Woman Scientist

Oh, undergrads...

2011-04-04T16:18:00.002-04:00

Dear Special Snowflake,
I really wish you would stop pacing outside my office and talking on your phone. I appreciate that you're trying to make plans for the summer and figure out your tuition and financial aid and whatnot.

Newsflash: I don't want to hear about it!

Go stand in the stairwell. Reception is better there anyway. Go stand in the corridor connecting to the next building. Where you won't be standing outside an open office door. There's even a window!

Thanks for your time and attention!

Sincerely,
Person in the office trying to make figures

P.S. I hope you end up with less in student loans than I have.

Can I get a break?!?

2011-03-14T12:28:00.001-04:00

Would anybody believe that the level of crazy in my life has only increased? Lets go with bullets…

• After 6 rounds of chemo and a disturbing amount of radiation, my mom is officially in remission! (Of course, that doesn’t stop me from occasionally looking at statistics and freaking out, but that’s another story for another time.)
• The week after we found out my mom was in remission, TM and I went on a fantastic vacation.
• Since we got back from vacation, my grandfather has had open heart surgery and TM’s grandmother has now been in the hospital for going on 2 weeks.
• I was supposed to have a committee meeting in January. I didn’t.
• I’m getting really angry about some of the people that are defending in other sub-programs in my umbrella program. Also another story for another time.
• FailProject, which I mentioned in my last post, has given me some really awesome data. I have an incredible phenotype and absolutely no frickin’ clue what the mechanism could possibly be. I'm fascinated, but it’s starting to make me a little nuts.
• In other projects, one is wrapping up nicely, if a bit slowly, one is promising and the other I’m scrapping. So there.
• We just got word that a couple of friends in Japan are doing well!
• I’m really hoping things will settle down now and I’ll be able to crank out a couple of papers and defend. And I’ve at least made it to the point where the thought of interviewing for postdocs doesn’t make me have a panic attack.

Is this thing on?

2010-11-01T18:02:00.001-04:00

Helloooooooo? Is anyone still out there? The past couple of months have been crazy, at best. This particular bout of crazy began with a nice little punch of science fail. It wasn’t a complete disaster, but I had to completely change my strategy on a project that I thought was about to seriously take off. Still haven’t made it to taking off just yet, but I have gotten some interesting preliminary data.

That same week, Little Bear, my grandmother and my father in law all told me that I needed to convince my mom to go to the doctor for this lingering and horrible cold that she had. We finally talked her into it, and two days later she was diagnosed with lung cancer. A week later we started her first found of chemo. All told, it was caught really early, she’s tolerated chemo extremely well (although the side effects of radiation were a bit rough), and we’ll know on Monday whether or not she’s in remission.

Because of her chemo regimen, I was taking off at least 3 weekdays plus a whole weekend from lab to travel back and forth every third week. I must say that although it hasn’t been easy, it’s given me some motivation and I’ve been having a bit of an easier time getting things done. Did I mention that the week of the fourth round of chemo I gave my yearly talk for my program and had a committee meeting?

My committee meeting went well. They were pleased with my progress and excited about my preliminary data from FailProject. We’re going to meet again in January. I kind of threw Crazy Man under the bus for not being around and not talking to me practically at all before my talk. I want to feel bad about it, but on the other hand, he could have handled it better. But he seems to be really making an effort now, so I appreciate that. In other news, the Golden Child defended and is outta here, a new postdoc has started and I once again have my very own rotation student, who is seriously phenomenal.

Whew! How’s that for a quick and dirty update?

I used to be a person

2010-07-18T15:03:00.000-04:00

At least, I am fairly certain that is the case. Once upon a time, I had hobbies and interests and went out and did things. Now, I do science. But I’ve recently begun to realize that I can be a normal-ish person too. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do, even if I would rather be doing a little more supervising and a little less getting my hands dirty. But I’m coming to terms with the fact that for me to be happy and healthy, I need to do other things.

I’m knitting again, which is good. It occupies my mind enough that I can think about things without being overwhelmed by thinking about too many things at the same time. I’m reading interesting books, not just trashy novels. Reading some non-fiction has gotten to thinking more about things, things that are deeper and wider than just my little corner of the universe, and it feels really, really good to stretch a bit.

I’ve also been baking again. I’m not really sure why that makes me feel so good, but it does, even when I’m not eating chocolate ganache straight out of the mixer bowl with a spoon. Maybe it’s because it feels like doing science, but the results are so much tastier.

What's going on?

2010-07-10T13:38:00.001-04:00

I feel like things have been all over the place around here. Lots of little ups and downs, but nothing major. Let’s go with bullets:
• My old computer was dying a slow death. That made me sad. I bought a new computer, and that makes me very happy. I forgot that things electronic can function quickly. I had gotten used to very slow, very hot and very loud fans.
• Little Bear is doing an internship at a newspaper. She’s had a couple of front page stories already! I’m so proud.
• One of our feral cats has decided that she’s a seriously fierce hunter. It’s too hot for her to be leaving carcasses in my yard. Hmph.
• The first of my classmates defended last month. All but one of us have a first author paper. I am not that one. I’ve been pretty frustrated scientifically lately, but I’m trying to pull out of it by sheer force of will. If I keep doing well designed experiments I have to make some progress at some point, right?
• Crazy Man and I discussed one of the things he says that is blatantly sexist. The thing is, he doesn’t see what the problem is. We will be discussing this further at some point.
• I signed up to judge posters for some undergrad program. I also had a very uncomfortable, but very necessary discussion with Crazy Man about the Golden Child. I’m not sure I got my point across, but I felt like a grown up just for bringing it up. So I’m doing pretty well on the professionalism front lately.
• I learned to use a very expensive new piece of equipment. I haven’t actually used it for an experiment yet, but I’m very excited to.
• I am so tired of breeding and genotyping mice. Hopefully this will improve soon as I’m starting to actually have homozygous breeders for one gene or the other.
• I’m going to be learning crazy engineering technique from Golden Child in our collaborator’s lab. I’m not sure yet how great of an idea this is.
• I’m having some issues with things other FGS is saying and doing, and I don’t know how to deal with them.
• I’m knitting baby blankets like a crazy person. Mary Poppins (because she’s practically perfect in every way…seriously), one of my committee members is pregnant. I’m probably1/3 done with her blanket. One of my aunts (we’ll call her Aunt #3) is also pregnant. She’s 42! I haven’t started on her blanket yet. And I have a lot of mixed emotions about that whole situation. But I’ll save those for later.
• Speaking of aunts, Aunt #2 is moving to my current town to start law school in the fall. She’s almost 50 and I’m so proud of her!
• Speaking of babies, I have had severe baby fever of late. Severe. Even after spending a weekend with my cousin’s 2 and 4 year olds who are incredibly badly behaved. If I could, I would adopt those two boys. Somebody needs to be taking better care of them. Now if only I could channel that baby fever into motivation to get some lab work done…

What's going on in your world?

Mentors for the taking

2010-05-26T09:47:00.001-04:00

In my head, my last post started out lamenting the lack of female role models I have around me. As I’ve thought about that particular complaint, I’ve thought of two good female mentors that would love to chat with me if I just reached out to them. I’ve also been thinking a lot about and discussing my frustrations with various people, I’ve realized several things about both myself and my current situation.

Rather than actually having a committee meeting, I’ve been planning to do as Observant Academic suggested on my last post and meet individually with a committee member or two. This is difficult for me on several levels. The biggest barrier for me to overcome with regards to this is my anxiety. At least all the way back to high school I’ve experienced some anxiety, particularly relating to social situations. Starting when I began graduate school through my first three years or so, this social anxiety intensified to the point where sometimes even just the thought of meeting someone new could bring on a panic attack. Over the last two years this has been improving to the point where now I’m only a bit uncomfortable in those situations that would have previously been impossible for me to endure. The thing I still struggle with the most in this regard is initiating interactions with other people, particularly people I don’t see on a daily basis. Clearly this makes setting up meetings with committee members a bit of a struggle for me, but I’ve almost got myself talked into doing it. And frankly, just the thought that I’m able to do that now makes me feel empowered.

The second obstacle to me meeting with my committee members is my concerns about their relationships to Crazy Man. Each of my committee members has a unique (and good) relationship with Crazy Man. The reasons I want to meet with my committee members are about me and my work and my career, and are unrelated to Crazy Man (as much as that is possible). The Crazy and I have a pretty good relationship, and we mostly get along even when we don’t see eye to eye and despite the fact that we’re both very passive-aggressive. I know for the most part this is probably an unfounded concern, but I don’t want my committee members to judge Crazy Man (or me) or give him a hard time for not being able to provide all the mentoring I feel like I need.

The third thing that’s stressing me out about this is that I find my committee intimidating for a whole host of varied and crazy reasons. They scare me. This has improved over time, and I think that’s partly related to my anxiety and partly related to my maturation as a scientist.

Despite all this, I know I need to ask for the support that I want and need. It’s hard for me to ask for help, but I think it’s critically important to my development, so I’m going to do it. My committee members are good people, they know my science, they know my field and they know various related fields. They know information and people that I don’t know (yet). They all have students in their labs and really place a lot of importance on training students. I’d be stupid not to tap into that resource. Now I’ve just got to be brave enough to put myself out there just a teeny bit.

*Candid Engineer had a post this week about mentoring, and there are some excellent comments that have really spurred me on. Also, the WSJ blog The Juggle had a post on mentoring I found interesting.

Ongoing frustrations

2010-05-24T20:27:00.001-04:00

I’ve been feeling really frustrated for lots of reasons lately.

Both the department my lab is in and my graduate program naturally divide into sort of us and them based on our science. There are teeny bits of overlap, particularly in my program, but of late, the number of us has been dwindling for various reasons. This has made selecting committees for students in my lab increasingly difficult. I selected my committee (lo, these many years ago) shortly after my department/program lost >3 faculty members that I respected and who’s interests and approaches were complimentary with my project(s).

Nevertheless, I have a committee that I think suits me pretty well. However, thus far, my committee meetings have been useless. I was initially going to say they’ve been less than helpful, but that doesn’t really cover it. I was supposed to have a committee meeting in the fall. Somehow I managed to put it off, seemingly indefinitely. But right now I’m frustrated and want to talk science with somebody. Somebody besides my lab and Crazy Man. I’m running at least 4 different projects right now, three of which are stalled out at about 75% completion. There are multiple technical issues plaguing me right now, and Crazy Man has been less than helpful. He’s not giving me any feedback, nobody in the lab gives me any feedback during lab meeting or just chatting in the lab and I’m really at my wits’ end!

I think the most frustrating thing is that the technical issues I’m having are not troubleshoot-able problems. They’re voodoo issues. And I’m not dealing well with that anymore. I’m even more frustrated because I feel like I’m not getting any mentoring. I’ve been considering finally having my committee meeting because it might be helpful to get a little perspective. On the other hand, the pessimistic side of me thinks that will only serve to stress me out more without helping at all. What to do, what to do?

Play ball!

2010-05-06T19:01:00.001-04:00

There’s this kid that went to my high school that was drafted pretty high by a major league baseball team. When he was drafted, there was a billboard congratulating him. Now that he’s a star on the farm team, the local paper is running a story on every single game he plays. Jimmy-watch, Game 24. Every single game. I have some mixed feelings about all of that, but it got me thinking.

I don’t think science/scientists receive sufficient coverage in the mainstream media. But can you imagine having basically every day of your work hashed and re-hashed like that? Even weekly that could be just brutal in science. What would your stats look like? What would the story about your day in and day out science look like?

Well, LJ has been trending downward this week. She’s 0 for 127 on PCR reactions, but that gel she poured was nice and level. The mouse colony is out of control, but whatever she’s doing gets those little buggers a-breeding! Although she’s faltered a bit lately on her western blots, her cell culture is top notch. We just know she’s going to make it to the bigs any day now.

It kind of creeps me out to even think about anybody being that interested in everything I do. On the other hand, maybe I should take a closer look at myself.

Blah

2010-05-03T19:49:00.001-04:00

Things have been, well, things. It’s been pretty boring around these parts. All the usual stuff…Crazy Man is crazy, data generation is next to non-existent and I’m bouncing from one extreme to the other on my feelings about starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Some days I feel like I really have it together and projects are getting close to completion and I’m getting ready, excited even, to move on. Some days I feel like there’s absolutely no hope that I’ll ever publish anything again. Some days I’m terrified about moving on. Some days I’m just excited.

I think I’m more easily annoyed lately. I’m annoyed with the lab, I’m annoyed with Crazy Man, I’m annoyed with our collaborators, I’m annoyed with Food and Wine Magazine (seriously…you charged me $39.59 for my automatic renewal when the price for a new subscription is $19.99…we’ve been down this road before, you and I). I am supremely annoyed with this paper that’s in a baby Nature journal…more on that later.

On the other hand, there are two fluffy books I like coming out this week, and I’m excited about that. I made these cinnamon rolls (twice!) and they were amazing. It’s raining and I like rain. I went to the beach, which was lovely. I went to a meeting and chatted with people I didn’t know and tried new things and didn’t have a single panic attack. I got to hang out with my sis this weekend. I have new Lush stuff, and it’s all amazing (except the soap samples).

So yeah…meh. Life’s chugging along. I’m trying to find some spunk and some motivation, but I’ve been unsuccessful so far. I’ll keep looking though.

Yeah! What she said!!!

2010-04-13T17:40:00.001-04:00

This. This exactly. My uterus is not here to provide children for your entertainment. At least not at the moment.

It's a small world

2010-03-28T21:49:00.002-04:00

Maybe a year or so ago, TM and I went to a dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. The chef did a special dinner that he cooked himself for a small group of people in what amounted to his secret underground lair. It was a really interesting group of people. I was sitting next to a VP from a major financial institution (who was a total alcoholic, but she was darn entertaining). There was a couple that were both patent attorneys that had previously worked at a biotech that TM and I are both familiar with. There was another couple that were both podiatrists, and a few others.

Tonight, I was sprawled out in the living room floor painting my toenails, and I informed TM that I just could not comprehend why anyone would want to be a podiatrist. Basically any other specialty I can understand, but the interest in podiatry I just don’t get.

A few hours later, TM scampered off to meet his brother at the airport. While waiting at baggage claim, he texted me to tell me he had run into the podiatrists. Apparently they have lots of luggage. And that, boys and girls, is my random story for the day.

And I still don't understand why anybody would want to be a podiatrist (no offense intended)!

RBO Newsflash

2010-03-23T13:28:00.001-04:00

• Your child is not “gifted” because he can “wave bye bye” at 6 months old.

• If you’re dating someone who is a parent of relatively well-adjusted adult children and you haven’t met them, you might want to try that. Or at least ask why your fiancé’s adult child has absolutely nothing to do with them. There might be a reason and it might save you a lot of heartache. I’m just sayin’…

• If you’re 50+ and engaged to be married to spouse number 4, planning the wedding and informing at least one of your children before telling either of your parents that you’re even planning to get married just makes you look ridiculous.

• Having an extremely religious ceremony for wedding number 3 is a little bizarre. Getting married to spouse number 4 in the same church with the same preacher is just laughable. I wonder if he’ll use the same sermon.

• Having an online system to make an appointment with student health services is great. Unless the system sucks. Like, say, if you can’t narrow the available appointments by provider, even though they explicitly encourage you to see the same provider.

• Having really weird, disturbing dreams for a solid week sucks. A lot.

• Some things should be very carefully edited. Examples: a newspaper’s website, a published novel. Fortunately, I have an in with the newspaper’s publisher. I signed the email I sent him today “Woman ‘will edit for cash’ Scientist”. As for the novel, I was reading this weekend, and I actually stopped and wrote a review for the book because the number of errors was downright distracting. Which is just sad, since I was reading really fast because I was bored with the plot.

