See Jane Compute

Some big exciting news!

2008-03-05T22:38:00.005-06:00

UPDATE: Apparently the RSS feed at the new blog is not working yet. Hopefully it will be fixed soon (I have no control over it, sadly.) I'll put another announcement up over here when it's fixed, and in the meantime, I'll post links here to my new posts. Sorry about the confusion! It's fixed now! Head on over and join the party!

I have some exciting news.

As of today, I will be blogging over at ScienceBlogs! I am so excited and thrilled to be joining the ScienceBlogs community, with such luminaries as Zuska and ScienceWoman and Alice and the rest.

The new blog URL is http://scienceblogs.com/seejanecompute

I'll still be writing about the same things I did in this space, so I hope you'll come join me in my new digs. I've enjoyed getting to know all of you in this space and look forward to continuing our conversations in the new space as well!

Scientiae turns 1!

2008-03-03T22:42:00.002-06:00

I'm totally swamped right now, hence the lack of substantive posts. However, I am finding time to eat birthday cake (or at least dream about eating birthday cake) in honor of Scientiae's one-year anniversary! Oh yeah, and reading the fabulous collection of posts that our good friend skookumchick has put together. Go check it out (with or without cake).

Lessons learned from sabbatical

2008-02-27T22:13:00.003-06:00

So, regular readers of this space know that last year, at least before Baby Jane arrived, I was on sabbatical. It was always my intention to do a reflective post on "what I learned on my sabbatical" upon returning to work. But life with an infant does not allow for much reflection, so the post was never written.

I actually think that's a good thing, because now that I've been back at work for a few months, I think I have a better perspective on what my sabbatical taught me.

First, and most unexpectedly, my sabbatical brought me a new perspective on my relationship with my colleagues and my place in the department. I find that my interactions with and responses to my colleagues are more measured. I am more direct, in my opinions and requests. I speak up, but I choose my words more carefully. I am not afraid to stand up for something, but I also choose my battles better, and am more diplomatic than I used to be. Do things still bug me? Absolutely. Am I always listened to? No way. But I sense that my words and ideas now carry more weight, and that I'm getting people to listen to me and take my ideas more seriously. And that's making a huge difference, especially in how I feel day-to-day in my job.

Second, my sabbatical helped me gain a new perspective on my teaching. Actually I think it pushed along the natural evolution of my teaching, but the point is that ironically, stepping out of the classroom for a year was probably the best thing I could have done to improve my teaching. I've pared my classes down to the essentials. I teach less "stuff" than ever before, yet my students are learning tons more, asking better questions, making better insights about the material. My assignments are much better integrated into the fabric of the course---and in fact, inform the way I've structured each course. I tend to be such a detail person, which has hurt my teaching in the past, but the time away to reflect helped me develop strategies to combat this tendency. I feel comfortable in the classroom again, and confident in my ability to reach my students. I don't feel 100% sure that this will be enough to earn me tenure, but I also don't feel anymore like there's no way I'll get tenure.

Finally, as odd as this may sound given the tenor of recent posts here, sabbatical reaffirmed the importance of having some semblance of balance (ha!) in my life. OK, maybe "balance" is a little optimistic these days. But how important it is to do little things, like make time to work out every day, or take time off on the weekends, or for pete's sake enjoy my daughter and husband and do fun things as a family and get out of the house every once in a while. It's hard to justify taking the time to do these things, especially when the laundry is piling up and the kitchen floor hasn't been cleaned since Christmas and there's always more work that needs to be done, but not blowing this stuff off every once in a while is only going to make a person sick, or perpetually pissed off, and less able to Get Stuff Done. Having a chance to take an extended breather, and learning that I could be more productive when I did so, reminded me of that fact.

So there you have it. Sabbatical was of course valuable from a research perspective (although I didn't get as much done as I wanted---does anyone??), but for me, it was more valuable for the non-research related reasons. And that in itself was a particular kind of renewal for me.

scientiae-carnival

When the professional and personal collide, part 2

2008-02-24T20:17:00.003-06:00

I missed a deadline.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided that one of the two journal articles I currently have in progress was just about ready to be sent out. I found a suitable home for it. A colleague told me that the journal has a policy of assigning reviewers quickly to articles if they are submitted by a certain date. Aha! Instant deadline! The date was definitely do-able: I'd have to do some revisions to make the page count and formatting, along with the last-minute revisions (and, oh yeah, writing the intro section), but I could definitely, and comfortably, make it.

Then life intervened.

