a struggle. I quickly lost interest in my classes and they turned into larger energy sinks than they should have been. Also, once I get the paper resulting from my MS research submitted, my research motivation should improve as I start on a new topic for my PhD. I always like starting new things better than wrapping up the details of old projects. I am hopeful for next semester.
Small windfall of money to help pay for new professional clothes. I have lost about 15 pounds since I bought my last dress pants and they are quite baggy. I'll have to remedy this one way or another by AGU next week
Doctor approval for me to return to my regular exercise activities. I strained a ligament in my knee just before Thanksgiving. The doctor does not want me returning to them until I'm evaluated by the sports clinic on campus. I have an appointment early next week. Since I leave for AGU on Wednesday and will only be in town for a few days between that and heading home for Christmas, so I may not get to jujitsu or rock climbing until January again. That makes me sad. It also makes it much harder for me to work off excess energy or frustration.
More regular advising and help setting goals from my advisor. I haven't heard much from him lately and I feel like I've been floundering a bit. Maybe this is just a natural process in which I need to be more self-directed. I don't know where along the continuum I should be by now

Number 1 is not likely. Number 2 is semi-likely, but its duration may be more questionable. Number 3 is not likely either, so I'll have to work that into my budget. Number 4 is only a matter of time, but I'm not very patient. I don't know if number 5 will happen unless I specifically ask for it. Maybe if my motivation returns I won't need this as much.

EOS Fall 2009

2009-12-06T23:11:00.000-06:00

I have two exams, one on Friday the other whenever I pick it up. I'm glad this god-forsaken semester is almost done. I'm tired of my classes.

I'm also preparing for AGU. I should be in the final throes, but I'm not. I'm still making figures. Then I need to design a poster and dream up content (based on the figures, of course). Anyone else going to AGU?

After the poster and probably after AGU itself, I'm supposed to submit a paper by the end of the year. I don't know if that'll happen. I hope it will just to get it over with. I want to be done with this stuff.

Then I can start on my PhD work and make the mad dash for my prelims and a conference in May. Does it ever stop or slacken?

For tonight, I'm tired. Goodnight.

Happy TG! My brief list of giving thanks

2009-11-25T10:11:00.005-06:00

It may be a bit of a cliche topic, but helpful things and people deserve recognition. Thanksgiving is a good time to remember that.

I'm thankful to have a secure, steady income. That's partly due to my advisor, partly due to the DoE, partly due to department policy. Between the three of them, they will not leave me without a paycheck unless I catastrophically fail (which then makes it my own damn fault).

I'm thankful that my advisor has been extremely flexible and let me chart my own path through grad school. It certainly isn't traditional, but so far it's working for me. He also makes my work easier by providing all the technical goodies I need or want (within reason :) ). Thank you, advisor!

I have to acknowledge my friends, family, research groupmates, and professors for their undying support through personal and professional challenges. I would be much worse off now if they hadn't been so understanding.

Despite all the difficulties of the past 2+ years, things are going surprisingly well. I attribute that largely to a supportive environment and understanding people. I suppose I should take some credit for it too, but that seems rather unimportant because this is just the way I function. Everything else is extra :)

Fall Break!!! Yay!!!

2009-11-24T21:30:00.003-06:00

Ahhh, fall break!

My mom may have helped me figure out why I've felt so apathetic towards school this semester (in addition to the stress of drama into the beginning of the semester and a bit of burn out from seminar, qual, and thesis in less than six months). I'm not excited about either of my classes this semester. They are both related to my research, but only indirectly. Well, two more weeks and they're over.

Next semester looks brighter class-wise. I'm taking a new class directly related to my research in my department. Granted, it is a bit of an unknown being a new class, but the course title is promising. It is also in a sub-field that I like, but find hard to grasp. Maybe this will help me understand it better.

I'm also taking intro Spanish. I took a year of Spanish in high school... ten years ago. I didn't retain much, as shown when I assumed that nombre had to do with numbers rather than name. It'll be a challenge to learn a year of college Spanish in one semester, especially since I cannot roll Rs to save my life.

Soggy and gloomy

2009-11-16T23:42:00.001-06:00

Rain, I am done with you. You may leave now.

Another deadline

2009-11-14T15:00:00.004-06:00

I returned to Grad School City on Wednesday. After hashing through recent drama with a friend Wednesday evening, taking a midterm Thursday morning, going to jujitsu Thursday night, and organizing finances Friday, I'm finally ready to say something here again.

Ahhhhhhh!

I also met with the advisor on Friday. He wants a paper draft by next Friday. He's okay that I don't have all the research done that I need to make the paper publishable. As long as I can write up something that looks like a journal article based on my thesis and whatever I've done since, it'll give us a starting point for the article. From there, I can add whatever details I produce and pretty up some figures before we submit.

Even though the idea is a bit daunting, I'm glad he's giving me a more concrete deadline. It should light a fire under my ass to get moving towards a more defined goal. We're hoping to get the paper submitted before Christmas and I have a poster at AGU, so stoke the fire!

Still, ahhhhhhh! But in a good way :)

Love, love, LOVE hot apple cider, especially spiced

2009-11-04T09:26:00.003-06:00

Please excuse a bit of a hiatus while I am away from internet access (only twice in the last four days!). Blogging will resume shortly.

Brought to you by a coffee house that serves tasty hot apple cider :D

back on track and rarely at home

2009-10-26T12:01:00.004-05:00

Monday... again. I haven't decided if these seem more or less frequent than they are, but they sure don't seem to come at the frequency they should.

I went to a family reunion this weekend. My great-grandparents have something like 300 descendants. Only a fraction of these people showed up, but it was still a sizable group. Given that my family is quite loud, this event was pretty sedate. I met a few more distant relatives and ate a lot of good food. My grandparents made sure to introduce me to the lone PhD in the family :).

I produced a bunch of plots for the meeting with my advisor last Friday. He was very pleased with the results. Unfortunately, that means we've expanded my to-do list :P. Most of the additions are details that I hope won't take too long.