On mentoring

2010-03-21T16:28:00.001-04:00

In general, I think Crazy Man is a pretty good mentor. In general, he has a pretty good idea of how each of us operates. He usually knows when to push us and when to give us a pep talk or just say nothing at all. He also does an excellent job of helping us understand how to write and review both grants and papers, which I really appreciate (even though I think I’m the only one). He’s a little off his rocker sometimes, but aren’t we all?

I’ve been thinking about mentoring a lot the past few weeks, particularly with respect to the Ducklings. I realized that I’m not just training them. I’m not just teaching them the nuts and bolts of our systems and how to physically do the experiments our lab does. I’m also teaching them all kinds of intangible things that I don’t even realize.

This realization has pushed me to think more about being a mentor than a mentee. Both the Ducklings are struggling a bit right now, with both lab and non-lab issues. They’re both stressed because they’re dealing with their classes and their upcoming student seminar talks and qualifying exams. It’s a stressful time in their careers. And I don’t feel like either of them is coping particularly well.

Duckling 1 and I had a talk last week because she had basically convinced herself that she was completely incompetent and therefore couldn’t show any of her own data for her talk. Of course she’s not incompetent, and I hope I managed to convince her of that. Over the course of our conversation, it became clear that she felt like her recent lack of data production has been letting me down. ME! I was flabbergasted. I tried to reassure her that I haven’t even been close to upset with her, and that I appreciate the issues she’s been having aren’t her fault.

Needless to say, that was really an eye-opening conversation for me. My Ducklings look up to me. They see me as a role model. I’ll be honest. That freaks me out just a little. They also worry about my expectations of them, which had never occurred to me.

I talked for a long time with TM about some of the issues that this conversation raised, and I think I’m going to talk to Crazy Man some about it too. I think our situation gives both the Ducklings and me an opportunity to learn a lot. I have a lot to learn about mentoring and encouraging and the Ducklings are learning who they are and who they are becoming. Although it’s much more in my safety zone to just bury my head in the sand, I think it’s time for me to start putting myself out there a little bit. Project Feed the Ducklings begins now!

And we wonder why Crazy Man is crazy

2010-03-10T22:43:00.000-05:00

I was the first one here this morning at 9:30. And at 5:45, I'm the only one still here. I'm also typically the only one that comes in on the weekends. Yet, the rest of the lab wonders why Crazy Man gets upset about work ethic. He always says the students here don't work nearly as hard as the students at our peer institutions. I'm beginning to think he may be right.

Thinking about seriously starting the post doc search

2010-03-10T12:21:00.000-05:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about post docs lately. It’s beginning to be time for me to start seriously looking. I’ve been keeping a running list of people I may be interested in working with for quite a while now. People have come and gone from the list as I’ve met and liked/disliked them, as my interests have evolved, as I’ve decided there are some places I’m not willing to live, etc. I still feel like I’m really floundering though.

My graduate work (and my PhD) are in a fairly specialized sub-field. There are several different branches of my sub-field, but I’ve dabbled in the majority of them due to my project ADD. My primary interest, however, is signal transduction in my favorite cell type. Obviously, signaling occurs in all cell types and systems, so if I choose to go that direction, I have lots of options for post doc mentors.

However, I’m finding that my identity as a scientist is very much wrapped up in my sub-field. I could readily apply the vast majority of my skill set to basically any cell type in a number of organisms. In theory, I’m not opposed to going outside my sub-field for my post doc. In reality, seriously considering that makes me feel very uncomfortable.

I really do want to branch out for my post doc, though I’m coming to terms with the fact that I probably don’t want to leave my –ology. The problem with that is that work on my cell type and/or the type of disease models I use most often make up the biggest part of my sub-field, especially the bigger name people (several of which are at my university). I’m really struggling to find people outside of that that I think would be good fit for me.

I’ve identified a few new skills I’d like to acquire. I’ve identified one or two locations where I refuse to live. (Geography isn’t really an issue, as people working on –ology tend to be centered in about 5 locations in the US.) I’m open to a number of cell types and disease models. I may be open to moving outside of –ology. I’m still grappling with that question and all of the identity issues it seems to raise for me.

Now I suppose it’s time to start talking to people and figure out who should really be on my list.

Ugh!

2010-03-08T11:26:00.001-05:00

I have been doing really well lately. I’ve had basically no depression and only very, very limited anxiety (and that even with situations that are normally MAJOR triggers). But today I’m down. I didn’t sleep well and my progesterone levels just tanked, so I’m just not doing so hot today. I almost cried when I realized I left my yogurt at home, even though that was an excellent excuse to go buy the scone I’ve been craving. Tomorrow will be better. I insist on it. I’ve also been mentally writing lots of (hopefully) interesting posts in my head, so hopefully I’ll have some real content back here soon. Now back to the wallowing that was already in progress…

Realization (of something I already knew…)

2010-02-23T18:39:00.002-05:00

Sometimes it’s important to be reminded of things. Sometimes it’s most important to be reminded of things you already knew.

I actually dragged my sorry rump out of lab this afternoon to go to my program’s journal club. The paper being discussed was interesting (in principle), and it was from a lab where I’m interesting in doing a post doc. I also thought it was a good opportunity to work on my goal of being even a teensy bit more social.

At any rate, I was pretty excited about the paper. Actually sitting down and going through it though served to remind me that just because a group has a great reputation and just because the paper is in C/N/S doesn’t mean that the work is good. It doesn’t mean that the results are real or interesting or that the experiments were designed well or that the paper was even put together thoughtfully.

Actually making myself go to journal club reminded me of all that. It reminded me that given the right circumstances there’s a broad range of people that can publish in top tier journals. It also reminded me that publishing those types of paper or hailing from a lab with good name recognition and reputation doesn’t necessarily make you a great scientist.

Of course, I’ve known those things for a long time now, but sometimes it is good to be reminded.

Scoopage (and I don't mean ice cream)

2010-02-09T18:57:00.000-05:00

We just got mega-scooped. An almost intact paper that Postdoc Guy left behind was just published basically figure for figure by another group with only the teeniest of differences. Hmph. Interestingly, the senior author was on the study section that reviewed the grant on this project. He was also the postdoc mentor of one of my committee members.

I’ve been giving Crazy Man a hard time about this paper ever since Postdoc Guy left. But nobody listens to me. It wasn’t my project, but I was an author because I did a few bits of data for it. In fact, it was in a system that I’ve been adamantly refusing to work on for years, maybe even the whole time I’ve been in grad school.

However (and there’s always a however)… I think I can rescue this paper. I’ve gradually been doing a little here and there with this system, despite my best efforts. And I have ideas! Crazy ideas, for experiments that I’m all poised to do. Crazy experiments that will be relatively easy to do, needed to be done anyway, and will really only mean adding an additional group to experiments that I was planning to do anyway!

Assuming these experiments go according to plan (snicker…when does that ever happen?), they would then become the bulk of the paper, it would be higher impact than it was before, and I would likely become first author. What are the chances this works?

Did you read the paper?

2010-02-07T14:47:00.002-05:00

We just found out that GlamourMag manuscript was accepted! For the resubmission, they actually added an additional reviewer, purportedly to assess the validity of the mathematical arguments. Based on this reviewer’s comments, I told Crazy Man that I was fairly sure s/he hadn’t read the paper. At all.

At any rate, it was accepted, pending a few minor changes to address the final comments from the reviewers. Again, I really think this same reviewer didn’t even read the paper. This reviewer stated that it was important to point out that we argue that our system is better than previous systems for predicting biological function, but we didn’t include any functional data. And then I was like,

There’s a whole main figure that’s nothing but the correlation of our predictions with the actual functional data, and I believe there’s two supplementary figures that are also other measures of function. Which I know, because I DID ALL THE FUNCTIONAL ASSAYS. And the correlation of the prediction with the function is the whole point of the paper.

I sure am glad I don’t have to rebut those particular comments myself because I totally want to write to the editor and tell her to never, ever use this person as a reviewer again because they’re clearly a frickin’ idiot. Sheesh.

End of January update (and maybe a teeny rant...)

2010-01-29T10:05:00.001-05:00

I think I’m starting to like this whole being more professional thing! I’ve been doing pretty good with dressing a little nicer, wearing makeup and whatnot. (Speaking of which, I’m now totally addicted to Aromaleigh!) The interpersonal aspects of being more professional are obviously much more difficult for me. However, I think I’ve been doing really well. When labmates (okay, just the Golden Child) do things that annoy me and/or make my life generally more difficult and/or compromise my experiments, I’ve been calling them on it. Of course, that’s only after I’ve worked through my initial urge to Velcro my racks to my bench. (Seriously, I have little Velcro squares sitting in my bag right now…) I even sent out an email to the lab about things that are just generally good lab practice. Like don’t use my bench space and leave an empty box of tips. So at least I’m being pretty gently vocal about my expectations and things that are bothering me.

Speaking of things that are bothering me, Crazy Man and I just had a come to Jesus meeting about the Golden Child. Golden Child is the only person in our lab that has been trained to do a very specialized technique with our collaborators. Both the Ducklings want to learn, and the Golden Child has agreed to train them, but insists that it takes about 3 months to become comfortably proficient. All this is fine and dandy, but there are some bits of data that are essential for two of my projects that would be most easily and rapidly generated using this technique.

The last time Crazy Man and I discussed the best way to approach this question, we brought Golden Child into our meeting to ask for his help in generating this data. We discussed what would need to be done and how much time it would take and Golden Child agreed. It would be maybe two full days worth of work for him, and he would be an author on the papers because the figure he generates is an undeniably integral part of the project.

However… (isn’t there always a however?) Crazy Man, Golden Child and I were sitting around chatting in the lab yesterday, and Golden Child basically said that he wasn’t going to do these experiments, that we would basically have to wait for Duckling 2 to do them (part of this relates to her project as well). I was livid. I glared at Crazy Man. I glared at Golden Child. I ruminated and seethed for a while.

Today, I wanted to meet with Crazy Man about some other stuff, but I did come right out and tell him that I didn’t appreciate AT ALL Golden Child backing out like that. I told him that I was frustrated because Golden Child is hyperfocused on his stuff and what he thinks is important and really doesn’t contribute anything for the good of the lab as a whole.

I was very blunt with Crazy Man about what I thought about it and why I feel that way. I pointed out that the Golden Child has gone on vacation for a month on one occasion and two weeks on another occasion and expected other FGS and me to take care of his cells the whole time he was gone, and I’m not talking about just splitting transformed cells. I’m talking about a whole day or two worth of work. But he can’t be bothered to wash his own dishes or train new students, which frustrates me to no end.

At any rate, I talked to Crazy Man about it in a very adult and professional manner, and Crazy Man is going to talk to him about it. I think Crazy Man realized there was some general discontent, but I don’t think he realized the extent or the exact reasons. I think he thinks we were just being bitchy, but now he understands precisely why I’ve been upset with Golden Child.

Facebook hilarity

2010-01-09T15:32:00.002-05:00

I just discovered that my mom's neighbor (who graduated from high school the year my mom was born) is on Facebook. That made my day (which needed making)! :)

Goals for 2010

2010-01-04T16:41:00.000-05:00

My major goal for the year is to both look and act more professional. So far, I’m doing okay. I’m going to try to spend far less of my time playing passive-aggressive games, especially with Crazy Man. I’m planning to spend far more of my time doing productive things to build up, rather than beat down.

I declare 2010 the year of the first author publication! My goal for papers this year is to have three first author publications submitted.

I would also like to expand my horizons a bit on the personal side as well. To that end, I have a couple of goals:

1. Move more. I’m not an athletic person, and I don’t generally find much enjoyment in physical activities. So rather than saying I plan to go to the gym x number of times a week or I plan to lose 25 pounds, my goal is to simply move more and try to have fun doing so. It’s too cold for me to bike right now, but maybe my formerly broke ass shoulder will tolerate a little racquetball with the hubby.

2. I want to do something social. I am a severe introvert, and I haven’t really made any close friends since I started graduate school. So my goal to try to improve in this area to try something that forces me to interact with new people. I haven’t decided yet, but I’m thinking of volunteering, joining a book club or knitting group or maybe finding a community band to play in or a dance class to take. Something to simply push me a little outside my comfort zone. I find that imposter syndrome tends to rear its ugly head when I consider these things, so I’m really hoping to try to overcome that somewhat.

When we last left our esteemed heroine…

2009-12-22T11:32:00.001-05:00

…things were going pretty well. I think that general trend has continued. The proofs for Ancient Manuscript are out the door. GlamourMag manuscript is still hanging over our heads. They apparently sent it to an additional reviewer because of all the mathemagical things Jabba the Engineer included in the rebuttal. Speaking of Jabba, we found out yesterday that he and one of his post docs and at least one of his former students will all be at the small meeting my lab is going to in a few months. I informed Crazy Man that there did not exist accommodations large enough that I would be willing to share with Jabba. He’s a real piece of work.

I’m really excited about going to this meeting. There are lots of people that I’m interested in doing a post doc with that will be there. I’m thinking now that Jabba being there may be an additional advantage for me since he knows people that Crazy Man doesn’t, since they travel in very different circles. Hm…I’ll have to think more on that.

I did manage to get some potentially exciting data for my abstract. I’ll have the data from the repeat in 15 minutes or so. I really really really really hope it looks good. If so, I’m going to be really excited! In other lab news, we still haven’t figured out what is going on with Duckling 2’s reagent. Crazy Man made her a whole new panel to screen and still nothing. It’s really starting to make us all a little crazy. Duckling 1 may also be having a similar problem now. Apparently nobody thought it was a good idea to test a new batch before using it for umpteen dozen experiments. Sigh.

We had a new rotation student start a few weeks ago. He’s actually in a program we don’t usually take students from. Nevertheless, Crazy Man thinks he’s brilliant and the greatest things since sliced bread because he’s interested in signaling. (What am I??? Chopped liver?) Crazy Man’s crush on this guy wouldn’t be so bad if he was actually as good as Crazy Man thinks he is. But he’s not. He is SO NOT. And he’s irritating on top of it. Rather than listening to what we think he should do, he does whatever strikes his fancy. For example, he was doing a western on lysates from a cell type he’s never used for a protein he’s never looked at with an antibody he’s never used. As you can imagine, it’s my favorite cell type, protein and antibody, which I’ve blotted with a lot. Like a LOT A LOT. Did he listen to me when I told him how long to do the exposure? Of course not. Was I right? Of course. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’m trying to be patient with him, but I made it very clear to Crazy Man when we talked about this guy rotating that I do not have the time or mental capacity to hold someone else’s hand right now. This kid needs a hand-holder whether he realizes it or not.

Good news!

2009-11-16T09:32:00.002-05:00

Ancient manuscript got accepted. GlamorMag manuscript has been resubmitted. I’m waaay internal on that one, but Crazy Man has been taking a very active role in the resubmission. Translation: he’s been talking to me about it nonstop for weeks. I’m sure we’re all super glad that’s done. Fingers crossed that it gets accepted. I’m optimistic.

We finally found a tiny, tiny difference in Duckling 2’s reagents. Today we find out if correcting that difference fixes everything. I’m also optimistic about that.

I’m still super optimistic about the grant related to Duckling 2's project. The grant based on the Golden Child’s project is out the door, but as I've said before, I don’t think there’s a chance in hell it gets funded. Ever. Grant number three is likely commencing this week. This one is based on Duckling 1’s project. I think it may be the most likely of this batch to get funded. I’m considering volunteering to take charge of this one as well, mostly because I think Crazy Man is completely burnt out, and I’m tired of hearing him whine and be pitiful.