Over the past two weeks, all of us have been sick at one time or another. We've had to juggle day care several times. I was single-parenting for a few days. There was a crisis that needed to be dealt with that took up a bunch of time and mental energy last week.

I held out faint hope for this weekend....until Mr. Jane got can't-get-off-the-couch sick, and Baby Jane decided to go on a napping strike.

Now, in the long term this is not a huge deal. The journal is not going away; I can submit it anyway, and just deal with a longer review process. Fine.

But these past few weeks, I've been completely frustrated, exasperated even, with the lack of control I've had over my life. Yes, I realize that this is par for the course when you have an infant. Yes, I realized what I was getting into....sort of. But that doesn't make it any less frustrating.

I feel like my life has to be in perfect balance for me to make progress on...anything. And anything any part of my life falls out of balance, at best I can tread water and not lose ground; at worst, I fall further and further behind. Right now, I am so far behind with what I absolutely need to have done, much less the "nonessential" stuff like research. At times like this, I feel like I'll never get everything into balance, never really be able to feel like I'm moving forward, never feel like I can relax and feel good about where I am, currently, and where I'm going.

I wonder if this feeling ever goes away, or even lessens...or if this is something I will just have to learn to deal with for the next 18 or so years.

Communication

2008-02-18T21:32:00.003-06:00

A post in three unrelated (?) acts.

***
ACT 1
Baby Jane is trying her best to communicate with us. She is very vocal, which means that she spends a lot of time either babbling to herself (or her toys) or to us. When she babbles to us, she is very intent: she makes eye contact, she modulates her voice, she changes her inflection and her syllables. Clearly she has something very important to tell us! If only we could figure out what it was.

We have been signing to her for months now, and finally, she is signing back. Sometimes her signs are crystal clear, like the day she signed "Daddy" when Mr. Jane came home from running errands. But often they are a bit ambiguous. "Milk", for instance, is her general sign for "I'm tired and it's time for bed" (we breastfeed her as part of the bedtime ritual). Still, it's an exciting time: we know that she understands us, and finally, finally, we are starting to understand her.

***
ACT 2
Since returning from sabbatical, I've found that I am more direct with my colleagues. Maybe it's because the time away from my colleagues brought me a greater understanding of the ways in which we communicate poorly with each other. Or maybe it's because I have no time and am thus forced to be direct to save what little time I have. Whatever the reason, being direct is proving wildly successful. For instance: there's this particular thing that I've wanted to do for ages, but my chair always offers/delegates it to someone else. In the past, I've talked to my chair about getting a chance to do it, but for whatever reason, nothing ever changed. Which just led me to stew and be unhappy and complain. This time around, I decided to just tell my chair outright that I want to do this thing. No beating around the bush, no trying to find the "right" words, none of that. No, I just went to my chair and said "You know, I should do X this year." And he said "OK, that sounds like a great idea! You're on!"

How much time and energy have I wasted worrying about not being a pest or a bother, and thus not asking for what I want?

***
ACT 3
Dear Dr. Jane,

I am worried about my course grade. Could you please let me know if I am in danger of failing?

Thanks,
Stu Dent

Dear Stu,

Yes, you are in danger of failing. I don't know why it took you this long to get in touch with me. I mean, it's not like I haven't been begging, pleading, and cajoling you to meet with me since, oh, day 1 of the class since it is abundantly clear that you are so, so lost. I don't know how much more direct I can be with you, since I've written on every single quiz and assignment that you are NOT doing well and that you MUST come and see me ASAP so that we can stop the bleeding. I am always willing to help students, particularly with this subject matter, since it's not the easiest stuff in the world. But I can only help those who want to help themselves. You've dug yourself a hole that's pretty deep. I can help you dig out: I can loan you a shovel, and I can get you started. But ultimately, you're the one that has to do the digging. And frankly, I don't see that willingness in you.

Fondly,
Dr. Jane

First rule of parenthood: All plans are tentative

2008-02-14T10:55:00.003-06:00

I should have known it was too good to be true.

I had the perfect day planned: daycare drop-off, then home to do work for a few hours, followed by a long, romantic lunch with Mr. Jane (we so sorely need to go on a date!!) at a place we've been dying to try.

Guess who woke up with a fever this morning and didn't go to daycare?

So instead, we are spending Valentine's Day doing the Child Care Shuffle. Maybe, if we're lucky, we'll get takeout for lunch.

Sigh.

Returning to the classroom

2008-02-11T21:46:00.000-06:00

I knew that returning to the classroom after a year away would be tricky. Now that I've been back for a bit, I can say that it has been easier in some respects, but trickier in ways that I maybe didn't expect.

