RBOC

• 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

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

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

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

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

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

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.