On being a scientist and a woman

Moving Day

2007-09-20T08:30:00.000-04:00

As of this morning, you are now at the former home of On Being a Scientist and a Woman. That's right, I've got a new home in the cyber-world. From here on out, I'll be blogging at

http://www.scienceblogs.com/sciencewoman.

I debated whether to accept the ScienceBlogs invitation. I don't want to appear a sellout, and I like the community feel of women in science blogs on Blogger. I'm a bit anxious about the greater risk of being prematurely "outed" now that I'll be playing in a higher visibility arena.

But greater visibility is ultimately what makes the ScienceBlogs invitation so enticing. I've been blogging here for almost two and a half years, and over that time I've probably had at least a dozen readers thank me for writing this blog, for talking about the real issues the women grad students, post-docs and professors face. My hope is that on the ScienceBlogs domain, I'll attract some readers who otherwise never would have found me - young women who wonder what it's like to write a dissertation while combating morning sickness and older men who wonder why they hear soft wooshing sounds coming from behind the closed door of their new woman colleague's office.

But I also fervently hope that you, my current readers, my friends, will follow me to my new cyber-home. You've been an incredible source of encouragement and support for the past two and a half years. Without you, I can honestly say, I don't think I could have done it.

Update: Just a little announcement to let everyone know that the RSS feed now seems to be working for the new website. To subscribe click the RSS button on the upper right or enter: http://www.scienceblogs.com/sciencewoman/index.xml into your feed reader.

Mommy Monday: the Pup and the Babe

2007-09-17T20:07:00.000-04:00

Last week I opened up the Mommy Monday request line, and I'm putting all of your great suggestions in the queue. First up: "I'd love to hear how Minnow and Princess Pup get along :)"

We weren't too worried about bringing home a baby to the Princess Pup, although we did study up on how to acclimate a dog to a baby, and we are careful that they are never in the same room alone together. But the Princess Pup has always loved little kids - they are just the right height to lick. Licking, especially the face, is the way that Princess Pup expresses her affection.

And lick is what Princess Pup likes to do to Minnow. Every time Minnow enters a room where the Pup is hanging out, she'll get up and give her a few kisses. Mostly Minnow puts up with it, although sometimes she turns away if the kisses get too slobbery. When Minnow has her pacifier in her mouth, Fish and I let the kisses go, but if the kisses are getting a bit French, we'll intervene. Basically, the pacifier (and hiding against Mommy) are Minnow's defense against the Pup.

For her part, Minnow likes to try to pet the Pup. We are trying to teach her to pet with an open hand and not just grab a hunk of fur. The Pup has learned to quickly scoot out of the way if Minnow starts to get grabby. I actually wish she'd stick around a little more so that I'd have more opportunities to demonstrate proper petting technique with Minnow. So the Pup's defense against Minnow's grabbiness is her greater mobility. We've also been enforcing a couple of "no petting" zones around Princess Pup's bed and her food bowl while eating. Even though the Pup is the sweetest dog imaginable, we don't want to push our luck.

We had a problem for a while when Minnow would fall asleep on the car ride home from daycare. When Fish would carry her into the house still asleep, Princess Pup would come bounding up with kisses and a very jingly collar. We quickly learned to put the dog out back and take off her collar before bringing Minnow up to her bedroom to continue her nap.

The Princess Pup's greatest pleasure (besides sleeping on our bed) is going for walks - and we pick our neighborhoods in large part based on the dog-friendliness. Minnow has been on dog walks with us since she was two weeks old, and now, even when she is fussy at home, she'll calm right down in the stroller and silently stare at the trees, grass, people, and dogs for a half-hour or more on walks.

The funniest interaction between Minnow and the Princess Pup occurs around the water bowl. Minnow has decided that the water bowl is a great toy, and now that she has the concept of object permanence, she'll suddenly, spontaneously stop whatever she is doing and scoot across the house toward the water bowl. If she gets there unchecked, she proceeds to splash merrily in it, soaking the floor and herself. Meanwhile, Princess Pup hovers nearby hoping to sneak in for a drink of water without getting splashed.

Princess Pup is not so young (she's nine) and it'll be interesting (and maybe a little sad) to watch the relationship between dog and child evolve as they each get older. I wonder whether Pup will continue to be so patient with Minnow, and whether Minnow will have memories of an active Pup or just an old dog. Cognitively, too, it'll interesting to watch Minnow approach and even overtake Princess Pup in skills like understanding vocabulary. I've always argued that having a dog is like having a perpetual toddler (they need help making meals but not eating, going to the bathroom but not holding it in, communicating their desires but not understanding your commands). I wonder what the relationship between child and dog will be when they're equivalent to two toddlers cognitively and a toddler and a grandparent energy-wise.

But for now, they keep my hands full and each other entertained. What more could I ask for?

convergence

2007-09-17T09:33:00.000-04:00

This week's installment of Mommy Monday is indefinitely delayed, because a whole list of other things is converging to make a very sleepy, very stressed ScienceWoman

Our anniversary dinner was great - but the payback has been a b*tch. Minnow's had three solid days of horrible gas and poops and inability to sleep. Hence the sleep deprivation on my part.
Teaching: write lecture for tomorrow, write study guide for exam, write practice exam and assignment
Research: work on draft of first grant proposal, correspond with people on others
and the usual stuff that eats up time (pump, meetings, errands)

Hopefully, I'll make a good dent on some of this today and I'll actually get to post tonight.

5 years ago today

2007-09-14T11:47:00.000-04:00

Help my research!

2007-09-13T16:38:00.000-04:00

I'm looking for readers that live in Hawaii, Florida, or the Caribbean to lend a hand with my research. You'll have to venture outdoors in your neighborhood or city and then stick something in the mail. Depending on how close you live to an appropriate site, it shouldn't take more than 5 to 30 minutes plus a trip to the post office. In exchange, you'll get to find out who I am and what I do. I'll pay you back for your postal costs. And you'll get some token of my appreciation.

If you're interested in helping and you live in (or are visiting) Hawaii, Florida, or the Caribbean, send me an email.

Update: Thanks for the volunteers. If you haven't already gotten an email from me, I think I'm covered. I'll let you know if I need more help. You all are great!

The best and worst day of my week

2007-09-12T20:08:00.000-04:00

Wednesday mornings I've been staying home with Minnow. It's my morning to sleep in until she wakes up, enjoy some mommy time, take a walk with the dog, and maybe introduce a new solid food. Minnow usually takes a 1.5 to 2.5 hour nap, and that's when I grab a quick shower and then try to be as productive as possible on my laptop. When Minnow wakes up, depending on the time, I'll feed us lunch or not, and then take her to daycare. I usually arrive at school around 1.

I love my mornings at home. They recharge me.

But they also stress me out.

By the time 3 pm Wednesday afternoon rolls around, I am a basket case. I've got a lecture to prepare for the next day, undoubtedly some new administrative demand, and the ever present desire (and need) to get some research done. And I feel like I just lost a whole lot of time. Even though I tell myself that I really only lost about 3 hours and that time with Minnow was totally worth the lost time at work, I find myself wondering how long Wednesday mornings "working at home" is going to be sustainable. At what point in the semester am I going to say that I just can't give up a morning? And after I do give up a Wednesday morning at home, will I ever go back to them?

But I *know* it's worth it. She's growing up so amazingly fast and time is just flying by. She gets a bit caught up on her sleep (she doesn't nap well at daycare), and I get to watch her play. She's so independent - pulling everything off her shelves and crawling after objects that catch her eye. And I won't be able to do this next semester when my teaching load is heavier. So I should just enjoy it while I can and not let Wednesday afternoons beat me up.

Remind me of that next week.

Teaching Tuesday: Students, Technology, and Being a Nice Person

2007-09-11T09:29:00.000-04:00

Oh, internets, help me with a Teaching Tuesday quandary.

I'm teaching a large intro-level course, mostly to non-majors, and mostly to freshmen. They recently had an assignment due. The directions were given on Blackboard, and they were supposed to submit their work on Blackboard. The nature of the assignment was conducive to submitting digitally, plus I didn't want forests clear-cut unecessarily.

Recognizing that some students come to university decidedly un-tech -savvy, I repeatedly told them that they need to make sure they can access Blackboard. I referred to the university tech support line numerous times. I told students having difficulty that they need to call the tech support people or try a different (campus) computer. Any student that emailed me prior to the night before the assignment was due was also given step-by-step directions from me or other help in getting their assignment properly submitted. (Usually it's just been a matter of them not figuring out the blackboard interface.)

So, why am I not surprised that the morning the assignment was due, my in-box was clogged with submissions and a few people tried to turn in a paper copy in class. Freshmen, sigh, they just can't seem to follow directions.

So, my question is whether and how much I should penalize students who turned in the assignment to my email or on paper. I didn't specifically say that I *would* penalize them, but I also did say (in bold on the syllabus) that the assignment needed to be turned in on Blackboard.

Mommy Monday: Moving Up

2007-09-10T16:24:00.000-04:00

I haven't got much to say for Mommy Monday this week, because my brain has been fully consumed by preparing for lecture, a reading & conference session, and my research seminar for tomorrow. Teaching Tuesday, indeed!

Have I mentioned that she's pulling up on things? She'll even pull up and then stand leaning against a table and pick stuff up with her hands. But she hasn't yet figured out that if she's holding on to something, she can move her feet and actually move sidewards. Often, one foot will step a little, but the other is firmly anchored to the ground. It actually reminds me of rock climbing...when you've got all your weight on one leg, your hands are in decent positions, and you've got to move the weight bearing leg. You know you can support your weight on your hands/other leg, but your mind just doesn't want you to move the anchor leg. Or maybe that's just a problem I run into. :)

Does anyone have a request for next week's Mommy Monday? What would you like to know more about?

Rockin' Girl Bloggers

2007-09-07T20:59:00.000-04:00

Eons ago there was this meme going around the blogosphere, and I got honored, but I didn't play along. Not because I didn't want to, but because I just didn't have the energy/time/hands-free all at once. But tonight, it's time to thank Elli and Addy N for calling me a:

Thanks! It's always nice to get a compliment.

And it's also nice to pass it along (plus, it's the rules). So here are five more rockin' girl bloggers:

Am I a Woman Scientist?: I love her mission: "I am on a global quest for that egalitarian utopia in which I can work in blissful ignorance of my gender. " She's navigating the crazy world of research funding and publishing in a foreign country. And in a foreign language. Plus, she's pregnant.

Mommy/Prof: A new-to-me blog that I found through someone's rockin' girl awards. Another mom trying to get tenure while breastfeeding. Right now she's getting ready to submit her Notebook and whipping the new graduate students into shape. Oh, and joining the PTA.

Twice: I found Twice through Addy's awards. Mom to twins, just back from sabbatical, and taking on the facebook generation and the Dora generation all at once.

Dr. Mom: The first woman-scientist blog I started reading, but she made me laugh so hard today that she just has to get an award for surviving last night. Her latest post starts out: "There are many reasons that I love my job, but I never thought that avoiding vomit and excrement would be one of them."

See Jane Compute: The second woman-scientist blog I started reading and another new mom. Jane obviously cares deeply about her students, especially the women. I love how she celebrates computer-free weekends, which, given her field, must be something of a rarity.

Repost: Picking the research to match the grant opportunity

2007-09-06T10:40:00.000-04:00

Note: I posted this on Sunday, but it quickly got buried and I'd love more feedback. Thanks!

I've got a couple of small grant opportunities available to me over the next few months. The monies are generally small - not enough to support a student or by major equipment - and the timeframes are generally one year or so. Since I have a decent shot at getting one or more of these grants, I've got to think carefully about exactly what science to match to which RFP. And that's where I could use some help.

There's an internal research grant competition at Mystery U. The maximum funding I can get is about $5000, and there are a couple of key restrictions, I can only pay half to student, and I can only pay half to myself as summer salary. Other than that, they just want to see good research ideas. I have two in mind for this proposal, but I am having a hard time deciding which is a better use of the money.

Option 1: Start something new. Use the 5K as seed money to get some instrumentation in a field site local to Mystery City. Answer some basic question (not sure exactly what yet) about the -ology of the site, but probably not be able to do anything comprehensive enough to warrant a paper. But it gets my foot in the door in the local area, and helps establish that I've got
research ideas that I am pursuing independently. May be able to use results generated from this grant as preliminary data for future (larger) grants or a student thesis project. The proposal would be a bit more effort to write since I'd have to formulate a specific question and I'd need to get some more information about the site (maybe actually visit it).

Option 2: The $5K is just about the right amount of money to fund a project I've had on the back burner for a number of years. It would involve some field work in Midwest next summer, at a site with a rich historical (but unpublished) dataset. The field work combined with mining the historical dataset would be guaranteed to net me a well-received paper in a low-impact journal. But it probably wouldn't lead to anything else at that site or on the specific research topic. On the upside, the proposal would be a cinch to write.

What would you recommend? Why?

A Day in the Life, part 3

2007-09-05T09:16:00.000-04:00

The end. Or is it the beginning? We pick up as I'm on my way home from work...

5:03: Get in car, call Annie.

5:15: Make it out of parking garage.

5:25: Make it off campus. (I am so not making this up, just ask Annie.) Total distance = less than 1/2 mile from garage.

5:45: Make it the remaining six miles home. Average speed from office to home = 10 mph.

6:15: Start bedtime routine. Get Minnow in bath. Remember that I need to take a photo for Minnow’s Project 365 blog. (A suspicious number of recent photos have been taken at bathtime or on the way out the door in the morning.) Get Minnow into jammies, read “Is your Mama a Llama?” and start “Blueberries for Sal” before she crashes. Nurse her, burp her, tuck her stuffed dog into the crib and turn on womb sounds, walk around and sing to her until she fusses. Assure her that my breasts are still there and available to her. Burp her. Walk around and sing to her until she fusses. Repeat steps 2 and 3. Finally she falls asleep.

7:15: Thank goodness she’s asleep. I’m starving. Pick up house until dinner’s ready.

7:30: Ham and spinach for dinner. Fish and I both discuss how tired we are and how our weekend plans to go to the mountains have been sabotaged by a fencing contractor. L

7:45: Wash and fill bottles for tomorrow.

8:00: Go upstairs to home office. Quickly blog. Then get back to lecture writing.

9:30: Contemplate how amazingly long she’s been asleep. Contemplate thirst.

9:50: Decide that in just 10 more minutes, I’ll stop working and actually go get that glass of water I’m craving.

9:55: Minnow wakes up. Wants Mommy. I nurse her and go to bed without my water. Dang.

10:40: Minnow wakes up and fusses. Pacifier soothes her.

11:15: Minnow wakes up and fusses. I nurse her to sleep.

12:05: Minnow wakes up and fusses. I don’t remember how I got her back to sleep.

2:00: Minnow wakes up and stays awake. I move to rocking chair where she nurses and then sleeps restlessly in my arms, waking several times to fuss, but not wanting to nurse.

3:45: Realizing that I’ve been dozing, my arm is numb, and Minnow is temporarily asleep, I carry her back to bed.

4:05: Minnow wakes up. I make Fish take her until 4:45.

And another day begins.

-----

Comments:

The extraordinary night fussiness (even by Minnow’s standards) was determined, in retrospect, to be the result of teething. This was our first experience with it.
Getting off campus is flipping ridiculous. Other faculty say, "just leave at 6," but if I do that I won't be home before bedtime. And then there are the people that say "leave at 4." That might be an option if I thought I'd get any work done at home while she's awake, but I know I won't.
I've been trying to get two solid hours of work in during the evening to compensate for short(er) days on campus. It makes me feel less stressed about work to know I'll have time in the evening, but it doesn't leave a lot of time for Fish or housework, much less downtime.

I'm glad my readers have been finding this series interesting. I actually found it to be enlightening as well. I may revisit this idea next semester or in 6 months and see how different my life is then.

Teaching Tuesday: A Day in the life, Part 2

2007-09-04T13:48:00.000-04:00

7:56 am: Enter building. Proceed directly to classroom to boot up computer. Run up to office to pick up quiz sheets and go to bathroom.

8:02 am: Start class.

9:15 am: End class. Go to office for office hour. Grade quizzes. Alphabetize them. Enter grades on blackboard. Contemplate how that took a ridiculously long time for a five question quiz.

10:15: A student shows up at my office!

10:30 Close door. Get ready to pump. While pumping, upload photos to Minnow’s blog. Work on this entry. Read email.

11:00 Still pumping. Geesh.

11:10: After marathon session, am pleased to discover that I produced a record amount of milk – 5 oz. Now if it just doesn’t spill from its bottles tomorrow.

11:13: Take pump parts to women’s restroom to rinse.

11:15: Start microwave sterilization. Run to dept. office to check mailbox and drop off paperwork.

11:18: Return to microwave to rotate bag, since darn microwave doesn’t have a turn table. Run to bathroom.

11:21: Return to microwave, grab hot bag, go back to ladies room to dump out water.

11:24: Lay pump parts in office drawer to dry.

11:30: Eat cold rice and turkey for lunch at desk. (Can’t deal with microwave again.) Finish reading chapter for discussion with grad student later. Read blogs because chapter is so darn boring. Why did I assign it?

12:15: Walk across campus, cursing new shoes that need to be broken in.

12:30: Meeting.

1:45 skip out on meeting so I can grab a juice and bag of chips before hobbling back across campus to office

2:00 Mature Grad Student is right on time. And with lots of good questions too. Man, did I get lucky with an inherited student.

3:18: MUST PUMP NOW. But first pee. While pumping, I catch up reading email, and blog comments.

3:45: Done pumping. Another almost 5 ounces –maybe the longer breaks between pumping sessions are better (albeit more uncomfortable).

3:48: Do the whole restroom, microwave, turn the bag, microwave, restroom – pump part cleaning routine while perusing possible quiz questions for my class.

4:00: Get frustrated with blackboard because it keeps crashing when I try to add a quiz question. (Yes, I am doing both paper and on-line quizzes – consider it an experiment in which takes more time/frustration.)

4:20: Work on Thursday’s lecture. Steadfastly ignore impending doom of grant proposal. Less successful at ignoring certain administrative requests.

4:50: Suddenly realize it’s time to go home if I want to see Minnow before bedtime.

-----

Comments:

This was a particularly scheduled day for me. I have one day per week like this.
I got so frustrated with microwave thing that this weekend I brought our old microwave in and hooked it up in my lab next to the sink. Now at least I won't have to turn the bag partway through or lurk outside a colleague's office several times a day.
Yes, I could (and probably will) say more about the class, but this post was long enough already.
So far the quiz on blackboard has been more rewarding, but not without its own hassles. I'll probably say more about that at some point as well.

Mommy Monday: A Day in the Life, Part 1

2007-09-02T21:05:00.000-04:00

One day last week I decided to keep a log of how my day was occupied. I was inspired by Dr. Brazen Hussy's attempt to work at home, laughing about how many pre-baby days I had killed in a similarly semi-productive fashion. Then I thought about how frantic my days have been lately, and decided that it might be educational, for myself and others, to report on what my hours look like now. It's a rather long transcript, so I'll break it into installments. Here are the first three hours.

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4:52 am: Minnow is wide awake. Fish takes her into her room for a few minutes while I get some sleep.

5:05 am: Fish’s alarm clock goes off. I get Minnow and try to get her back to sleep.

5:20 am: Fish leaves for work. I nurse Minnow.

5:35 am: Minnow’s asleep in her crib. I get in shower.

6:00 am: Oatmeal, cranberry juice, strawberries, and a banana. And a newspaper. Probably the nicest breakfast I’ve had in weeks. After eating, there are general household duties – garbage, dishes, dog bowl, look for lunar eclipse, pack lunch.

6:50 am: Oh, shoot. She’s still asleep. I’m going to have to wake her up soon. Get myself completely ready to go, shoes on, car loaded.