I think other FGS has finally found a little motivation. We both have lots of bits and pieces of data about a certain protein and its regulation, all of which is sort of tangential to our other projects. I’ve been encouraging her to do a few more experiments and call it a co-first author. She needs a first author pub to defend (co-first counts), and I need to dump this data somewhere, so our powers combined and all that.

I also have some exciting experiments planned for this week. If I manage to pull out even a smidgen of data I’ll have something to write my meeting abstract around. I’m also getting a cool new reagent this afternoon. Hopefully I can do 3 quick experiments with that and finish out another first author paper. I think things are really starting to look up.

Updates

2009-11-05T09:05:00.001-05:00

The crazy just keeps coming! Here’s my update on the things I had to get done in the next two weeks from my last post:

Grant got out. I think it actually ended up being pretty darn good.
I decided to table the meeting abstract until the late deadline. I won’t be eligible for a travel award, but I might still be mostly sane.
Gave my talk and it went surprisingly well. Very poor faculty turnout though, which was kind of disappointing.
Decided to put off committee meeting until I have a bit more data for the project I was originally planning on talking about, especially since Crazy Man hadn’t asked about it,
Didn’t really generate new data for my talk. I ended up talking about a different project. But I did discover that I have some pretty cool data while putting my talk together. I actually made some summary figures that were pretty nice.
Crazy stupid experiment hasn’t happened yet. I tried to optimize some conditions. Failed. Psycho Engineer is really trying to push forward the resubmission, which has turned into yet another epic battle of wills between him and Crazy Man. I just sit back and watch.
I did manage to revise and resubmit Ancient Manuscript, resulting in a wonderful trip to Lush.

Of course, 25 new kinds of crazy have cropped up in the mean time, not the least of which being that I broke my shoulder. Doing any sort of bench work is a real pain when you can’t raise your arm more than, oh, say, 20 degrees to the front. A week after I slipped and face planted into the wall I can get my arm parallel to floor with only moderate pain. Doing lab work sucks. Physical therapy starts next week.

I think I’ve decided that Duckling 1 is not unteachable. Rather, I’ve come to the conclusion that she simply can’t multitask. At. All. As in, doing PCR to genotype 10 mice is a full day’s work. The sad part is I think she’s operating at full capacity. Since she’s new in the lab, her success rate as far as real experiments still isn’t very high, and Crazy Man is really pressuring her to generate all this data for this grant resubmission and she really doesn’t do well with pressure.

Speaking of Crazy Man, he has been in fine form lately. And he has decided that we’re submitting another grant on Monday, and the one related to Duckling 1’s project two weeks after that. The first one relates to Golden Child’s project and I firmly believe it will never, ever get funded. Period. I think the grant on Duckling 1’s project probably would do well if it had all the data he wanted. Too bad it doesn’t. And probably won’t unless I do all the experiments. Which isn’t fair to me or Duckling 1.

And now, me and my broke ass shoulder are going to attempt to do some science. By the way I do NOT recommend trying to do cell culture with your non-dominant hand.

RBOC

2009-10-21T19:27:00.001-04:00

· Golden Child gave a talk today. It was pretty good (for him). He still said “um” an obscene number of times. Duckling 2 stopped counting 15 minutes and 200 ums in. I’ve decided that at his next practice talk, it’s a drinking game. Every time he ums, I drink.

· I am developing a terrible headache, which I really do not appreciate.

· In the next two weeks I…

o Have to finish writing a grant, that is clearly not Crazy Man’s top priority. (That’s another rant for another time.)

o Have to write an abstract for a meeting that I really, really, really want to go to, but don’t have any good data for the project I’d like to present.

o Have to put together and give a 30 minute talk.

o Have to have a committee meeting (although I’m thinking of putting this off at least a week or two.

o Oh yeah…have to generate some data for said 30 minute talk.

o Do crazy stupid experiment for resubmission of GlamorMag Manuscript with our collaborators. It’s not going to address the reviewer’s comment, even though it’s the experiment the reviewer suggested. The question is valid, but there’s really no way to address it. And definitely not this way. But nobody listens to me. Damn engineers! (And Crazy Man)

o Revise and resubmit Ancient Manuscript.

And that’s all in addition to my regularly scheduled experiments. Which are not going well. At all.

· I’m beginning to wonder if Duckling 1 is unteachable.

· A new batch (or 3) of a critical reagent for Duckling 2’s project no longer works. No differences between the batches by mass spec…sigh.

· Crazy Man needs to learn to not talk to me about signaling first thing in the morning.

· My department chair, who is also on my committee, informed Crazy Man that we should all show up for a faculty candidates seminar. He said he didn’t care if we slept; he just wants bodies in chairs. I’m told there will be food.

· I feel like a cow. I think it’s time to seriously start working out again and paying better attention to portion control. Maybe I should set some specific goals.

· I still haven’t blocked Other FGS’s baby blanket. The little one is only 4 months old. And it’s been done for weeks.

· I’ve been sitting here contemplating something positive to close with. Options are limited. I ate a really good apple today. Is that positive? Oh wait...my last post was about depression. I'm still doing better! That's positive! Not 100% good yet, but definitely getting better. So there! :)

Depression

2009-10-11T22:17:00.000-04:00

Over the past few weeks (months?) I’ve been slowly becoming depressed again. I was aware of it this time, which is progress I suppose. I didn’t really do anything to try to stop it, but I did recognize it this time. Too bad that won’t spontaneously generate data for the seminar I have to give in three weeks.

Today was far and away the worst I’ve been. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t even want to play mindless computer games, which is something I usually do a lot of when depressed. This attitude dragged on all day, but I did manage to get into lab for a few hours and actually accomplish some things. (I’m still working on a conversion factor for when Duckling 1 tells me how long something is going to take her. I think things take about 1.75x longer than she tells me. Which is about 15x longer than they would take me.)

After lab, TM had gone to the grocery store and I was sitting here grousing. I was eating some cheesecake in the hopes that would make me feel better, but even cheesecake wasn’t cutting it. I finally made up my mind that I was tired of this, and got up and worked out. Even though I may have yelled obscenities at the TV while I was working out, I do feel better. Not great yet, but better. And that has been enough of a spark to make me want to make an effort. The hopeless feeling has abated! And I’m going to Lush this week! Here’s hoping I’m on the upswing again.

RBO Crazy

2009-10-07T20:34:00.001-04:00

Crazy Man sent me an email this morning:

Have you resubmitted your paper yet? (Um, no. Here’s the revisions…you said you wanted to see the final changes.)
Can you and Duckling 2 write a grant? Send it to me by Friday. (Wait…what??? Friday, as in the day after tomorrow Friday? As in I have to give a talk and be at a symposium all day on Thursday and you want me to write a grant and get it to you by Friday? Is there any wonder why I call him crazy man???)*
Duckling 1 said you’ve been helping her a lot with (technique she isn’t done with safety training for). Thanks for that. (Well WTF did you expect me to do? Even though she can’t close the refrigerator or find the chemicals on the alphabetized shelf…)**

* I do tend to binge-write much like I binge-read. I like to be thinking about things for a while and have a general outline and then just sit at home in my pajamas and write the whole thing in one fell swoop. Or maybe more like 3 days of that for an R01. I can handle an R21 or shorter private society grant in one day, which is what this one is. Last time I did this I condensed a 12-pager (that I wrote in one sitting) down to 5 pages and got it funded. J I’ve been thinking about this one a good bit, and honestly, I’m pretty excited about trying to crank it out and have it be really good just to freak out Crazy Man. I think he expected me to tell him he was crazy. I almost did. But I’d rather write a grant than practice the talk I’m giving tomorrow. I think I may be as crazy as he is.

** Duckling 1 is another story for another day.

Target fail!

2009-09-27T23:00:00.002-04:00

I went to Target today to pick up a few necessities. (You know, like 3 different kinds of shampoo. Seriously.) I meandered back towards the Halloween stuff to look for some fangs to complete my costume(Vampire Pam!!). First I passed a row of Christmas cards. IT’T NOT EVEN OCTOBER YET!!! We haven’t even gotten out the Halloween decorations yet! But whatever…one aisle of cards. Next aisle: what remains of the clearance school supplies next to WREATHS! CHRISTMAS WREATHS! NEXT TO SCHOOL SUPPLIES. And the whole back wall was Christmas lights. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas, but seriously? It’s September. It’s not even really chilly yet. And what made me the maddest was that I couldn’t find any fangs. How can Target not have fangs for Halloween. Hmph. I was not pleased.

Oh glorious DivaCup!

2009-09-21T16:51:00.002-04:00

mrswhatsit has an awesome post up about how much she loves her DivaCup. I too love love love love love my Diva. In fact, it may be the greatest thing ever! Check it out.

Oh, the drama: Happy Ending

2009-07-17T16:19:00.001-04:00

After I had finished purifying cells on Wednesday (after being Golden Child's lab bitch on Tuesday), I came to my desk and there was a plate of cookies and a card. Duckling 2 made me cookies and gave me a thank you card to say that she appreciated all my help. I teared up a little. It didn’t solve any of the drama, it didn’t magically give me any more time to do my own experiments, but it did make me feel less used and abused, which made my whole day brighter.

Oh, the drama: Part 2

2009-07-16T16:17:00.001-04:00

I had to spend a whole day this week taking care of the Golden Child’s crap. He’s out of the country, visiting the Golden Wife’s family. Which is fine. In theory. Except that he was gone for this same reason for the entire month of December, and now he’s gone another week plus. Not to mention the days he took off for the wedding. Sigh. That all ticks me off, since our graduate program handbook clearly says we get two weeks of vacation time. It dawned on me today that he’s taken more time off in the past calendar year than other FGS gets to take for maternity leave! Ugh!!!

But what’s even worse than the frivolous amount of time he’s taken off is the work he left for me to take care of. I don’t mind taking care of somebody’s cells while they’re on vacation. It’s typically not a big deal. The instructions he left me said that he has this one cell line he wants to scale up, so he asked me to plate up all the live cells I got back and said that it would probably be “a lot” of plates. It ended up being something like 70 24-well plates worth of cells. I don’t know about the rest of the world, but when I’m doing somebody else’s work, “a lot” is maybe 10 or 12. It’s definitely not 70. So I asked Crazy Man if I really needed to do all those plates and he just looked at me like it wasn’t a big deal. So I flipped out on him. Again. Sigh.

After all that, I finally made it back into the lab, and I had an email from the engineers…they wanted cells Thursday, in addition to the Wednesday and Friday ones I had already agreed to. I told Crazy Man that and again he gave me this attitude like it wasn’t a big deal. I got spectacularly pissed. And then I got over it. I still had slightly less than 70 plates of cells to deal with and it just wasn’t even worth my effort to yell at Crazy Man.

Oh, the drama: Part 1

2009-07-15T16:13:00.003-04:00

I’ve had a pretty nasty couple of weeks. We’ve had all this drama with our collaborators about getting this paper out and getting scooped on paper number 2 so now we’re trying to get that one out and I have a big problem with the authorship on paper number 2 and it’s just been drama, drama, drama. Which is not so much fun.

It’s really been stressing me out because my part in this whole little scheme is to purify cells for the engineers to work their magic on. This process takes me about 2 hours and requires a transgenic/knockout mouse as the source of the cells. I’ve been purifying cells for these collaborators basically since I started in the lab. I usually do it once a week and we’re all happy. Now, because of aforementioned scoopage drama, they’re trying to do every conceivable experiment NOW. Which has translated into me purifying cells 3 times a week for the last three weeks. Needless to say, do not want.

What’s really getting ridiculous and why I’m getting progressively more upset about this is that most of the experiments don’t need to be included or could be added in response to reviewers if needed. Meaning there’s no reason for me to be spending 6 hours a week purifying cells.

The real reason I’m getting upset about what a chunk of my time this is taking is how the authorship has panned out. Last draft I saw I was fourth out of seven. That’s despite the fact that I purified every single cell used in every single assay (not to mention breeding and genotyping the mice). There’s one whole figure (of four) that is entirely my biological data. One of the people that’s ahead of me has been in the other lab literally a month. As far as I can tell the two people between the first author and me have contributed one line on one panel of one figure each. Crazy Man and I agreed when we discussed this. And yet he continues to be bullied by our collaborator. He’s not standing up for me, and that both pisses me off and hurts my feelings.

RBOC

2009-06-30T10:19:00.002-04:00

I’ve been having really strange dreams lately. Last night Sarah Palin and a couple of monkeys were trying to attack me. Over the weekend, I dreamed about a girl in the lab next door being dressed up like Yoda and my doctor telling her that somebody had died. Oddly enough, one of my high school band directors was also in that one.
I totally face-planted in my back yard yesterday. I was just walking around checking out the flower beds and the garden, stepped in a hole and kersplat! I managed to not hurt myself, so it was hysterical. TM was standing up on the deck at the time, and he said, “You were just walking along and talking to me and then you were gone!”
This! Can we talk about how I’m going to be running around the lab all day today singing that last little bit?
Furthermore, this!
Even furthermore, I want these. Although I can’t decide if I want the black or the magenta…
Oh yeah…I’m supposed to be editing a paper. Which I should also blog about. There’s about to be an authorship discussion about how I should be second author instead of 5 or 6 deep, or maybe co-first author (for whatever that’s worth). There’s also some getting scooped issues that I want to think about. So there ya go…coming soon. Maybe.

Looking Back

2009-06-16T15:49:00.002-04:00

I had a sudden and very strong urge to write (something, anything!) just now, so after staring (and glaring) at all my outlines of papers and deciding none of them were worthy of any serious writing (yet), here I am blogging. Do I look busy? That’s the look I was going for.

In my last post I wrote about looking forward and becoming excited about the future. Because I’ve been doing a lot of introspective thinking, I thought I’d do some looking back at where I came from. Therefore, I give you Random Stories: rural south edition!

Story 1:

Last month, we visited the old home place (deep in the rural south) to attend BIL2’s high school graduation. As we were driving into town, the Rascal Flatts song “These Days” was on the radio. (Complete lyrics here.) The pertinent part:

Yeah, life throws you curves

But you learned to swerve

Me, I swung and I missed

And the next thing you know, I’m reminiscing

Dreaming old dreams

Wishing old wishes

Like you would be back again

Chorus

I wake up in teardrops that fall down like rain

I put on that old song we danced to and then

I head off to my job, guess not much has changed

Punch the clock, head for home, check the phone just in case

Go to bed, dream of you

That’s what I’m doing these days

TM says to me, “Well that’s not depressing at all.”

I replied, “Yeah, it is pretty depressing. It does remind me how happy I am that we got the hell outta here, though.”

Story 2:

The next morning, we woke up bright and early for BIL2’s graduation. This is the third year in a row that we’ve gone to graduation, thanks to BIL1 and Little Bear. It’s always a typical high school graduation, but it never fails that there’s something that deeply disturbs me. This year, that took the form of the principal’s speech.

The principal now was my AP calculus teacher my senior year. He’s one of the best teachers I had, and an engineer by training. (I still don’t know how he ended up in the black hole, but I digress.) His speech was all the usual yea yea rah rah, life’s a journey, this is a beginning, blah blah blah. And then he said, “How many of you will be scientists? Doctors? Lawyers? Teachers?"

I started thinking about that question, considering mostly my classmates. We were a bright group, on the whole. Where are we now? To the best of my knowledge, there are two of us in the life sciences (TM and me), one engineer, one lawyer, one person in a history graduate program and maybe eight or ten teachers. I don’t know of any alumni of that high school that have gone to medical school. Ever.

We call it the black hole for a reason. If you don’t get out as soon as you can, chances are you won’t. Some of that is cultural. Some of it is educational. Kids in this school system simply can’t compete with students from other schools in the state. It makes me sad. Perhaps I should say it still makes me sad. It’s been bothering me since I was one of those kids.