I finally feel like I'm back on track with research. I think it really helped that I got my house set up and clean the way I want it. It feels comfortable again. I also think my weekends away have helped. I needed to get out of town and do some new things. I've noticed a bit of a dichotomy between academic success and happiness. I'm generally not very happy when I'm doing really well in school, and I'm generally not doing as well as I would like in school when I'm at my happiest. Maybe this time I can combine happiness and academic success. It's been working for a week or two now... :P

My advisor is gone this week until Friday. We have a meeting scheduled Friday morning and I drive to my parents' again Friday afternoon. After a brief visit with some family, I'm catching a flight out of town for a week and a half. I'm unbelievably excited about this trip. I haven't had a real vacation in over two years. Even though I will probably do some research while I'm gone, I expect to have a great time.

random update

2009-10-19T22:06:00.003-05:00

Huh, it's Monday again.

I went home for a dress fitting for my brother's wedding over the weekend. Did you know that they use clamps to hold the dresses on when you try on the samples in the store? Some of them were so big on me that I had a hard time telling how they'd actually fit.

I also tried on a couple of dresses from high school. I had to borrow some chip clips from my mom to keep those on. Apparently I'm significantly smaller than I was in high school.

As far as research, I finally figured out the problem with my code that was giving me 170 lines of zeros. Either the input or output variable list did not match between the function call and the function heading. I'm surprised it ran at all.

My new motivational program

2009-10-12T21:12:00.002-05:00

I finally made some progress on research today! It may be modest, but it's a good start. And it resulted from a method that I can keep using to get me back to where I was.

Last night, just before I went to bed, I made a short list of tasks for today. Some were home things, some were work. It is nowhere near my full to-do list. Then today, I got up and started on the list right away. It was much less daunting that trying to choose something from my full list. I also spent less time deciding what I wanted to do and less time task-hopping (don't like what I'm doing, try something else, repeat).

If I don't complete the list, none of it has to carry over to the next day. This allows me to start every day fresh... no guilt, no punishing myself for what I didn't do the previous day. Today was my first day doing this, so I'll let you know how it progresses.

Things are settling

2009-10-07T16:18:00.004-05:00

Well, well, it seems I've taken a bit of a break from here again. At least they're getting shorter.

So much has happened recently... new experiences, new plans.

The personal issues are resolved. At home, I've been working on redecorating and cleaning. What a difference all that is making! I feel much less cramped in my house. And the second bedroom is usable as a guest room because I moved all the kitties' stuff into a cubby in the kitchen. The kitties are adjusting well to the new arrangement. I want to find them another bed or two, but there is no rush on that. I'm also hoping to find an inexpensive futon on craigslist for the guest room.

At work, I've been keeping up with my class that actually has homework. The other class is mostly reading. I've been a bad student and not read most of the "required" reading. I'm catching the gist of everything in lectures, at least. I subbed for my advisor's class yesterday--that was fun. Several of the students complimented me on the lecture, so I guess it went well. I haven't gotten to research yet. I am quite unhappy with myself for that, but trying not to be too hard on myself.

As far as new plans, I started jujitsu. It seems to fit me well, so I ordered a judogi, the uniform that's required if you join the club. I also tried judo, but I'm not as excited about that group for a couple of reasons: I don't really want to compete and I feel like the jujitsu club has a better sense of safety. I've come home sore from both of them :). It's a good kind of sore.

I'm also traveling a lot over the next month and a half. After this coming weekend, I have four weekends away from home, then one or two at home, then Thanksgiving. I know this doesn't seem like the "normal" semester I hope for, but this is better than that. I've always wanted to travel more. Occasionally (every few weeks to every couple of months) I get a feeling that I can only describe as wanderlust. I feel like I need to get out of town and go somewhere. Visiting my parents does not satisfy this unless I get to do something new with people I don't usually see. Some of my travel this fall will fit perfectly.

Since I haven't done research yet, I'll leave this as a short update with no interesting stories or useful discussion. Just so you know that I still haven't defied gravity and fallen off the Earth.

Grad student confessional

2009-09-21T09:50:00.004-05:00

Forgive me, advisor, for I have stalled. It has been seven weeks since I've done research and at least two since I've backed up my computer. I really want to get back to research, I swear. The personal issues are nearly resolved, so I hope this will happen soon.

Granted, I finished my master's in two years while carrying a heavy load of person ordeals and TAing a semester (not common in my department). And I haven't backed up my computer because I recently wiped its hard drive, haven't done any research since then, and need to reformat my backup drive as well. Perhaps I should just blame the equipment... except that my guilty conscience is less understanding than my advisor and would never accept that excuse.

I am quite lucky that my advisor has been so accommodating. My current situation would be much worse without that.

Thank you.

haitus... again

2009-09-16T06:42:00.005-05:00

Research hasn't happened lately. I'm keeping up with my classes, so that's at least good. Posting has been sparse and will continue to be sparse while I work out some unbloggable, non-professional issues. Sorry :/

ugh

2009-09-02T22:36:00.002-05:00

I live in a soap opera (but it's so much more than that).

Let the semester begin! I said, BEGIN!

2009-08-27T13:08:00.005-05:00

On the fourth day of the new semester, I don't feel any different.

In an uncharacteristic bit of procrastination, I have not yet purchased the required book for one of my classes. Speaking of classes, I have two this semester. The one I mentioned above is a stats class, which should be useful for research but may not be particularly interesting in itself. The other, which I'm first attending this afternoon, is on the economics and law of global warming. That one sounds interesting on its own merits. I may be the only scientist in a room full of law students.

I'm now an actual PhD student, but I'm still refining my MS research for publication. I have more motivation to start on PhD work because it will be new and I have the opportunity to make some big strides quickly. With the MS work, I'm mostly wrapping up details. Granted, these details will significantly strengthen the research, but they don't provide any great visible progress. I also need to clean up some of the background sloppiness of my MS research. None of it should affect results, but it will substantially improve re-usability. Somehow, I need to find motivation to tie up loose ends before moving on to something shiny and new.

stories of mother-scientists

2009-08-23T19:50:00.004-05:00

My sudden absence again was due to a family camping trip. Besides the dead car battery in the middle of the trip, it was rather unexciting: two days of driving for four days of camping. I did enjoy getting out of town for a bit and getting some reading done.

During the four days of actual camping, I read quite a bit. I finished a book about scientist-mothers, Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory. While I probably won't do actual lab work, these mothers' stories contain useful compromises and warnings for my future. Between that and Mama, PhD, I've gotten a good reality check on the benefits and challenges of career and family. I highly recommend both of them.

Proposed method of taking research notes

2009-08-12T22:28:00.005-05:00

After several days of thought and input from a friend (thanks hankdmoose), I think I've come up with a good way to take research notes while I work on my PhD (see #4 in Master's as PhD training).