7:02 am: Gently lift Minnow out of bed, carry to car while trying to keep her asleep. Play womb sounds from iPod on drive to daycare.

7:19 am: Arrive at daycare. Minnow just woke up. Discover that 3 oz. of precious pumped breast milk has leaked out of bottles on way to daycare – soaking her clean clothes and giving her only six ounces of milk for the day. Nurse a distracted Minnow and make sure she gets a diaper change and out of her jammies. Fill out daily sheet. She starts to cry when I leave.

7:38 am: Back in car on way to university, curse slow drivers, curse backup at parking ramp.

-----

Comments:

Actually, this was a fairly relaxed morning compared to many I've had lately (although it did start a wee bit early). When Minnow sleeps in, I'm able to breakfast and get ready with both hands free. When she's up, I'm usually dashing back and forth between the living room and kitchen, eating my oatmeal on top of a cardboard box while she's trying to pull it over on herself.
Never ever ever teach an 8 am class when you have a baby who likes to sleep until 7:15.
Never ever ever teach an 8 am class with a baby when your partner leaves for work at 5:15 am.
Narrow mouth Dr. Brown's bottles are leak-prone. I've started sealing them up with a regular top in transport and installing the vent-thing and nipple once I get to daycare. Wide mouth ones don't seem to be as much of a problem.

Picking the research to match the grant opportunity

2007-09-02T12:30:00.000-04:00

I've got a couple of small grant opportunities available to me over the next few months. The monies are generally small - not enough to support a student or by major equipment - and the timeframes are generally one year or so. Since I have a decent shot at getting one or more of these grants, I've got to think carefully about exactly what science to match to which RFP. And that's where I could use some help.

There's an internal research grant competition at Mystery U. The maximum funding I can get is about $5000, and there are a couple of key restrictions, I can only pay half to student, and I can only pay half to myself as summer salary. Other than that, they just want to see good research ideas. I have two in mind for this proposal, but I am having a hard time deciding which is a better use of the money.

Option 1: Start something new. Use the 5K as seed money to get some instrumentation in a field site local to Mystery City. Answer some basic question (not sure exactly what yet) about the -ology of the site, but probably not be able to do anything comprehensive enough to warrant a paper. But it gets my foot in the door in the local area, and helps establish that I've got
research ideas that I am pursuing independently. May be able to use results generated from this grant as preliminary data for future (larger) grants or a student thesis project. The proposal would be a bit more effort to write since I'd have to formulate a specific question and I'd need to get some more information about the site (maybe actually visit it).

Option 2: The $5K is just about the right amount of money to fund a project I've had on the back burner for a number of years. It would involve some field work in Midwest next summer, at a site with a rich historical (but unpublished) dataset. The field work combined with mining the historical dataset would be guaranteed to net me a well-received paper in a low-impact journal. But it probably wouldn't lead to anything else at that site or on the specific research topic. On the upside, the proposal would be a cinch to write.

What would you recommend? Why?

Super-productive Friday PSA

2007-08-31T16:05:00.001-04:00

I don't know why I was stressing about that pre-proposal; I submitted it two hours early. It turns out that I ran out of pages before I ran out time (or things to talk about), and since it was a preproposal I didn't spend a huge amount of time revising.

So to celebrate, I bought a bunch of on-sale clothes for Minnow on Babycenter.com. And now I'm violating my no blogging from work credo.

But it's in the name of sharing some opportunities that have come across my e-mail lately.

1st:

On August 15, 2007, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) Educational Foundation made online applications available for its American Fellowships program, which offers three types of awards: Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowships, Dissertation Fellowships, and Summer/Short-Term Research Publication Grants. The awards will support research conducted during the 2008-2009 academic year. Applications are due November 15, 2007.

The AAUW Educational Foundation is “one of the world's largest sources of funding exclusively for graduate women, [supporting] aspiring scholars around the globe, teachers and activists in local communities, women at critical stages of their careers, and those pursuing professions where women are underrepresented.” The foundation is a corporation of AAUW, which “has always prided itself on supporting the advancements of women in higher education.” Over the last 126 years, AAUW has grown to over 100,000 members, 1,000 branches, and 500 college and university partners.

All American Fellowship applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Applicants cannot apply for more than one American Fellowship and cannot be AAUW members. Specific criteria for each American Fellowships award is as follows:

Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowships are for women who will have attained a doctoral degree by November 15, 2007. Several $30,000 awards are available for women in the arts/humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. One award is designated for a woman in an underrepresented group with a doctoral degree in any field.
Dissertation Fellowships are for women who will finish writing their dissertation between July 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009. Several $20,000 awards are available to women in all majors except engineering. Applicants must have completed all course work, passed all preliminary examinations, and received approval for their research by November 15, 2007.
Summer/Short-Term Research Publication Grants are for college and university faculty and independent researchers to prepare for publication. Approximately six, $6,000 awards are available for women in any major. Applicants must be available for eight consecutive weeks of final writing, editing, and responding to issues raised in critical reviews. Applicants must have received their doctoral degree by November 15, 2007.

In addition to the American Fellowships program, the AAUW Educational Foundation administers other programs for women researchers:

Career Development Grants support women who hold a bachelor's degree and are preparing to advance their careers, change careers, or re-enter the workforce. Special consideration is given to AAUW members, women of color, and women pursuing their first advanced degree or credentials in nontraditional fields. Funds are not available for doctoral-level work. The award range is $2,000 to $12,000. Applications are due December 15, 2007.
Community Action Grants offer one-year grants ($2,000 to $7,000), which provide seed money for new projects, and two-year grants ($5,000 to $10,000 total), which provide start-up funds for longer-term programs that address the particular needs of the community and develop girls' sense of efficacy. For both programs, topic areas are unrestricted, but should include a clearly defined activity that promotes education and equity for women and girls. Applicants must be women who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Applications are due January 15, 2008.
International Fellowships are awarded for full-time study or research to women who are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Graduate and postgraduate study at accredited institutions is supported. Several awards will be made for Master's/Professional Fellowships ($18,000), Doctorate Fellowships ($20,000), and Postdoctoral Fellowships ($30,000). Fellowship recipients may study in any country other than their own. Applications are due December 1, 2007.
Selected Professions Fellowships are awarded to women who intend to pursue a full-time course of study at accredited institutions during the fellowship year in one of the designated degree programs in which women's participation traditionally has been low: Architecture (M.Arch, M.S.Arch); Computer/Information Sciences (M.S.); Engineering (M.E., M.S., Ph.D.); and Mathematics/Statistics (M.S.). Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. In addition, fellowships in the following degree programs are restricted to women of color who have been underrepresented in these fields: Business Administration (M.B.A., E.M.B.A.); Law (J.D.); and Medicine (M.D., D.O.). The award range is $5,000 to $12,000. Applications are due January 10, 2008. Engineering Dissertation awards ($20,000) are also available and due December 15, 2007.

Please visit the AAUW Educational Foundation website for details and contact information on these and other programs.

2nd:

NEW YORK, NY, August 20, 2007 – L’Oréal USA announced today the start of the application period for its esteemed L’Oréal USA Fellowships For Women in Science program. Now in its fifth year, this national program aims to annually recognize, reward and support five women postdoctoral researchers in the U.S. who are pursuing careers in the life and physical/material sciences, as well as mathematics, engineering and computer science. As part of its commitment to further help women scientists achieve their goals, L’Oréal USA awards each recipient $40,000 to apply toward their postdoctoral research.

Since its inception in 2003, the L’Oréal USA Fellowships For Women in Science program has awarded 20 fellowships to women scientists across the U.S. Each year, the program has attracted a number of talented applicants from diverse scientific fields, representing some of the nation’s leading academic institutions and laboratories. A distinguished jury of nine eminent scientists – presided over by Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone, President, National Academy of Sciences - reviews the applications, and selects the L’Oréal USA Fellowships For Women in Science recipients.

The five beneficiaries of the 2008 L’Oréal USA Fellowships For Women in Science will be invited to attend a week of events in New York City that include an awards ceremony, professional development workshops, media training and networking opportunities. In 2008 these workshops, which are facilitated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), will encompass job search techniques, interviewing skills, budget development for grant requests and strategies for peer reviewed publication.

The L’Oréal USA Fellowships For Women in Science program is open to women postdoctoral researchers only. Candidates interested in applying may visit the L’Oréal USA Fellowships For Women in Science web site at http://www.lorealusa.com/forwomeninscience, to obtain more information about program eligibility and requirements. All applications must be post marked by October 31, 2007.

The L’Oréal USA Fellowships For Women in Science complement the international L’ORÉAL-UNESCO For Women in Science program -- which annually awards $100,000 each to five leading women career scientists, one each from Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Africa – and the UNESCO-L’ORÉAL International Fellowships, which annually grant, over a two year period, $40,000 each to 15 promising young women scientists, at doctoral or postdoctoral level, from around the globe.

-- more --

The L’Oréal USA Fellowships For Women in Science program, and its aim to advance the careers of women postdoctoral researchers in the U.S., is especially relevant in light of America’s waning competitiveness in the global marketplace. There is an urgent need to increase both the funding for basic science research in the U.S., and also the number of students, particularly girls and young women, majoring in science, mathematics and engineering.

Earlier this year, L’Oréal USA commissioned a national survey of adults and teens across the United States to determine perceptions of science in America. According to the findings, while 84% of adults surveyed view the role of science and scientists as critically important to world progress, nearly one third said they did not know a single female scientist -- including physicians -- on a personal level, and 73% admitted there are “too few” female role models in the sciences to encourage teens to be interested in the field. As a consequence, nearly 40% of all teens surveyed said they were “not at all likely” to pursue a scientific career.

L’Oréal understands the need to attract more women to science. In developing programs such as the L’Oréal USA Fellowships For Women in Science, L’Oréal hopes to support today’s women scientists, to develop female role models for generations to come, and to help shape the public’s perception of science in a positive light, particularly among young women.

For more information, please visit: http://www.lorealusa.com/forwomeninscience

ABOUT L’ORÉAL
A worldwide leader in the cosmetics industry, L’Oréal develops innovative products to meet the diverse needs of customers in 130 countries worldwide. Nearly 3,000 people work in the Group’s 16 research centers, located in France, Asia and America. Their findings are responsible for the registration of hundreds of patents annually. Women represent 55% of the research workforce – a percentage unmatched anywhere else in the industry. www.loreal.com

ABOUT AAAS
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science (www.sciencemag.org). AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of one million. The non-profit AAAS (www.aaas.org) is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy; international programs; science education; and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, www.eurekalert.org, the premier science-news web site, a service of AAAS.

ABOUT UNESCO

Since its creation in 1945, UNESCO has been dedicated to eliminating all forms of discrimination and promoting equality between men and women. While designing scientific education programs intended especially for young women, UNESCO has created several academic chairs that connect women of science around the world. With 191 Member States, UNESCO functions as a laboratory of ideas and a standard-setter to forge universal agreements on emerging ethical issues. UNESCO works to create the conditions for true dialogue, based upon respect for commonly shared values and the dignity of each culture. www.unesco.org

For more information please contact:

L’ORÉAL USA

Jennifer S. James

Tel: +1-212-984-4414
Mob: +1-917-608-7038
jsjames@us.loreal.com

Have a great weekend everyone!

Being a professor - week 2: now in bullets

2007-08-30T21:40:00.000-04:00

First student visit during office hours: He wanted to know how I reconciled a belief in God with what I'd been teaching that morning. Come on guys, give me a few softballs first to warm up, will you?
Best way to make your students like you: Make it look like you give a lot of extra credit, even if its just a sneaky way of getting them to learn things and won't affect their grade much in the end. They'll think you're easy. (Until they take their first quiz this weekend.)
Coolest meaningless thing: I got an email (to my old address) from someone whose work I had cited. She had seen that I'd cited her, googled me, and wanted to offer me a post-doc on an interesting (and funded) project. Too bad something like that didn't fall in my lap a year ago.
Wow moment: Turning on my big expensive piece of equipment for the first time today. Oh, and I turned on my hood too. Just to see if it was hooked up. It was, but the air and vacuum jets weren't.
Most serious time crunch: I have a preproposal due in in 19 hours and 5 minutes. I don't think I've got a single senetence written yet that I'd actually dare turn in. Plus, I haven't done a literature review. (Hence this blog procrastination)

Most annoying computer thing (to make Skookumchick feel a bit better): University laptop won't let me install iTunes because of the way they have the my documents folder set up. Despite the fact that I am an administrator on the machine, they disabled every work-around that I (and the iTunes help site) can come up with. I turned in a university tech "ticket" on Monday and they've yet to get back to me.
Most time-consuming computer annoyance of the week (also to make Skookumchick feel better): 1.5 hours spent installing and uninstalling various versions of Java so that Blackboard Vista would stop giving me error messages every single second.
Proudest moment of the week: digging out my pre-pregnancy skinny pants and fitting into every single pair, some with room to spare. Our scale batteries died during the move, but I'd guess I am below my pre-pregnancy weight by a couple of pounds.
Most fun: Getting a bit drunk at the university president's faculty receptions. Mmm, fruity liqueurs, how I have missed thee.
Minnow's biggest accomplishment: Cutting her first tooth. She tops all of my accomplishments hands down.

Research, unleashed.

2007-08-28T20:11:00.000-04:00

The formidable Zuska is hosting the next edition of Scientiae (get your submissions in soon) and has declared that the theme for this month is "unleash." I've been pondering what exactly I was going to be able to contribute that fit the theme. Then as I walked across campus this afternoon, contemplating whether to submit Idea A or Idea B to a grant RFP, it hit me right in the face.

In grad school I was tethered, albeit loosely to my advisor's research interests. As a post-doc, I was tied to the project that provided my funding, although free to work on other side projects. But now as a brand-new assistant professor, I've finally been unleashed to research whatever my mind fancies. I don't have any pre-existing monies obligating me to finish up projects and I don't have such a focused funding and publication track record that I can't get funding to work on new topics. I'm free.

If I want I can go from working on subfield alpha to subfield gamma, and, as long as I have good fundable ideas, no one can tell me I'm working on the wrong thing. I can spend some time testing out ideas myself, and if they don't fly, I haven't let down a student by giving them a bad thesis topic. I can develop collaborations with whoever I want - whether they are at Mystery U or far away. When I go to a conference and listen to a great talk that gives me ideas, I don't have to shelve them for sometime when I am not encumbered by projects already underway. The freedom is exhilirating.

And, honestly, the freedom is a little scary. I don't have an advisor to steer me away from bum ideas or good ones that will take an impossibly long time to produce results. I don't have any students to keep publications churning if my independent ideas don't work out. Since I'm new in Mystery State, I don't have an established field site where I know the body of previous work and what research is still needed. In fact, I know very little about the -ology of Mystery State at all. I don't have other funding to fall back on if I send out a round of proposals that all get rejected. In fact, I don't even have funding to get the little supplies I need to get the big piece of equipment in my lab working so that I can generate some preliminary data. But mostly, I think, the obstacles are in my mind - the ever-present self-doubt that seems to come with the woman/academic territory. What if my research ideas aren't creative enough? What if I don't get funded? What if the results aren't what I expected?

But however scary, this freedom - to study what I want when I want - was a major driver pushing me to get my Ph.D. So it'd be a shame if I let my timidity and self-doubt get in my way now. I've got a pre-proposal due on Friday, a grant proposal due in late September, and another one due in early October. I don't know where I'm going to find the time to get those ideas flowing and the proposals written, but I am going to do my best, because this time I am doing research, unleashed.

scientiae-carnival

Mommy Monday: Co-sleeping

2007-08-27T20:57:00.000-04:00

Whenever I write a post where the fact that we cosleep is mentioned, I get a comment that asks me to share more about how it works, why we do it, etc. So I thought this would be a good time.

Disclaimer: The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that babies under one year old sleep in their own beds. However, I've also seen statistics that say that something like 85% of families co-sleep at least occasionally. What follows is my personal perspective and should in no way be considered advice or endorsement.

When we were in the hospital after giving birth, and Minnow was so little tiny, she slept on my chest. It just seemed like her glass basinet was so remote, foreign, and cold after nine months of being in my womb. Neither of us was ready for it.

In those first few days and weeks, we kept co-sleeping because she slept better curled up next to me (or, more typically, on top of me). When I'd put her down she'd awaken within a few minutes. Plus, I was so tired and worn down that I needed almost as much rest as she did, so it made sense. Up until the point where I went back to work, I went to bed every night when she did and I held her or napped with her for her naps. Since I've been working (starting at ~2 months), we've been very gradually increasing the amount of time she's sleeping on her own. At first it was naps in the swing or short stints in the co-sleeper. Now she takes all her naps in the crib (or carseat) and goes to bed in the crib until someplace between 9 and 11 pm. When she wakes up at that point, I feed her and take her to bed with me for the rest of the night.

We never intended to put her in a crib in a distant room right away, but we never intended to have her sleep in bed with us either. We bought an Arm's Reach co-sleeper – a sort of pack-n-play that attaches to your bed. The idea was that the baby would be safely in her own sleeping area, free of suffocation hazards, but still be close when she needed me in the middle of the night. The idea may have been good, but it never really worked that way for us. I think she never spent more than 2-3 hours in her co-sleeper per night and when she was in her co-sleeper and I was in bed, I'd lie there awake with a hand on her belly to keep her asleep. And I missed her so. I found that I couldn't easily lift her out or set her into the cosleeper while I was lying in bed, so, having to get up anyway, a basinet would have just as functional. Once she started to really roll over, ~ 4 months, the co-sleeper wasn't safe anymore and we gave up on it completely. FYI, there is other co-sleeping gear available – snuggle nests are a popular item, and some cribs can be rigged to side-car against the bed.

So how does she sleep? She comes to bed in my arms and I lie down with her on my chest. Once she is sound asleep I roll her to one side where she generally sleeps nestled under my armpit. Sometimes she is between Fish and I, sometimes not. Before she was able to lift her head well and roll, I took scrupulous care to avoid having pillows or blankets near her, even if it meant that I spent the night with no blankets on my upper half. Now I'll often pull a blanket up to her waist. When she sleeps between Fish and I, we act as twin bedrails for her. When she is on my other side, my arm keeps her secure. When we had the co-sleeper attached to our bed, it acted as a bedrail. A few weeks ago, we tried attaching a bedrail to my side of the bed, but it made it too difficult for me to get in and out of bed, especially with Minnow in my arms. Before my early morning classes began, Minnow and I would sleep in together in the mornings – to someplace between 5:45 and 7:15 am – recently closer to the latter, thankfully. Now, two days per week, I have to sneak out of bed about 5:45 (after Fish has already gone to work). Then I am faced with a nasty choice: attempt to move Minnow into her crib, let her stay asleep in the bed and pray that she doesn’t roll while I’m in the shower, or wake her up and somehow manage to get a shower while she’s awake. The first choice is what I’d like to happen most days – she’ll get closer to her usual wakeup time and I’ll get a few minutes in the morning to myself.

OK, enough with the logistics…what are the good things about co-sleeping? The number one advantage of co-sleeping is that I get lots of cuddle time with Minnow – which is especially important for us now that I’m working full time. The second big advantage is the ease of night-time breastfeeding. If you don’t have tummy troubles, you can just roll over, line the kid up and go back to sleep. A few hours later, roll them to the other side and repeat. It’s a cinch. You get way more sleep than having to get up and stagger to a different room, where you end up falling asleep sitting up. The third advantage is that you know your child will never cry unheeded in the night. There’s no way you can ignore a crying child when she is in bed with you. Trust me, Fish sleeps like a log, and even he mutters “shhh” in his sleep when she cries out.