There aren’t a lot of opportunities for these kids, even the very brightest. I wish there were something I could do to fix it, or even help just a little. Through TM’s mom and the teachers that we still keep in contact with, we try to provide encouragement. We share our work when we can. We chat with our siblings’ friends. It just seems so futile sometimes. It’s so hard for me to encourage these kids to go into science when I know what a struggle my (and TM’s) early science classes were in college due to my woefully lacking high school education. It’s hard for me to tell these kids that they can do anything they want to do.

The whole situation just made me very sad because I thought of all the friends I had in high school and where they are now, and I see a whole lot of wasted potential. A whole lot. I had hoped things would improve over time, and some things have. Unfortunately the net outcome seems to be unchanged. They’re still putting up billboards when an athlete gets drafted* and trying to pretend like those of us that got away never really existed.

*My MIL has threatened to buy a billboard when I finish my PhD…the very thought makes me snicker.

Looking Forward

2009-06-05T08:39:00.000-04:00

Things are generally going well with the ducklings (aside from a few tiny instances of the Golden Child being a total jackass). They are very different personalities and also very different in their work styles, both of which are causing me to have to adapt. Needless to say, I’m learning quite a lot from that, and I think I’m actually starting to get the hang of changing my style to help them as much as possible.

Duckling 2 walked up to me the other day and said, “LJ, what are we going to do when you leave? You’re like the lab mom. You know how to do everything, and you know where everything is. What are we going to do without you???”

Excuse me while I have a teeny tiny moment of arrogance, but she’s right. There’s not a protocol done by anyone in our lab that I can’t do with my eyes closed. The only reagents and supplies I can’t find are the ones we’re out of. Heck, I even know where to find secret stashes of important stuff. I know when we’re running low on something, even if I haven’t been using it.

Thinking about Duckling 2’s comment really made me feel pretty darn good. I realized that maybe I am actually pretty good at this whole science thing. It also made me feel like I’m approaching to point of being ready and able to move on. Now I have a little tiny flicker of a flame telling me that maybe I really have learned a lot here, and maybe I really will be ready to go forward soon to learn new things ~~and force other labs to bow to my will~~. Maybe, just maybe I am finally getting the hang of this!

Managing

2009-05-19T14:58:00.000-04:00

As of next week, we will have two new graduate students joining the lab. I have decided to call them my little ducklings, since they’re each going to be taking on about a third of my projects. (Which is indicative of how insane my lab life has become. That’s right…I have enough crap going on to happily split between three of us with very, very little overlap.) Of course, they’re also going to be my little ducklings because other FGS will be on maternity leave soon and the golden child is clearly too important to help lowly new graduate students. Which leaves me.

I feel like I should be a touch upset about the whole situation. I have no doubt that it’s going to be a lot of extra time and effort for me. Duckling 2 is fairly independent and I trust her to do most of the experiments I think she should be doing in the next month or so. Duckling 1, however, may be a bit high maintenance.

When Duckling 1 rotated in the lab, Post-doc Friend was supervising her. After Post-doc Friend left the lab, Duckling 1 was sort of left to me, but I did a horrendous job training her. It was just an out and out failure on my part. She learned really only one of the many techniques that we use, and it’s one that any monkey with a pipette can handle. This coupled with her personality as well as the pace at which she works have led me to believe that she will be a bigger drain on my time.

When Duckling 2 rotated in the lab, I did a much better job. I learned from my mistakes with Duckling 1, and she had a very successful rotation. She generated some really cool data that I’m excited about, and I’m really glad that she’s coming back (and not just because despite thinking the data’s cool that I really don’t want to go there myself). I think she’s inherently more independent than Duckling 1, which is why I think she’ll be less of a time sink. She also learned many more techniques when she rotated, so there will be less introductory time required.

Despite knowing that supervising these ladies is going to be a drain on my time and resources for a while, and despite my general bitterness about the golden child and his contributions and focus, I’m excited. Duckling 2’s rotation was the first time I had really mentored someone, and I am realizing that I really enjoyed it. I’m hopeful about the ducklings starting in the lab. I’m hopeful that I will be able to teach them and train them and help them avoid mistakes that I’ve made along the way.

More importantly, the hope that I’m feeling is also for myself. It’s another little bit of warm fuzzy goodness that makes me think that I really do want to be a PI. Science has got me down lately, but I’m trying my best to retake control. I keep trying to remind myself why I’m here, why I love this and where I’m going, but that can be hard. It’s little tidbits like this that are keeping me afloat right now.

Identity Issues

2009-05-17T11:12:00.001-04:00

Last weekend we traveled back to the old home place for Mother’s Day and to celebrate TM’s grandmother’s 90^th birthday. G-ma’s birthday party, a little afternoon reception, was at her little church in this little town* in the middle of nowhere.

It was lovely, and there were a substantial number of little old southern ladies, and I was on my best little southern belle behavior. I was raised to be a good southern girl, and I can rock that role with the best of ‘em. Heck, TM’s aunt (that has a degree in home economics from a large SEC school but doesn’t know how to pin a corsage or cut a cake properly) complimented me on it! I had some serious lulz over that.

So when I was in between being introduced to every little old lady in the southern half of the state, I was sitting quietly acting like the nicest, loveliest lady in the place* and clutching my pearls as appropriate** and whatnot, I got to thinking. I was astonished by how different the person I was in that setting is from the person I am most days.

For that audience, if anyone had asked what I do, I would have simply said that I was a scientist. My feeling is that would be frowned on. Maybe I’m wrong. However, it wasn’t an issue then, and I doubt it ever will be, because none of those little old ladies would ask me what I do. For some reason, that leaves me with a sense of loss. I do still have some love for small town life and southern gentility, and I suppose it makes me a little sad that I’ll never really fit into that world again.

On the flip side, it also makes me wonder what tiny bits and pieces of myself I’ve lost to get to where I am now. I wonder if scientist me and southern belle me are just different sides of the same coin, or if I’m just playing the roles as needed. Neither feels fake in the moment, but when they’re juxtaposed so closely it makes me wonder if either is real. Perhaps I’ll make like Scarlett O’Hara and think about tomorrow at Tara when I can stand it.

*Population 5000.

**Which I’m SO not—I wasn’t even wearing pantyhose!

***No I’m not making that up.

Me and the boys

2009-05-07T11:29:00.002-04:00

It’s not at all unusual for me to have very vivid dreams that I remember very clearly. The dream I had this morning set me to thinking. In my dream, I was celebrating my 50^th birthday, although I looked like I do now. I was celebrating by going around some sort of outdoor market or festival type thing with a bunch of guys I knew from high school. That’s the part that got me started thinking. (The weird part was that I was filling my pockets with honey, there were some amazing sesame meatballs and I was renting a chainsaw for some nefarious purpose.)

Anyway, I was thinking about the fact that here were 6 or 8 smart guys that were good friends of mine and none of my girlfriends. That’s a little weird, right? So I got to thinking about which of my girlfriends I would have expected to be included in that particular group. The conclusion I came to was none of them.

I almost feel bad for even saying this, but there just weren’t any girls that I went to high school with that were very smart and ambitious. There were a few that were bright, but me and the boys, we were on a different plane all together.

Once I got to thinking about it though, I realized that it really always was me and the boys. On our quiz bowl team in elementary school, it was me and 4 or 5 of the boys from my dream. In middle school it was me and a couple of those same boys fighting to win the spelling bee or the geography bowl or whatever. In middle school and high school it was me and a couple of those guys on the math team.

At the time, I never really thought that much about it. Those guys were my friends. Heck, I dated several of them along the way and ultimately married one of them. Now I think a bit more about gender issues and disparity since it’s such a part of where my life has gone.

Now I’m trying to decide if growing up like that has helped or hurt me, as far as my ability to handle gender issues in science. I almost always feel reasonably comfortable being the only woman in a professional gathering. But I wonder if that level of comfort causes me to overlook some things.

I also wonder if those experiences have conditioned me to expect less from other women because that’s really all I’ve ever known. Growing up I never really questioned it. It just was. I had female role models that were strong and amazing women, but never anyone that was truly bright and ambitious. I know there are plenty of brilliant women out there. That’s one of the biggest reasons I initially fell in love with the blogosphere. Sometimes I just wish there were a few more brilliant women scientists in my real life.

Clawing my way up and out

2009-05-03T11:25:00.000-04:00

Things had been going really well for a while. I had a great talk with Crazy Man about a paper we’re trying to get out. For the first time ever I felt like he was actually talking to me as a colleague, and I really liked it. I even started writing a blog post about it, but that got abandoned mid-sentence a paragraph in, and for the life of me I can’t remember why or bring myself to finish it.

I had also put together a plan to finish experiments and start writing papers. I’ve been working on a lot of related but distinct projects and I thought things were finally going to start to coalesce. So I had outlines and timelines and I was really excited. At some point that all fell apart too, and I haven’t been able to regroup on all of that yet.

I’ve been feeling pretty down the last 3 weeks or so. I don’t feel like I’m in control. I’ve been gradually realizing that I have stopped doing little things that make me feel in control. Little things like cleaning the house and doing laundry and working out and reading blogs that give me a sense of control and accomplishment. I’ve simply been letting essentially everything go, which is doing nothing but making me feel worse.

I’ve been trying to make a summary/model figure that Crazy Man suggested for this paper and I just can’t seem to make anything I like. It’s frustrating me.

The Golden Child and I have been on the edge of a knockdown drag out for a while now. Crazy Man came in Friday while the Golden Child was gone and told other FGS and me that we should try to be nicer to him. I almost lost it. I don’t get angry often, but I was beyond livid then. Ugh…that’s another story for another day though. At the end of the day though, Crazy Man finally realizes why I’m so frustrated and how far my frustration has progressed, and he doesn’t seem to think I’m being unreasonable. I’m going to try to be more patient with the Golden Child. We’ll just have to wait and see how that goes.

I’m still not feeling super, and baby fever has been flaring up a bit, which doesn’t help. I’m trying to get things under control. I finally folded the month’s worth of laundry that was on the couch. I scrubbed the bathrooms. I scooped the litter box. My calendar and my outlines are in my bag. I found some new papers I’m excited to read. (I actually started reading a review yesterday and got a new idea for a mechanism to explain some very old data.) Honestly, I don’t feel motivated, and I don’t feel very excited about science right now. But I do still feel driven. I have a lot of data that I hope is going to translate into a lot of papers. There is still a flicker of excitement in me somewhere. Now I just have to keep pushing through and find the motivation to do what needs to be done and fan those flames. If for no other reason than I want to have 3 times as many publications as the Golden Child. Hehe…I guess I’ll take motivation from wherever I can.

A few points about reviewing grants

2009-03-17T14:25:00.002-04:00

I thought I had written about this same grant that I was critiquing again yesterday before, but perhaps I haven't. I can’t remember. All that’s really important is that I’ve always thought this project was utter nonsense (and at least two other people from my lab agree, not to mention the reviewers of the grant the first time it was submitted), and neither of the boys wants to hear any criticism of it Anyway…enough preamble, it’s storytime!

Crazy Man and the Golden Child sent this grant to other FGS and me Friday evening and wanted our comments back by Monday. This in and of itself is absolutely ridiculous. Bother other FGS and I are very careful and, um, particular editors of grammar, style, mechanics, etc., in addition to actually trying to provide good feedback on the content itself. Point 1: I am not spending my weekend reading your grant, just because you decided that was a good time for me to do it.

I actually read the specific aims page on Saturday while I was in lab. I had very good intentions (but then got sucked into reading a bunch of fanfic…that stuff is like crack and I have an addictive personality…). I knew I was in trouble when I read the aims page and my first reaction was: What. The. Fuck. Point 2: If somebody that is very familiar with all the work and background relating to a grant, the specific aims page should not leave that person scratching their head and wondering who the hell thought this was a good idea.

So then I put off reading the rest of the grant until Monday morning. I figured, based on my previous experience in this lab with grants written by Y-chromosome carrying individuals, that most of my stylistic editing would be ignored. (The Golden Child once said to us, “Style doesn’t matter anyway.”) I figured it would be a quicker read if I put my OCD aside and only commented on content. Point 3: I was wrong.

Four hours later, I had made it through the preliminary data. Literally. And I skipped the background and did absolutely NO nitpicky editing. Point 4: Boy, was I wrong.

By the time I was reading the experimental plan for the second aim, I was threatening to gouge my eyes out with a pen. I think I did beat my head against the desk a few times. I still haven’t figured out the point of the second aim. It makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. If I had read this grant a few weeks ago, I would have suggested completely dumping the entire second aim. It’s that bad. Point 5: Get honest feedback from people before the grant is completely written and on it’s way out the door.

I’m curious as to whether they actually took any of my suggestions. Some of them were obvious controls that should have been included in the preliminary data. Some of them were places I had MAJOR issues with the interpretation of the data. Some parts I thought were completely incoherent. Neither Crazy Man nor the Golden Child has asked me any questions about any of them, and some of my comments definitely warranted at least a little discussion. I’m getting to the point of being really frustrated that I’m asked to spend my time critiquing things, but then my comments aren’t being taken seriously. Point 6: Don’t piss off people that will give you honest feedback. You may ultimately get some feedback that’s way more honest than you wanted.

One of those weeks

2009-03-12T19:32:00.006-04:00

Book Meme!

2009-02-27T18:24:00.000-05:00

BBC Book Meme
As seen everywhere.
BBC Book List
Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. 

Instructions: 
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read. I'll bold those I've read. 
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE. 
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen+
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams*
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë+
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell+
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving+
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery+
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens+
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl+
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie*

I think that's 27 total for me.

Limits

2009-02-25T18:15:00.001-05:00

I’ve been super busy the last few weeks working on some things that I think are super exciting.* This new work is only tangentially related to my “real” work, but the same protein is involved and I think there’s some totally awesome things to come. I also managed to give my yearly program seminar, have a committee meeting and go on vacation! Life has been good.

Back to the super busy thing…I breed a lot of mice. By a lot I mean that I have 12 different strains that I breed and genotype. Needless to say, that translates to roughly a shitton of time and energy spent on non-data producing nonsense. I also do most of the ordering for the lab, which has been unusually, erm, difficult lately (lots of backorders, the purchasing department generally sucking, among other craziness).

For the two weeks or so before I gave my seminar I was being incredibly productive. I had lots of different experiments going on and I was getting a lot of really good data. I’ve learned this week that I thrive on that kind of productivity. Apparently data sustains me in some way. It seems to keep me interested and excited and not depressed, even if things aren’t going 100% great.

So this week I’ve been trying to get back on top of my mouse screening and checking on backordered things and whatnot. I thought I could do this simultaneously with some simple experiments that don’t require a lot of hands on time. Apparently that is not the case.

I told Crazy Man (who has been unusually pleasant and quite agreeable lately) last week that I had been really busy, but I was still managing to stay on top of things. I told him that I hadn’t yet reached the point where I couldn’t handle everything I was trying to do. I told him that I hadn’t found my limit yet. However, I now think I’m teetering on the edge. The very edge.

I’ve been very frustrated this week because I haven’t been able to make the time to do the experiments that I want to do. I’ve been doing crappy genotyping (that isn’t working) and other crappity crap that doesn’t produce data. I have one first author manuscript that just needs to be rearranged (dramatically) before it can be submitted. I have an internal author manuscript that needs to be edited (dramatically, I’m sure). I want to work on those. I want to do real experiments, even if it’s just troubleshooting! I want to work on grants for upcoming deadlines.

I realized yesterday that I’m getting depressed because I don’t have new data. And although presently depressed isn’t a good place to be, wanting data is, I suppose.

