Realization (of something I already knew…)

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)

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?

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...)

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

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

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…

…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.