Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Short unrelated thoughts

I have three short posts rattling around in my mind, so I've decided to combine them into one, out of sheer laziness.

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ScienceWoman suggested an experiment of sorts in her comments to my whining post. Mini, her little one, responds enthusiastically to chocolate, and she wanted to know if Baby Jane responds similarly. Well, I finally got the chance to test this out (we have chocolate again!), and Baby Jane is not (yet) a chocoholic, apparently. But, here are some of the things that s/he has responded to with enthusiasm (signalling this by vigorous kicking):

1. Ethiopian food
2. Being read to
3. Whenever the cat sits on my lap (s/he apparently does not like to share!)
4. Whenever I'm really concentrating on something work-related, especially in the afternoon
5. Me waking up in the middle of the night

I'll be interested to see if/how this changes over time.

* * *

Also in that same post, I complained about having to work with data (and programs) written by one of my former research students. Well, yesterday while slogging through the code (and cursing repeatedly under my breath), I discovered that the student had come up with a really simple and clever way to do something that I thought would be rather difficult. Which will save me lots of time and effort, particularly since I didn't think the student had finished that particular task. So that was a nice and unexpected treat. Mea culpa.

* * *

And finally, related to The Little Paper That Could: John Dupuis over at Confessions of a Science Librarian has a great post linking to two articles about writing scientific papers (and some more serious thoughts on what this means about open publishing, etc.) One describes a post-doc's experience in getting a paper out to a journal, while the other is a funny look at writing the perfect scientific paper. (Funny, but like most humor it rings a bit too close to home.)

3 comments:

ScienceWoman said...

Mini no longer responds much to chocolate (I've upped her tolerance levels?). Lately my best trick for getting her to move is to get up, pee, drink half a glass of really cold water, and then lie back down. This is a very handy trick for when I am starting to wonder whether this thing that refuses to come out of me is still "alive and kicking."

"4. Whenever I'm really concentrating on something work-related, especially in the afternoon" This has happened to me too - there are afternoons where I've lost an hour+ just because of the distraction of being kicked every few seconds.

Isn't it wonderful!

Jane said...

ScienceWoman, it certainly is! I've always been too restless to just sit quietly, but I will sit still just to feel the baby move.

Rebecca said...

Vinny always responded to Sprite. He would go crazy in the afternoons if I had drunk Sprite for lunch. The kicking, along with the gazillion trips to the bathroom, would keep me awake all afternoon!

He also got the hiccups fairly frequently, and that made for a strange feeling in the belly too.