Now if only the Golden Child’s wedding was over (seriously, don’t want to hear your 30 minute conversation with your crazy fiancée about a venue. Seriously.). And if only Crazy Man wasn’t so excited about GC’s project (which I think is booooring and mostly useless). If only I didn’t look at GC and feel jealous of the fact that all he does is experiments for his own project and none of the time consuming other crap (i.e. he breeds few and screens NO mice). If only I didn’t look at other FGS and feel jealous of the fact that she’s going to have a baby (despite the fact that I’m super super excited for her, and about the blanket I’m knitting her!). If only (many many others)… Perhaps I should find a little time to be happy with where I am and what I am doing, rather than comparing myself to those around me. I just can’t help feeling impatient though.

Hopefully, I’ll get things under control again soon. At the very least, right now I feel hopeful, and I figure that’s as good a place as any to start.

*When I was in high school, the cheerleaders did this super cheer: S-U-P-E-R super super is what we are! Super SUPER! It made me laugh then, and it makes me laugh now, almost every time I use or hear the word super. *snicker*

Happy update

2009-02-07T16:03:00.002-05:00

I smoothed things over with my mom shortly after my last post. She said she was just kidding, and in retrospect (read: when I calmed down), I'm sure that was the case. She has been paid back mightily by a plague of toddlers too. My cousin and his wife (eyeroll) are having her babysit again this weekend. We're not talking "watch the boys so we can go out to dinner" babysitting, either. We're talking full-fledged we're-going-to-dump-the-boys-at-your-house-and-run-away-for-the-whole-weekend babysitting. They suck. She might as well have partial custody of those boys. Hmph! Seriously, I would take them if they'd let me. Double HMPH!

In other news, science rocks my socks! Things have been going super duper fabulous, and I'm motivated and excited, and voluntarily working all weekend, and excited about giving seminar and having a committee meeting and and and... Sheesh! Like I said...excited! :D I was kind of beginning to think I was never going to feel this way again. And now, here I am. I'm excited about my project. I'm excited about doing experiments. I'm excited about finishing up in the not too distant future. I finally feel like I'm actually good at this and that I'm certain I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.

I also found single serving containers of Ben and Jerry's last night. Giggle!!! What can be better than that???

'Scuse me while I go run half a dozen westerns. Before Monday. Seriously. :)

Biting my tongue

2009-01-29T16:52:00.002-05:00

I generally have a very good relationship with my mom. We went through a lot of crap when I was much younger, and so we've always been pretty close. But I swear to God if a screaming baby doesn't burst forth from me in the immediate future, I may be forced to kill her!

I went to the doctor today for my yearly checkup. My mom knew I had an appointment, so I emailed her to let her know that everything was fine. What response do I get? "You're not preggo are you?" Of course meant in a please-God-let-her-be-I-need-grandchildren-now-now-NOW way.

Of course, now she says that she was just joking. After I told her that I was biting my tongue and trying not to flip out on her.

What I really wanted to say was some combination of the following:

-How many times do I have to tell you that we're waiting until I finish grad school?
-How many times do I have to ask you not to go there?
-What part of we aren't ready to have a baby yet is unclear?
-What part of daycare costs more than our mortgage and we're not exactly rolling in dough is unclear?
-How many times do I have to explain that it's hard enough being a female and a scientist and I'm just not ready to make that more complicated yet?

I know she doesn't mean to be shoving a knife through my heart on a regular basis, but dammit this isn't easy! I have enough frustration and guilt without her continually heaping more on. I can't tell her how when my dad was dying all I could think about was how much he loved my cousin's little boy and how he would never meet my kids. And how much that still tears me to shreds.

Why do I feel bad for being different than my cousin who
-is 20 and on her second baby, with two different fathers?
-doesn't work and lives with his in laws, but has two adorable boys that he and his wife dump with a different relative every weekend because "they need a break"?

Why is it that I, the responsible one, the one with a husband and an education and a steady income and a car and house I can afford, who chooses to make responsible reproductive decisions, am the one crying over things?

A Brighter Monday

2009-01-26T22:59:00.004-05:00

I would like to take this moment to thank Katie for Dishy Guy Monday. DGM never fails to perk me up just a bit. And somehow always leads to browsing of the DGM archives...

Speaking of Katies that I love, welcome back Katie! I missed you, and I'm super glad you're blogging again!

RBOC: Not a 3 day weekend edition

2009-01-19T10:57:00.002-05:00

• I’m all for encouraging kids to read! Even if it is fluff (or trash). God knows I read a lot (and I mean a LOT) of fluff and trash when I was younger. For that matter I still do. I just think when books become as popular as, say, Twilight, that perhaps we should be thinking and talking about them a little more.

• I had an incredibly hot dream this morning about an incredibly hot guy, and although it was totally (and almost disturbingly) G-rated, I’m still distracted about it. Still.

• Despite the fact that it is a university holiday, we’re all here in lab. Apparently the Crazy One only believes university holidays apply to us when it suits him. He got seriously ticked last year when most of us were only here a half day or so on MLK day. But of course, it’s fine for him to take off to Disneyworld for the better part of a week and not even mention that he may not be in.

• On the other hand, Crazy Man and I have been on pretty good terms lately. Maybe it’s because one of the private society grants I wrote got funded!!! Of course, he also doesn’t realize that I really don’t have any new data since before Christmas, despite all my best efforts.

• Hopefully, the data will start flowing again. If not, I’m going to lose it. It’s starting to get frustrating.

• Crazy Man looked like I had kicked a puppy when I told him that I had found a meeting to go to. By myself, since he won’t commit to going anywhere with me. I assume he looked so sad because it’s a more signaling/cell biology oriented meeting and not really focused on our sub-field. I figure it’s a good idea to leave the nest a little, since hopefully I will be leaving the nest for good in the not too distant future.

• Speaking of which, things seem to be happening so quickly! It’s really starting to get a little scary. More on this later.

• Three of my cousins are pregnant. THREE! All younger than me, of course. Wait, of course they’re all younger than me…I’m the oldest girl. I don't knit that fast people! I'm not sure I'm going to be able to keep up. Of course, I do have one blanket almost done. More to come...

• My brain is definitely functioning like it’s Monday. Guess I better get to work.

Twilight, or how to warp young girls...

2008-12-30T12:05:00.003-05:00

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas! It was 80 degrees when I left my mom’s house on Saturday. If that’s not Christmas weather, then I don’t know what is! There are so many things skittering around in my brain that I don’t even know what to write about. But since I’ve been reading so much lately, and I’ve seen several recent blog posts about books…well, here we go!

My most recent reading binge started with The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. I was enjoying it, and we had a Books a Million gift card that was about to start being charged due to lack of use, so TM went out and bought me Twilight.

At this point, I had no idea what Twilight was all about (except something vaguely about vampires), or any of the hoopla surrounding it, or even that they were making a movie! (The rock I live under, it is nice and big and shelters me from lots of pop culture crap!) So I read Twilight. I have to admit, it sucked me in a bit at first. Though the plot was thin (among other issues), I liked some of the characters and I thought some of the premises were interesting (i.e. what could be bad about sparkliness??). Lots of things, especially about Edward and Bella’s relationship, bothered me, but I read the book so fast that I didn’t really get bogged down thinking too much about all the things that disturbed me about it.

And then I read the second book. Seriously? SERIOUSLY??? The whole book was just a disgusting whine-fest. Boys and girls, this is what happens when you have seriously unhealthy relationships.

Honestly, I’m still just kind of dumbfounded by the whole series. And deeply disturbed. I freely admit that I am obsessive. But I am so completely disturbed by the obsession that young girls and even adults have with this series. It makes me sick, and I don’t know what I can do about it.

Come on girls! Go find a heroine that’s not seriously nuts! Ugh!

On the flip side, this whole thing has made for some absolutely hysterical snark. Check out this…I especially enjoy the summaries of the books. I thought I was going to die laughing. Fursplode is now officially a part of my lexicon. And yes, I do giggle every time I say it.

(As an aside, I totally agree with what Abbie has said about the Sookie Stackhouse series. It was nice after coming off Twilight to see a chick stand up for herself. Sheesh!)

Hm

2008-12-19T20:15:00.003-05:00

Now that my cold is really waning and I'm really starting to feel good for the first time in over a month, I thought I could be super productive. I thought I would feel like doing all kinds of experiments and blogging and catching up on sciencey reading. Then my friend Jennifer came by. And left me with this:

How am I supposed to accomplish anything with that sitting in my living room???

Yeah!

2008-12-04T20:31:00.001-05:00

This! Almost exactly this, in fact.

Six random things meme

2008-11-20T12:33:00.000-05:00

Acmegirl has tagged me for the six random things meme. I’ve finally managed to get around to actually writing a post, so here it is! The rules: 

Link to the person who tagged you.
Post the rules on your blog.
Write six random things about yourself.
Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

1. I am obsessive. It’s weird, though, because I only obsess about some things. An occasional movie or singer or book will suck me in and eat my brain. And it’s all I can think about, all the stinking time.

2. My life is a musical. I enjoy soundtracks, but I never expected for my life to turn into a musical. This is mostly due to TM, who likes to sing at me. The really interesting part is that he never actually knows the lyrics, so they get made up on the spot. This is how we now have songs like “Louie Cat of Horrors” and “O Figgy Tree”. Seriously.

3. I dance in the darkroom. What am I supposed to do, just stand there and wait?

4. I cry. Over anything. I’ve seriously cried over a Publix commercial. And if anybody else is crying, I cry too. This sometimes even happens with characters on TV or in movies.

5. I binge read. This is why I stopped reading for pleasure shortly after I began college. If I like a book (and sometimes even if I don’t), I sit and read until I’m finished.

6. If I weren’t an immunologist, I would totally be a meteorologist! I sometimes really think I missed my calling. Maybe that’s what I’ll do if I ever retire.

I’m a little late to the game on this one, so I’m not going to tag anyone (mostly because I’m too lazy to dig through my reader and see who hasn’t already done this meme). If you haven’t done this one, and you wanna, go ahead!

A musical morning

2008-11-08T10:59:00.002-05:00

Shingles update: I feel so much better this morning. I actually managed to get some good sleep last night. It doesn’t feel like my head is going to explode anymore. I’m not too itchy and my back and side are significantly less sore, and the rash is starting to dry up. It seems like I’m going to make it!

Warning: Self-indulgent rambling follows! :)

I have to admit, I’ve been a bit self-indulgent this morning. One of my favorite ways to sort of let things out (and this is a little weird, I think), is to listen to country music and let myself cry. I don’t know why exactly, but it makes me feel better.

And now, this morning’s playlist so far (with a little self-indulgent commentary):
• “Don’t Forget to Remember Me” by Carrie Underwood
I think I’ve heard this song exactly once that I didn’t cry for serious. There are three spots that inevitably get me:
“Tell my baby sister that I’ll see her in the fall” My sister has issues, but I love her to pieces. Still not really sure why this gets me going so much.
“Tell Mema that I miss her, yeah I should give her a call” I guess this part gets me because I call my grandmother Mema, and I do miss her even though I talk to her often. This is the line that made me cry the first time I ever heard this song.
“Make sure you tell Daddy that I’m still his little girl” I think this is the one that gets me the most now. It’s been a little over a year since my dad died, and I’ve handled it pretty well, but this line breaks me down every time.

• “I Go Back” by Kenny Chesney
This one makes me think about my dad a bit now too, but it really makes me think about my great grandmother.

• “The Woman With You” by Kenny Chesney
This is one of my unofficial them songs. For some reason I always end up listening to this in the midst of the songs that make me cry. It just makes me smile a little.

• “Good Directions” by Billy Currington
I just thought about this one while I was poking around on YouTube. It’s a cute song, and it makes me think about home. Are you ready for a small southern town story? :) This song was written my Luke Bryan. His sister was my sixth grade teacher. We actually adopted Charlie from her. The store that is mentioned is right up the street from my mom’s house. Shrug…it just all sort of amuses me. Pandora plays the song for me, and I think about how I know these people and places. And it reminds me how happy I am that I’m never going to live there again!

Not just for your roof

2008-11-07T12:41:00.001-05:00

Because my life is never interesting enough without some sort of drama, it turns out that I have shingles.

And now, a lesson on why vaccines are important, and why I get so angry when someone says, “Well, if your child is vaccinated, then my unvaccinated child doesn’t pose a risk.” That, boys and girls, is complete and utter nonsense!

I had the first hint of a rash on my back on Saturday. It itched, I scratched; I had TM look at, he said it looked like a bug bite. No worries. I stuck a Scooby Doo bandaid on it and went on my merry way. It was still pretty itchy on Sunday and Monday, but I just tried to ignore it. Bug bites itch, right?

By Monday afternoon, I had a bit of a tender spot on my left side under my arm. I went to the bathroom and checked it out. Lo and behold, the mother of all rashes. I also discovered multiple splotches on my back. Because it was so itchy, I figured it must be poison ivy again.

I finally went to the doctor on Thursday, since it seemed to be getting worse. Voila! Shingles!

In that time frame I managed to expose a pregnant woman and an infant too young to be vaccinated*. I also went to two different grocery stores, worked in the lab, sat in a couple of seminars, etc.

So take a moment to imagine the possibilities. What if my shingles were something more highly contagious? What if it was more dangerous? How much damage could I have done?

*Hopefully they’re both safe since the exposure was when the rash was in its earliest stages.

Pardon me while I have a moment...

2008-10-23T17:35:00.002-04:00

WHY THE FUCK IS EVERYONE PREGNANT?

Now back to your regularly scheduled, calm and collected blogger. Because seriously, surely I can't find out again tomorrow that 4 people I know are pregnant. Right? RIGHT???

Gray Hair

2008-10-14T10:26:00.002-04:00

The UPS man just told me I was too young to have gray hair. I think responsibility for them can be divided equally between Crazy Man and my sister, with a marginal percentage due to other family members/peripheral-married-in-family members. And now, instead of blogging about my gray hair as a way to waste time, I think I'm going to go do some work. I'm not feeling so motivated today. But I've been sitting here at my desk for an our, so I figure it's time to move on.

Quick question

2008-10-07T17:58:00.002-04:00

What is it that people don't understand about apostrophes? I mean, commas can get complicated, but apostrophes?!?! I suppose I can understand people using no apostrophes (especially on internet forums for example). But why use extraneous apostrophes? Why? I wonder if there's a blog of unnecessary apostrophes?

Anxiety

2008-10-07T13:24:00.002-04:00

I had developed moderately severe depression while I was using hormonal contraceptives. I was approaching the point of actually seeking treatment, but I decided to try going birth control pill free first, as depression is a known side effect. It worked phenomenally! I have been pill free for over three months now, and for the most part I've been feeling great! However, the mild anxiety I was experiencing prior to quitting has not completely disappeared. In fact, it's significantly worse at times.

My first two months off the pill I had what I would call moderately severe anxiety attacks. I was completely befuddled at first, but learned pretty quickly a few tricks that helped me cope and calm down more rapidly. In month three, things started to dramatically improve as far as my anxiety goes. I haven't had any attacks at all this month, and only some brief anxiety when presented with tasks that tend to trigger anxiety for me.

I had been doing so much better, until today. Boom! Out of nowhere, an attack. It's much less severe that what I had been experiencing, but it really threw me for a loop because I had been doing so well. It's especially frustrating because I can't for the life of me figure out anything at all that seems to trigger it, especially this particular instance.

But I guess I'll just have to take comfort for now in the fact that things are still improving. I haven't felt depressed at all this month, so anxiety or no, that's a huge positive step! :) Things are looking up, and I actually feel like I'm good at something again. I'm actually enjoying science again. I actually feel like there's a possibility I can succeed.