The first week and a half was rough. The first day was fine, mainly because of (a) adrenaline and (b) I have pretty well established activities and such that I do on the first day, so by this time things flow fairly smoothly and are pretty strictly planned out. But in the days after that, I realized that I had forgotten how to "talk" to a class.

I normally go into class with notes. Depending on what I'm talking about and how familiar I am with the material, the notes may be quite detailed (a full-blown, bulleted list with definitions and diagrams) or sketchy ("Point out the parts of the loop, then show the averaging example"). But the notes mainly have (a) facts/details about the subject and (b) a general sense of the flow of the class (introduce topic, do activity, discuss what just happened, etc).

In the past, when I've been teaching regularly, these notes were sufficient for running a class. I could just go in and talk intelligently off of these notes.

Being out of the classroom, though, meant that I was out of practice in this skill. In one of my classes on the second day, I said "OK, today we're going to talk about Concept X"....and then I stopped cold, because I had no earthly idea how I was going to talk about Concept X. Even though I had a page full of notes and a firm idea of where I wanted to lead the class, I couldn't vocalize anything about Concept X that would start us down the right path, or even sound halfway intelligent. Finally I just started talking, and I think ultimately it was okay (not my best class, but certainly not my worst). But boy, was I rattled.

This sense of being a fish out of water lasted a good week or so. With time and practice, though, talking to my classes became easier. I started to remember the "hows" of teaching. More importantly, I regained my sense of comfort in the classroom, and my teaching became more natural and less stilted.

I still have days here and there where I get that fish out of water feeling again and forget how to talk about some concept or another. I had one such moment again in my last class, on a subject that I've taught a zillion times. I'd developed a particularly good way of introducing this concept, which is one of the trickier ones in the course, and I tried to recreate that in today's class, but it fell short. Ah well, there's always next class. But these days are becoming more and more rare.

I do think in general that my time away has ultimately made me a better teacher....but that's a subject for another post.

Sundays aren't supposed to be bad days

2008-02-10T23:41:00.000-06:00

Why today was a bad day:

* My precious Sunday morning work time was eaten up by stupid computer problems.

* Which meant I had to scramble and find little pockets of time the rest of the day in which to do work.

* Which also meant that I did not finish everything that I intended and needed to do.

* And to add insult to injury, the code I was working on for tomorrow's class wasn't working, and it took me way too long to figure out why. Sometimes I really hate computers.

* The little free time I had was spent folding laundry.

* I was totally exhausted, but had no time for a nap.

* Mr. Jane and I sniped at each other all day long.

* Baby Jane peed all over herself twice during one diaper change.

* A disgruntled student decided to take out his frustration on me.

* I'm still awake.

What saved it from being a horrible day:

* This morning's impromptu living room "dance party".

* Baby Jane trying (more like practicing, all day long) to stand on her own.

* Dinner, cooked by Mr. Jane: one of my all-time favorite comfort food dishes. Mmmmmmmm.

* Yoga.

Heading into the homestretch

2008-02-07T23:06:00.000-06:00

Today, at the coffee shop, while making some changes to one of the Journal Articles That I Still Haven't Submitted, a strange thing happened. Something clicked, and I realized that this journal article is not going to get any better at this point (without peer review, anyway).

It's time to send it in!

Just one more pass, in which I make sure that the terminology is consistent and the flow is acceptable, add one more diagram, and merge two sections into one, and then the paper is DONE.

I just have to do the easier stuff: identify a journal (I have a couple in mind, so I just need to make the final decision), make sure the formatting is acceptable for said journal, draft an email to the editor, and send it off.

Oh, and decide on the authorship thing. I never quite know what to do with journal authorship. Conference papers are easier: smaller set of results = easier to identify the key contributors. But what do you do with a journal article that combines two conference papers, plus includes a whole bunch of new work (done solo) and was pretty much written as a solo effort?

If I had a solid chunk of, say, 6 hours, I could get this sucker done once and for all. Sadly, I do not have that luxury, unless I want to forgo sleep (and we all know what happened the last time I tried that little experiment...). So I will finish this paper much the same way I worked on it all along: in daily, mostly half-hour chunks. And barring some unforeseen weirdness, this article should be in print before I go up for tenure.

Yay.

Hopefully this will serve as incentive to just finish that other Journal Article That Still Hasn't Been Submitted, Damnit, and get that in the pipeline too.

Home, and desperately trying to catch up

2008-02-05T22:02:00.000-06:00

I'm back from what was a very productive, very worthwhile, but very exhausting trip. I'm still behind and trying to catch up; the next few days will be somewhat lighter, so I'm hoping to be able to catch up then.