For my master's degree, I made dated entries into a single text document. I thought it would be easy to take notes while I worked since most of my research requires a computer. The text document was right there with all my other windows. What seemed like an advantage turned out to be a problem. My notes document got lost among all the other windows I had open. I also couldn't sketch diagrams, tables, or figures.

These notes were not very useful a month or two after I'd written them, much less by the time I wrote my thesis. It made me exceedingly glad that I did a master's degree on the way to a PhD. If I had used this method for a PhD, writing my dissertation would have been pure nightmare (I mean, more than it will be already).

As a result, I've devised a new plan. I have high hopes for this one. It is more complex and requires more time, but ultimately it should save me a lot of aggravation and time.

For daily notes, I'll use an old-fashioned notebook and pen. That way it will not get lost in my digital mess and I can carry it with me wherever I go. It will also give me tangible evidence of my accomplishments each day, something that is scarce in scientific research. I will use a contrasting color of pen to tag each daily entry with relevant key words so I can easily find related entries. To maintain consistency, I'll keep a running list of tags inside the front cover of the notebook, probably on a replaceable sheet of paper so I can organize them. (My current plan is to make two blocks of tape on the inside of the cover itself and tape a sheet of paper to the blocks of tape. That way the sheet of paper is easily replaceable.)

To make my notes more searchable by keyword, I'll post a weekly summary to a private blog (thanks to mareserinitatis for the blog idea). I'm not using the blog as my main medium because I know I won't take regular notes if I have to go to a web page to do it (much like the problem I had using a text file). The blog will also give me a more concise version of my notes so I can filter train-of-thought ramblings that will undoubtedly show up in my notebook. While I may not be able to easily include diagrams in a blog, I can more easily include actual figures I produce simply by linking to them. If I'm really desperate to include a hand-drawn diagram, I can scan it.

I'm really excited to see how this new method works. I hope it will make my dissertation a bit easier and make my research progress more smoothly. It is one of many habits I need to improve and piecewise progress is still progress.

One advantage of being a minority

2009-08-05T09:53:00.004-05:00

There is at least one distinct advantage to attending a male-dominated workshop. The ratio of women to women's bathroom stalls is 7:5.

No lines. Ever.

Two days into the Petascale Workshop

2009-08-04T21:05:00.000-05:00

Now that have reached the end of my self-imposed research hiatus, I am not working on research. Instead, I'm attending the Scaling to Petascale workshop this week. This should give me a good introduction to massively parallel computing, which I hope will be useful for running the Weather Research and Forecasting model as part of my PhD research.

I was late to the workshop on Monday because some genius thought it'd be fun to throw eggs at my car overnight. Around 7:20am, I found yellow goo smeared across the side of my car and broken egg shells littering the road. After half an hour of scrubbing the side of my car with dish soap, I got most of it off.

However, I could not head straight to the workshop. I had to first take my car through an automated car wash to get the dish soap off (yay, its first car wash since I bought it a little over two years ago!). I still need to find some clear coat touch-up to fix some chips where the egg hit. At least the whole thing only cost me about $4 plus a bit of clear coat touch-up. I missed part of the opening speakers, but nothing substantial.

A continental breakfast of the usual pastries and fruit was provided, so I decided I'd eat breakfast at home the rest of the week. Honestly, I've had a very hard time paying attention to the speakers. I really want to be interested enough that it holds my attention. I think a lot of the concepts we're learning are neat, but I'm somehow unable to pay attention for more than a few minutes without doing something else.

Part of it is lack of sleep (nine hours between Sunday and Monday nights), but it's also difficult to listen to computer science talks, especially when the speaker has a heavy accent. I find the workshop as a whole overwhelming. The talks involve a lot of terminology that I don't understand even when it is clearly pronounced and they are pretty dense. Programming is better learned through experience than through lectures anyhow. I'm hoping that the presentations and websites will be enough to help me through the example exercises, which seem very good.

Master's as PhD training

2009-07-30T00:56:00.000-05:00

In completing a master's degree, I learned a few things that will help me immensely in maintaining sanity while working on my PhD. Most of them derive from mistakes I feel I made in the way I handled research for my master's degree. Without further ado, here are my lessons:

update reference manager tags as soon as I add a new reference--It makes it really difficult to find things when I don't keep them consistently tagged.
start writing the literature review as early as possible--It is a nasty beast.
start notes for other sections of dissertation asap--This would force me to think of my current work as part of a larger project so that I stay focused on a single large-scale goal and remember how all the smaller parts fit together
take copious notes on daily progress and problems--I confronted several similar problems throughout my master's research and I had to re-solve them every time because I didn't remember how I did it the last time. This would also help me write my dissertation and work more efficiently because I wouldn't have to spend so much time and effort trying to figure out what I did and did not do.
note the next steps I need to take the next day to keep work flowing smoothly--A running to-do list is not good enough. It needs to tell me what to do next so I can dive right into work every morning.
have an idea of the structure and content of target publications while working--This should help keep me focused on a publishable, coherent line of research. It should also help me keep my thoughts organized.

Now all I need to figure out is how to make sure I implement these ideas. I bought a notebook for taking notes while I work. I haven't decided if this will just be research notes or if I will also use it to tell myself what the next steps are when I leave work every day. My plan will also involve more pre-planning and administrative time, but I think that will save sanity and time overall. Administrative time can be kind of therapeutic, anyhow.

Next week I have a workshop on supercomputing. The following week I'll start revising my thesis for publication and start implementing some pre-planning and organization for my PhD. Exciting stuff!

Next Step: Prelim, but first a week off

2009-07-26T15:49:00.003-05:00

So I just finished my master's degree--deposited the thesis on Friday. I'm taking a week off from work as part of my reward/celebration. Despite this break from actual work, some part of the back of my mind is working on the next step.

Since I've already passed the qualifying exam, my next big hurdle is the preliminary exam. The qualifying exam was a written test that took ten hours over a day and a half. It tested me on everything I've ever learned in atmospheric sciences. For the preliminary exam, I'll have to write and defend a proposal of my planned PhD research (and I have to choose a PhD committee). After that, I research, write my dissertation, and defend the dissertation.