Perfect

2008-09-24T19:51:00.002-04:00

I am not perfect. I am many things. I have many talents. I have many skills. I am very good at a fair number number of things (and very bad at a great many). I am many things, but perfect is not one of them.

This is an issue that has plagued me for years. I am the good child, the good student, the quintessential good girl. Or so it seems. In reality, I'm just very, very good at playing the game. I'm very good at keeping up appearances, so to speak. (Perhaps this is the source of some of my social anxiety?) As I said, this issue has been bothersome for some time. I feel and have felt as if I'm sometimes accused of being perfect, as if I'm some paragon that the accuser could never live up to.

I live my life based on my expectations for myself, not others' expectations of me. I always have. I did well in school because I enjoy learning. I want to know everything about everything. I was an all-state musician in high school because I practiced a lot. I practiced a lot because I simply enjoyed playing. I'm obsessive, sometimes to a fault. That personality trait lends itself to certain results.

However, I don't expect anyone to be like me.

But this isn't about me. This is about my sister and how she seems to think I'm judging her. At 18, I was a "paragon of academic pursuit" because that's what I do. At heart, I AM an academic. I have healthy relationships because I choose to. I am very close to a very, very, very small number of people. I truly invest in those relationships, and therefore work very hard for them to be good for all involved.

I disapprove of your current relationship for several reasons, but mostly because it's unhealthy from what I have seen. Healthy relationships don't involve you saying things like "I want to hurt him back." Those kinds of statements are characteristic of unhealthy relationships, in fact. So please, forgive me if I judge. I want you to have healthy relationships.

I'm not looking down on you. I have a huge amount of respect for you. You are so many things I never will be, things I could never dream of. I just wish you would listen sometimes. I care. And I wish you wouldn't judge me. I'm not perfect. We all have issues. You are SO not special in that department.

I can't help myself

2008-09-17T10:28:00.005-04:00

Age of Autism is just SO ripe for the picking lately that I just can't seem to control my urge to blog about it. I still promise there will be a knitting post, just as soon as I find the camera and upload the pictures. I'm almost done with another pair of socks, which I'm excited about because my new set of Knitpicks DPNs should be here any day! Then I can start doing some serious socks! :)

Anyway, I subscribe to AoA in Google Reader because I'm curious, mostly. Today, there was a post entitled "Stealth Viruses - The Secret Face of Autism?". I suffered through one very, very miserable semester of virology, and I've picked up a lot of bits and pieces because there's a lot of people at my university that work on viruses. So, as you can imagine, i was curious.

At first, I was just kind of annoyed by not being able to find many of the "references", first because one of the author's names was spelled two different ways, and secondly because there aren't actually any references given. But I was just annoyed, and still mildly curious. So I read on. Everything was hunky dorey until I got to this gem:

However, the body can potentially respond through what Dr. Martin calls the alternative cellular energy (ACE) pathway. Martin believes that in addition to food metabolism via the mitochondria, the body has another means of acquiring cellular energy that is somewhat similar to photosynthesis. He compares the ACE pathway to an electrical system of batteries, switches, and currents.

Wait...WHAT? I think I may have to let that one settle into the crevices of my brain for a while before I finish reading the article.

An unintended rant

2008-09-15T17:46:00.003-04:00

I really didn't mean for this to turn into the rant that it did. Many of my comments are directly related to this piece of work. At any rate, here it is:

I’m feeling kind of cranky today, so, in honor of that, I’m going to skewer some of the idiocy over at Age of Autism, just for kicks and giggles. (Note: I am not in any way trying to denigrate parents of children with autism or make light of their very difficult situations. However, I have no sympathy for a complete lack of understanding of science. No personal attacks here. You’ll have to go over the AoA for that.)

The personal attacks I have a real problem with. Titles of articles like “Is Autism Speaks' Geri Dawson a Blithering Idiot?” really piss me off. I appreciate that in blogs, even with highly moderated comments, worthwhile discussions do sometimes dissolve into personal attacks. If this were a one time thing, perhaps I could overlook it. However, this type of attack seems to be standard fodder at AoA, and it really bothers me. Sure, have a position, feel strongly about it, disagree with people that feel otherwise. But no matter how strongly you feel, someone that disagrees with you is not inherently a blithering idiot.

Sometimes, though, it is the case that there’s some blithering idiocy going on. Like I said, I’m not going to attack people, but statements like this:

When Thomas Burbacher released a study in 2005 showing that Thimerosal, when injected into chimps…

reek of idiocy. I think the problem with this statement would be immediately obvious to anyone that has ever done research with animals. In fact, my first thought was, “There’s no way in hell chimps were used for that study!!!” A quick look at the abstract verified my initial thought. Chimps weren’t used in that study, macaques were. Of course, what a minor detail! Why would such a thing matter??? This becomes one of those things where if you can’t get that type of simple detail right, why should I believe anything you say? Apparently I’m the only one reading AoA that bothers to notice this type of thing (notwithstanding a few other folks whose comments I’m sure don’t get posted ever).

Speaking of comments, the attitude that commenters that don’t tow the line of whatever “ideals” or whatever are supposed to be adhered to are attacked. Viciously, oftentimes, and without regard to what the commenter actually said. This is particularly disturbing when a poster is merely pointing out flawed logic, without taking a side of the issue.

Let’s get a couple of things straight. The fact you have a kid with autism doesn’t make you an authority on all things autism, and definitely does not make you an expert on science or vaccines. Sure, you are far and away the best at dealing with your child and whatever particular issues they have. And I’m sure that you are your child’s biggest advocate. I don’t have a problem with that. I have a problem with you being wrong. I have a problem with you using lies and bad logic to try to drag other parents over to your side without regard for the potential consequences.

There is no giant conspiracy among the “medical profession” to cover up anything. Every doctor, nurse, scientist, lab tech, etc. are not somehow “contaminated” by pharma money. Speaking of which, the pharma shill thing gets old. Just because somebody doesn’t agree with you doesn’t mean some big, mean pharmaceutical company is paying them. (Although seriously, I could use a little extra cash.) Likewise, the fact that someone has an interest in the vaccine/autism issue doesn’t mean they’re being paid to comment on internet forums taking the vaccine side.

There is no such thing as a truly independent scientist. The money always comes from somewhere. Much of that money comes from the government (of various countries). That doesn’t mean the government controls what gets published.

With regards to Paul Offit’s book, if your so-called “biomedical” treatments are so efficacious, then why isn’t there more peer reviewed scientific support of all these different approaches? Even the big, mean scientists that are out to give kids autism by insisting they receive their vaccines aren’t opposed to legitimate, safe, efficacious treatments, right? Where’s the data?

Quote mining is a useful way to make a point. It is also a particularly useful means to twist an individual’s words. It also pisses me off and makes me trust you less. There are some of us out there that read the original quotes you use in context. Of course, if we call you out on this type of thing at AoA, the comments surely wouldn’t be published. Or perhaps an editor would thank you for focusing on an irrelevant detail rather than the story at hand.

Understand the difference between a theory and a hypothesis. Seriously.

“This increase starts precisely when the Hepatitis B shot was administered at birth, beginning in the late 1980’s.” Let’s not be bothered by facts here. Universal immunization of infants against Hepatitis B was recommended by the CDC in November 1991 (MMWR Recomm Rep. 1991 Nov 22;40(RR-13):1-25.).

“Incredibly, the symptoms of mercury poisoning and Autism are identical. They aren’t kind of similar, or sort of the same, they are identical.” Oh really? I suppose I would fall into the category of “one of those ignorant physicians often quoted who only know mercury toxicity in the form of Acrodynia or Minimata Disease and fail to understand the other ways it may manifest.” Only not a physician.

And now, since I haven’t bothered to do any science today, let’s talk about some particularly juicy bits of misinformation in the “table” the author apparently (poorly) reproduced from Changing the Course of Autism (Jepsen):
• “Causes overproduction of Th2 subset; kills/inhibits lymphocytes, T-cells, and monocytes; decreases NK T-cell activity; induces or suppresses IGNg & IL-2” (Note, I’m assuming this should be IFNg, because that’s what makes the most sense.) ‘Cause, ya know, T cells aren’t lymphocytes or anything. And there’s “overproduction” of Th2, but killing/inhibition of T cells? IFNg and IL-2 can be either induced or suppressed? Erm, okay…
• “Skewed immune-cell subset in the Th2 direction; decreased response to T-cells mitogens; reduced NK T0cell function; increased IFNg & IL-12” Is there an immunologist in the house? Quick lesson…IL-12 stimulates IFNg production. Which inhibits Th2 responses (obviously a vast oversimplification, but still). And “immune-cell subset in the Th2 direction”? WTF does that mean? T cells can be skewed towards a Th2 phenotype…maybe that’s what they meant?

Time out…this particular bit is just too easy. I need to move on. However, the fact that the section regarding the supposed similarities between mercury poisoning and autism has a number of typos, doesn’t exactly boost my confidence in the content. If your “facts” are wrong, why in the world should I take you seriously? (And typos, misspellings, etc….I got no sympathy for bad editing. Period.)

But, ya know, if there were any real scientific references in there, perhaps I might be persuaded. Some person reproducing some list from some book isn’t going to convince me that the symptoms of mercury poisoning and autism are absolutely identical. Forgive me, dear reader, for expecting evidence. And integrity.

Wow

2008-09-13T13:53:00.003-04:00

There are some seriously deluded people out there. And clearly details like whether a study used chimps or macaques is of no consequence. Do you see me rolling my eyes??? And I want a cookie! I would elaborate on the idiocy, but that would piss me off that much more, and I have a sock to knit!

My thoughts exactly!!!

2008-08-31T19:12:00.001-04:00

Dr. Brazen Hussy and i agree: John McCain must think I'm a fucking idiot.

Finally! (and some Friday link love)

2008-08-29T15:34:00.002-04:00

My westerns finally (sorta) started working like they should (i.e. bands exist again). Why is it that the controls work but the experiments don't? Even the controls in the experiment don't work. GAH!

Of course, my problems are nothing compared to Disguntled Julie's. Seriously? Seriously!

Oh, and my mice aren't getting sick because they're not in sterile housing. Why couldn't somebody have mentioned that somewhere along the way? (Excuse me while I go sac my whole colony, put all those experiments on hold, order new breeders, wait for them to breed, and wait for them to get sick.) Somehow I think the bulk of this just became somebody else's project. Oh well. I was in the process of getting unattached to it anyway.

Hm...what else is new? Crazy Man has been in a good mood. It's pretty disturbing. He's been getting into my bubble today, which I really, really don't do well with. (Post to come someday about my social anxiety...) But today, he was sitting talking to me and his shirt was gaping open a bit and I could see his stomach. And I was so disturbed that was all I could think about.

Oh well...I'll just try to let that memory slide away into the ether. Or whatever. iPod is updated, and I believe it's time to hit the road! Woohoo!

Goodbye Mrs. Kitty

2008-08-23T10:24:00.005-04:00

This is Charlie.

She came to live with us when I was in 6th grade. Today she's leaving us. She hadn't been doing well for a while, but now it's time. Goodbye my little Charlie cat, Charcoal kitty, Mrs. Kitty. You can be with Daddy now...you loved him best anyway!

Antagonizer of (not so) sweet puppies and awesomest wrapper of Christmas presents.

Maybe I'm just cranky

2008-08-18T21:42:00.002-04:00

To Crazy Man:

I don't want you to come into the lab and rattle off a list of all the crap you have to do today. Honestly, I don't care how many letters of recommendation and paper reviews you have to write. Stop whining about it and do it already. And if it wasn't clear, I don't care. Really.
I don't want to start my Monday by listening to you talk about how you don't think students at this university work hard enough and how you really don't believe people can be successful in science and work 9-5. Really don't. Really really. And it's really hard to feel good about anything with your rants. Really. It's really, really hard to even have a shred of hope left after your little spiels like that. Really.

To two different sets of neighbors:

If your dog barks continuously when outside alone, he shouldn't be left outside alone. Even on your screen porch. It really, really ticks me off when I can't inspect my little baby tomatoes without hearing your dog barking continuously, even when it can't see me. Really. I almost trudged over to your house Saturday morning in my robe and purple crocs at 7:30 AM just for the spectacle value. Really. We've since been debating the merits of taser vs. tranq dart. Not really.

To Mr. Lou:

You are NOT a pinball. And don't beg for sausage again. Apparently you don't like it. So don't beg for it.

To my right ovary:

I'm glad you've settled down. However, could we try to avoid searing pain while I'm trying to talk to Crazy Man? Please?

To those of you searching for medical information on teh intrawebz:

Be careful. There's some serious BS out there. Seriously. It would be funny because it's so bad, except that well-meaning people believe it. And that ticks me off too.

I think I need a nap. I'm this cranky, even though I've had fudge twice today. Not a good sign.

Friday links (because I'm too lazy to write a real entry)

2008-08-15T10:31:00.002-04:00

Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde has an awesome post up about a utopian lab collective, where everyone gets to do the things they're good at. I still haven't decided which job I'd like...I kind of like doing everything. Maybe that's a good sign, since I want to be a PI. Hmm. Food for thought.
FSP's guide to academic etiquette. Good advice, and more than enough sad but true anecdotes. Because even smart people sometimes lack that thing known as common sense.
Finally, Dr. Isis's young scientist reading list. I just recently discovered Dr. Isis, and I absolutely love her blog. Perhaps she's my alter ego? ;) Maybe at some point I'll start reading again. Then I can really let you know what I think of Dr. Isis's picks. Of course, I may just keep knitting
Speaking of knitting...there will be pictures eventually, I promise. I have finished the baby blanket I'm had been hating working on. (And apparently the recipient looks like Yoda, but I haven't met him yet. The baby, not Yoda. Oh geez.) I also knit a pair of socks and have two scarves in progress. My weekend goal will be lots of pretty pictures. Maybe some of the garden too. And now I'm just rambling because I don't want to do lab work. Hmph!

Mentoring note

2008-08-08T10:42:00.002-04:00

In case you PI types aren't aware, your students don't want to have a serious heart to heart with you about their career and future while trying to load 84 samples onto a gel. I'll even go so far as to say that your students don't want to discuss their career plans while they're trying to do lab work AT ALL!

Also, while I'm at it, don't ask me if I can handle doing all the experiments I just told you I was going to do. Especially don't do it in that condescending there's-no-way-in-hell tone of voice. If I couldn't handle it, I'd tell you. I'm apparently way better at this than you seem to think I am.

Finally, don't ask me why I did an experiment that was your idea and that I bluntly told you I thought was stupid.

That's not all, but I'll take a deep breath and let the rest go for now. :)

"Scientists are people too"

2008-08-05T09:55:00.002-04:00

There's an awesome post up over at Sciencewomen about childcare and professional travel. Check it out! Also, the new Scientiae is up. I haven't had a chance to check it out yet, but I'm sure it's awesome (and I've heard good things about it). :)

Still alive

2008-07-31T20:33:00.002-04:00

Warning: whiny crap to follow...

I'm still here. I've been feeling kind of run down. I don't have any motivation. I don't have any self-confidence. I feel like I'm floundering. I don't know what to do. Like I said, I don't have any motivation to do anything, so I guess it doesn't matter if I don't know what to do. :( July is not my favorite month. At least there's been rain. I like rain. There's all these little things that should be making me happy that aren't. And there's all these little things worrying me. Maybe it's just hormonal. That's what I'll tell myself. Maybe that will make me feel better. :-/

I have better posts coming soon, I promise. At the very least, I should have a knitting post coming soon. If I ever finish the damn blanket I'm working on. It used to be "Mason's blanket". Now it's "the damn blanket". Can knitted baby blankets have bad vibes? I sure hope not...