How about the disadvantages? The biggest one is fear. Fear that your child will suffocate. Fear that she will roll out of bed and get hurt. Fear that other people will disapprove of what you are doing. Fear that you will care what they think. Once you get over the fear factor, by getting a system that you know is safe and that works for you, the other disadvantages are minor (at least in my mind). Sure, it probably delays the normalization of sexual relations, but, dude, you are so tired and things are so sore, that might count as an advantage to the mother. Sure, we’ve all heard about kids that still sleep with their parents when they are in elementary school. But, I’m guessing that with the combination crib-co-sleeping we’re doing now, that it won’t be a forever battle to eventually wean her from our bed – when we’re all good and ready. And I look forward to continuing to co-sleep – at least occasionally – for years. It sure is handy when you travel.

Anyways, that’s how we’ve been sleeping for the past seven months and it’s probably how we’ll sleep if we have another child. Hope this answered your questions.

When you feel like blogging

2007-08-25T20:32:00.001-04:00

...but are too brain-dead to think, you do a meme!
This one courtesy of phd me

4 jobs I've had in my life
- economics tutor
- webmaster
- intern
- assistant professor!

4 places I've lived
- Utopia
- Mystery City
- Australia
- Midwest

4 favorite foods
- ice cream (but not now)
- tomato sauce (but not now)
- fresh mozzarella (but not now)
- hot chocolate (but not now)

4 places I'd rather be
- anywhere it's not 95+ degrees
- in the mountains
- on a sailboat
- on a raft in a river

4 movies I can watch over and over
- Princess Bride
- The whole nine yards
- mary poppins
- Pride and Prejudice (BBC miniseries)

4 TV shows I like to watch
- Gilmore Girls (but the last season was really disappointing)
- Jeopardy
- America's Next Top Model (my guilty pleasure)
- don't watch much TV anymore - I like to listen to NPR

4 websites I view daily
- bloglines
- gmail
- university home page
- google

4 computers I've owned
- an Acer
- a Compaq laptop
- a generic laptop
that's it
______________________________________

4 reasons I love what I do
- the variety
- the challenge of solving puzzles
- flexibility of when (but not how much) I work
- I like to make graphs!

4 reasons I don't
- the tremendous time required
- the feeling of inadequacy that sneaks up on me
- writing multiple choice exams
- students who write emails at 10 pm and expect a response by 10:30 pm

4 books I want to read again
- The Red Tent
- Rising Tide
- The Scarlet Letter
- The Boxcar Children

4 books I never need read again
- The Book of Margery Kempe
- Any Michael Crichton book
- The Babysitter's Club books
- anything by Stephen King

4 things that make me laugh
- Minnow's funny expressions
- people's blogs and the comments on them
- when Fish tickles me
- Bill Bryson (phd me mentioned him, but I just finished reading A Walk in the Woods so it's appropriate)

4 things that make me cry
- when Minnow cries when I leave her at daycare
- being desparately tired and not being able to get Minnow to go to sleep
- stories of babies/children/mommies hurting and losing each other
- when the dog dies in a book or movie

4 things I'm going to do this (academic) year
- survive
- submit two papers
- sneak away from work occasionally to play with Minnow
- hope to get a grant or two funded so I can attract a grad student

Women in science: 2 vignettes

2007-08-23T20:04:00.000-04:00

Vignette 1: Member at large
A large packet of my professional society newsletters were forwarded to me recently, and upon perusal, I saw that both of the societies in my field had recently named their new fellows (distinguished members). In the first society, a glance at the list of names suggested that roughly 20% of the new fellows were women. Given that I'm a physical scientist, I was actually fairly pleased with this result and thought kindly of the society for being inclusive.

Then I opened the newsletter of the other society, which helpfully had printed pictures of their new fellows. By a large margin, the pictures were of elderly white men. I didn't count, but I'd say that only 5% of the new fellows were women.

Why the disparity?

Vignette 2: A vanishingly small fraction
Last week we had our new faculty orientation at MU. Maybe I am used to viewing things through the women in science filter, but when I walked into the room and saw roughly half female faces I was inordinately pleased. The first woman I met was the new undergraduate coordinator in a science department and she had two small children of our own. We commiserated about daycare woes and I felt like I had found an ally - albeit one with no tenure clock looming in front of them.

Later in the day, a circle of introductions were made, and I was dismayed to discover that all the female faces that I had assumed to be sciencey were, in fact, not. The women faculty were in departments like art and English. And the new faculty in the sciences and engineering? Men.
There is a female visiting asst. prof in another science department and three women in the social sciences, but I am the only new tenure track woman in the natural sciences. I felt alone - abandoned by the people I had naively assumed to be compatriots. And that feeling was intensified as we made casual introductions after the formalities were over. I was the only new tenure track female faculty member that was married, much less a mother.

What's the take-away lesson from the new faculty orientation? Sure, you can may be a woman academic, but if you are, you probably aren't a scientist and you certainly aren't a mother.

change in email address

2007-08-21T21:09:00.000-04:00

I've grown weary of the clunkiness and unrealiability of hotmail, and have moved my blog email account over to gmail. Hopefully this will increase the frequency with which I check the account, but it probably won't increase the frequency with which I actually reply to messages in the account. That remains wholly a function of how much time I have (~zero) and how much I want to procrastinate (like right now). But, hey, it can't hurt to try.

For the record, you can send me email at science [full stop] woman at gmail [full stop] com

Teaching Tuesday: First day of class

2007-08-21T20:54:00.000-04:00

I was so worried about being on time for class and being prepared. When I got to campus and parked, I had just enough time to go to my office, grab my syllabi, and take a moment to get organized. I decided to take the textbook so I could show my students what it looked like. I took along the printed copy of the slides with my notes. I go to the classroom, booted up the computer on the podium, and realized I’d left my USB stick (with the lecture on it) in my bag upstairs. Fortunately, I had enough time to run back and get it.
I’ve also been stressing about looking professional enough. The last week or two, I’ve been trying to notice what my colleagues wear (but there are not a lot of women to compare with) and carefully thinking through my outfits. As I made my way across campus this morning, I realized it was easy to distinguish between the faculty/staff women and the undergraduate girls. The faculty were the ones not wearing very short shorts, track pants, and flip-flops.
I’d forgotten how fun it is to track your enrollment changes. On Friday, I had 46 students in class. Monday, it peaked at 77. After class today, I was down to 71. And from here on out, I expect it’ll keep dropping.
I'd also forgotten how after you get that first week of lectures prepared, the feeling of elation is quickly replaced with the sobering realization that the next week isn't even started. That all that work only got you 1/16th of the way through the semester. I guess that's part of why I prefer research to teaching - it's easier to ignore the feeling of impending doom.
Speaking of such things, my decision to assign two short papers was weighing heavily upon me as the enrollment nearly doubled. But then what to my wondering eyes should appear? A TA assigned to me for 8 hours/week. Since I don't teach labs, (s)he is mostly to help with the grading. I hope (s)he doesn't mind reading papers. :)

Mommy Monday: Minnow's Magnificence

2007-08-19T21:13:00.000-04:00

Warning! Extensive bragging again. Those that don't give a hoot about my baby, should read no further.

She's fast. Her tummy still touches the ground when she crawls, but that doesn't slow her down as she makes beelines for the objects that catch her eye. She'll also go up and over Daddy or I to get what she wants.
Sometimes she'll crawl into my lap. It's very heart-warming.
She's been fascinated by the Princess Pup's shiny food and water bowls, crawling to them whenever she gets a chance. So yesterday we got her a shiny mixing bowl of her very own.
She also likes to crawl to and then remove the ceramic caps that hide the bolts that anchor our toilets. This is less endearing, and we are trying to discourage her by hiding the caps under towels.
However, she's figured out object permanence, so this may not work.
In the last day or two, she's started to pull up on things, chiefly her dresser drawers and my legs. If I am lying on my side, she'll pull herself up to supported standing by crawling her hands up my legs. We're also having a hard time keeping her seated in the bathtub because there is a handrail that's perfect for her to grab.
On Thursday, she started blowing raspberries. Now whenever she is crawling around or banging on something and is particularly pleased, she makes the sounds. It's pretty funny.
She's also added consonants to her sounds, including her cries. Her wailing now sounds like "mmmmmaa, mmmmmmmum." I'm not sure whether to be flattered or not.
Minnow has become a champion napper at least at home. We are consistently getting a two hour morning nap and a one hour afternoon nap. On days when she gets up extra-early (6:30 or before), she'll often take a bonus one hour early morning nap. All of these naps are now in her crib, which is a big development for us.
She's also sleeping the first 2-3 hours of the night in her crib, but the past few nights she's been really resisting bedtime. She wants to nurse every few minutes during the bedtime routine and then gets frustrated when there's nothing there for her. (Gee, I wonder why.) But once I get her asleep, she's an angel.
The first two hours of the night are her best sleep. Which is good (I get to eat dinner and get her bottles ready for the next day), and bad (by the time I go to bed, the average sleep period is just about 1.5 hours, sometimes as little as 30 minutes).
We're slowly introducing more solid foods. Minnow now eats rice cereal, sweet potato, pears, bananas, avocados, prunes, and oatmeal. Next up? Maybe green beans. She loves the sweet potato and pears, but the rest of the foods are hit or miss. The timing is really tricky, because she can't be too full from milk or she can't be bothered with the solid food, she can't be too tired because she'll get cranky, and she can't be too hungry because then she's too impatient for the slow process of eating solids and would prefer to get her fast food from me.
This weekend we debuted oatmeal. This was our first homemade cereal for her, because we couldn't find any commercial infant oatmeal without soy or wheat. You are supposed to introduce only one food at a time, and soy and wheat aren't appropriate for another couple of months, so it was pretty frustating to see them as ingredients in the infant oatmeal. Fortunately, it wasn't all that hard to make on our own. We've got lots of oatmeal on hand, because...
In an effort to find out whether there's a dietary cause to our nightly Minnow's tummy aches/wakes and cries/sleepless mommy routine, I've eliminated all the common allergens from my diet, restricting me to homemade, single ingredient foods. When you get rid of dairy, soy, eggs, wheat, corn, peanuts, tree nuts, beef, chicken, shellfish, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, garlic, green pepper, tomato, citrus fruit, caffeine, chocolate, and alcohol, there's just not a lot out there in the world of commercially available prepared food that you can eat. In vending machines and convenience stores, I can have some, but definitely not all, varieties of potato chips, and that's it. On the upside, because my diet is so restricted right now, I'm paying a lot of attention to trying to eat balanced meals, and I've obviously eliminated a lot of fat, preservatives, etc. And it's not forever. Theoretically, as the last traces of these potential allergens leave my body over the course of a month, things should start to improve for Minnow. And once they do, I can test foods one at a time. Those that don't trigger a regression can safely be added back to my diet. I really long for dairy and wheat.
In the meantime, I feel pretty confident that soy is one of her allergies (she'll probably grow out of it). Last week she had some soy-based formula at daycare, and it definitely did not go over well digestively. Fish thinks it might have been the big serving of prunes she had one of those days, but I don't think a single serving of prunes on Tuesday could have caused the problems that started Monday night.

Is it crazy to expect that next week will be easier?

2007-08-18T20:24:00.000-04:00

Last week was a blur of meetings, new faces, new rules, new places. There were faculty orientations, receptions, convocations, and retreats. There were boxes to unpack, printers to be installed, and email to configure. There were parking permits to be purchased and parking ramps to be navigated. It was all rather exhilarating and quite exhausting.

Next week is the start of class. My syllabus is at the printers (I've only caught one error so far); my first lecture is mostly written; the blackboard site for the class has some rudimentary information. I'm feeling pretty good about the class actually, though I still don't have a copy of the same textbook edition that my students will be using. I'm sure that a few weeks from now, about the time their first papers come streaming in, I'll be delirious with class-preparation sleep-deprivation, but for now I'm cool.

I've got a couple of grant deadlines in the next month or so, and I'm looking forward to spending a few hours next week to actually thinking about potential topics, doing some reading, and eventually scoping out some field sites. A colleague at Mystery U (MU) reminded me of a potential field site near Mystery City, and suggested that it would be a great place to take a family hike. The thought of sneaking out for a half day with Minnow and walking through forests and fields is incredibly appealing right now ('til I remember the temperature outside). A colleague at Same State University (SSU) and I are trying to arrange for a field excursion to a site where we are both interested in working. And my -ology of Mystery State book suggested some potential field sites for another project I am thinking about proposing. If all three of those sites/projects go ahead in the next year or two, I'll really get to know the -ology of the state in a hurry.

I really like my colleagues - part of the reason that I was excited about MU in the first place. Everyone is just so dang nice. Even at our retreat, where a lot of festering problems were aired, everyone was polite and a good listener.

Any thoughts on PDAs?

2007-08-13T21:43:00.000-04:00

The ol' pen and paper isn't cutting it this week/month/year, and my memory's not what it used to be. I added a bunch of stuff to my Outlook calendar, but then if I'm not at my computer, I can't see my schedule.

What I want is something that will serve as a calendar (including annoying reminders) and a place to keep all my various to-do lists organized. (Maybe syncing with Outlook.) The ability to wirelessly check email might be nice as well, but is not entirely necessary.

I'm thinking it's time to step up and buy a PDA, but I don't know about all my various options. Anyone care to provide a recommendation?

Mommy Monday: Separation Anxiety

2007-08-13T21:39:00.000-04:00

Mine. Not hers.

We were apart for 10 hours today. The longest we've been away from each other since she was born. The rest of this week promises to be equally long.

I hate it. I saw her for an hour this morning as I rushed around getting her ready for daycare and me (semi-)ready for work. And then this evening, 20 minutes after I got home, it was time to start the bath and bed routine. All told, I got something on the order of 2 hours with her today, and much of it was distinctly not quality time.

I'm not gonna give up co-sleeping anytime soon. I need my baby. And she needs me.

Nervous as a school girl

2007-08-12T20:24:00.000-04:00

The first "official" day of my contract is tomorrow. And I am nervous like those first day of school jitters that I got years ago.

Oddly enough I'm not nervous about the first day of class (next week), even though I still don't have a copy of the textbook, a syllabus written, etc. I'm not nervous about whether I'll stay awake during this week's long series of meetings or whether I'll remember people's names or when I'll figure out how to use WebCT effectively. And what I'm going to propose for two upcoming grant deadlines or when I'm going to finish the revisions on my paper are the farthest things from my mind.

Instead, I'm nervous about:

How early I need to be up in order to get Minnow and I ready for the day (since Fish leaves for work at 5 am)
How early I need to get Minnow to daycare in order to be at my first meeting on time (and not too sweaty)
When I'll manage to pump when I've got meetings scheduled straight through from 8 am to 4 pm (with some double-booking no less)
How I'll keep the milk cold in weather that's supposed to be 95 degrees
What my colleagues will think of me when I disappear into a bathroom at every break during the meeting
Whether there will be outlets in the bathroom for my electric pump
What the other women faculty will think when they walk into the bathroom and see me with my shirt open and two cones and tubes coming out of it
What people will say when I decline to eat the provided breakfast, snacks, and lunch and instead open up my very strange lunch (I'm currently eliminating 15+ commonly allergenic foods in hopes of solving our sleep/gas issues. So no dairy, soy, eggs, wheat, corn, beef, onions, etc. for me.)

Somehow I don't think the other new faculty have the same things on their mind tonight.

Focusing on the good

2007-08-05T14:28:00.000-04:00

My mom's surgery was on Friday. They found that the cancer had not spread, and she shouldn't need any follow-up radiation or chemotherapy. It will take a while for her to recover from the major surgery though. Minnow and I will be with her starting Tuesday. I feel very helpless being this far away, and I'm sorry this has all fallen on to Brother's shoulders.

Week 1 on campus

2007-08-03T10:10:00.001-04:00

I actually made it to campus this week. Got keys to my office. Got some boxes unloaded. Got my faculty ID card (worst picture ever) and filled out paperwork for human resources. Bought a book on the local -ology. Met with my new grad student. And a prospective student. Tried to get my computers working and alerted the techician to all the glitches. Got Minnow started a daycare (she refused a bottle on day 1, but took two on day 2) and learned how to get from daycare to campus. Discovered that, despite living six miles from campus, I'll need to leave at least an hour before I want to be there, if I have to drop Minnow off at daycare.

Actually, that's not a bad set of accomplishments for what amounts to two 1/2 days. But I already feel behind.

I need to...

(Figure out how to) order a textbook for my class.
Write a syllabus for said class.
Find out what the requirements are for our PhD program, so that I can properly advise my student.
Find out how to list a reading and conference type class.
Start writing a grant proposal for the state -ology grant program. On what, I don't know...
Finish the revisions on a paper.
Study the benefits paperwork and get signed up.
~~Find out when my first paycheck is arriving.~~
Get a parking permit.
etc. etc.

But I suspect that such a list is typical and only gets worse as the semester goes on.

A few observations:

It's interesting that I only ran into one other faculty member during my time in the department. Either everyone's enjoying the last few weeks of summer, working at home, in the field, or just keeping their office doors closed. I sincerely hope it's the first or third options, because that's the sort of department that I want to be part of.
Whenever I had a question or needed something, I was told to ask the associate chair, not the chair. I am starting to wonder whether the department functions like the current White House - ONLY in the respect that the real power lies not with the figurehead chair but with the behind the scenes mastermind.
It sure is different being a faculty member. I needed to photocopy a chapter from a book, and rather than being told I needed to pay 10cents a page to use the office machine, the departmental staff offered to do it for me. I think I could enjoy this...

And then the other shoe drops...

2007-08-01T10:40:00.000-04:00

We're being audited by the IRS. They want to count my fellowship income as self-employment income, costing another couple thousand in taxes for the year in question. I don't think they're right, but it means that I have to dig around and find out and then find documentation to show that the income was from a fellowship. If we lose our appeal, I expect that they will audit another couple years of taxes and we'll end up owing ~10,000. Yuck. And of course we only have a few weeks to get things in order.

Update: Oh! Crap! According to IRS publication 970 (Tax Benefits for Education), I was supposed to count it as self-employment income! Crap. Crap. Crap. Our only possible salvation now is that the year in question we used H&R Block and they should have caught something like that. In the dim recesses of my mind, I think there was something about if they made an error, they'd pay for it. maybe. maybe. ugh. ugh. ugh.

If you can't say something nice...

2007-07-31T15:54:00.000-04:00

Usually I am delighted to discover that someone has linked to one of my posts, but for the second time a particular blogger has written a very negative attack of me on his blog. Since his comment policy is too blatantly delete anything that makes him look bad, I don't see much point in commenting on his post. But I will respond here to the post titled: "Science Woman committed to the demise of her kid." (No linking, he doesn't deserve the readership.)

The blogger (we'll call him "Bob") takes a selective quote from a post of mine from a few weeks back:

"Finding a home-based daycare (or any care, for that matter) on two weeks notice is *tough*. I called ~10 places this morning and found four *big* centers with openings. We’re touring them this week. We might just have to settle on something for now and continue to look for a smaller, better place as we can."

Bob claims that if he were a parent he'd be ashamed to admit such information. He goes on to say that obviously I just wanted a "toy kid so that she can play mother", that I am willing to treat my "kid like an animal", and that if he were my husband, he'd be a stay-at-home dad. Bob admits that he is neither married or a parent.

Well, Bob, you admit you don't know what you are talking about, so why do it?