Looking at the next step, I am a bit intimidated. According to the online description of the prelim, I need to write the proposal and prepare the defense without help from anyone. I've never done this before. I have a few versions of a fellowship proposal that won me three years of funding from which to start, but this proposal needs to be much more detailed and longer than the ones for fellowships.

I think seeing an example or two will help. If I can't get advice specifically about my proposal, I can at least use other people's proposals and presentations as examples so I know the structure and quality it needs.

In any case, I may not be starting on that right away in a hugely meaningful way. I still need to polish the research and writing from my thesis to make a paper or two. I also need to introduce myself to some tools I'll be using in my PhD research. I hope to wrap this up well before the end of the fall semester and get a good start on my prelim proposal before the end of the year so I can present it by the end of next summer.

Aaaand, we're back! Four months to the day.

2009-07-22T22:16:00.006-05:00

Whew, I've been away for a while! In the last post, I had just presented my required department seminar. Now that it is four months later, I have passed the PhD qualifying exam, procured a Department of Energy fellowship, and finished my thesis (which will be deposited Friday or early next week). In less than a week, I will have a master's degree. *yay!*

I have also discovered that I seem to have a problem acknowledging the magnitude of my accomplishments. I seem to think that having a camcorder set up to record my seminar, the first recorded seminar in department history, is a bigger deal than:

making my first poster
presenting said poster at my first grant-funded conference
winning a department award for said poster
presenting my department seminar in my fourth semester
passing the PhD qualifying exam at the end of my fourth semester, before finishing my master's degree (apparently this is not normal)
finishing my master's degree in two years with enough research to possibly make two papers,

which I did in a little under a year. Is it sinking in yet? That's a hell of a lot of stuff!

I think I'm starting to understand that, but the transition from a lifetime of minimizing accomplishments either to fit in or to avoid becoming an egotistical asshole is slow. I'm still worried about the latter, so I hope someone will tell me if I start down that path.

My brain is recovering...

2009-03-22T16:59:00.001-05:00

I have not, in fact, disappeared off the face of the Earth. I just finished my seminar and a literature review for an NSF-style proposal that is the semester project for my class.

The seminar is an oddly justifiable and valuable means of torture. I spent three weeks working 12-15 hours most days leading up to the seminar. The house went to hell, my sleep went to hell, and I may have told the kitties to go to hell at some point.

I've never been very comfortable speaking to large groups, nor very good at it. Somehow, this seminar was amazingly successful. I got good ratings from the group at large and a couple of people even commented that it would shame most conference talks and many invited seminars. Maybe I can do this scientist thing after all.

After all the stress of preparing the seminar, studying for the qual, and immediately having to write a literature review for my class (due today), I am again questioning my intended career path. A large research university seems to fit my skills and interests best as far as the balance between teaching and research, but I'm not sure I want the pressure to perform and publish that comes with that job.

I still want to teach and do research, so I don't think I want to work at a teaching university. (I understand that professors at teaching universities still do research, but I think I'd rather it be a more explicit and significant part of my job.) I don't want to be a researcher because that tends to remove teaching. Maybe a researcher who does a lot of outreach? Or maybe I can still do this professor thing after all, too.

How does grad school compare to being a professor as far as stress and time consumption? And where's that advisor of mine?

Friday accomplishment

2009-01-30T20:56:00.001-06:00

This semester it is especially important for me to find stress relief. I don't feel unusually stressed (yet), but I have a tendency to not realize how stressed I am until I'm strained beyond easy remedy. It takes days to recover.

I've also finally found enough incentive to get some exercise, mostly to strengthen my shoulder area. Exercise for the purpose of exercise has never appealed to me. As a result, I've never been able to stick with an exercise program or even to classes.

You may guess, rightly, that these goals can intersect. It's been a twisted path to figuring out what may work for me. I considered a work-out buddy and forcing myself into a gym, drop-in classes at the campus rec center, and looked around my office for suitable weights to lift. I haven't completely discounted the last one, but the others would never stick. What other options are there?

Thanks to an officemate, I may have come up with the perfect upper-body supplement to the lower-body and cardiovascular exercise of skating and biking. I've done it before, enjoyed it immensely, but never though about doing it consistently because of cost. The campus rec center opened a new facility that will make it very affordable (assuming they don't jack up the prices as demand increases). Can you guess what it is yet?

It's rock climbing. Well, wall climbing to be more accurate. I know I'm not supposed to pull myself up with my arms. I'm not looking to do pull-ups all the way up the wall. But it takes the exact kind of strength I'm trying to build to keep myself on the wall.

Maybe I can even convince the boyfriend to go ;).

a ditty for late-night proposals

2009-01-11T23:52:00.002-06:00

A-proposing we will go, a-proposing we will go,
Hi-ho the funding-o, a-proposing we will go

Happy 2009!

2009-01-01T19:57:00.004-06:00

First of all, Happy New Year! I hope 2009 maintains any goodness from 2008 and adds some of its own.

Now, here are my goals for 2009:

apply for a few more fellowships: three to be exact. The research proposal is already written, so I'd need to revise it to fit each application.

present master's seminar in February. This is a bit of a gimme. I already have a large part of the seminar ready and I will present wherever my research is.

pass qual in May. Part of this is making sure I still enjoy my life while I'm studying for the qual. My brain will more effectively remember things if I get enough sleep and take breaks from studying.

submit thesis by August deposit deadline, which is in late July. This might be a bit of a stretch, but there's always October as a back-up.

incorporate regular exercise into my schedule, both as stress relief and to strengthen my problematic neck-shoulder-back muscles.

take a real vacation. I haven't had a vacation since I moved to GradState, and it has been a particularly stressful year and a third.

find a place to rent where the boyfriend and I can stay until I'm done with school. We want space to expand in addition to having enough space for us right now.

take vitamin daily. I was doing really well with this until sometime last spring (I think).

do something for other people. I don't have any details about this. The boyfriend's goals for 2008 suggest donating blood. I'll consider it, even though last time I donated I nearly passed out.

2008 in review is yet to come...

anti-anxiety/anti-depression meds

2008-12-21T13:24:00.002-06:00

A recent post at Candid Engineer inspired me to share a somewhat different, though not conflicting experience with anti-anxiety/anti-depression medication.

I was on an SNRI for about a year to prevent migraines. It also reduced unaddressed depression and anxiety. Actually, it completely got rid of any depressive symptoms (my mom said I was a cheerleader) and reduced my anxiety to a probably undesirable level.