Hmm...writing this has been weirdly cathartic. Now if I could just get myself to do some experiments, know for sure that my sister isn't pregnant and that my uncle's daughter wasn't in the hospital again, maybe those things would put me on the path towards feeling better.

Conspiracy theory!!!

2008-07-23T12:26:00.003-04:00

Pardon me while I have a conspiracy theory moment. I posted a comment on HuffPo. I can't seem to drag myself away no matter how much it jacks up my blood pressure. So anyway, I posted this comment. And then when I was looking at it again to double check a statistic for another comment, I realized the relevant part was gone. The whole reason I posted the comment was no longer in there. I copied and pasted an entire paragraph, and part of a sentence in the middle was gone. So then I tried to reply to that comment, pasting in the relevant part, and my comment, which looked fine in preview, posted as a very, very truncated version, again, lopping off the relevant information. DO NOT WANT! So then I tried to post another comment where I just typed out the relevant statistics without copy/paste, and I got a message that the comment had already been posted and was awaiting moderation. WTF???

Methinks it'll be one of those days

2008-07-23T10:31:00.003-04:00

I woke up feeling like absolute crap this morning. My throat hurt and I was all stiff and achy. The next time I woke up I felt like I was going to puke. Despite the ginger tea, that feeling hasn't really subsided. And then I got to work and learned that we had a boil water advisory. Suuuure...it's probably nothing. I only drank two or three glasses of water and brushed my teeth a couple of times. I mean...there's got to be a better way to disseminate this kind of information. Whatever. I'm just going to keep sitting at my desk for a while. I could stand to do some reading. I could also stand to do some experiments. Unfortunately, there will be no experiments until I screen mice. And I just don't think I can do that right now. The thought of puking in the big trash can in the mouse room makes me want to...well...you know...

Random bullets of...RANDOMNESS!!!

2008-07-22T10:21:00.001-04:00

I feel like my brain has been in overdrive for a few days now. Maybe it’s lack of sleep. I have seriously 15 blog posts just circling inside my head and it’s starting to make me a little crazy. Therefore, I present random bullets of total randomness! (And it’s MY blog, so yes I CAN!)

Crazy man is back. And what a joy that’s been. For the most part it’s been painless. I dunno…maybe my tolerance for him has increased. We’ll see how long that lasts.
Golden child is sitting here beside me typing away to someone (I’d guess golden girlfriend) on MSN messenger. On the up side, at least I’m not having to be party to their disgusting morning conversation. I’m sure there will be a post about this at some point. And yes, conversation singular. There is only one. The same one. Every day.
Grants got submitted! Woohoo!!! I was actually pretty pleased with the short one, and I did manage to get it down under 5 pages. Which actually was significantly aided by very helpful comments from Crazy Man. Who knew?
Time to develop my western.

Part 2 coming soon. Please, try to contain yourselves until then. ;)

Somebody save me!!!

2008-07-09T16:16:00.002-04:00

A deluge of randomness (and no, you can't haz buletz!):

Who thought a 5 page grant was a good idea? Why do I suck so bad at cutting things out? Why is it so hot in here??? Why do I find it necessary to use multiple question marks sometimes? Do I have anything to snack on? Will somebody else please finish this stupid grant? This shouldn't take too much longer, right? Can I really cram all my preliminary data and the research plan into 2.5 pages?

This isn't going to be pretty for a while longer. Oh well. Need to hammer something out so I can send it to Crazy Man. Who knows...maybe he'll make some useful suggestions!

Cuteness!!!

2008-07-09T09:27:00.003-04:00

The little calico kitten has learned how to climb a tree. A little bit anyway. I keep seeing her scurry up the little dogwood right outside the window and then halfway fall back down. It makes me a happy to watch her. I wonder if she actually is a she or not. Anyway, I'm supposed to be working on this grant that's due next Tuesday, so I guess I should be doing that instead of blogging about my cute little kitten.

Sad day

2008-07-06T20:01:00.002-04:00

Warning: This is a sad post. Don't say you weren't warned.

We went to visit my mom this weekend. We were supposed to be babysitting my cousin's boys (ages 2 years and almost 4 months). For one night. Which for them means all day, all night and all day the next day. Of course, that's a little excessive, but we expect it and so we plan for. Anyway, on Thursday, my cousin called my mom and asked if we would mind keeping them all weekend, because they wanted to go to the beach with my cousin's dad.

I don't even know why they had kids...they just dump them off with somebody else all the time. I cuddled the little one so much and played with the older one so much, and I didn't want to leave them when it was time for us to leave. Even now many hours later I feel a little empty without my little wiggly worm. My little Yertle the Turtle. :( I don't know how you can go off and leave your own babies with some random family member just about every single weekend. I totally wish that I could kidnap them. Even though they are a mess.

Sadder... When we got home this afternoon, one of the kittens that has been hanging around our house had been run over. So we buried him/her. Which made me extra sad because today is the one year anniversary of my dad's funeral. Then TM was leaving to go to work and he ran over another one of the kittens. Bless his heart...I'm not sure I've ever seen him so upset. So we buried two kittens today. :(

There are two more kittens and the mom still hanging around our house. I'm not sure if the momma kitty belongs to someone. I was looking at a feral cat spay/neuter program, which I'm contemplating for these kitties. I just don't know. I would consider taking in the kittens, but I don't think momma kitty will ever be okay indoors. She's very skittish and I don't think she would adjust, especially since we already have Mr. Lou. At any rate, the kittens are too young to do anything with just yet, so I guess I'll just keep feeding them for now and keeping an eye on them. I'm hoping they'll start hanging out under our deck instead of under TM's truck.

Good! That was as cathartic as I was hoping it would be. Having the kids this weekend was nice. It kept my mom and I busy enough that the anniversary of my dad's death wasn't too difficult. And now I've got the kitten thing off my chest and I feel better. I feel better period. More on that later!

A voice in the crowd

2008-06-30T14:22:00.002-04:00

The theme for this month’s Scientiae carnival is “A voice in the crowd”. This month is being hosted over at Podblack, and the deadline for submission is July 2^nd, so hop to it!!!

I am a quiet person. I prefer to listen rather than talk. I do not yell. I feel sometimes like I don’t even have a voice. How, then, can I be a voice in the crowd? More importantly, how can I make my voice heard? How can I motivate/encourage/coerce myself to speak up?

What value is there in speaking up? Especially if no one is really listening. And how often is someone really listening? Is it better to remain silent and wonder “What if?” or to speak yet remain unheard? To scream and remain unheard?

I am beginning to understand that I struggle with verbal communication, even with the people closest to me, even about completely minor things. This is something I really need to deal with sooner rather than later, mostly for the sake of my own sanity.

I worry that if I say what I think, people will think I’m crazy. How do I get over that (very teeny tiny little miniscule) hurdle?

scientiae-carnival

Validation

2008-06-28T08:05:00.002-04:00

I think one of the most pleasant feelings is that of validation. It's especially sweet when you've been contemplating something a lot, feeling frustrated, feeling misused and feeling like it's just not fair, and thinking you must be completely nuts for feeling those things. And then to find out that there are thousands or more other people that feel just like you do. Ahhhh. It's almost a sense of relief. I'm not crazy. These are legitimate ways for me to be feeling about this. Which raises the question, why did I not feel like my feelings were legitimate to begin with? I think it's still too early for me to think about that too much.

In a related issue, why am I afraid to ask for support from TM, the one person on the planet (that isn't related to me) that loves and supports me more than anyone else? There is a very simple thing I want to discuss. It's not a huge ordeal. Well, it could become one, but statistics say it won't be. Why am I having such a hard time asking for his help on this one? Why am I convinced that he thinks I'm crazy? I think maybe I'll ask him to read the things that made me feel so validated first. Maybe then he'll have a better idea of where I'm coming from. Why am I second guessing myself on this so much? Why do I keep feeling like he's going to think I'm a manipulative bitch? I don't have any reason to think he'd respond to this in anything less than a totally positive manner, so why do I keep beating myself down? I think I need a little more optimism in my life.

Oh noes! Come back Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde!!!

2008-06-28T07:45:00.001-04:00

Tear!!! I second ScientistMother's sentiments!!!

And the Louie cat says:

hbe4wsd][[z¸0p

It's 5am...

2008-06-24T05:09:00.001-04:00

I'm in lab. And I feel like I'm going to puke. Somehow I don't think this is going to be a good day.

Bits and pieces

2008-06-23T21:40:00.003-04:00

TM and I did end up having a good talk while we were "babysitting" on Friday night. It definitely made me feel better. At the very least we got some things out in the open, which is always good.

However, I'm still feeling like crap. I'm trying really hard to perk up, but I just feel apathetic about everything. I put on the appropriate faces and the appropriate times, but I really just don't care. I'm pretty sure I know what's causing it, and although I'm not making an immediate change to fix it, I'm taking some small steps. That at least lets me feel like I'm a little more in control. At the very least, I'm still sleeping well, so that's something.

Speaking of which, I had bizarre dreams last night. A whole collection of them. Complete with people having babies, dropped laptops, dolphins, quicksand, dead people and drunk people.

I got some interesting data today. Really kind of intriguing. And I'm trying to be excited about it. But I don't know where to go from here. I'm not sure what it really means, or how to figure anything else out. Hm.

Crazy Man is going to be out of town for two weeks! But that means I have to figure out Interesting Data and how to follow up and finish up this grant resubmission without tormenting him. Which makes me sad. I enjoy tormenting him when he's stressed. It amuses me. And I could use a little more amusement in my life. He's totally freaked out about leaving us unsupervised for so long. It's actually kind of sad, yet funny to watch. He has some serious issues. I would say that he needs therapy or medication or something, but I really don't think it would help. I really just think he's neurotic.

Jumping in, starting a conversation...maybe

2008-06-20T15:28:00.003-04:00

I thought for sure I'd spend some time writing while TM was out of town. That totally didn't happen. I was lazy beyond belief. But it was good for me.

(Like this is anything new...)

I was thinking about baby stuff the other night and then again while I was flowing yesterday (the experiment from hell that didn't even tell me anything...grrrr!!!). So I made a spreadsheet of things I considered essential costs related to having a baby. Added everything up and sent it to TM. Hopefully it won't freak him out too much! It actually added up to way less than I expected. We'll see how he reacts. We're babysitting for some friends tonight, so maybe we can chat about things. I'm told the children will be sleeping...

Well that was quick. Eyeroll. His reply was, "See, expensive!" I'm going to go cry in my cell culture now. :(

Bumper sticker wisdom

2008-06-12T20:57:00.002-04:00

Saw this driving home today:

Remember the person you wanted to be.

Hm. I may need to think on that one a bit.

In other news, I made a frickin' amazing massaman curry tonight. Oh my. I impressed myself!

Randomness

2008-06-07T09:36:00.003-04:00

The current CNN quick vote question:

Will Sen. Hillary Clinton's speech on Saturday help unify the democratic party?

Maybe I'm missing something...wouldn't that sorta, kinda, ya know, depend on WHAT SHE SAYS? I'm mean sure, what she's going to say is probably pretty predictable. But something outrageous could happen. Just for the sake of argument. CNN polls irritate me to no end.

You know what else irritates me to no end??? Dueling chainsaws outside my bedroom window at 7:30AM on Saturday. Who does that??? Apparently my neighbor two doors down. Grrrrr!!! I appreciate that it's supposed to be like 900 degrees here today, but I needed to sleep dammit!

My sister just sent me a picture of a turtle.

Mr. Lou is clingy this morning. He sat in the bedroom door until I got up, and hasn't let me out of his sight since. I guess he's still hoping for some breakfast. Well so am I, little furry one.

More substantial posts coming soon, I promise.

Quick rant

2008-06-03T14:07:00.002-04:00

I am tired of reading/editing this grant that Crazy Man and the Golden Child have put together. I think the premise is crap and I just don't like it. Stir into the mix that neither one of them knows how to use a comma. That all bakes up to be completely and utter misery for little ole me. Hmph. I've been reading it since I got here this morning. It actually isn't terrible (aside from the commas), but I still don't buy it. So I'm becoming one of those people that only fixes grammar and makes no real comments about the science. Hmph. Oh well. Yaaaawn.

A bit better

2008-05-28T17:49:00.002-04:00

I am indeed feeling just a bit better today. I managed to get a bit of lab work done, although everything I touched turned into disaster. Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze a bit of data out of it anyway.

Speaking of data, a paper I'm an internal author on was just accepted. This is especially exciting for me because I wrote the rebuttal letter, so I'm quite proud that I managed to not piss off the reviewers. Particularly, reviewer 1, who was a real idiot. Not just didn't get the paper...doesn't get biology idiot. Postulated ridiculous explanations of things, that made absolutely NO sense given that we approached the question from two completely different systems just to avoid/address those issues. But whatever. I'm not bitter. Moron.

PSA to reviewers: It is not helpful to have an entire review that consists entirely of "well it could be this or this or this or this", all of which are completely unaddressable and highly unlikely if not physically impossible. Particularly when the exact same results were obtained in a second system in which there is a separate, non-overlapping set of "well it could be this or this or this or this". We prefer that you use actual science as a basis of your review, rather than b.s. you came up with because you don't like our model (or us or whatever).

Wow, that was cathartic! :)

Down day

2008-05-27T11:05:00.001-04:00

I don’t know if I can do this today. I said yesterday that I was feeling a little down. Well, that’s gotten significantly worse today. I feel awful. I’m sure it’s almost entirely hormonal, but I really can’t seem to convince myself to perk up today. Usually, I can come up with something to get myself going, and once I do get going, whatever little momentum I build up will usually at least carry me through the day.

But today I just feel paralyzed. I can’t get myself out of my chair. I really just want to go home and curl up. But I’m here. Sitting at my desk. And I can’t get out of my chair. This isn’t my normal I’m lazy and don’t feel like doing anything stuck in my chair. No, this is different, and I don’t like it.

I did manage to get up and make some calming tea. I think that has helped a little. I’m trying to do little things. I ordered some supplies. I’m trying to convince myself to take some stuff down to the autoclave, but I haven’t managed to commit myself to that yet. I haven’t even managed to move stuff around on my desk so that I could make a list on my notepad.

It’s a down day, and I can’t seem to shake it. It’s supposed to storm this afternoon. I wish it would start now. It just feels like a day that needs rain.

Okay, I finished my tea and I’m going to get up, wash out my mug, and pop stuff into the autoclave. Then I’m going to plan my experiments for the afternoon. Then I’m going to eat lunch. Then I’m going to do said experiments, like it or not. I will not get stuck here. I will not.

New Howard Hughes Investigators

2008-05-27T09:53:00.004-04:00

I was reading this article, and the following quote made me feel a little sick:

The 42 men and 14 women named Hughes investigators today

Obviously, there's lots of things that could explain those numbers, but GEEZ! If that's not indicative of a problem somewhere along the line, then I don't know what is.

I can't decide...

2008-05-26T11:32:00.002-04:00

...if I should be peeved or thankful. My sister just called to tell me that one of my great uncles on my father's side passed away last night. He had been sick for a while, so it came as no surprise. However, what I can't decide if I should be peeved or thankful about is the fact that my father didn't call me to tell me. He called my sister. He didn't tell her to be sure to tell me...the first thing she asked when she called was whether or not he had called. I don't want to go to the funeral, but I live close enough that I could have. I wasn't especially close to my uncle and his family, but they are family, and ones I've seen in recent memory and actually like.

I mean, I am glad that I didn't have to talk to my father. He made us make a personal appearance some years ago just to tell us that our grandfather was in prison for shooting wife number 4 or 5. But he can't even call me to tell me somebody on that side of the family that I actually liked had died? That's the peeved part.

I guess I'm just confused. And I was already feeling a little depressed. So now I feel a little extra crappy. Hmph!