But since you did, here's my reply:

If I wanted to "play" mother, I wouldn't have tried for 17 months to conceive, given birth without drugs, worked part time for the past six months, had no more than 2 consecutive hours of sleep for the last six+ months, or agonized quite so much about not being able to find the perfect childcare. (All of these stories can be found in my blog archives.) I love my daughter more than words can describe, more than I ever thought possible.
You assume that sending daycares treat kids like animals. Maybe the one your mom sent you to did, but the good daycares try really hard to give kids individual attention and love. They have well-trained staff, lots of toys, outdoor playtime, etc. It's hardly like throwing your child in a playpen for 8 hours a day.
You also implicitly assume that staying home with a child is the best care a kid can receive. And I think that I give my daughter pretty darn good care. But what about the 60% of 3 month olds who regularly watch TV or videos, despite the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation of no TV until age 2? Those kids aren't watching TV in a daycare (it's usually against regulations); they're watching it at home.
You seem to fault me for settling on the best daycare I can find now, and continuing to look for a better place. What am I supposed to do? Ask the university to nicely push back the academic calendar because I haven't found a competent, experienced, loving nanny willing to work for less than a living wage?
You fault my husband for not staying home, because he's not "subservient enough" or we're not willing to "do without" [luxuries]. Both my husband and I are required to work by economic dictates; neither of us makes enough to support the whole family. We're not taking luxury cruises or buying new Mercedes; we're just talking about paying the mortgage and buying groceries.
When you fault my husband for not being subservient enough to be a stay-at-home dad, what you are really saying is that I, as the woman, should be subservient to my husband's career and should stay home with the kids. Barefoot and pregnant, I presume?
I can turn the other cheek, Bob, when you pronounce that I haven't got a shot at tenure because I'm a mother and I don't want to work more than 60 hours per week. But I can't stand that you would dare to assert that my husband and I don't have our daughter's best interests at heart when we make the agonizing decision over who to trust her with for 6-7 hours a day.

Oh right, that's why routines are nice.

2007-07-29T13:26:00.000-04:00

The last three days, Minnow has taken a two hour nap on her own. It's amazing how something as little as that can make such a big difference in my outlook. It gives me hope: that independent, predictable naps might become commonplace; that someday she'll sleep at night for more than 1.5 hours at a time (and in her crib for more than 25 minutes); that I haven't screwed her up completely by holding her for naps for most of the past six months. (She's just been put down for her second independent nap of the day. Will wonders never cease?)

I also found out what I am teaching this fall - an intro course with similarities to one I have taught in the past. It's a relief to know that I won't be prepping an upper-level course from scratch, including writing labs, in the next few weeks. Hopefully, I won't go overboard making my lectures too pretty, and will settle for keeping them interesting enough to keep students awake during the early morning time slot. If I can stick with that, I should have enough time to get my lab set up, write some proposals, and write some papers.

We are slowly digging out from the blizzard of boxes that arrived with the movers. During yesterday's nap, Fish and I got most of the kitchen put away, and during this morning's nap I shelved some books and filed some files. Maybe tomorrow I'll manage to pay our overdue second quarter taxes. (whoops!) We've discovered that a few things were left unpacked by the packers (how annoying), but by and large, most things seem to have survived the move pretty well. I only wish I'd had the time pre-move or post-move to do a lot of purging of stuff. For example, I am facing a box that says "office stuff." If I couldn't come up with a more descriptive label than "stuff," do I really need it. In any case, it's nice to have lamps, glasses, books, and chairs again.

Of course all of this domestic and professional tranquility will be upset in a few days when we find out when my mom's surgery is scheduled. Right now it's maddeningly up in the air, so I am just proceeding to make plans as if I weren't going to Midwest at all. I'll just have to change plans when I find out the surgery date. And that trip will of course disrupt the wonderous naps, house organization, and syllabi planning. But what can I do? (Yes, it has occurred to me that (my mom and) I are focusing on logistics of the next few weeks so we can avoid dealing with more emotional stuff.) I guess I can only hope that the surgery reveals a minute tumor and that routines (read: naps) re-establish themselves once we return.

Mommy monday: dreadful news

2007-07-23T19:42:00.001-04:00

I was in the middle of writing an entirely different mommy monday post, when my mother (ScienceGrandma) called.

She's got cancer and will have surgery within a week.

I volunteered that Minnow and I will be there for her as much as she wants us, up until my contract officially starts in mid-August.

She promised to call me when the surgery is scheduled. And then I'll buy the plane ticket.

This is, of course, terribly disruptive to my personal and professional plans for the next few weeks. But that doesn't matter at all, not when your mommy wants you to hold her hand when she goes into surgery and to be there for her when she convalesces.

Mommy monday: random bullets of life in Mystery City

2007-07-16T11:03:00.000-04:00

Still no furniture. I miss chairs.
We bought some new toys for Minnow the other day. Fish and I carefully picked out gender neutral toys for her - blocks and nesting cups. What did she pick from the shelf? A cement mixer. That's my girl!
We've now had two meals of "solid" food - Gerber Organic Rice Cereal. This morning (1/2 hour after the meal), the internets inform me that said cereal has been recalled because lumps in it may pose a choking hazard. Lovely.
I've really gotta find a natural foods store. I had an unopened box of Earth's Best Organic Whole-Grain Rice Cereal...but the movers have it.
Finding a home-based daycare (or any care, for that matter) on two weeks notice is *tough*. I called ~10 places this morning and found four *big* centers with openings. We're touring them this week. We might just have to settle on something for now and continue to look for a smaller, better place as we can.
My favorite reply from a daycare? "We have a short wait for that age group." "How long is a short wait?" "About 8 months."
We're definitely not in Utopia anymore. Mystery City is a sprawling metropolis full of every national chain you could wish (and a lot you wouldn't), and seemingly devoid of anything personal. But at least our neighborhood has walking trails.
Fish starts work today. So Minnow is all mine until 9 pm each night (and then really until about 7:30 am), so my resolution to eat healthier dinners is already out the window.
Our cable internet only appears to work on Fish's computer and not my laptop. They assure us that once we hook up the wireless, all will be well. Where's the wireless router? With the movers.
*sigh*

Don't use Allied movers

2007-07-13T15:52:00.000-04:00

"Zen-like simplicity" is a phrase a friend used the other day to describe her material aspirations after moving caused her to realize how much stuff she owned.

Well, friend, we've got you beat.

Fish, Minnow, Princess Pup, and I are holed up in Mystery City for at least another 10 days with no furniture and $6000 less in our bank accounts thanks to the (in)competency of Allied Movers.

They promised delivery between the 12th and the 16th, but now are telling us the 24th. But, don't worry, they say, it might have been August 18th. Aren't you lucky, it's not!

Generous souls that they are, they're giving us $200 to cover expenses.

Lack of bed, table, desk, crib, sofa, etc. and the usual travel-and-baby induced cold have me feeling rather blue.

Mommy Monday: Moving!

2007-07-02T10:00:00.000-04:00

Today is our very last day in Utopia. Tonight we head to airport city and then Minnow and I fly to Midwest to stay with ScienceGrandma. Meanwhile, Fish and PrincessPup will speedily drive across the country and our furniture will *slowly* meander towards Mystery City. All will be reunited around mid-month.

Blogging will be sporadic at best, especially since I am hoping to go to super-secret location with no electricity, phone, or even runnng water (with a baby, crazy, I know.)

Once in Mystery City, I'll have a few weeks to figure things out (read: find *great* child care) and then it'll be time for adventures as an assistant professor.

I will not be a foregone conclusion.

2007-07-01T23:46:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I get depressed when I read the blogs of other women scientists - particularly when the topic of children vs. an academic career is the topic du jour. The short version is that many of us seem to think we have two choices: (1) Have a career and no children, or children we never see; or (2) Give up our plans for t-t/research academia in order to raise a family. That we can't be both academic researchers and fantastic parents seems to be a foregone conclusion.

Well, I refuse to be a foregone conclusion.

In January, I was blessed with a wonderful daughter - a child that I had been aching for (and actively working toward) for years. I want to be an attached parent, one who knows what my child's interests are and what she had for lunch. I want to be there for bedtimes, games of pat-a-cake (and later, catch), and school plays.

In April, I got a job offer for a tenure-track position at a research university. I've been preparing for such a job for as long as I can remember. I want to get tenure, be a good mentor to students, teach interesting classes, conduct funded, intriguing research, and be a good colleague.

I'm having an incredibly good year, and it pains me when people suggest that I'll fail at one endeavor or the other. That I'll miss years of mealtimes and never have a weekend off, or if I do take time to be with my family, that I'll be unfunded, under-prepared, and untenurable.

That shouldn't be true. And I won't let such talk defeat me from the start.

I will work very hard and very efficiently at my job. I'll pour my heart into grant proposals and syllabi. But I'll also draw the line at some only-moderately-unreasonable number of hours per week (say, 50-60). It is equally important to me that I have the time to sing my daughter to sleep, make her mashed bananas for breakfast, and change the occasional poopy diaper.

If those things deny me tenure, then so be it. I will acknowledge that I could have done more, but defiantly reply that I shouldn't have had to.

I will not be a foregone conclusion. I will be a productive assistant professor. I will be an awesome mother. Just you watch.

scientiae-carnival

Carnival time

2007-07-01T23:34:00.000-04:00

Scientiae is up Amelie's World. Her theme is responsibility.
The next Scientiae won't be until August 1. Then it'll be hosted by Twice at Twice Tenured.
Philosophia Naturalis #11 (the physical sciences carnival) is up at Highly Allochthonous. Chris does a cool thing with powers of 11 to show off the huge range in scales that physical scientists work with.

Teaching assignments of new hires

2007-06-26T23:07:00.000-04:00

How does your department handle teaching loads for the first semester of a new t-t hire's employment?

If they do teach something, how is the course assignment made? Does it matter whether the decision of who to hire is made before or after the main pulse of registration?
If the new hire's course didn't meet the minimum enrollment, what would happen?
How far in advance of the semester start date would that decision be made?

I'm trying to get a sense for the range of normal...any help would be appreciated!

Mommy monday: our sleep issues

2007-06-25T20:05:00.001-04:00

I think I've mentioned our sleep issues before, but the amount of mental space they occupy is increasing as my return to full-time work approaches. I've spent hours up in the rocking chair coming up with this analysis. We have three problems.

1. Naps.
Minnow won't nap in her crib. She is such a light sleeper during naps that she wakes up every time I try to set her down. I've basically given up even trying and now she naps contentedly in my arms (or rarely in a front-pack). During her 1-2.5 hour naps, I read, do Sudokus, or browse the internet (but I hate 1-hand typing, so I don't blog or work). Fish can sometimes get her to nap in her swing, but we have to return the swing to its owner before we move. At daycare, she naps in a swing or a crib, but I'm pretty sure there is crying involved, something we simply won't allow at home (and would much prefer to avoid at the next daycare).

2. Evenings
We've had a bit more success getting Minnow to spend the early part of the night in her crib. I can usually get her to do a 30 minute stretch before she wakes up crying. Then I struggle to get her back down (often 30+ minutes of singing and rocking), where she will sleep for up to 1.5 hours (but sometimes only 15 minutes). At some point between 8:30 and 9:45, she will simply refuse to stay asleep if put in her crib. If I try to do so, she will resist falling asleep at all for up to an hour. Usually what happens at this point is that I give up and go to bed with her when I finally do get her back to sleep. In the end, I get maybe an hour of baby-free time before I go to bed.

3. The Early A.M. hours
Oh, goodness do we have GAS issues. I could give you the gory details about her erratic and humoungous poops, but suffice it to say that about 1 out of every 3 nights, I end up sitting up in the rocking chair for 1-3 hours (or worse, calming a crying baby for nearly that long), because there is no way she can sleep horizontally due to gas pain. It's not food related (I've been that route), it's just the quirkiness of her immature digestive system. Gas drops don't do a thing for us.

As I contemplate the workload I'll have starting in about a month, I know that something's gotta give. We absolutely won't cry-it-out, so don't even suggest it (and comments to that regard will be deleted). Naps are actually the least of my worries, since she'll be in full-time child-care and they'll be someone else's problem. The GAS issue I can't see resolving until her digestive system matures - maybe solids will help, but the common starter foods actually cause more constipation, so I'm not hopeful. Thus, we are pinning our hopes on freeing up some space in my evenings. We have started upon a No-Cry Sleep Solution plan as of last night, but with the chaos of the move, it may be some time before we see results.

Oops, time to go get Minnow from daycare.

Post-doc Carnival

2007-06-23T03:01:00.000-04:00

The nominal theme of this carnival was "uniqueness," but even I had a hard time writing a post that fit the theme. But if you allow me to twist and mangle the theme a bit, I'll show you that being a post-doc-dom is a unique job. I mean where else do you get to do all of the following?

Spend your days searching for your next job...
Lou at A scientist's life contemplates the future - maybe moving into a lab management position? Marianne at The Eternal Postdoc wishes that she could return home to Newfoundland. And, Dr. Shellie gives us tips for networking that serve as a useful refresher on how to become part of the club.

...while bemoaning the good old days of student life.
Adventures of a Post-doc misses the order that being a student gave life. Hypoglycemiagirl wonders whether she is inivisible to her Ph.D. uni.

Try to play nicely with others...
Pondering Fool at ...Ponderings of a Fool describes her lab's group meetings and wonders how other labs handle meetings. Meanwhile, TitleTroubles at The Trouble with Titles reflects on the difference one person can make in a lab's dynamics.

...or ponder whether you can make it on your own.
Chris at Highly Allochthonous talks about a crucial ingredient to running your own research program: inspiration, and how transplanting to South Africa is getting his creative juices flowing.

Try to fit in...
Daybyday is finally feeling connected to her lab after one year on the job. While, about 2 months into his post-doc, Ben at Status: +61 has lost the new guy immunity from his boss's wrath, making him regret his choice of the lab. Freely Jointed Chain is running some very slow simulations and wondering why everyone else looks so busy. Is she doing something wrong or is she just lucky?

...or just try to get in.
Alex Palazzo at The Daily Transcript relates some all-too-common visa horror stories affecting post-docs trying to work in the U.S.. Fortunately, he just got his green card.

Freak Out...
A Female Scientist at A positive spin on life muses about how to survive her post-doc work crunch without getting too stressed out. Propter Doc at post doc ergo propter doc is searching for the metamorphical needle in the haystack in her work right now, but at least she's got a genuinely interested summer student working with her

....and Celebrate.
Post-doc at Minor Revisions has a reason to celebrate. She's been invited to Italy to share her technical prowess. Speaking of minor revisions, Dr. Brazen Hussy at What the hell is wrong with you? just got back the mildest reviewer critiques ever. It must have been a great paper. I look bac k on my post-doc time and realize that the best part was getting to have a life outside of work.

Regain perspective...
Incoherent Ponderer at Incoherently Scattered Ponderings reminds us that the glass is really quite full, even though most science/academic blogs focus on the negatives.

...on life as an ill-posed problem.*
Rebecca at Adventures in Applied Math took on my "uniqueness" challenge and reflected on the random conversation that changed her life. (*Rebecca's got the definition for this phrase in her post. )

Thanks to everyone who contributed posts (knowingly or not!). Thanks to post-doc at Minor Revisions for compiling such a great carnival last time (links heavily visited for this one). Thanks to Propter Doc for organizing the whole thing.

The next carnival will be July 23rd at The Daily Transcript. Information on the carnival can be found at What's Up, Post-doc?. And, no, you are not too busy to post or host.

I feel like a childless grad-student again...

2007-06-22T19:06:00.000-04:00

because I've spent much of the afternoon blog reading in preparation for tomorrow's carnival.

In my defense, I am also burning DVDs to archive all of my data files.

But I am also eating kettle corn.

The end of the post-doc

2007-06-22T13:44:00.000-04:00

It's hard to believe that I am one week out from my last day as a post-doc. In a lot of ways, I feel like this time has just been a place-holder - something to keep my CV from having an employment gap. Sometimes I feel guilty - like I've wasted my advisor's money the past nine months, because I'm not sure we'll ever get a paper out of the assorted projects I've been working on. But then I remember that in addition to having a baby and all that jazz, I also saved my advisor's neck on two conference talks and finished tying up the loose ends on my thesis data, which wouldn't have happened otherwise. So maybe I shouldn't feel so bad.

Do I feel more qualified now to be a professor than the day I defended? Not really. Sure, I've gotten to dabble with a few new projects, but none of them has amounted to much in the end. The core research skills of idea generation, grant-writing, project execution, data analysis, and paper writing haven't suddenly matured. I have gotten more comfortable with arguing for my ideas (and against stupid ones), but that is probably just the result of having the "doctor" tag hung round my neck for a little while now.

So, if every post-doc experience is unique (as I get around to the theme for the soon-to-come carnival), what made mine special? I'd have to say that the work-life balance I've achieved over the last nine months has been unique in my scholastic career, and is probably (unfortunately) pretty darn rare in post-doc world. I've been able to work part-time and enjoy mornings at home with minnow; I've taken her to seminars, meetings, and the field, but still had time to focus on just being a mommy when circumstances demanded it. It isn't easy - more of a juggling act than a balancing one - but my supportive boss and colleagues have let me test out the good life, and I'd like to hang on to it. When I return to (more than) full-time work in a month or so, I'd like to try to remember that work isn't everything, and that even though progress may seem slow compared to the pre-baby breakneck-speed past, I'm a much happier person when I can relax and enjoy those baby hugs before getting back to abstract writing. If I'd gone straight to full-time professoring or really taken a sabbatical and fully stayed home since minnow was born, I don't think I would have learned that lesson.

Carnivals

2007-06-18T16:19:00.000-04:00

I'm late to the party as usual, but in case you hadn't heard. There's another great edition of Scientiae up at FairerScience. The next edition will be July 1 at Amelie's Welt.

And another reminder that the next edition of the post-doc carnival will be here this Saturday (June 23rd). The nominal theme is uniqueness, but feel free to contribute anything relevant to post-doc-ism. Heck, you don't even need to be a post-doc. If you are a grad student thinking of becoming one, or if you've been a post-doc, send me your posts!

Mommy Monday: sick child :(

2007-06-18T13:38:00.000-04:00

Now I know what the combination of a wicked cold, pinkeye, and an ear infection does to my normally happy go-lucky kid. Wish I didn't.

And the cold has taken away my voice, so I can't even sing to soothe her.

Student-Parent activism: better late than never?

2007-06-15T17:00:00.001-04:00

My most recent email:

Dear Student Parent Advocate at the Student Union:

I am having an awful time trying to find a babysitter so that I can attend Commencement on Sunday. I have a 4 month old, and I am receiving my PhD. At the last minute my husband got scheduled to work, and can't change his shift. All of my normal babysitters are busy - many with commencement and/or father's day.

I've called the Registrar and they have no daycare option for Commencement, nor can they allow my daughter to stay with me during the ceremony. I know this situation can't be fixed by Sunday, but for future years, it would be great if someone could organize a daycare/babysitting service during Commencement. The lady I talked to at the registrar said that she'd gotten a similar phone call this morning from a mother of 5. So obviously there is a demand.

Anybody available to babysit?

Metamorphosing from post-doc to professor

2007-06-14T19:25:00.001-04:00

How to turn a post-doc into a professor: Apply heat and pressure. And hope for gneiss* results.

Research knows no sharp boundaries. Even when you think you are done with a particular project, it may still resurface years later. (I just submitted a review related to a paper published a while ago). Ideas take a while to gestate, move to the front burner, get proposed, get done, get written up, and published.

Teaching, on the other hand, seems to have all sorts of sharp boundaries. You either are teaching a class or you aren't. You are either done grading or you are in grading jail. Lectures aren't really done until their given, but then they are really done.

I haven't quite figured out whether the transition from post-doc professor has a sharp boundary or not.

Logistically, of course, it does. In just over two weeks, I am moving from Utopia to Mystery City with a stop in Midwest on the way. In just over two months, I will be teaching a class, residing in a new office, and advising a Ph.D. student. I will no longer be working for Dr. ABC, working part-time, or drawing a pittance of a salary.