While I was overall much more cheerful, my grades suffered tremendously. My semester GPA dropped a full letter grade in one year because I could not focus on school work. This laid a somewhat shaky foundation for advanced undergrad studies for which I had to compensate later. The experience did, however, show me that there is not nearly as much to be anxious or depressed about as I previously believed. Even after I went off the medication, I was less anxious and depressed.

I've tried to hold on to that learning experience, but the farther removed from it I am, the harder it is to recall. I do not have nearly as many problems with depression as I used to, but the anxiety seems to be progressively returning. I know many of the thoughts are unreasonable. Sometimes I just can't stop the unreasonable ones and can't reign in the ones that are reasonable but overgrown.

I know this contributes to my headaches/migraines because many of them start as tension headaches and turn into migraines. I've also come across another problem recently: if I hold my arms above my head for too long, my forearms start to hurt. It takes quite a while for the discomfort to go away. The doctor said it is probably something pinching the blood vessels in my shoulders (I suspected this). I'm guessing the cause is also muscular. I'm working on a bit of a solution to this (strengthen the muscles by going to the gym). Perhaps more exercise will also help the anxiety, or maybe it will add to it because I will have one more demand on my time.

I do not have the courage to try meds for this unless it becomes unbearable. The psychologist I once talked to said it sounds like I'm just a more anxious person and don't require extensive treatment. I stopped going shortly after that due to time constraints and not being convinced that it would do me any good. Perhaps it's time to try it again. I need better stress and anxiety management.

A leg up?

2008-12-11T02:35:00.001-06:00

During a student discussion with a faculty candidate, it came out that undergraduate mentors often help their students navigate their way to grad school. How prevalent is this? What exactly do advisors do to help their students? Some students even have the advantage of having parents in academia. How much of a benefit do both these provide?

my personality based on this blog

2008-11-26T21:55:00.003-06:00

Thanks to a link at professing mama, my blog has been analyzed to determine my personality. It's pretty close, but not completely accurate.

ISTP - The Mechanics

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

macs are not wonderful

2008-11-25T20:17:00.003-06:00

30 slides.

I know, I'm not sticking to NaBloPoMo at all. That's okay because I say it is.

I've been hoping for a while that my work macbook would give up and die (I won't intentionally kill it, but I'd like to). It randomly restarts sometimes and I don't know how to reproduce the problem on demand so the IT people can locate the problem. I've been carrying two laptops to work in case this one suddenly decides to take a dump.

This computer has been a problem from the start. It's DVD drive had to be replaced after a few months. It was out for almost a month for that. Then over the summer it started the random restarts. It was in the shop for a little over a month. First, it took a week and a half for them to reproduce the problem, then they didn't know how to fix it. They tried replacing several parts. I'm still not sure what they settled on...I think they only replaced the main board.

The macbook worked okay for a while, but it started randomly restarting a few weeks ago. I used the temporary fix (take out battery, unplug, and hold power button down to reset something) so I could back up some stuff and I haven't been able to reproduce the problem since. I took it to the department IT people anyhow. They ran all the diagnostics they have on the hardware and nothing showed up. All they could do was tell me to hope it dies. My advisor and the IT people want to throw it off the top of the building.

The disease itself is kind of interesting. It starts with not-so-random restarts. When it has been sitting for a bit and I move it, it restarts. If the computer is on battery power, it restarts without my input. If it is plugged in, it asks me to restart it, but doesn't give me another option (at least that's a bit more polite). As the disease progresses, it gets ruder and never asks me to restart. Eventually it restarts whenever it wants to (don't have to move it to make it restart) and may get stuck at the grey start-up screen. If it gets stuck on start-up, it emits the first half a second or so of the start-up sound once every one or two seconds.

Needless to say these computer issues have been an impediment to my research. If the computer would just die, I might get a new one that doesn't have so many problems. Failing that, I could rely completely on my personal laptop. It's not as powerful of a computer, but it seems more reliable.

random tidbits

2008-11-16T01:03:00.004-06:00

I may be the first person ever to start working on her seminar almost three months before it is scheduled. I have 27 slides so far that show me exactly where I need more explanation.

It seems that a bit of caffeine makes me more able to stay away (duh) but also makes me more cheerful. Caffeine also prevents headaches by not making me fight to stay awake and concentrate. This does not apply to migraines, just simple headaches (which could, however, turn into migraines if left unchecked).

I'm tired and I have an orchestra concert tomorrow. I'll have to update more later.

starting seminar early

2008-11-12T22:29:00.002-06:00

I've started my seminar powerpoint. My seminar is February 4th of next year. I figure this way I can see where the holes are earlier and have plenty of time to fill them. No rushing to finish at the end for me.

Thesis agreement? What thesis agreement?

2008-11-11T15:16:00.004-06:00

Yah, I know. I fail some more at NaBloPoMo. But at least it's reminding me more often to post something.

I've somewhat regained my brain, I think. In my department, there is this thing called a thesis agreement that is supposed to be submitted before you start any significant research. It outlines a project that the student and advisor agree is reasonable for a master's degree. It is intended to protect the student from added expectations and the advisor from a slacker student.

I'm in my second year of the master's program and expect to finish by August 2009 (then continue directly into a PhD). My thesis agreement is still not submitted. I just sent a draft of it to my advisor this afternoon.

This may seem like a problem since it conflicts with the departmental guidelines. However, it is not an issue at all. From what I've heard, most students don't submit their thesis agreements on time. I'm comparatively on-the-ball.

That seems to be the way in academia...

braaaaiiiiins!

2008-11-06T13:11:00.001-06:00

Fellowship application is submitted. Finally. Now I wait.

so far, I fail at NaBloPoMo

2008-11-05T00:34:00.004-06:00

I didn't post November 3rd, and technically I didn't post November 4th. I claim this post as my November 4th post because I haven't slept yet.

I barely started working on research again when I got feedback from my advisor on the fellowship proposal. At least I got my mind partially wrapped around the program I need to expand. I haven't looked at it in months. Friday starts my focus on research again. Three months from today, I need to have enough done to give my seminar.