The importance of clarity in writing

2008-05-23T13:18:00.003-04:00

This is from an AP story I first saw on the abc news website:

Common Virus Blamed for 5 Infant Deaths, CDC Says
Better laboratory tests reveal a common illness can be deadly to newborns
By MIKE STOBBE AP Medical Writer
ATLANTA May 22, 2008 (AP)

A common virus traditionally viewed as mild killed at least five U.S. infants last year, government health officials said Thursday.

The five deaths mark the first time an infection was found to be fatal, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Really? This is the first time an infection has ever been fatal??? Erm, Mike, you, my friend, need an editor, proofreader, friend, something! The name of the virus finally shows up at the end of the last sentence in the first full paragraph. What's up with that? Why couldn't we have done something like "This marks the first time Coxsackievirus B1 has been found to be fatal."??? Maybe I'm just irritated because the primary piece of information I wanted from the story was what the virus was. Somehow I don't feel like I'm alone on that though. Hmph.

And now back to the lab work previously in progress.

A little whining, a little updating

2008-05-22T17:42:00.002-04:00

My arm is officially not going to rot off. Apparently I have developed a nice little DTH response to that lovely bit of fauna known as poison ivy. And thanks to a little steroid cream, we're looking better already. Yea!

For some reason, something possessed me today to genotype a whole horde of mice. I rant out of tubes at 63. Who bleeds that many mice at once? Although, somehow, without even trying, I can still bleed upwards of 40 mice per hour, so that's something to be proud of, I suppose. (Feel free to imagine me rolling my eyes here!)

Of course, now I'm flowing all those evil samples and teh intertubes are about done entertaining me. Oh wait, that's my last sample running now. Yea yea yea!!!

I'm hungry. I have no good snacks. That makes me sad.

My sister told my mom the other day that she wants to get her belly button pierced. (Insert another eyeroll here.) My sister is no wafer-thin little thing, and I don't think anyone outside of immediate family has so much as seen her belly button since she was a toddler. But whatever. I told my mom that she should tell her that when she gets a job and can pay for it herself she can get it. I'm not going to hold my breath on the job or the piercing.

I was looking at cute little doggies this afternoon! I want a doggie! We tried to adopt a dog about a year and a half ago, but that turned into a major disaster. That's another story for another time, but suffice it to say that the foster mom was just kidding when they told us that she was crate trained and house broken, and didn't bother to mention the SEVERE separation anxiety. But anyway, when we were at the beach last weekend there were soooo many cute dogs and I want one. When I get tired of trying to convince myself that I don't want a baby right now, I think about dogs.

Hmmm...is it bad that I'm just sitting here watching the cytometer clean instead of going back to lab and trying to look busy? I'm tired of this week. Oh well...at least now that all my mice are screened I can setup some new stuff. New stuff that might even work! (Trying ever so hard to be optimistic...)

Thoughts on education (that deteriorate into a rant)

2008-05-20T11:32:00.002-04:00

I’ve been reading and thinking about education a bit today. My sister (my little baby sister sniffle) is graduating from high school this month! She goes to a public high school in rural Georgia, which is the same school system I was in from first grade on.

For those of you that aren’t aware, public education in Georgia is, well, a disaster. It was okay when I was in school, and obviously varied greatly by school system. However, things have gone downhill superfast. Scary super fast.

A number of issues have plagued public education in Georgia:

That whole evolution thing (for my most recent amusement, see here)
Curriculum issues—implementation of a new math system that seems to be dicey at best, instituting new standards at the middle school level before the elementary level, etc. My favorite, however, is requiring four years of high school science for all students. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for awesome science education. However, it appears that no one took into consideration the number of new teachers this would require or where the money for those new hires is coming from. It’s going to be very, very, very ugly in a few years.
Leadership issues—in particular, the Clayton County school system is going to lose their accreditation in the fall. (Check out articles here and here for more information.) The decision hasn’t been finalized, but I don’t see it turning out any other way. (The really sad part is, this is an entirely administrative and non-academic issue. Morons!!!) This whole thing really makes me sick.

All of this just makes me very sad. Younger BIL will graduate next year, and we will be out of the Georgia public school system for good, other than my MIL, who teaches 5^th grade. I really wish there was something I could do to at least help a little, but I’m all out of ideas.

The other thing I was thinking about today was this article from The Juggle on WSJ. The question it posed was “College: Time to Accept it’s Not for Everyone?” I can’t even express how much I agree with that. Some students are not good at academics. Period. Which makes me extra angry that Georgia now only offers a high school college preparatory track. Some people are not good at “book learnin”. GET OVER IT!!! The thing is, those people are typically good at something, sometimes really, really good at something non-academic.

Why do we punish those students???

Why should we discourage some students from becoming skilled laborers? Why do we deny them the opportunity to learn a trade in high school? Why do we expect all students to excel at academics?

I can think of kids I went to high school with that were damn good mechanics, electricians, etc. Those people didn’t need to take four years of science. They don’t need to take Math 4, whatever that entails. I don’t care if my mechanic knows trig, heck, algebra. I want him/her to FIX MY CAR!!!

I believe education is important, and the everyone should have the opportunity to follow whatever path it is that they choose. I just don’t have a problem with a kid working really hard at learning to be an electrician rather than studying chemistry.

Book Meme!

2008-05-19T17:44:00.003-04:00

As seen at dirt and rocks--a book meme!

The top 100 or so books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users. Bold the books you have read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell 

Anna Karenina 

Crime and Punishment 

Catch-22 

One Hundred Years of Solitude 

Wuthering Heights 

The Silmarillion 

Life of Pi: a novel 

The Name of the Rose 

Don Quixote 

Moby Dick 

Ulysses 

Madame Bovary 

The Odyssey 

Pride and Prejudice 

Jane Eyre 

The Tale of Two Cities 

The Brothers Karamazov 

Guns, Germs, and Steel 

War and Peace 

Vanity Fair 

The Time Traveler’s Wife 

The Iliad 

Emma 

The Blind Assassin 

The Kite Runner 

Mrs. Dalloway 

Great Expectations 

American Gods

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Atlas Shrugged 

Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books 

Memoirs of a Geisha 

Middlesex 

Quicksilver 

Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West 

The Canterbury Tales 

The Historian: a novel (in progress)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 

Love in the Time of Cholera 

Brave New World 

The Fountainhead 

Foucault’s Pendulum 

Middlemarch 

Frankenstein 

The Count of Monte Cristo 

Dracula 

A Clockwork Orange 

Anansi Boys 

The Once and Future King 

The Grapes of Wrath 

The Poisonwood Bible 

1984 

Angels & Demons 

Inferno 

The Satanic Verses 

Sense and Sensibility 

The Picture of Dorian Gray 

Mansfield Park 

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 

To the Lighthouse 

Tess of the D’Urbervilles 

Oliver Twist 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time 

Dune 

The Prince 

The Sound and the Fury 

Angela’s Ashes: a memoir 

The God of Small Things 

A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present 

Cryptonomicon 

Neverwhere 

A Confederacy of Dunces 

A Short History of Nearly Everything 

Dubliners 

The Unbearable Lightness of Being 

Beloved 

Slaughterhouse-five 

The Scarlet Letter 

Eats, Shoots & Leaves 

The Mists of Avalon 

Oryx and Crake 

Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed 

Cloud Atlas 

The Confusion 

Lolita 

Persuasion 

Northanger Abbey 

The Catcher in the Rye 

On the Road 

The Hunchback of Notre Dame 

Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything 

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values 

The Aeneid 

Watership Down 

Gravity’s Rainbow 

The Hobbit 

In Cold Blood: a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences 

White Teeth 

Treasure Island 

David Copperfield

Ugh! And critters!

2008-05-19T17:33:00.003-04:00

I think my arm is rotting off. Periodically throughout my life, my skin decides it hates me. Sometimes it starts with a bug bite. This time it was two little scrapes courtesy of the jungle that is my back yard. Tiny. One of them originally looked like a needle stick (I think it was a rose thorn). And then I scratch. Not thinking about it, obviously. Sometimes even in my sleep. And things explode. I get serious inflammation that turns into big nasty half dollar sized welts. It's ugly. And then it itches. Bad. And I try soooo hard not to scratch. Eventually these evil little critters heal, but it's a long, slow, miserable, itchy process, with a whole lot of my trying to convince myself that my arm couldn't possibly itch because I don't even have an arm.

Anyway, I have two of these that have been looking pretty ugly, but I've been being good and not scratching. They have started to heal. However, four new bumps subsequently popped up on my lower arm. Which I studiously ignored, but one of them in particular is growing. Groan!!! Then yesterday I noticed a bunch of little bumps on my upper arm. Maybe 7 of them. I'm ignoring them too, and so far, they aren't turning into the growths. Then this morning my other hand itched. So i rubbed my hand over it and discovered a whole new herd of little tiny bumps, which I now have on both hands. I think it may be time to take this one to the doctor.

Furthermore, there is a flea in my chair that has jumped on me like three times. (And no, none of the creature bumps are flea bites...oh were it that simple!) Go harass the kitty for crying out loud!!!! Me and Mr. Lou...we're about to go flea murdering again. Just when I thought they were all gone... Poor kitty may be getting another bath, bless his furry little heart. Funny part is, I think he kind of likes baths... Silly kitty!

And also to keep things interesting, I have the tiniest bit of sunburn on my chest. And it itches. I think I'm in itchy hell.

This amuses me (and makes me a little sad)

2008-05-13T17:08:00.002-04:00

So I've been arguing with this person on a message board all day about whether or not intelligent design should be part of K-12 science curriculum. My first request of references supporting ID, he told me I should watch Expelled. Eyeroll! Request for references number 10 or 12, I got directed to the Discovery Institute website. Bigger eyeroll! But it was made all better when I found a reference on the DI website to a paper in, get this, the Journal of Fuzzy Systems. I almost hope (for their sake) that a hacker was responsible for that. Somehow I doubt that's the case though. And what do you know...still no legit references to be found. I must be in a good mood today, because this isn't ticking me off like it usually does.

However, what does really tick me off is that I bought some pita chips made by Snyder's of Hanover (whose pretzels I loooooove) and they are TERRIBLE!!! Seriously gross. They melt down into some sort of wet sawdust kind of consistency and it's just bad. So bad I actually emailed them, which is very unlike me. So just say no to Snyder's new multigrain pita chips!!!

Gag me with a spoon!

2008-05-13T12:33:00.002-04:00

David Kirby has been up to his usual stellar (eyeroll) reporting over at his blog on Huffington Post. The part that is really disgusting to me is the comments. It's like some of these people worship this guy because he doesn't have the testicular fortitude to actually think for himself and critically evaluate, well, anything as far as I can tell. Some of the comments are just praising his fabulous journalism and blah blah blah. Except that in this post, all he does is quote from an interview somebody else did. Should I be impressed by that? Because, well, I'm like, NOT.

Yea housework!

2008-05-10T17:30:00.002-04:00

I've been rocking out some laundry and organizing and whatnot while TM has been working his landscaping magic. Today is one of those days I enjoy housework. I know, weird, huh? I think it's genetic. My sis and I both cope with stressful times by kicking it into Martha Stewart overdrive. We both turn into crazy, manic cleaning machines. It's actually pretty impressive, now that I think about it.

Anyway, one thing I do NOT enjoy doing is vacuuming. We have the most horrendous piece of crap Kenmore vacuum. It is nearly impossible for me to maneuver. We have one room with carpet, a small den. TM called halfway through this endeavor. He wanted to know why I was out of breath. The vacuum sucks that bad! I swear it may have square wheels or something.

Meanwhile, the furry feline has his face stuck in an air conditioner vent. Spoiled rotten.

And now back to the laundry already in progress. Maybe I'll get out my little hand-held super vacuum and get the mounds of cat hair off the furniture. That one I can handle.

Grr!!! Stupid people annoy me!

2008-05-09T13:02:00.003-04:00

Who argues that you can't prove a negative, and the proceeds to try and convince you that any rational person would agree that correlation equals causation?!?! Please forgive my stunned silence, Mr. Stupid Person.

To be filed under incredibly annoying:

The rotating dude and I were the only ones in the lab last night. Crazy man came in and started chatting with rotating dude. That's all fine and dandy. Where does rotating dude decide to perch himself for this conversation? That's right, folks, MY CHAIR!!!! It's not like there are 4 other chairs within 2 steps of my desk. Why? Are people really that oblivious and rude??? Don't know why I'm being cranky. Hmph.

And something weird is going on with my laptop battery, but I haven't figured out exactly what yet. Hmph. HMPH!!!

May Scientiae is up!

2008-05-08T08:48:00.004-04:00

The May Scientiae is up over at Flicka Mawa's A Cat Nap. It's a fantastic carnival full of interesting insights about our career paths, goals, and how nothing ever goes according to THE PLAN. Enjoy!

A blogalicious brain vomit!

2008-05-06T16:56:00.001-04:00

One of my high school English teachers made us do this exercise he called a brain vomit. The premise was that you just got all your thoughts out. You were supposed to just keep writing for whatever set period of time. There seem to be lots of things just running wild in my poor little brain, so I think it’s time to set them free on the blogosphere!

I have babies on the brain!!! While we were visiting my mom this past weekend, we kept my cousin's two little boys who are 2 months and almost 2 years old. Needless to say it was quite an adventure. Despite not getting any sleep, I want so very badly to kidnap them! Or have one of my own. And that seems to be all I can think about today. Fortunately, it’s a happy afterglow kind of thinking about it, not the painful, frustrated, longing kind of thinking about it. I’m sure that will return shortly.
My father got married again this weekend, bringing his total number of marriages to three. It was the most ridiculous thing I have ever suffered through. I am the black sheep on this side of the family because I have very little to do with my father (and because I’m getting a PhD and haven’t popped out any babies yet). The reason I have very little to do with him is because he was verbally and physically abusive to my mom when I was a child. He’s mellowed a lot with age, and I appreciate that, but I still have no use for him.

Back to the wedding, it was a super duper hardcore religious Southern Baptist young earth kind of ceremony. Which is bad enough. But this is his third marriage, and I don’t know how many times his lovely bride has been married, but she has two children that I would guess have two different fathers. And he has at least one bastard child that was conceived while he was married. So it was kind of disgusting to sit through all the be faithful forever, I’ll love you until I die crap.

Everything was super tacky too. It was an early afternoon wedding. The bride wore a dress with a cathedral length train. A dress that was “hemmed” in the front with duct tape. I can’t make this up. The groom’s cake was on a table covered with camo and the cake had a deer head on it. I guess it’s better than a red velvet armadillo. The reception consisted of punch, peanuts, dinner mints and the cake. I didn’t expect a full meal, but some pretzels would have been nice. Maybe some cheese and crackers?

Okay, tacky wedding rant complete (and with no mention of the cankles or their arm/wrist equivalent. Ew.)

Crazy Man ticked me off again last week. We had joint lab meeting with our collaborators across town. These are always painful occasions because our collaborator (Jabba the Hut) is outrageously obnoxious, but we’ll save that for another day. Crazy Man had ordered pizza for us, and he was running late, so he called to tell us to sign for it and take it down to the conference room. I answered the phone when he called, and he said, “Could one of you girls sign for the pizza and take it down to the room?” I was seriously speechless. And what do you know, us two girls were doing experiments while the boys were sitting at their computers. Grrrrr!!!

I think that’s it for now. I’m taking off a little early again today. TM demands groceries so that he can concoct me some gourmet meals. Who am I to stand between TM and groceries??? J Crazy Man will probably be ticked at me by the end of the week, but whatever. I got a lot of work done today, and by the end of the week I should actually (hopefully) have some data to show for it. That should appease him. I hope.