Psychologically, though, I think the metamorphosis will be much more gradual. Projects that I am currently working on will continue to require my time, and I will still use Dr. ABC as an occasional sounding board. For a while at least, I will still think of my mother when somebody refers to me as Dr. Sciencewoman and I will continue to collaborate with my colleagues here in Utopia. I will feel like the new kid, trying to figure out the rules of the game in a new place. Eventually though, maybe after I've gotten a grant or two funded and recruited some students to work on my projects, once I've learned where the faculty park and where to make photocopies, maybe the second time I get to teach a particular class, I will realize that I am fully an assistant professor.

But, those who have gone before lead me to believe that the boundary will feel sharp. I remember Dr. Mom likening her first semester as faculty to being thrown up a cliff. A friend reported being overwhelmed by going from being a post-doc to having grad students, a lab tech, and his own post-doc within a few months. Many have told me that the first year as faculty is incredibly intense, as you have to ramp up your teaching, research, and service obligations all at once.

* The picture is of a gneiss (courtesy Georgia State U.), a metamorphic rock. Metamorphic rocks form from other rocks (igneous or sedimentary) that are subjected to heat and pressure. There are some definite characteristics used to identify metamorphic rocks, but there is not always a sharp boundary, as a google search of quasi-metamorphic rocks will reveal. Migmatite is one example.

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More pressure than can be borne?

2007-06-11T19:11:00.000-04:00

It is a sad day for the environmental science community. We have a lost a shining young scientist, Dr. Elizabeth Sulzman of Oregon State University. She was a dynamic individual, an award-winning teacher, and an exciting researcher. She died last night after ingesting a caustic substance, apparently committing suicide. She leaves behind an elementary-school aged daughter and a husband.

She participated in a panel a few years ago called "So you want to be a college professor?." The grad students in the audience asked the professors how it was possible to have a personal life on top of the demands of a research and teaching career. The professors stressed that the flexibility of the academic work day compensated in large part of the sheer volume of work. Dr. Sulzman said something to the effect of "where else would I get to do what I love and still be able to be home for my daughter after school."

I am left wondering what went wrong for Dr. Sulzman. Were the pressures to continually get funding and publishing results too much? What about the desire to produce outstanding classes on top of her other committments? Was there a problem in her relationship with her husband? Did she feel guilty about lack of time with her daughter? Did she miss having "free" time? Was it years of sleep deprivation, mother guilt, and impostor syndrome? I am left wondering what could drive a woman to despair so deep that she'd leave behind her daughter.

I am left wondering whether the life she led was "worth it" while it lasted. I am left wondering whether there is something wrong with "the system" that puts so much pressure on individuals to constantly perform. I am left wondering about the expectations that we have for our selves - to succeed at so many endeavors simultaneously. I am left wondering about the extra burden we carry as women - primary caregivers facing an unequal playing field at work - and the chronic pressure that adds to our loads.

Maybe none of these things had anything to do with Dr. Sulzman's death. That's the problem with suicide - it leaves questions forever unanswered and family and friends forever grieving. But if it causes some measure of critical examination of the forces at play in Dr. Sulzman's life - and the lives of other women scientists/academics - then maybe some good can come of this tragedy.

But tonight I hug my daughter close and tell her that I will never leave her. And tonight I pray for Elizabeth Sulzman's family - especially her daughter - may they find some peace.

scientiae-carnival

Update

2007-06-08T10:40:00.000-04:00

I think I am too out-of-practice to provide more than a bulleted list at this point.
Our house is on the market. Anyone want to buy it?
We went to Mystery City and bought a house. Well, we close in a few weeks, but you know what I mean.
Minnow spontaneously decided that eating from a bottle isn't all that bad, relieving some of my guilt about having her at daycare.
Of course, now that's she's decided to eat, she's decided to eat way more than I am pumping, so our freezer supply is diminishing rapidly.
Basically I'm done with stuff for Dr. ABC's latest talk. But a late-in-the-game literature review suggests that what I've been slaving over is not original enough to publish. This is why you at least do a cursory literature review before you write the abstract!
That makes both major post-doc projects that have fizzled out. Oh well, it's been a pleasant nine months.
My remaining tasks before leaving this job:

complete my review
write a quick report of the latest project
write a quick report of the earlier project (including doing a few more analyses)
finishing handing-off my PhD field sites and archival materials
revise and resubmit a paper

I think I am going to take most of the month of July off. We'll move near the beginning of the month and then I am looking forward to just playing mommy, exploring Mystery City, and relaxing before the start of the term in mid-August. I haven't had time off in such a long time.

Carnivals

2007-06-01T18:31:00.000-04:00

Wow. I've really been inactive for a while. Two fantastic carnivals have come and gone while I've been gone from this space.

There is a new edition of Scientiae up at FemaleCSGradStudent's place. Her theme was "how we are hungry" and I can't wait to read the yummy entries you all served up.

Also, another post-doc carnival has come and gone at Minor Revisions. Post-doc did an amazing job gathering together a huge number of posts from a diverse set of blogs. Thanks, post-doc.

I'll be hosting the next edition of the post-doc carnival "What's up postdoc?" here on June 23rd. If you are looking for a prompt to get those creative juices flowing, here's an idea: "uniqueness." Write on!

I'm off to Mystery City to house hunt for a few days, but after next week I hope to be back to more blog regularity for a while. I've got lots of post ideas just waiting for some time to come spilling out.

out sick

2007-05-29T15:18:00.000-04:00

We're on day 4 of sick watch here in the Science household. A nasty stomach bug first hit Minnow then fish and I. Then this morning minnow got another round of vaccines and she's sound asleep in my lap right now. the fever will start in a few hours. The good thing? I'm currently only 1 pound above my prepregnancy weight. talk amongst yourselves.

The part-time post-doc

2007-05-21T23:18:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to write this post for a while, but ironically, I've been too busy working. In the last three days, I've logged about 25 hours doing field work on two different projects. Now, 25 hours is also the number of hours that I am paid to work each week. So, does that mean I'm done?

Working part time is making me much more conscious of my hours than I've ever been as a researcher. I come a lot closer to working my paid time and nothing more now than I ever did as a full-timer. Largely however, that's because my time is so limited by child-raising responsibilities. I've been working approximately half-days every day, but Minnow's daycare schedule and location give me only about 4 horus at work each day, which leaves me a couple hours short each week. (Add in a half-hour pumping break per half-day and I feel even more time-limited). The time costs associated with starting and stopping work also suck up a larger percentage of my work-week, leaving me even less time to get stuff done. I'm actually using a notebook to keep track of my work hours, so that I'll give myself credit for the few stolen evening hours (or conversely convince myself that I really do have to work at night). Most weeks I'm finding that I'm falling an hour or two or three short of my allotted 25, but the field work is more than compensating for that time.

I also find that I have to be much more organized than when I did research full time. I'm still juggling multiple projects, so I've got sections in my notebook for each project. At the end of each day I try to record what I've been doing and what the next steps need to be. I'm not doing lab work, so I don't have a lab notebook per se, but in effect I am keeping one anyway, just for my own records. Keeping the notebook is also (I think) spurring me to work more efficiently (I must have some progress to report each time!).

Finally, I am discovering that I have to be more realistic about timelines for getting things done. So far this has been the hardest thing because I have so many balls in the air and so little give in the schedule. I can't just pull an all-nighter or even stay an hour later at the office and weekends just mean full time mommying. Part of my pre-occupation with hours worked and recording my progress is because I know I will end up dropping something and missing a deadline. When that day comes, I want to be able to justify to myself (if not to my boss) why that happened. And if keeping notes helps me delay that ball-dropping day then it will have been even more worthwhile.

I'm really enjoying working part time for personal reasons, but I also think it is good training for me. The late-stage PhD and post-doc are really the only point in most academics' lives that research is a full-time occupation. Next year I'll be teaching too, and research will be squeezed in between grading papers and writing lectures (and raising a child). I won't even have the luxury of 5 half-days a week to work on research, yet the responsibilities will continue to grow. So in effect, my part-time post-doc is a relatively low pressure way for me to figure out strategies for maintaining research progress without getting to have it be an all-consuming affair. They say it can be done, now I've just got to figure out how to make it work for me.

As for whether I've fulfilled my work obligations for the week, the answer is yes and no. I'll probably work a little less each day this week, but I doubt I'll even take one day completely off. There's still a paper to review, analyses to complete, and revisions to undertake. And I'm sure there are other things needing to be done too, but those balls will just have to stay in the air a little longer. After all, I'm only working part-time.

Gosh, I hope not.

2007-05-17T16:56:00.000-04:00

As seen at Addy N.'s:

sciencewoman --

[adjective]:

Pretentiously academian

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Scientiae #6

2007-05-15T03:01:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the 6th edition of Scientiae, the carnival by, for, and about women in science, engineering, technology, and math! I arbitrarily picked a theme of “mothers and others, those who influenced us along the way” and I got some great posts on the theme topic. But I also saw a ton of great posts on other topics as well, so read all the way through this carnival.

Magificent Mothers (and Dads, too)

Four bloggers took up the challenge to tell us about their mothers. Zuska at Thus Spaek Zuska tells us how her mom convinced her to retake calculus and how that made all the difference in becoming an engineer. Jenny F. Scientist at A Natural Scientist sings the praises of her normal, sane parents. Janet at Adventures in Ethics and Science presents a great interview with her mother (parts 1, 2, 3), who went back to school for astronomy when she had four young kids. (I’m impressed - Super Sally deserves her moniker.) Finally, I offer tribute to my mother, giving the top ten reasons she’s my hero.

Mentors of all shapes and sizes

Lost Clown at Angry for a Reason shares how she migrated from feminist theory to mathematics. Those of us who are/will be professors should strive to emulate the amazing physics professor who helped her along the way. Estraven at Proving Theorems recalls the algebraic topology professor who taught her how many holes a pretzel has and that a woman professor doesn’t have to look pretty to be a fantastic teacher and role mode.

Skookumchick from Rants of a Feminist Engineer from took a break from editing her dissertation to tell us about the Young Women’s Network that’s helped her through grad school. Pat at FairerScience commends Geena Davis for striving to ensure girls see more than boys and princesses when they turn on a movie or T.V. While we’re talking about Hollywood, Jokerine of hdreioplus.de explains why even though she’s not an actress, she’s just as deserving of fan mail.

Somebody needs to do a little mentoring for the male-dominated membership of the NAS. This year it only voted to induct nine new female members. Zuska offers her take, as does Am I a Woman Scientist?

Living the Scientific Life

Jenny F. Scientist questions why wearing a frilly dress should destroy her lab cred. (It’s a beautiful dress. You should click the link just to see what a handy seamstress Jenny is.) New mother Jane at See Jane Compute analyzes the good and bad parts of her institution and department. Addy N. at What an untenured professor shouldn’t be doing is dealing with a case of academic dishonesty exacerbated by helicopter parents.

Post-doc at Minor Revisions talks about the difficulties of straddling two lab groups and how she’s watched two colleagues approach the situation very differently is Troublesome Shoes and Resignation. Elli at Peanut Butter Cabal gripes about a fellow student who seems to espouse competitive feminism. But maybe there is a lesson to be learned here about self-promotion? Also, from Elli, a great post whose title speaks for itself: “Work. Life. Vagina. Pick two.”

Continuing her theme of exploring identity, Veo Claramente writes about the good and bad of anonymous blogging at Clarity. Finally, FemaleScienceProfessor at wonders what exactly women’s insight in engineering looks like and whether someone hired for that job would have the respect of her colleages.

Speaking of Science

Holly from Field Notes from an Evolutionary Psychologist critiques a study that purports to show that a girls name can dissuade her from a scientific career. Jokerine discovers that the way chemists talk about bonding can reinforce gender roles, and even found a picture to prove her point. Rebecca at Adventures in Applied Math gives her readers some tips to avoid discouraging girls from entering math and science. She really wants Scientiae readers to help with other ideas.

That’s all for this edition of Scientiae. The next go-round will be at FemaleCSGradStudent on June 1. Thanks to all the willing contributors and those who I drafted off my bloglines reader. If I missed anyone, deepest apologies.

Last Call for Scientiae Posts

2007-05-13T18:49:00.000-04:00

Get your posts in tonight or early tomorrow morning. I'll accept posts until 9 am Pacific Time Monday morning. Then I'll finish compiling and have the carnival for your reading pleasure bright and early Tuesday morning. To submit, see instructions here.

Remember, the theme is "Mothers and others, those who inspired us along the way." But posts on other topics are welcome as always.

And don't forget to call your mother and say thanks. Call your grandma too if you are lucky enough to have one.

My Mom is My Hero

2007-05-13T18:24:00.000-04:00

I could try to write a long, articulate essay about all the ways that my mom has made me who I am today, but I would never finish it, because I could never do the topic justice. So instead I'll give you the highlight reel.

Top 10 reasons my mom is my hero:

For being a woman science professor long before it was cool. When she got her faculty position, they gave her an office in the education building because they thought she "would be more comfortable" in a college where there were other women. She was the first female professor in her department and the second in the College of Science.
For being strong enough to leave an abusive marriage and raise two little kids alone without the help of extended family.
For raising my brother and I to look beyond stereotypes and to do the things that make us happy.
For mentoring me on how science is done. She supervised my science fair projects for 8 years, and as my research interests took on a definite form beyond her scope of knowledge, she bought textbooks and even audited a course so that she could continue to help me.
For teaching me to write well. In elementary school, every year she insisted I enter an essay in the PTA's Reflections contest. In middle school and high school she taught me how to write scientific papers.
For saving for my college education since before I was born.
For caring passionately about the natural world, instilling that respect in her students and her children, and for living the principles she preached.
For loving deeply and giving generously to her family, even when that love hasn't always been demonstrated in return.
For instilling in me a love of music. While I resented the piano lessons I took for years, I adored the cello lessons later on. I am grateful for the ability to read, perform, and appreciate music that years of listening, singing, and playing have given me.
For adoring my daughter.

My mom left Utopia early this morning to return to the Midwest. I wish her the safest drive cross the country and hope that maybe next winter she'll come for a long visit in Mystery City. Happy Mother's Day.

Welcome Baby Jane!

2007-05-10T19:39:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to Jane of See Jane Compute for completion of her biggest project to date. Jane now gets to join the select ranks of 2007 inductees into the scientist/blogger/parent hall of fame. Here's hoping that when Jane is adequately recovered (say, a year from now), she'll tell us about Baby Jane's arrival and how that is affecting her thinking about staying or going from her current institution.

It's a happy day

2007-05-07T19:07:00.000-04:00

Why?
Professional Reason 1: I'm working on an analysis that I learned years ago in class but never had done on real datasets. Guess what? It works and it's not that hard. As long as all your data are right.

Professional Reason 2: In one of the above datasets I noticed an obvious error and I emailed the gov't agency responsible for the data. I got an email back a few hours later that said "You are so right" and gave me the correct number. Score one for the little people.

Personal Reason 1: I listed 4 things on Craigslist yesterday afternoon, and I have potential buyers lined up for each of them.

Personal Reason 2: After going on a bottle strike for 2 days last week and causing the daycare and myself much consternation and heartache, Minnow took 3 oz. from Fish today. That's not a lot given that I was gone 6.5 hours, but it is something.

Personal Reason 3: It's 80 degrees out and sunny. Spring at last!

Manic May

2007-05-02T19:03:00.000-04:00

The next thing that comes across my desk, I am going to say "NO" to.

Here's what's on my plate this month:
1. Co-author a white paper (May 18)
2. Review a paper
3. Lead field work at least once (with baby) (Friday)
4. Meet with my undergrad and cajole/plead for him to finish writing his thesis even though he's graduated
5. Come up with something/anything to conclude from the fiasco that was project PPP
6. Start and complete 3 big analyses on Project Beta so that Dr. ABC can present it in early June
(Damn him for writing an abstract without having any data - or any plans to get it himself)
7. Continue to plan field season for Project Delta
8. Review text books for course I'll be teaching in fall
9. Spend my startup money and deal with logistics of getting things delivered to Mystery U.

Does that sound like a list that can be accomplished in 25 hours per week? I didn't think so.

And that's just the work-work. On the homefront I have to merely:
1. Be a good mom. Always. Especially those 4 mornings and 1 all-day that I am home alone with Minnow. And the 11 pm, 2 am, and 5 am feedings.
2. Declutter and intensively clean the house so it can go on the market June 1.
3. Major weeding of yard/gardens before house goes on market.
4. Fly to Mystery City and buy a house there. But maybe this will happen in June? Depends on when Fish can get a day off.

I'm not sure whether I feel more or less stressed after making this list.

Scientiae+ bonus post

2007-05-01T19:29:00.000-04:00

Scientiae #5 is now up at Clarity. Head over there for some good reading.

Scientiae #6 will be here on May 15. The theme will be "mothers and others, women who have influenced us along the way." Of course, feel free to write about whatever you want. Submission instructions can be found at the Scientiae website.

I also want to point you to a late-breaking post on how girls names may (or may not) influence whether they go into science. I'm inclined to agree with Holly - the effect is undoubtedly small. I've got a pretty femine name and I can't see that it's had any influence on me.

Book Review: Every Other Thursday

2007-04-29T23:49:00.000-04:00

Part self-help book, part chronicle of her circle of women scientists, this book encourages us to form a group of compatriots for problem solving in our professional lives. Ellen Daniell writes the book in a straight-forward manner, telling of "Group," seven women in the Bay Area who have supported each other through structured meetings every other Thursday for over 20 years. She describes strategies for affirming choices, managing professional relationships, attaining goals, and fostering reflection. Daniell gives us the history of Group, as well as her own story (denied tenure, became successful in industry), interspersed as anecdotes throughout the chapters. The last section of the book provides guidance on how to form your own group for professional problem solving.

Parts of the book I found kind of sappy and feel-good, but other chapters had parts that really spoke to me and made me want to underline passages. I particularly liked the chapters on working with students and employees, managing institutional politics, and managing time and establishing equilibrium. Maybe it's my perch as a terrified-I'm-in-over-my-head newbie on the tenure-track, but those chapters seemed more appropriate in this context than ones on aging or dealing with family.

Some of the tips I picked up were (paraphrased):

Give yourself credit for distractions. Even if it's not in your job description, you still got something done. "Putting out brushfires is part of my job."
Institutional bureacracy and its headaches are not aimed at you specifically. Don't take every negative situation personally.
In order to do a job well, you need to be able to ask for all you want and need. "Recognize what I want and ask for it."
If students aren't hugely enthusiastic about a subject you find compelling, tell yourself "pearls before swine" and move on.

Daniell describes Group's process of writing "contracts" for themselves. These contracts are actionable resolutions that have varying levels of specificity. They may range from "I will spend two hours working on that paper today." to "I will exercise and enjoy my authority." She also tells how group members give each other "strokes" or compliments, even turning mis-steps into something to be proud of.

A lot of Daniell's descriptions of group conversations and practices reminded me our blog community. We seek and give honest advice, respect a diversity of opinions, and compliment and support each other. I think we have an informal group here in blogland, and it's time we give ourselves credit for it. That's my stroke for the day.

As for the book, it's an easy read (a few hours) that can be done in small chunks if needed. I got it from the public library and found myself wishing to underline it in a few spots. I think if I had bought it, I would pull it off the bookshelf every couple of years. But it wasn't a life-changing book, more of a life-affirming one.

scientiae-carnival

A story problem with simultaneous equations

2007-04-26T09:57:00.000-04:00

I've got lots to do before we move to Mystery U.
I want to minimize the amount of time that Minnow spends in daycare.

In order to get work done, I need more time and energy.
In order to have more time and energy, I need more sleep and exercise.
Sleep and exercise require time and energy.

I can't figure out how to solve the above equations without invoking imaginary numbers, so I am going to have to figure out what I can let slide. And, unfortunately, blogging is one of the easiest targets. So posting is going to be pretty light around here for a while. I'm not giving it up, just easing back on the throttle. [And you thought I already had, huh? :)]

But before I go, I thought I'd share a recent photo of Minnow (who turns three months old today).