I finished the fourth draft of my fellowship proposal today. That consumed about eleven hours of the day. My life has been exceedingly dull because of this major time sink. Tomorrow should be a bit more interesting. I'll at least go out to dinner to celebrate my officemate's seminar completion. Otherwise I expect a lot of the same through Thursday to finalize the proposal.

shopping sucks

2008-11-02T19:52:00.003-06:00

This was an unproductive weekend. Yesterday I went to a hockey game and that's about it. Today I went bra shopping. That is a major accomplishment considering how much it usually pisses me off. Unfortunately for something that fit comfortably, I spent $100 on four bras. I hate bra shopping, I hate the bra industry, and men must design them because most of them fit like shit. And to Victoria's Secret: how can a bra possibly be worth $48? You're ridiculous.

Still no word from the advisor on any of the fellowship stuff.

I'm currently battling a migraine (again). It's not really bad, but it has potential. If this round of over-the-counter stuff doesn't work, it's on to prescription meds.

I hope tomorrow is more productive. I at least have class in the morning, ice skating around lunch time, and orchestra in the evening. I have to do something tomorrow. I also hope the advisor gets back to me in a major way on the fellowship essays and proposal.

By the way, count this as my second post of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). My goal is to write one post here every day. Some may be short and unexciting, but this blog has gotten a slow start due to my busy semester. NaBloPoMo should provide some motivation to pay more attention to writing, which is somewhat therapeutic for me.

I'm trying to be patient...this is not the first time it hasn't worked very well

2008-11-01T22:52:00.002-05:00

The boyfriend says I'm not a very patient person and in many cases he's right. This fellowship application is a prime example.

I emailed my advisor all the written portions last Thursday for him to comment on. I got comments on the first half of a two-page proposal Friday around lunch time. I emailed him an edited version that addressed all but one comment so I could get some more input on the second half and see if I'd interpreted his comments correctly.

I have yet to receive another email on the proposal. There are also two other written parts to this fellowship, neither of which he has read. I realize that he has family obligations, especially having been out of the country for two weeks and now his wife being out of town, but I really want to get this thing out of the way so I can return to research. And it's due Thursday, which doesn't leave much time for procrastinating if I do more than one round of edits on it.

Did I mention that this is my first proposal, so much of my first draft is guessing what a proposal is supposed to look like? It's going to take more than one edit to get it reasonably good and within the page limit.

It'd be nice if I could blame someone, but it's been an accidentally badly scheduled semester all around. The advisor wasn't supposed to teach, but another faculty member bailed on his class after the semester schedule was made. My advisor got to take up the slack. That means that next semester he'll be teaching one class instead of two with very little travel--just in time for both of his advisees to be studying for the qual.

Speaking of his other advisee, I feel bad for her, too, because she's trying to put together her seminar, a required part of a master's degree, so she can graduate in December. Her research has not been going as planned and she's been very stressed. It's more evidence for the bad timing of everything this semester.

I've also received preliminary news that my spring semester will be rearranged in such a way that I won't get much break over winter break, but more on that once the details are confirmed.

Second post of the day so I can catch up and blog about something current for once

2008-10-30T18:10:00.004-05:00

I know, when it rains, it pours, and now I've given you two posts at once after a week and a half of nothing. At some point I'd like to return to blogging about current events. No time better than the present, right?

Recent events have caused me to disappear from my journal and blog. I hope to remedy that now that a couple of deadlines and other important dates have passed. What were these events, you may ask. Well, I'll tell you (and I'm not going to sing it)...

When I got back from the conference late on October 1st, I had to catch up on a week and a half or two weeks of class work that I'd ignored while working on my poster. It was worth ignoring classes to the extent I could because my first ever poster turned out quite nice. I was somewhat disappointed with the poster session, as I mentioned, but the poster itself looked good and had good information on it. I think the problem was more with the conference and lack of interest than the poster itself.

Back to the missed class work...I had a homework assignment due the second day back in town, which I finished on time, and loads of reading. Reading is easy to ignore.

I was also a bit burned out on research because of spending so much time working on my poster before the conference, so I needed a break. My first full week back, I did very little research and focused on classes and house stuff. Did I mention that housework was very low on my priority list? Frankly, the house was a mess. It hasn't really recovered yet and I don't expect it to recover until we have to pack everything up to move out. The boyfriend and I will be very busy next semester, wo I expect to be eating a lot out of boxes, bags, and cans.

My advisor was also very busy. He only had a week and a half before a two-week international trip to attend two conferences back-to-back. His wife had already been alone with their two small children through the other conference and single-handedly cared for them while he went to the international conferences. In the time between travel, he needed to give her a break to get some of her work done (she's finishing her dissertation). He also needed to work on a seminar, a talk or two, and a poster. I tried to bother him as little as possible.

Then the advisor was gone for two weeks in a foreign country with poor internet access. He was barely available via email. I spent the first week of that reading background papers for a fellowship proposal. The second week I worked on massive data transfer and processing. The computing cluster I was putting it on had a few issues with its setup, so those had to be worked out in the process, and I initially didn't have the permissions I needed to put the files in the correct directories. It took a large part of the week to get all that worked out. I also learned a bit more about shell and batch scripting, which I'm sure will be useful in the future.

Now that the advisor is back, things are getting a bit easier and moving more quickly. He's still busy this week because he's filling in for the person who subbed for him last week, but he'll be in town for the rest of the semester.

The long-promised post-poster post: not very exciting

2008-10-30T17:27:00.003-05:00

Written in early October, shortly after the conference. I've been swamped with a variety of activities, which I will relate when I get a chance to write about them.

The poster presentation went well. I'm disappointed that I got so few new ideas from the poster session, but at least it gave me confidence that there is nothing terribly wrong with my research. No one asked very tough questions--many of them I had to answer with "that's part of my future work" because my current results are very preliminary. The meeting as a whole was underwhelming in quality and interest, and too long. I was ready to leave after I presented my poster.

Going back in time a bit, I think my time management worked as well as any could have. There was no way for me to know how much time my poster would require. I finished it the afternoon it was due, though I would have preferred to finish it a bit earlier in the day so I could have taken a nap. I see no reason to try to schedule my time further because I think it would only add stress to try to stick to a schedule.

As outlined in my recent post about the qual, my overall strategy will probably have to change again. I'll need to work hard and quick on research through January so I can submit the paper my advisor wants by the end of spring and have enough for a seminar in mid-late April. If those two work out, I will naturally have enough done to write my thesis over the summer (or nearly so).

I'm a bit irritated about the change in qual time, but part of that I'm sure is because I had everything planned out and had already accepted the good and bad of the situation. I'm also concerned about putting the final touches on a paper for publication while I'm preparing a seminar and studying for the qual. That is very similar to the situation my officemate would be in for the January qual. The advisor approves of either qual schedule, so at least I won't have to worry about that.