Oops. You missed it. Too Bad!

Workshop for women in science

2007-04-24T12:06:00.000-04:00

Note: I applied for this two years running and was not accepted either time, but it looks like a great program (although obviously hard to get in).

Applications are now being accepted for the 2007 Faculty Horizons
Program at UMBC, which will be held July 12-14, 2007.

PURPOSE: The workshop, funded by the National Science Foundation
ADVANCE Program, is intended to provide post-doctoral research fellows
and upper-level graduate students, particularly women, in science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics with necessary skills to
become successful tenure-track faculty in the United States. Special
attention is paid to including women from underrepresented groups.

APPLICATIONS: Due to limited space, everyone must apply on-line
(http://www.umbc.edu/advance/registration07/) and be accepted to
attend. The application is available from April 19, 2007 - May 18,
2007. Funds are available to defray the cost of participation.

DISSEMINATION: Please share this announcement widely with those you
think may be interested in attending, or those who may know someone who
would find this workshop beneficial. A flyer for the workshop is
attached. Please post around your laboratory, department, etc.

Please email advance@umbc.edu for any additional information or
questions. For the most up-to-date workshop information, please visit
www.umbc.edu/advance and click on Faculty Horizons.

scientiae-carnival

Carnival of the Postdocs!

2007-04-24T11:02:00.000-04:00

Is now up at What's Up Postdoc! Go forth, read, comment, enjoy.

Huge thanks to Propter Doc for doing such a nice job pulling this together. I know we're all busy, but it would be great to see someone else host the carnival. And I'm not just making empty talk here, I'll be hosting in June, just before my post-doc tenure runs out. Email postdoccarnival at gmail dot com to find out how you can help.

Visual DNA

2007-04-24T00:02:00.000-04:00

As seen at propter doc's:

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

I've got at least 5 things I want to/should blog about, but I am too tired to think properly. Picking pictures is much more my speed right now. Thanks to all my readers for your hearty congrats.

Big News

2007-04-22T03:01:00.000-04:00

Today makes the two year birthday of this blog. My little project has been more wildly successful than I could have imagined.

But wait there's more...

I told ?AA? U to shove it, that I'm not going to interview with them after all.

But that's not all...

Mystery U came through with a job offer and starting in August, I'll be an assistant professor.

Happy endings do exist after all. I'm not sure how the big news is going to affect this blog, but it has survived me completing my PhD and giving birth, so I'd imagine that it will probably continue in some way, shape or form. I guess you'll have to stick around to find out.

The Power of Onesies

2007-04-18T23:05:00.000-04:00

I'm a big fan of multi-tasking, especially when it combines something I care about with something fun. So when I saw the email urging Moms Rising members to decorate onesies in support of their platform, I was eager to help. In fact I enlisted my craft group friends as well. I supplied the ridiculously small onesies (so small no one would ever really pull them over a baby's head), and my friends gamely helped decorate them with MomsRising slogans.

MomsRising is a web-based grassroots organization promoting policies that even the professional playing field for moms. They have six parts to their platform (illustrated to the left).

Their power of onesies campaign aims to have 1100 custom-decorated onesies to represent the 11000 children born in the US every day. As their website says: "Imagine a beautifully presented long chain of decorated baby onesies stretching all around your state capital as a visual representation of the real people who need the policies being debated inside the imposing buildings. Each onesie signifies one person--mother, father, child, grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle, or other--who cares deeply about building a family-friendly America, but can't take the time off work, or away from kids, to actually be at the capital. You."

It's not to late to help with the onesie campaign (or to join in their other activities). You don't even have to be crafty, you can pay someone else to do the fun work for you. Here's how.

Blacksburg

2007-04-18T01:11:00.000-04:00

I'm not blogging about it, but that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about it. I just don't know how to put into words all that I am feeling.

Bringing baby to seminar

2007-04-17T23:49:00.000-04:00

Introduction
I attended three seminars last week. That might not be a remarkable fact for most post-docs, but it probably is remarkable for mothers of 2.5 month olds. Each seminar was explicitly related to past, present, or future research and I didn't want to miss out on hearing about the cutting-edge science just because I had a baby.

Methods and Results
Seminar 1, 4 pm: I knew Minnow was in need of a nap. I drove to campus and parked about 6 blocks from the seminar location. I loaded Minnow into the front pack and by the time I made it to seminar she'd fallen asleep. The room was crowded but a kindly male prof gave up his seat by the rear door so that I didn't have to sit front and center. The chair pivoted quietly and in this fashion I rocked Minnow for the first 40 minutes of the seminar until she began to stir and cry. I moved to the door and she quieted down so I paused there hoping to hear a few more minutes. But Minnow cried a few more times so I left the room. I fed her in a restroom stall (ugh) and put her back in the pack because she was still tired. I returned to the seminar room and she promptly fell asleep. I was able to catch the conclusions slides and even got to ask a question. I'd guess that there were some in the audience who never knew there was a baby present until they looked back to see who asked the question.

Seminar 2, 10 am: Fish didn't work until noon, so I left Minnow in his care and rushed to campus. I managed to park a few hundred feet from the room and slid into a seat just before the talk commenced. I stayed for the 30 minute talk and a few questions but had to leave in the midst of a discussion. I rushed home and Fish left for work.

Seminar 3, noon: I had a meeting at 11 am on campus (rescheduled to a time when I had no sitter), so Minnow and I were on campus already. She fell asleep at 11:30 and stayed asleep in her stroller until half way through the talk. I left to feed her (same darn bathroom stall) and returned with an alert happy baby. For the rest of the talk I bounced her on my knee and made faces at her and she was happy with an occasional shriek of delight. I managed to pay attention to the talk (mostly) and even managed to ask some intelligent questions. I'd gotten the speaker's permission to have the baby there and it was a small, pretty informal group, but later someone commented that Minnow had stolen the show.

Discussion
As far as me getting to learn something, all of the seminars were a success. I was actually least enthralled by the way Seminar #2 ended up, because I had to leave early. The sleepy baby (#1) was the easiest for me (although dicey). As far as Minnow was concerned, staying home and playing with daddy (#2) was undoubtedly best, followed by the happy bouncy seminar (#3). And as far as the rest of the audience was concerned, seminar #3 probably was the least appreciated behavior. It seemed important to me to start making appearances at campus events again, and I felt like my attendance was noted by the faculty. Hopefully they were impressed that I was there. I don't want anyone to think that I suddenly a less serious scientist just because I have a child. Finally, I want to model "good behavior" to any women scientists who might be thinking of having children and any male scientists who doubt that women can be moms and still think about science. Hopefully I succeeded.

Conclusions and Future Plans
I'd do any of those three options again if I had to, but I think it will work better once Minnow is in regularly scheduled daycare. Then I will just try to be more strict about my (on-campus) working hours and only attend seminars when I have adequate childcare. It's not particularly fair for Minnow to be cooped up in a front pack or stroller when all she wants to do is play.

scientiae-carnival

Scientiae carnival up.

2007-04-16T22:56:00.000-04:00

At See Jane Compute. There are a bunch of technology-related posts on blogs that are new to me. Thanks, Jane!

I'm looking forward to the next carnival at Clarity. Keep writing and submitting posts.

Bringing baby to the field

2007-04-16T22:46:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a 12-hour field trip to check out sites for some work this summer. Since it was such a long day and bottle-feeding is still a bit iffy, minnow came along. Minnow did great on the 3 hur drive to the field area - playing, napping, and only needing to feed at abut the same time the adults were ready to pee. It probably helped that my colleague, Superwoman, volunteered to drive, so that I could sit in the back seat next to Minnow. So far, way better than expected. I feel much better about more upcoming 2-3 hour car-rides in Minnow's near future.

We were doing reconnaissance - which basically meant driving along gravel roads and stopping at predetermined sites to decide whether they were suitable. The first part of the day was kind of hard on me (and minnow), because the stops were short and cold, and I missed at least half of each discussion attending to minnow. Plus, she was tired of the car and the frequent stops kept her from getting a decent nap. I started to question why I had even come along the trip. Sure, I was a co-PI on the project and had technical expertise relevant to site selection, but if I wasn't going to be able to contribute, why had I subjected Minnow to the long hours of confinement?

After lunch we went to check out another set of field sites, but this time we were confronted by a gated, closed road. This turned out to be the blessing that saved the day. We decided to walk to our potential sites about 1 mile down the road. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon and Minnow soon fell asleep in her front pack. I got to fully participate in the site discussions and see some *really* cool scenery. I had to limit my off-road scrambling around because my center of balance is a bit off when I am wearing Minnow, but I felt like a real member of the research team. Yay!

On the trip home, we combined our dinner/gas stop with Minnow's feeding. Then, Minnow got fussy around her bedtime. She decided to scream right as we were pulling onto a freeway, so we hoped that the smooth car ride would quiet her to sleep. But no luck, and a few exits later we pulled off and I nursed her again. I had brought along my iPod playlist full of womb sounds, so I turned up the volume on that, quieted the conversation and soon she was asleep. She slept until about 20 minutes from home, and fortunately I was able to keep the fussing to a minimum until we got to my house.

In the end, the trip was a success. The biggest ingredient was the world's best baby, but that was helped out colleagues who were flexible and patient (and moms themselves). It was also a totally different field trip than my normal, more vigorous data collection outings, so that probably helped, too. One suggestion a colleague had after the fact was that I could have brought along a bottle of expressed breast milk for use during the fussy period. But I hadn't thought of that in advance and since Minnow is so picky about the bottles, I'm not sure it would have worked. I also think it helps that Minnow is ~3 months old. She's old enough to not be too delicate and needy but young enough not too be too mobile and full of energy for the long car/pack confinement.

So the moral of the story: field work and baby parenting can be combined with the right mix of luck and patience.

scientiae-carnival

A little bit to the south

2007-04-14T23:16:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to the Lab Lemming family on the birth of the Little Lovely Lab Lemming. Chuck's description of her is the most scientifically poetic thing I've read in a long while.

On the Nightstand

2007-04-13T10:52:00.000-04:00

For me: Every Other Thursday: Stories and Strategies from Successful Women Scientists (Here's a nice review by Miss Prism)

For Minnow (and Fish): The Phantom Tollbooth

In the CD player: A whole CD made from the womb sounds, heartbeat, and running water tracks from the Lifescapes - Lullabies CD

(Eleonora: You could also try the CD that comes with The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Baby Sleep Longer. I found the CD a bit jarring but it put Minnow right to sleep. The book is a bit repetitive but it's got some really good tips for getting newborns to calm down. Good luck!)

Q&A with ScienceWoman

2007-04-11T22:22:00.000-04:00

I feel like its been forever since I blogged. But I don't feel like doing a RBOC-style update, so maybe I'll try a interview with myself.

Q: So, how the heck are things going?
A: Oh, all right. Depends on the day. Today wasn't so hot. Minnow and I didn't sleep well last night and she was crabby all day. She still had some good times, but when she went downhill, it was fast and hard. My day pretty much mirrored hers.

Q: What's she doing now?
A: Sleeping in her co-sleeper for the first chunk of the night. The seventh night in a row as a matter of fact.

Q: How'd you manage that?
A: Turning my iPod to a playlist of womb sounds and other white noise and putting in the co-sleeper next to her little swaddled body.

Q: How's the working mom thing going?
A: Geesh, it's a lot of work. And hard. I've got a couple of problems right now. I don't have enough daycare to cover the number of hours I'm supposed to work each week. Minnow is still refusing a bottle, so when I do have someone watching her, I have to work at home, which equals a lot of disruptions. And I'm stuck on a tough problem scientifically.

Q: How are you going to resolve your problems?
A: We've got a slot in a daycare where we'll start her at the end of the month. Before then we've got to get the bottle strike resolved. Fish is doing his best but its just so heartbreaking to have her get more and more upset when she's hungry and won't take a bottle.

Q: What about the scientific problem?
A: Sometimes having a PhD means knowing how to figure out how to answer the question yourself. Sometimes it means knowing how to formulate the question well enough to explain it to someone else and knowing who that someone else is that can help. I've had to take the second approach. And I might have the start of an answer sitting in my email inbox.

Q: So, what's up with your job search?
A: Ehhh, nothing wonderful. I decided to take the interview at ?AA? U, but I'm kind of dreading it. I think I am mostly dreading the trip with Minnow. I had a phone interview for an adjunct position for fall semester. I'm hopeful about that one and it's within driving distance of Utopia, so we wouldn't have to move for a 4 month job. Other than that, there's a postdoc I really should apply for, but I haven't summoned the emotional/mental energy to do that yet. I really should though. But not tonight.

Q: Whatever happened to Mystery U?
A: They gave the job to someone else and that person apparently accepted the offer. I'm disappointed because I really wanted that job, and I keep going over little interview mistakes in my head. But I know that the biggest thing is that it was largely out of my control - they decided that another person was a better fit - and I can't control the candidate pool, just my own performance.

Q: Have you continued to indoctrinate Minnow into the wonderful world of science?
A: We haven't been in the field yet, but this afternoon I crazily attempted to bring her to a seminar. It was super-relevant to the topic of my PhD work and I really wanted to hear it. So I loaded her into the front pack and parked about 8 blocks from the seminar building. The walking lulled her to sleep and I got to hear all but the last 5 minutes of the talk.

Q: What's Minnow's latest accomplishment?
A: Other than sleeping on her own for 3-4 hours at night? 'Cause that's a biggie. It gives me a bit of freedom I've been sorely missing. Well, she's also getting pretty good at grabbing things - although she doesn't always know what to do with them once she's got them. She likes to suck on her fist. And she's started to like her swing again, which helps out with the whole cooking and eating thing. But her favorite things continue to be wiggling and watching mommy's face, preferably both at once. She has beautiful smiles.

Q: If you had the chance to do things over again, what would you do differently?
A: Funny you should ask, as I just watched Groundhog Day (for the first time) last night. I think the big thing I would do differently so far is take more maternity leave. I just didn't feel like I had much of a choice, but I'm not being a very effective worker at the moment and she's just so little to be in daycare! I think I'd take at least three months. But like I said, I didn't have much of a choice because of the peculiarities of my post-doc/financial situation, so I'm trying not to beat myself up about it.

Q: Any parting thoughts?
A: Nope. Too tired. Maybe my readers have more questions, though?

Are they really that clueless?

2007-04-11T17:16:00.000-04:00

So, I agreed to take the interview at ?AA? U and tickets were purchased the other day. Fish is going along to care for Minnow and I did get them to agree to pay for his ticket (+1 for them).

But.

When the hotel and plane flight itineraries arrived in my inbox, they were in his name rather than mine. As in, Fish Man accompanied by ScienceWoman rather than vice versa. Because obviously the man with the BS in business is the one coming for the interview in an -ology department, not the woman with the PhD in -ology. (-1 for their administrative staff).

Given that they have to overcome a deficit of about -25 to make up for not giving me the interview in the first place, they really can't afford any more negative points.

Inbox: Stay in science or switch fields?

2007-04-06T23:04:00.000-04:00

From a reader (posted with permission):

"I am a research scientist in a great field (new and sexy). I kind of stumbled my way into it and my current postdoc advisor hired me because of ancillary skills. I have been in science for around 12-13 years now with the Master's, Ph.D, and 3 postdocs... And I keep coming up against feeling like I am in the wrong profession. I am not publishing at the rate that I should and I find myself often extremely bored and attempting to avoid work. I think I hate lab work, which is new for me. I know I don't like teaching, though if I became faculty in a research university, my teaching load would be low. I am simply incredibly confused. So I started to research alternative careers and hit on patent attorney. More school, but only 3 years. Almost guaranteed job at the end. And then we got a grant funded that I am a co-PI on and, whammo, I feel like leaving would be a huge mistake. Except everything is in motion for me to leave, everyone knows, and my spouse has begun making plans around this new idea (which was good for him because of a million other reasons).

It's not what you think, I am not asking you to tell me what to do.  But I would love to hear your perspective on this, when you have a moment. "

Dear Reader,
If you don't think you'll be happy staying in research and you don't want to teach, then you should definitely leave. Why put yourself through all the rigors of an academic or scientific career if it's not what you want to do? There's plenty of masochists who will happily snap up any job you leave open. (Are you in my field? I'm on the market!)

At the same time though, before you leave, make sure that patent law is *really* what you want to be doing. Imagine 5 years from now if you realize that it isn't...you would probably have some major regrets. I would recommend investigating carefully your chosen path. In particular, I believe there are ways for people with Ph.D.s to be involved in patent law without having to get a law degree. That might be a great way to switch fields without committing to more school. Can you find some scientists turned patent lawyers and see what strategies they used to move fields? I think the book, Put Your Science to Work: The Take-Charge Career Guide for Scientists by Peter Fiske has an example of a PhD who moved to intellectual property law.

I absolutely would not let getting a major grant stand in your way. (But congratulations on getting it!) If you want to switch careers, leaving it behind won't hurt you. And, in all likelihood, your co-PIs will be able to carry on without you (by recruiting another post-doc?), so the science will get done.

Whatever you decide, it sounds like you've got the talent to succeed. Keep us posted.

To my readers: What do you think? I told the letter writer that you are all way more brilliant, insightful, and knowledgable than I. Can you help this person out?

Book Review: A Mile in Her Boots

2007-04-06T00:49:00.000-04:00

I like reading about the outdoors. I like reading adventure stories. I like reading short stories and essays. And I like reading books with women protagonists. So I knew I'd like A Mile in Her Boots: Women Who Work in the Wild, a collection of essays by 28 women scientists, park rangers, trail blazers, etc. What I didn't know was that I would love this book.

The stories are evocative, funny, familiar, and exciting. They each recount some specific experience in the wilderness, but also give insight into why these women choose to work outdoors and how that choice shapes who they are. And all the essays are written in engaging story-telling voice, drawing the reader into the authors' sense of excitement, fear, or joy.

I think I'll remember of few of the essays for years, if not decades. One particularly notable selection recounts the rescue of sea turtle hatchlings from a nude beach on Maui. The author, Judy Edwards, gives a hilarious account of trying to dig up the turtles while surrounded by a throng of nude bathers and trying to avoid the "dreaded penis in the eye." Jane Duncan tells the strange saga of a headless Alaskan bear in her essay "The Rest of Elvis." I'd explain, but it'd be better if you just read it for yourself. Lori Messenger shares her trials with expressing breastmilk for her 5 month old daughter while fighting forest fires and jumping out of airplanes. (And I thought I had it rough!)

Other essays perfectly capture experiences I've had in the woods. "Hours til Dawn" by Elizabeth Dayton accurately describes the way I felt when I first camped on my own. It's all good until it gets dark and you start to hear strange noises in bear country. Jennifer Bove, the collection's editor, submitted "First Night at Field Camp", which tells about trying to be one of the boys on the field crew - sitting around the fire, drinking beer, and making crude jokes - and feeling bad for the girl who wouldn't take part.

In short, this book was just about perfect. The only disappointment? I have to give it back to my mom.

Every Other Thursday?

2007-04-05T10:34:00.000-04:00

A reader asked me whether I knew about the book "Every Other Thursday: Stories and Strategies from Successful Women Scientists." In fact, the previous day, I had discovered the book on Amazon. I almost ordered it, but the $18 price tag held me back (instead I spent $25 on toys for Minnow).

Has anyone read the book? Would you recommend it?

If no one has read the book, or if it comes recommended, I'll order it, read it, and review it here. Maybe we can learn something.

back to work-days 1 and 2

2007-04-04T08:07:00.000-04:00

Monday, I attempted to go into work while fish took care of minnow. For the first time ever, she refused to take a bottle, so I came home at noon. Which is okay, because for the first time ever my breasts didn't yield easily to the pump, so I wasn't going to be able to replace what she would have consumed from the supply. On the plus side, in the afternoon, I got busy and finished an annoying little data task left from the pre-minnow days.