Analyzing scientists at a meeting: 5 of 5

2008-10-19T22:24:00.001-05:00

Written 10/1/08, posted later
This is the fifth and final post from the grant agency meeting.

The organization of this meeting is okay. The schedule could have used some proof-reading. Today there were two talks scheduled for the same time. Yesterday there was a 15-minute void.

My poster was also listed wrong. The title was completely wrong and it was listed under my advisor's name on the printed list. At least they fixed it on the website.

There was half an hour at the end of each sessions for discussion, but each half hour was way over-scheduled. It was another case of scientists-have-no-sense-of-time. These discussions were also dominated by a few people each time. They were generally not terribly enlightening. They more served as a summary of the session, so if you were listening to the talks, the summary was useless.

My advisor seemed to know that this meeting would be dull and hinted that most academic meetings are like this. I suppose I'll have to suffer through them for quite a while. When I am my own PI, I'll be able to choose the meetings I attend and I'll choose ones that are more generally interesting to me. I hope to include some that emphasize education as well as science research.

Anyone want to ruin my rosy view of the future?

Up next: the post-poster post

Analyzing scientists at a meeting: 4 of 5

2008-10-12T00:22:00.001-05:00

Written 10/1/08, posted later
This is the fourth post from the grant agency meeting.

Why is something considered unprofessional in a young scientist seen as funny or charming in an older scientist?

Why is disrespectful behavior more tolerated at a meeting than in a classroom? I've heard conversation that makes it difficult to hear the speaker and cell phones ringing, sometimes quite loudly. Many people (like me) have been using laptops during talks, and I doubt they are all taking notes on the talks. It is regular practice for a scientist to finish a talk at a meeting during another scientist's talk.

I realize that there is some difference between professional meetings and classes, but why is there such a divergence in manners? A teacher would never tolerate a ten-minute quiet-down period at the beginning of a class.

Such conduct also makes me wonder if these scientist respect each other equally or if there is a hierarchy (either well-defined or varying by person).

Analyzing scientists at a meeting: 3 of 5

2008-10-07T09:34:00.002-05:00

Written 10/1/08, posted later
This is the third post from the grant agency meeting.

I do not like traveling alone. Granted, the advisor is at this meeting, too, but I do not want to follow him everywhere. That leaves me confined to my hotel after dark because it is not safe for me to walk around alone at night.

Last night I had to get my supper quickly because the sun was setting. I ended up settling for a meatball sub. I got no dessert because it would have cost at least $10 from a hotel restaurant.

I know of no remedy for this besides going places with random people from the meeting or traveling with more people. The former is difficult because I'd be tied to whoever I left with, whether or not I wanted to do everything they wanted to do. The latter is difficult because I don't have a choice when I travel for work. I did not even include my usual idea to carry a spiked bat because I think I'd be arrested and it'd be difficult to get through airport security.

At least this is not a big sight-seeing location or I'd be even more disappointed.

Analyzing scientists at a meeting: 2 of 5

2008-10-03T20:18:00.002-05:00

Written 10/1/08, posted later
This is the second post from the grant agency meeting.

Many of the "questions" are comments that bring up something about the speaker's research that was left out of the presentation or relate the commentor's research to the talk. Such exchanges do not initiate very good discussion.

I'm trying to decide if this group is too heterogeneous or too homogeneous to generate really good discussions. I'm leaning towards both.

They are too heterogeneous in that there are a few distinct cliques in the group who work on a particular phenomenon or project together. These are the people that comment on talks rather than ask questions.

On the other hand, they are too homogeneous within these cliques. As a result, they have largely the same view on the overall results and only reinforce each other's views rather than critically questioning them.

Analyzing scientists at a meeting: 1 of 5

2008-10-02T20:58:00.002-05:00

Written 10/1/08, posted later
I've been at a meeting related to my grant agency for the past three days. It has highlighted several oddities of science and scientists. This is the first of five posts from this meeting.

Have no fear--I will provide a post-poster analysis in a subsequent post. At the moment, however, I would like to talk about the meeting for which I made the poster

The most apparent thing was the lack of quality in presentations and sometimes posters in comparison to a national, large professional organization meeting. The talks here seem ill-rehearsed or not well thought through. Does it have something to do with the perceived importance of each meeting, the quality/experience of the scientists, or something else? In many cases, I think I could present my research better.

They also seem to have time management issues. Most talks go over time. Scientists should have a better sense of how many slides can fit in 15 minutes, or, failing that, one practice run should clue them in. This is not a difference from the large organization meetings--it seems to be a larger habit.

Update on blog policies

2008-09-21T22:05:00.002-05:00

I've removed comment moderation. It doesn't seem terribly important and it's kind of neat to see your comment pop up right after you submit it. Well, I like that at least.

Time management

2008-09-21T21:11:00.002-05:00

Soon is a relative term...really.

Time management has become more important than ever in my life over the past month. I like to have a lot of possible projects to work on. At the moment, I have a couple of equal importance and several others that become more important the longer I leave them go. That leads to my head spinning a bit if I think about them all at once.

The most important has been my poster that is due to the printer Wednesday (the meeting is 29 Sept-1 Oct). It is my first poster. The design looks good and the figures are reasonable, but I'm struggling a bit to figure out what I want to say about them and how to say it.

I'm registered for one class and informally auditing another (both for the qual and for my own information). They both involve variable amounts of reading, so that is hard to schedule. I'm never quite sure when we'll proceed to the next unit or chapter. I also have homework for registered-for class. That is not too bad--I just need to remember to do it. The first homework for the audit class was completely out of line for a homework assignment. It was a mini research project. I didn't do it.

I've nearly stuck to the study schedule for the qual. I only missed a partial chapter that was due yesterday, but I made it up today. I can't fall behind on this because I have a whole field to study by the end of January. It will only pile up and make me more stressed and less likely to pass the qual. For the coming week, I have five more chapters. I'll miss the next group study session, so I'm accountable only to myself for these. In the final week of intro material studying, I have four chapters. After October 4th, we are moving on to the department's core classes. Needless to say, my studying textbook is coming to the meeting with me.