Tuesday, ScienceGrandma took care of Minnow in the afternoon, while I tried to work at home. No bottles were attempted, no breasts were pumped. But I was within earshot, which was really hard every time that Minnow cried not from hunger. ScienceGrandma did a good job, but she's still figuring our little one out, and after 3 hours both were exhausted. My data analysis task was much less straightforward, so between hearing the crying and puzzling over excel, I was exhausted too.

Today is another 1/2 day with ScienceGrandma. I'll keep you posted.

An emotional return to work

2007-04-01T12:50:00.000-04:00

I go back to work tomorrow. I’ve got mixed feelings.

Sad – Because I know I’ll miss some of Minnow’s firsts (she rolled over on Friday! Months ahead of schedule!). Because in the past few weeks I’ve kind of gotten into the groove of staying at home with her – started to really enjoy the afternoons taking walks, playing on the floor, napping, and reading. I’m not sure what sort of rhythm will develop when I am working part-time, especially since I’ll also be needing to do some work while I am at home with her.
Happy – There have been times these past few weeks when my world has felt a bit, well, small. Like last week when I spent an afternoon at the office and realized how out of the loop I was and how my colleagues were talking about meetings and grants and all I could say was that Minnow had started to bat at things.
Frustrated – The prospect of sunny afternoons chained to the computer making endless Excel files and graphs when I could be out walking with Minnow and the Princess Pup – or at least in our sunny living room. Somehow the nitty gritty aspects of my job suddenly seem less appealing – almost unimportant. (It probably doesn’t help that it is spring.)
Excited – to be re-engaging with that portion of my brain that enjoys science. I’m glad I’ve kept up with email and attending meetings here and there. It’ll be nice to do more critical thinking than just planning when I am going to run errands and how badly we really need carrots for Princess Pup.
Worried – Will Fish and ScienceGrandma be able to calm her down when she’s really upset? Will Fish let her be passive and watch TV? Will my mom let her cry it out?
Nervous – Will she continue to take a bottle? Will my milk supply change with pumping? Will we have enough milk ready for any given day? Will routine bottle feeding throw off our breast feeding rhythm?
Anxious – We all procrastinate. The average American worker goofs off ~2 hours per day. I can be pretty good at it too (but mostly less than average) – blogging, blog reading, ovusoft bulletin boards, craigslist, email to friends, chatting with SuperWoman and NewGirl. If I am only working part time, I’ll have to figure out how to scale back my non-productive periods (especially because I’ll need pumping breaks too) so that I am actually accomplishing something every time I sit down to work.
Curious – Can research be done on a part time basis? Will I continually feel pressure to work more time? Will that pressure come from myself or others? Will I manage to get things done on time? Will I ever read a journal article again? Will I ever get the third dissertation chapter revised and submitted or do anything with that other hard earned dissertation data?
Enormously relieved – That I have a generous and understanding boss and colleagues; that I will only being working part time and will still have part of most days with my precious baby; that I have the flexibility and resources to work at home sometimes or to change my work hours as needed (mostly); and that Minnow will be in the arms of her loving family until she is at least a little older.

The next chapter from ?AA? U

2007-03-31T01:10:00.000-04:00

Recall the whole denial of interview-affirmative action saga we have going on, including the follow up email sent Thursday morning to find out why I hadn't heard anything. Thursday afternoon I got a voice mail from the AA director basically saying that she was looking into it and would get back to me. Friday afternoon I got a voice mail and then an email from the department chair. He offered a long and circuitous explanation of their search process, which apparently is still on-going - one that may or may not contain the correct story and that fails to explain why they denied me an interview if the search is still open. The chair's email concludes with an invitation to interview and a request to call him on Monday.So basically, they are giving me an interview because I complained to Affirmative Action - although they aren't going to come out and say that.

Is this proof that the affirmative action system works? Will they give me the interview and then proceed to not hire me because nobody really wants a complaining bitch as a colleague? Will they hire me no matter how the interview goes because the university is afraid of legal consequences if they don't? Do I even want to work in an environment where they are either so clueless or so biased that it takes a complaint to get them to do the right thing? Is it worth the time, effort, money, and sanity to fly across the country for an interview at this place? (My last interview cost us $800 (for fish's plane ticket), two days of lost work for fish, and exposed minnow to enough germs to give her a cold at 4 weeks old.) What would you do if you were in my position?

I should add that two things will happen on Monday morning before I talk with anyone at ?AA? U. First, I'll call the chair at Mystery U and find out what in the world is going on with their search. (I'd accept an offer there easily.) Second, I'll talk to my advisor, who apparently met the department chair at ?AA? U a few weeks ago. Maybe my advisor will have some good advice for me in this situation.

this morning's sent messages

2007-03-29T14:17:00.000-04:00

To department chair, mystery U.:
Could give me an update on the status of your search? I suspect
that you have offered the position to someone else, and if so, I hope that they
make an excellent addition to your department. I remain interested in the
position, and I hope to hear from you soon.

To AA director, ?AA? U:
I wrote to you over two weeks ago with a report of gender-based discrimination
during the faculty search in the Department of XXX. While I do not seek personal compensation, I would like an acknowledgment that my letter was received and is being treated seriously. If I
do not receive some response from you within the next week, I feel it will be necessary for me to send my letter on to other members of the ?AA? U administration.
ETA: just got a voice mail from AA...

To Earthmama:
Playdate, tomorrow afternoon? My house or yours?

New banner/background color

2007-03-28T01:02:00.001-04:00

Comments sought. How's the readability?

From the inbox

2007-03-28T00:40:00.000-04:00

(Minnow is sleeping in her own bed! All by herself! I'm staying up past my bedtime because I'm just so excited to have some freedom! I'll regret it (and the use of so many exclamation marks) tomorrow!)

Occasionally I get correspondence asking me to promote something, write about a news story, or even seeking advice. I thought I'd do a bit of a in-box dump here and dispense with a bunch of it at once.
++++++++
From a correspondent (altered for anonymity):
"I have a daughter who is currently majoring in Science at a large university. She is an excellent student and is planning on pursuing a PhD. I am always at a loss as to what to say to her when she asks if she is wasting her time. Is this a viable field for her to be successful in? ...She loves what she is doing and I want to encourage her to do what makes her happy."

My response:
A Ph.D. is hard work, but I don't think it is a waste of time if your daughter is interested in asking and answering original science questions or going above and beyond what she can do with an M.S. If she is passionate about her field and a hard worker, she can be incredibly successful. However, she needs to think about what she wants to do with her PhD and what her job prospects are. I'd encourage her to think about careers (other than being a professor) that might require a PhD in her field. For example, she could be an environmental consultant or work for a non-profit. I think PhD programs and advisors often push students to become professors and don't advise well enough about other career opportunities. Then, if upon completing her PhD, she can't get a professoriate job right away, she may feel disillusioned. But if she starts the process with her eyes and options open, I see no reason why her future can't be incredibly bright.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
The email synopsis: Jackie from elementlist discovered that the Discovery Channel Promotes Sexist Stereotypes by seeking a male to host a new show about engineering. She emailed me and asked for my thoughts.

My thoughts? I'm honestly not that surprised. Just look at their programming in recent years. It seems to be striving for an ever lower lowest common denominator. Unfortunately, I could also imagine a casting call that sought a woman host for a new show. It would probably read something like "seeking attractive female, preferably blond and curvaceous twentysomething who knows a little about engineering..." Am I being too harsh?

+++++++++++++++++++++++
The email: "Here's an interesting thread about a grad student who went to an interview with her child. I know it was not the best thing to do but frankly, some of the responses are apalling."

http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/tools_resources/forum/view?id=27226

My thoughts: I haven't read the comments, but I can guess at what some commenters might have said. Stating up front that you only want to work in the lab 3 days a week is probably not the best way to get accepted or funded, but at least the student was being honest. And if she's willing to work from home (on classwork, writing, etc.) the rest of the time, I see no reason why she couldn't complete a degree just as fast as someone who didn't have that schedule. Besides, speed is not everything. Hopefully quality counts for something too. Right? I say that if the student is otherwise a good candidate, she deserves all the support the advisor can muster. That's what I would do.

++++++++

Hello,

I’m writing to you on behalf of L’ORÉAL to let you know of the 5 women scientists, who received the L’ORÉAL-UNESCO AWARDS For Women in Science on February 22nd.

This program, which began in 1998, each year recognizes five outstanding women researchers, one from each of the five continents, who have contributed to scientific progress and serve as role models for the next generation of young women. In addition, there are 15 international fellowships offered to young women scientists at the doctoral and post-doctoral levels. Detailed information about these women and their accomplishments are available on the website www.forwomeninscience.com <http://www.forwomeninscience.com>.

The 2007 Award laureates are Pr. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim from Mauritius (Laureate for Africa); Pr. Ligia Gargallo from Chile (Laureate for Latin America); Pr. Mildred Dresselhaus from the USA (Laureate for North America); Pr. Margaret Brimble from New Zealand (Laureate for Asia-Pacific); and Pr. Tatiana Birshtein from Russia (Laureate for Europe).

We hope you will consider supporting the L’OREAL-UNESCO program by including information on your site. Attached you will find a document including information on this year’s Award laureates and fellows, general facts on the L’ORÉAL-UNESCO partnership, and current figures on the under-representation of women in science. We can also provide you with logos, photos and illustrations in the format that best suits your needs.

Thank you so much and please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Jackie DaSilva

checking in

2007-03-27T21:22:00.000-04:00

Oops! You missed it. Too bad.

this picture was taken a few minutes ago

Minnow is now 2 months old, has huge smiles of delight, and is batting at objects. We know she can see across rooms to look at lights and graphic prints. Her favorite activity is wiggling to the music of her mobile or activity gym,
She has her two month appointment tomorrow. She’ll get 4 shots! 4!
I start back to work on Monday – 25 hours per week for at least two months. More on this to come.
ScienceGrandma will babysit for 4 hours 3 afternoons per week. Fish will do all day on Monday. The rest I will have to fit in while she is napping.
Fish has been sick the last 4 days, so I’ve had all the babycare for 8 days with no break in sight.
Minnow has now been to campus 3 times and has endured her first project meeting. next up: field work

Why we leave

2007-03-20T11:01:00.000-04:00

There was an article in Naturejobs last week on "leaks in the pipeline" - why women leave science at every stage of the ladder. This article focused on why women who get science PhDs aren't showing up in the same numbers in academia. To cite one example, in the geosciences, "39% of PhD recipients are women. But only 26% of assistant professors, 14% of tenured associate professors and 8% of full professors are women."

The authors of the article, themselves women geoscience academics, give some reasons for the leaky pipeline. But I've been thinking about all the reasons that people might choose to get a science PhD and then not end up in academia - and only some of them are specific to women.

Here's my list of reasons that ANYONE might leak out of the pipeline. I've italicized the items that I am guessing are more prevalent among women.

Failure to get an academic job. (We can't all be academics if there aren't enough jobs to go around. And there don't seem to be.)
No desire to be an academic. (People start grad school intending to be other things? Gasp!)
Desire to do the sort of science that can be easier to do in private industry (more funding, better facilities, and whatnot).
Desire for greater income provided by industry jobs.
Desire for more reasonable work hours provided by some industry and government jobs.
Desire to balance family and career. Feel that such balance is hard to attain in academia.
Desire to work in an industry where your 30s are not chewed up by trying to ensure that you still have a job in your 40s.
Fear of failure. Imposter syndrome.
Overt discrimination against women, minorities, disabled persons, homosexuals.
Unconscious bias against women, minorities, disabled persons, homosexuals.
Lack of role models for women, minorities, disabled persons, homosexuals.
Lack of good mentorship in how to attain an academic job.
Lack of good advising during the PhD process (or in a post-doc) that results in fewer publications, etc. making you less competitive for academic jobs.
Poor recommendations because you have bad letter writers.
Poor recommendations because you have personality problems to which your letter writers must confess.
Lack of desire to move away from a specific location.
Spouse or significant other that is unable/unwilling to move to/away from a specific geographic region.
Care for an elderly or disabled family member that ties you to a specific location.

How about the reasons that are specific to WOMEN?

Discrimination based on child-bearing status.
Fear that they will be unable to reproduce or have as many children as desired once they reach tenure.
Fear that they will be unable to adequately care for their pre-existing children while trying to reach tenure.

What do you think? Did I miss any? Have I miscategorized some?

It seems to me, from making this list, that while there are some barriers that apply on to those of us with no Y chromosome, there are lots of barriers to anyone who is: (1) not a white, able-bodied, heterosexual male or (2) looking for a career where work does not totally subsume the rest of their life.

To fix (1) we need to keep strengthening recruitment and mentorship at all levels while continuing to educate and supervise those responsible for hiring decisions. With time (1) should be fixable. I remain hopeful that I will live to see the day that (1) is no longer on the list. To fix (2) we need to overhaul the structure of academia - starting with tenure. On this front, I am much more pessimistic.

scientiae-carnival

Wonderful weekend

2007-03-19T19:27:00.000-04:00

What a
wonderful couple of days it has been
We've been blessed by the visit of one of my dearest friends and her daughter
Writer Chica and Chicita are now
winging their
way back to the Midwest
We'll miss them
wildly until
we see each other again

Scientiae Carnival is Up!

2007-03-15T11:32:00.000-04:00

The new women in science carnival is up over at Post doc ergo propter doc. This is the second edition, I apologize for not promoting the first.

Here's the permanent homepage for the carnival. The third carnival will be held April 1st at Lab Cat. Posts are due by March 29, and can be submitted by following these instructions.

Taking a stand and naming names

2007-03-12T13:59:00.000-04:00

Note to my readers: What follows is the complaint I filed this morning with the head of affirmative action at a university where I had been invited to interview. I have pseudonymized the department name, the faculty member's name, and my name, but for the next week, the name of the university shall remain unaltered. I want other women to be aware of potential problems there.

DearHead of Affirmative Action,

I would like to bring to your attention discriminatory behavior by the Department of XXX during their search for a tenure-track faculty member in YYY. My purpose in writing to you is not to seek personal recourse, but so that the problem may be addressed within the department and the university prior to any future job searches.

In early December 2006, I was contacted via telephone by Dr. ZZ and offered a January interview for the faculty position. I confirmed my enthusiastic interest in the position and in interviewing, but informed Dr. ZZ that I couldn’t come to campus in January. I was pregnant with a due date of January 27^th, and my doctor had forbidden travel more than an hour from my hometown within a month of the due date. Furthermore, most airlines refuse passengers during and after the 36^th week of pregnancy.

I offered to interview on campus during the month of December or in February, and I volunteered to be available by telephone or videoconference at any time. Dr. ZZ told me that he would see what could be arranged, but that he was doubtful anything could be organized in December and that February would be “too late” to interview. He promised to get back to me.

By December 18^th, I had not heard from Dr. ZZ, so I sent a follow-up email (appended), again expressing my interest in the position and suggesting possible arrangements other than a January interview. He responded the same day by email (appended), writing that a decision would be made when the search committee met in January and that I would be updated at that time. This was the last contact I had from ?AA? University.

Based on conversation and correspondence with Dr. ZZ, I believe that I was denied an opportunity to interview for the job solely because of a short-lived and gender-based medical condition. This treatment strikes me as discriminatory and it reflects poorly on ?AA? University. I hope that you will initiate discussion of biases and prejudices within the Department of XXX and that you will take steps to ensure that in future hiring decisions no one is denied an opportunity to compete for the position based on pregnancy, other medical conditions, or gender.

Sincerely,

ScienceWoman, Ph.D.

+++Appended Emails+++++

At 04:30 PM 12/18/2006, you wrote:

Dear Dr. ZZ,

I wanted to follow up on our conversation last week, since I have not heard back
from you. I am most interested in the YYY position at ?AA? U, and I would love to interview on campus. However, I am medically unable
to travel during the month of January, as I am due to give birth at the end of
the month.

I want to reiterate my offer to interview on campus this month or in February
and to be available by phone at any time. I also have a streaming video
presentation of my research talk that might be helpful for giving you and your
colleagues an impression of my teaching/speaking style, if only a phone
interview can be arranged.

I understand that you are between terms right now and there are holidays
looming, but I would really appreciate an update as to your intentions for my
interview. Again, I am excited about this position and the possibility of
becoming a member of your department, and I hope that we can arrange something
so that you and your colleagues have a chance to interview me.

Sincerely,
ScienceWoman

Mon 12/18/2006 3:53 PM

Dear ScienceWoman:

Thank you very much for following up, and I appreciate your interest in the
position. As you guessed correctly, this is winter break for us and holidays
are also just around the corner; as such, only a few colleagues may be
available to participate in an interview now. I understand your medical
condition, and I have brought this to the attention of the search committee.

I appreciate your initiative about phone interviews, but it is not clear to me
if our colleagues can meaningfully compare candidates due to the difference in
the interview procedure that a phone interview may create. I suspect is that
the Affirmative Action office on campus may not even allow this since you will
not get a fair and equal opportunity to present your strengths through a phone
interview, in comparison to other candidates who visited/will visit.

Anyhow, the search committee will meet in the second week of January, and decide
if it can wait till February when you are able to travel again, or make a
selection among the candidates interviewed by then. This is not necessarily bad
news, since it is entirely possible that the committee decides in favor of
inviting you in February. I will write to you with an update as soon as I have
something.

Happy Holidays and best wishes,
Z

scientiae-carnival

update

2007-03-09T12:48:00.000-05:00

Oops. You missed it. Too bad.
they are interviewing an additional candidate, so i won't know anything for another couple of weeks. not that i'm in any rush...

minnow is 6 weeks old today and she'll still only sleep in my arms. but she's smiling and much more interactive now, so i'm having more fun at home with her.

and now she's awake!

The anti-climatic 500th blog post

2007-03-07T11:50:00.000-05:00

I've been putting off posting lately, hoping to have some good job news to share in this, my 500th post. It seemed like a great narrative arc that in 500 posts (just under 2 years), I have gone from frustrated grad student struggling with conception to a successful post-doc mom on her way to a great tenure track position. Alas, it is not so.

But it also is not not so. I still haven't heard anything from the university in question. I'm surprised for 3 reasons: 1) I was the last candidate to interview; 2) They seemed in a hurry to get an offer out there; and 3) They promised to notify the unsuccessful candidates at the same time they made an offer to the successful one. So I'm left to ponder the hold-up. Did they renege on their promise to tell us unsuccessful ones in a timely fashion? Did something get hung up (in the dean's office?) and then everyone went on spring break? I'm hoping for the latter, but suspecting it is the former.

Going on the assumption that I didn't get the job, over the next couple of weeks and months, I'll be ramping up my applications for post-doctoral spots, government jobs, and eventually, even those in private industry. I run out of money in my current position sometime this fall, so I really should have at least a stop-gap measure in place by then.

The crappiest part of this is that I am really happy here in Utopia - I like the town, I like the people I work with, I like what I do. If money didn't make the world go 'round, I'd stay right here indefinitely - working part-time off soft money as it could be found and maybe doing some science writing. But that won't really work because the money is too inconsistent and someone's got to put food on the table. For reasons I won't go into here, but can largely be found in the previous 499 posts, I'm the bread-winner in this household.

And right now, I don't feel like I'm doing a very good job of winning the bread.

But, hey, this afternoon minnow and I have a playdate with Ecobaby and Earthmama and that is something to look forward to. Seriously, at least I'm not a new mom with a crappy PhD advisor and a husband who is about to finish his degree and become unemployed.

worst possible outcome?

2007-03-03T11:12:00.000-05:00

No job offer and sick newborn from exposure to germs for which mom has no immunity to pass on. So far at least one has come true. Keep your fingers crossed on the other.