On top of all these macro-tasks, I have a variety of micro-tasks that I would like to accomplish: audition four possible thesis-writing programs (InDesign, OpenOffice, Word, and LaTeX), practice my cello, write an update to family and friends I haven't talked to much over the past year, and plan and cook food to eat. In the short term, I also hoped to go shopping for black shoes with heels of some sort to go with my suits for the conference so my pants don't drag on the ground. Of course I ran out of time this weekend. I hope to find more time for these after the poster is done. Perhaps I can squeeze shoe shopping between turning in the poster Wednesday afternoon and flying to the meeting Saturday morning. If not, I'll have to wear my old boots. They're passable, but not terribly professional. All these tasks become more critical as i leave them go, but at the moment they are relatively ignorable.

With all these threads tugging me in different directions, last night was my first night away from work in over a week. Otherwise, I get up, go to work, work through lunch, come home, work all night, go to bed, repeat. Occasionally I'll intersperse some household chores, like laundry so I can wear clean clothes. I've been pushed, pulled, and stretched. With several people sick at work and the boyfriend getting over a minor cold, I'm surprised I haven't caught anything yet (not that I'm complaining, universe).

How is this (lack of) balance working? Well, I'm still alive, aren't I? I wonder if this is as good as it gets without a rigid schedule. I hate following a rigid schedule. I prefer to work on whatever I feel I can focus on best rather than what is on my calendar. The problem: it is easier to get overwhelmed with all the stuff in front of me when I allow myself a choice of immediate task. When it is possible, I also need to work more leisure time into my schedule. I don't think that'll happen in any significant form this semester.

I suppose my current time management methods work reasonably well. There is a point at which it doesn't matter how well I manage my time--there is too much to do for the time I have. I think I'm beyond that point for the moment, but it will recede after the poster is done. Yes, I'm banking a lot of hope for a slightly less busy schedule on finishing the poster. Stay tuned to see if my hopes are dashed...

Not dead yet

2008-09-15T23:09:00.000-05:00

I've been absent for the past couple of weeks because I have a poster due next Wednesday and I've started studying for the qual. Sorry about that. I should keep up with my blogging better for my benefit as well as to maintain the blog. I find that blogging gives me a welcome break from programming and my field. I have complete freedom of what I want to write and writing is to some degree therapeutic for me, no matter the topic.

I had orchestra practice tonight. I didn't want to go, but I went anyhow. I signed up for the group because I knew my over-active sense of guilt would make me go. In other words, it forces me to take a break from work for something other than housework. It went okay, but I really need to practice more.

I'll write a post with some real content soon...I promise. In the mean time, I figured I'd let you all know that I'm still alive.

qual on!

2008-08-30T11:02:00.001-05:00

I posted on August 12 about taking the qual early my reasoning at that point. Well, the saga has come to a close: my advisor agrees that I can take the qual early. That means I'll start studying now and really hit it after my poster presentation at the end of September. Until the poster is sent to the printer, I need to get as much research done as I can.

It wasn't a straight path to my advisor's verdict. He was on a field project on the other side of the globe for two and a half weeks, then on jury duty for most of this past week. We'd barely communicated for the past four weeks. I sent him an email with my reasoning attached on Thursday in case we weren't able to meet Friday. He replied that we could meet Friday after our morning class. He also said he was torn on the qual issue. He understood all my reasoning, but was concerned about a grant renewal deadline coming next summer. The email gave me the impression that he was unlikely to agree with me easily.

I was funded by this grant last fall and this summer, with a teaching assistantship and three more classes in between. Due to personal circumstances, I did not get significant research done until the beginning of July. This may make him a bit nervous, but I think he understands all the problems that have kept me from progressing more quickly. Since Independence Day, however, I have made significant progress. I showed my advisor all the stuff I've gotten done, and with a couple more weeks' worth of work, he thinks I'll have a great poster for the workshop at the end of September. I hope he believes that this is a more normal work ethic for me even though he has a short sample.

I understand his concern that the rest of this semester will be relatively low-progress with respect to research due to studying for the qual, but I think that Spring semester and next Summer will be plenty of time to get enough research done to renew the grant. (I tend to make quicker progress than I or others expect.) He apparently agrees. At the end of our meeting, I asked if he had deliberated any more on the qual issue, and he told me he'll support my decision to take it early. I didn't even need to argue the point. After all the effort I'd put into making sure I had a convincing argument... :)

This revelation around lunchtime had one unfortunate side-effect: I was so excited about my advisor's qual decision and positive view of my research that I had a hard time for the rest of the afternoon concentrating on anything that took much thinking. I ended up transferring class notes to the powerpoint print-out, scanning PDFs of the department qual exams since 2000*, and working on other menial tasks. I am still excited about all of it, but I think I've relaxed enough that I can concentrate on programming and reading again.

A couple of my officemates are also planning to take the qual. One section of the test involves answering questions from the elective classes you've taken in the department. The test only includes questions from classes taken by someone who is taking the test, though anyone taking the test can answer any of the questions, no matter if they have taken the class or not. My officemates are not registered for a certain class that I am, but they are sitting in on it anyhow with the assumption that I will ensure the qual will include a question from that class. They've gotten anxious to not waste time attending a class that will not help them on the qual during the first week of classes, so my advisor's decision yesterday pacified all three of us. We are concocting plans for study groups.

*Until now, they've been keeping a single paper copy of every qual--that's it. I decided that was a really bad idea when the copy machine tried to eat a page of one of them recently.

"Normal" people vs. academics

2008-08-28T23:52:00.001-05:00

I've noticed at least a couple of times in the past month that fellow academics sometimes refer to the general populace as "normal people." It carries the implication that we are fundamentally smarter or better than them, not just that we are a minority or odd. It is often a reaction to someone's story about a frustrating interaction with a stranger or non-academic.

This seems condescending, elitist, and narrow-minded. Many people have talents that do not lie in the academic realm. Are all talents created equal? Is a great, dumb athlete equal but different to a smart, ungraceful scientist?

I don't believe the people making these comments completely subscribe to the opinion, but I can't help but internally fight every casual mention of it. I feel a kernel of truth to it in some cases, but I've always tried to guard against blanket statements.

Is this a wider symptom of academia or relatively isolated? What bred this opinion?

I would hope that the majority of academia is enlightened enough to realize that they are only slightly extraordinary people who have chosen a somewhat uncommon career that explicitly pays one to create new knowledge. Many people of equal or higher intelligence or talent choose other careers.