It is possible

2007-03-02T13:26:00.000-05:00

To fly across multiple time zones with a newborn
To interview for a job a month post-partum
To feel like you'd done almost as good a job preparing for the interview as if you hadn't been a new mom
To calm your husband, strip off your shirt, nurse your child, review your interview cheat sheet, button back up, and go to your next appointment within a 1/2 hour. But don't plan on going to the bathroom
To get your baby to nap on their own (occasionally) without crying it out
To not be too offended when your husband forgets your birthday, because you'd forgotten it too
To sometimes think that being a professor and a mom is possible, if only someone would give you a job
To realize the truth that Dr. Free-ride wrote. "There is no "balancing" from here on out, only juggling."

need a list

2007-02-20T13:10:00.000-05:00

finish job talk
practice job talk
review standard interview questions
make list of questions to ask them
research department curriculum
think about courses that I said I could teach
think about courses I proposed to add
get example syllabi of one or two courses
look up pubs of search committee members - read abstracts
review standard interview questions again
make list of proposed research topics
read review paper(s) of -ology of area
~~buy interview clothes for post-partum body~~
~~buy decent shoes for post-partum feet~~
pack clothes for interview days
pack extra shirts for leaking/spit-up accidents
pack clothes for Minnow
pack diapers/wipes/burp rags for Minnow
remind Fish to pack
make sure he packs appropriately
check weather
print out itinerary
pack breast pump, bottles, car seat, sling, stroller...

Given that I am home alone for 8+ hours a day with a baby that likes to be held, the above should keep me busy until the moment we leave.

Too little sleep makes you forget things

2007-02-16T10:52:00.000-05:00

I just went out to the garage to pull a load of laundry out of the dryer and I discovered 4 earthworms on the garage floor. It's been really rainy the last few days and a lot of our backyard is standing water - I'm not sure how the worms managed to get into the garage, but it makes a certain amount of sense. However, their prognosis is not good if they continue to hang out there.

Anyways, thinking all this, I decided to rescue the worms and I found a scrap of paper to scoop them up with. As I tried to get the first worm onto the paper and was getting frustrated with how hard it was, I suddenly remembered.

Worms don't bother me. They are not gross, not scary, and won't make my hands dirty or smelly when I grab the clean laundry.

So I just picked them up and tossed them outside to relatively dry piece of lawn.

That's all.

RBO Motherhood, etc.

2007-02-14T10:08:00.000-05:00

Thanks for your comments on my last post. I think I've hit on an idea for framing the PhD work together with an ending on current and future research directions.
As you may have guessed, I have an interview at some point in the future. I don't really want to talk about because I don't want to jinx it - this'll probably be my only interview this year.
Minnow had her 2 week Dr's appointment yesterday. She's now 8 lbs 4 oz - more than a pound over her birth weight.
They did a heel prick to test for PKU, etc - this involves pricking the heel and then squeezing out drops of blood to fill five circles on special paper. They did one at the hospital too, but I wasn't with her for that. So I had no idea how traumatic this was going to be for either Minnow or I. After we got home, we both collapsed on the couch for a couple of hours.
Don't put your baby in a footed sleeper for their two week Dr appointment - they'll just end up being naked and cold for longer than necessary (due to the heel prick).
Fish went back to work yesterday, but ScienceGrandma came over for the morning and early afternoon, so today will be my first day all alone with her. Fortunately, I got a pretty good night's sleep (relative to some other nights of late).
Minnow hates her sling - or I simply can't figure out how to use it right. In either case, I am going to give up on it until we can get some outside expertise. So much for ever having 2 hands again (except when she's sleeping with her daddy, like right now).
Given the paucity of two-hands time, I'd better get back to work on the talk...and finish my breakfast...and get a shower...

What's the post-doc-job talk grace period?

2007-02-12T14:40:00.000-05:00

Let's say you've been a post-doc for nearing six months....is it still OK to give a job talk based on your PhD research? If you do decide to give a talk based on your PhD, should you throw in a few slides mentioning what you are doing now? What if the post-doc research isn't methodologically or thematically related to the rest of the talk?

There's no way I can give a whole 45+ minute talk on my post-doc research - I don't have anywhere near the data analysis completed that I would need. I could give 5-10 minutes about the experimental set-up and preliminary results, but it doesn't connect with the rest of my nicely coherent PhD talk.

If you were me, what would you do? If you were on the search committee, what would you think about a candidate who gave their PhD work rather than in-progress post-doc work?

Minnow's birth story (part 2)

2007-02-10T10:52:00.000-05:00

When we got to the hospital, they sent me up to the maternity ward and hooked me up to the external fetal monitor for a routine 30 minute test strip. Karen, my nurse, checked my dilation and pronounced me to be fully effaced and 3 cm dilated. After my 30 minutes were up, we slowly walked up and down the hallways of the hospital. Then I got in the tub and labored there for quite a while. I had pictured being able to lie back and float in the water, but I was getting overheated, and every time a contraction started I wanted to lean forward and sort of double over. Eventually Doula insisted that I get out of the tub and walk around again.

At 11:30, Karen checked my dilation again and I had made it to 5 cm. This was really encouraging, because I knew I was making progress. By this time contractions were quite intense and happening every couple of minutes. I sat on the birthing ball and closed my eyes through each contraction – trying to do slow, deep breathing and making low-voiced helpful sounds, but I also had trouble not just wanting to whimper or scream with the pain. I remember thinking, “so this is why women get pain relief,” but I knew my basic choice was an epidural or nothing, and I wasn’t ready to give everything up and lie on my back not being able to move. The pain of the contractions was never so intense that I thought I just couldn’t continue to handle it, and I always wanted to keep handling my current level of pain because I kept thinking it would just get worse. I couldn’t quit now. I never asked for medication, and true to my birth plan, no one ever offered me any. I’m so glad, because now I know that I can handle it just fine.

At this point my sense of time starts to get a bit fuzzy. I know I sat on the ball for at least an hour, because the CD I was listening to got to the tracks where it skips. It seemed appropriate to hear the music stuttering, because I felt like I was lost in this never-ending labor. Fish fed me some red Jell-o, and I remember being annoyed because he was trying to be cutesy and do the airplane thing before sticking the spoon in my mouth. During the most intense contractions throughout the labor, my whole body would get the shivers. When I was sitting or lying down, my legs would twitch uncontrollably. Even at the time it seemed kind of funny.

Eventually, Doula wanted me to walk around again, but I really just wanted to get back in the tub. Doula had gotten some lunch while I was on the birthing ball, and as I got back in the tub, Fish went to grab a sandwich and give my mom an update. I had been in the tub just a few minutes, when I suddenly felt this tremendous pressure on my anus and an urge to push. Doula called the nurse, who managed to check my dilation while I was still in the tub. Imagine my surprise and delight to be 8-9 cm dilated. This was probably about 1:30, so things had progressed very quickly in the past few hours. We needed to get me out of the tub, but where was Fish? He wasn’t back from lunch, and his cell phone went straight to voice mail. Finally, after what seemed like ages, but was probably another 15 minutes, he came back. He’d gotten trapped in a conversation with my mom and still hadn’t managed to get a bite of his sandwich. As I got out of the tub, I noticed that I had lost the rest of my mucous plug. It was floating in the water, and I thought “so that’s what the mucous plug looks like.” It’s all so obvious in retrospect.

I got on the hospital bed and the nurse didn’t want me to push because I wasn’t fully dilated. Plus, my obstetrician was attending a C-section, so they didn’t want things to progress so fast that there was no doctor present. So I spent some time on my hands and knees. It seemed like the most comfortable position – sort of a modified child’s pose. I was waggling my hips around in circles, which seemed to help with the pain of the contractions. It felt very animalistic, and I still had to pant through the contractions. Eventually my water broke in a gush and after that the nurse said “just let your body do what it wants.” In other words, I finally had permission to push if I felt like it. It felt really good to be able to give in to what my body wanted to do. I was still on my hands and knees on the bed, and behind me I could hear Fish getting worried about the color of my legs. Apparently they were turning a deep purple (I couldn’t feel them), so Fish and Doula were trying to massage some blood back into them between contractions. But it still felt like the position my body wanted to be in.

After a while the doctor came in and checked on me. Well, actually Karen checked me and pronounced me 9+ with just a lip of cervix. The doctor promised to come back when the baby was crowning. About this time, we (somehow) moved me to semi-reclining position. I didn’t really want to move, but the concern in Fish’s voice over the color of my legs made me think that I should move. We tried having Fish or Doula sitting behind me on the bed, but for some reason that didn’t work. My memories here are vague.

In the end, for most of the pushing, Doula was on my left side and Fish was on my right side, and my feet were in the stirrups. This wasn’t how I’d envisioned myself pushing the baby out, but I was incredibly tired and supporting my body weight in a squatting or more upright position didn’t seem possible. For me, pushing was by far the hardest part of the labor. I was so tired and it was such hard work. I really struggled to use the contractions to push and not just to scream. And then to have to push 2 or 3 or more times with each contraction rather than giving just one push and sort of collapsing for the rest of the contraction – that required fighting with every fiber in my body. After a while I couldn’t even tell when a contraction was starting – my body was just so tired and sore. Fortunately, Fish could tell me when contractions were about to start – he could tell by the tensing of some bundle of muscle fibers in my knee. My left leg twitched uncontrollably during and between contractions – I felt detached from it and someone (Doula? The nurse?) told me not waste energy trying to stop the twitching.

It seemed like I pushed forever, even though it couldn’t have been much more than an hour. After a while, people would say that they could see the top of the head, but then the instant I stopped pushing it would be sucked back into the birth canal. This was very discouraging – no one had told me that pushing was two steps forward and one step back and that it felt like one step forward, two steps back. The doctor came back into the room around this time and said to a nurse, “I thought you said she was crowning” and the nurse replied “I thought she was” (or something of the sort). Everyone was being very encouraging, but I could tell that they were disappointed at how slowly it was going. The nurse was checking the baby’s heartbeat with the Doppler much more frequently now, and a couple of times, Doula whispered in my ear that I had been pushing long enough and it was time to get the baby out. I’m sure now that she meant those words to be encouraging, but at the time, exhausted, in pain, with the doctor and nurses there and everything else, I interpreted her words to mean that the baby wasn’t doing well any more and if I didn’t get the baby out soon that something was going to go wrong. That really made me want to push, and I know I even tried to do it a few times between contractions. If I could have managed to string together a sentence, I might have said “cut me open and get the baby out. I can’t do this anymore.” But I couldn’t muster the energy to form the words and there’s nothing they could have done to help me anyways.

And eventually the pushing did its thing. Even though I had my eyes tightly squeezed shut (I hate blood), I did manage to reach down and feel the top of the head – slimy and hairy and real. A few minutes later, the baby did crown, then the head was born, and one easy push later, the rest of the body came slipping out. Fish made the announcement, “It’s a girl!” and then she was on my chest, just like I wanted, slippery and bloody and so incredibly alive. I’m tearing up just thinking about it. It was such an amazing moment – to have my little girl in my arms.

Minnow was born on January 26, 2007 at 3:20 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time. She weighed 7 lbs 3 oz, was 20 inches long, with a head 13 inches in circumference. She was, and is, perfect in every way.

Much of the next hour is a blur, but Minnow spent most of it on my chest. Fish cut the cord, the nurses wiped Minnow off quickly, and the placenta was out in a minute or two. I tore when she was born, and it seemed like the doctor put in a trillion stitches, some in places that the lidocaine hadn’t reached. And the nurse was pushing hard on my uterus, helping it to contract. Now that my work was done, I complained loudly and cried about the pain of the nurse’s kneading and the doctor’s stitches, even though they were nothing compared to what I’d been through for the past day. And I tried to get Minnow to nurse, but neither she nor I knew what we were doing. Doula and the nurses tried to help – all these people trying to position her and my breasts, but I don’t think we ever succeeded.

After a while, I asked Fish to hold her for me. She needed skin-to-skin contact to stay warm, so he unbuttoned his shirt and tucked her in against his chest. It was adorable – though I was jealous of his time with her – but too exhausted to hold her myself. And I was less jealous after a while, when she let go her first big meconium poop inside his shirt and all over his chest. That’s a story that her daddy will torture her with for years.

I got exactly the birth I wanted – no IV, no drugs, just me and the baby doing all the work the way it’s been done for eons. Fish was amazingly helpful and supportive the whole time. He never expressed doubt in my ability or my choices and I couldn’t have done it without his reassuring presence. Our doula, Doula, too made the whole process so much easier. She kept Fish and I from freaking out and going to the hospital way to early. She was great about making me keep moving during labor and she provided Fish some relief. Just by happenstance, the OB that I had seen throughout my pregnancy was on call on the day I delivered, so she was the one to catch the baby. The pediatrician we picked out, who has a smile to melt any mother’s (or child’s) heart gave Minnow her first exam and checked on her every morning we were in the hospital.

People have asked me whether I would choose a natural childbirth again, and I’ve answered with a whole-hearted affirmative. It helps that my labor was relatively speedy and trouble-free, and that subsequent labors are usually even shorter. But fundamentally, I did something amazing and I did it all on my own. It wasn’t ever more than I could handle. Being aware of what my body was doing the whole time and giving birth to a healthy, alert child that I could in my arms seconds later are the best testimonials I can offer for a natural childbirth.

I am so blessed.

Minnow's birth story (part 1)

2007-02-08T13:04:00.000-05:00

(So I didn't succeed in posting every day this week. So what? Instead yesterday I enjoyed a lovely visit from my cousins, whom we hadn't seen in months even though we live only a few miles apart. We took Minnow to fish's work to introduce her around, and then to Kmart, where they do NOT sell foldable changing pads like you would put in a diaper bag. And in the evening, fish went bowling and I went to craft night, where the little angel fell asleep in my friends' arms for over 2 hours.)

Minnow's birth story - early labor

In retrospect, Wednesday was the burst of “nesting” energy that people talk about. I woke up feeling great, and spent the day writing a status report on my work. I went to the office for a few hours and on the way home stopped at the co-op to buy fresh produce. That evening I made lentil soup and went to craft night. It was the most productive/refreshing day I’d had in weeks.

Thursday morning found me feeling sluggish and a little under the weather. I had none of the energy of the previous day. I had an OB appointment in the morning, and just before I left for the doctor’s office, I noticed a bit of bloody show. The doctor did her first internal exam and reported that I was effacing (cervix thinning and softening) but not dilated at all. I was totally discouraged, and we talked about my options if I went overdue. I spent the rest of the day at home, mostly just goofing around on the computer and working sporadically on a quilt. Every once in a while, I’d notice some discomfort in my belly but nothing that kept me from doing what I was doing.

My mom came over for dinner ~5:30 and I noticed a cramping sensation while we were eating, but I kept talking through it. After that I drove to Blockbuster and checked out some videos for what I thought might be a long weekend. On the drive there, I noticed another cramping sensation and vaguely wondered what would happen if I had a “real” contraction while driving. At this point, I wasn’t sure whether what I was experiencing were Braxton-Hicks or what – they were very intermittent and short-lived.

Fish came home from work at 8:15 and we watched some TV. I was lying on the couch and noticed cramping more frequently. I complained that nobody had warned me there would be menstrual-like cramping for hours or days before going into labor. Fish said: “I don’t think those are cramps; I think they are contractions.” I replied that contractions were supposed to start high up in the uterus and these were really low – near my pelvis. We consulted some books and decided to start timing the contractions. They were between 8 and 12 minutes apart, so we called our doula to let her know we were in early labor. She advised that I have something to eat, because it would probably be a long night, so Fish made me some macaroni and cheese.

We continued to time the contractions, which were now intense enough to keep me from walking or talking through them, and called the doula again when they were 5-6 minutes apart for an hour. She came over to our house around 11:30 pm and made me start walking around the house between contractions (I had been sitting on my yoga ball) and showing her the nursery and the quilt on which I was working. We labored this way for several hours, but contractions didn’t seem to be getting closer together or more intense. About 3 am we bundled up and went for a walk outside. It was a cold, clear night, and I immediately started shivering intensely, so we didn’t get very far.

Back in the house, the contractions still weren’t “very strong” according to the doula so she encouraged me to lie down and try to sleep for a while. Fish fell asleep in his recliner, and the doula and I curled up in bed. Both Fish and Doula got about 2 hours of sleep, but with contractions coming every 6 minutes or so, I don’t think I managed to sleep at all. The contractions were really uncomfortable lying on my side, and about every 20 minutes I would get up to pee to relieve the pressure on my bladder. Throughout the night, contractions were closer together but less intense when I was on the toilet compared to any other position.

About 6 am, I got up and moved around the house a bit, waking up Doula and Fish around 6:30. Contractions started getting closer together and at 7:15 Doula suggested that we get breakfast at the hospital cafeteria. That way we’d be close by should I decide it was time to check in at the hospital. I thought that we might as well wait until 8 am when my OB opened up and go get my dilation checked. Plus food didn’t sound at all appealing. Doula and Fish tried to get me to chew a calcium supplement, but I had to spit it out because it made me so nauseous. By 7:45 contractions were 3 or 4 minutes apart and more intense than anything else had been so far. The Jacuzzi tub at the hospital sounded very appealing. So I decided it was time to go to the hospital. Fortunately, it is only about a 5 minute drive, but I did have two contractions in the car.

What others can learn: (1) Everybody says you "know" when you are in labor, and eventually you DO know, but those early contractions may not feel like what you expect, and at the time you may not know you are in labor. (2) Eat when you first think you are in labor, because you might not be able to later on.

On being a scientist and a woman

Moving Day

Mommy Monday: the Pup and the Babe

convergence

5 years ago today

Help my research!

The best and worst day of my week

Teaching Tuesday: Students, Technology, and Being a Nice Person

Mommy Monday: Moving Up

Blogroll clean-up

Rockin' Girl Bloggers

Repost: Picking the research to match the grant opportunity

A Day in the Life, part 3

Teaching Tuesday: A Day in the life, Part 2

Mommy Monday: A Day in the Life, Part 1

Picking the research to match the grant opportunity

Super-productive Friday PSA

Being a professor - week 2: now in bullets

Research, unleashed.

Mommy Monday: Co-sleeping

When you feel like blogging

Women in science: 2 vignettes

change in email address

Teaching Tuesday: First day of class

Mommy Monday: Minnow's Magnificence

Is it crazy to expect that next week will be easier?

Any thoughts on PDAs?

Mommy Monday: Separation Anxiety

Nervous as a school girl

Focusing on the good

Week 1 on campus

And then the other shoe drops...

If you can't say something nice...

Oh right, that's why routines are nice.

Mommy monday: dreadful news

Mommy monday: random bullets of life in Mystery City

Don't use Allied movers

Mommy Monday: Moving!

I will not be a foregone conclusion.

Carnival time

Teaching assignments of new hires

Mommy monday: our sleep issues

Post-doc Carnival

I feel like a childless grad-student again...

The end of the post-doc

Carnivals

Mommy Monday: sick child :(

Student-Parent activism: better late than never?

Metamorphosing from post-doc to professor

More pressure than can be borne?

Update

Carnivals

out sick

The part-time post-doc

Gosh, I hope not.

Scientiae #6

Last Call for Scientiae Posts

My Mom is My Hero

Welcome Baby Jane!

It's a happy day

Manic May

Scientiae+ bonus post

Book Review: Every Other Thursday

A story problem with simultaneous equations

Workshop for women in science

Carnival of the Postdocs!

Visual DNA

Big News

The Power of Onesies

Blacksburg

Bringing baby to seminar

Scientiae carnival up.

Bringing baby to the field

A little bit to the south

On the Nightstand

Q&A with ScienceWoman

Are they really that clueless?

Inbox: Stay in science or switch fields?

Book Review: A Mile in Her Boots

Every Other Thursday?