Highlights and lowlights:
* Burning the midnight oil for too many nights before the trip + staying up too late too many nights during the trip + airplane/hotel air + stress = sickness. I'm feeling a bit better today, but let's see if my voice holds up in class tomorrow. (I'm betting it won't.)

* Baby Jane was fine in my absence. I'm not sure she noticed my absence, to be honest.

* Traveling on my own was interesting. I can't remember the last time I was only responsible for myself. It was quite freeing. I missed Baby Jane and Mr. Jane, but even that was easier than I anticipated (although saying goodbye was heart-wrenching).

* Running into people I met last year at this same meeting/conference, remembering them, and having them remember me too.

* A marathon dinner with an old, dear friend. We disagree on lots of things---politics, religion---but it never gets ugly. It's nice (and rare) to be able to talk civilly about controversial topics.

* Traveling to meetings and conferences always gets my creative juices flowing. This trip was no exception. So many good ideas! So little time!

* Comparing notes on tenure expectations with colleagues at peer institutions. Apparently, lots of places, across the board, are really unclear about conveying tenure expectations to junior faculty. It was comforting to compare notes across institutions.

* Transporting several days' worth of breastmilk home in my checked luggage, and worrying that it wouldn't survive the trip. (It did, thanks to my MacGuyver-like skills in rigging a cooler-like thing in my bag.)

* Having to yell across a crowded security area that the strange-looking contraption in my carry-on bag was a breast pump. So much for discretion.

* Having to pump after checking out of my hotel room, only to find that none of the hotel bathrooms had an outlet (??). The employee who let me use a hotel room for a half hour was an absolute angel. Yay employees that go above and beyond the call of duty!

I have a bunch of substantive posts brewing, but they will have to wait until life settles down a bit. In the meantime, please head on over to FairerScience for this month's Scientiae!

Light posting warning

2008-01-28T22:33:00.001-06:00

Posting will be light around here for the next week. Besides the fact that this week is already completely kicking my butt, I will be traveling. Alone. For the first time since the baby arrived.

Surprisingly, I am not freaked out by this. (Talk to me again before I get on the plane and I may be singing a different tune...who knows.)

I may try to blog from Destination City, but I'm not sure how busy I'll be while there. I'm sure I will have plenty to blog about when I return.

Will our heroine relish her baby-free days, or will she spend her nights weepy? Will pumping go on as normal with the stress of all-day meetings among strangers? Will she manage to sneak out to see old friends in the area? And, most importantly, how is she going to get that breastmilk back home, intact and hopefully still usable?

Stay tuned!

Unexplained feelings

2008-01-27T21:38:00.000-06:00

All day long, I've had a feeling of....I'm not quite sure what. Nervousness? Panic? Dread? All of the above?

It's like that feeling you get right before a big test or event, that panicky/restless/what-if-things-go-horribly-awry feeling in the pit of your stomach. Like that.

Except there's no reason at all right now for me to feel panicky/nervous/like the other shoe is about to drop.

Hmmm. I hope this is not a bad omen of some sort.

Stay tuned.

Life on the treadmill

2008-01-24T23:34:00.000-06:00

I often hear parents talking about how they feel like they are always on a treadmill. I never knew what they meant. Until now. I have to say that the analogy is not quite correct: to me, it feels more like I'm on a treadmill while simultaneously trying to juggle two balls and a dagger.

I'm tired!

Here is a glance into a typical day in the Jane household:

6:30am: I get up, get dressed and ready, and check to make sure that there are no messages from daycare. If I'm lucky, I may get to grab a glass of juice.

7:00am: Wake up Baby Jane. Nurse and dress her.

7:30am: Wake up Mr. Jane. (Yeah, yeah, I know, but he wouldn't get up otherwise.)

7:45am: I finish getting ready and grab breakfast while Mr. Jane feeds Baby Jane her breakfast.

8:15-8:25am: Clean up Baby Jane, buckle her into her car seat, and off to daycare.

8:45am: Daycare dropoff.

8:45am-5:45pm (on a good day): Drive to campus, teach, pump, sterilize pump parts, meet with students, squeeze in some research work, prep classes, pump, squeeze in lunch hopefully, deal with normal workday stuff, drive home. Try to squeeze in as much productive work as possible.

5:45pm: One of us feeds Baby Jane while the other preps dinner. Then one of us eats dinner while the other one entertains Baby Jane, who is most likely crawling to somewhere she shouldn't be or trying to grab food off of our plates.

6:30pm: Playtime, pack daycare bag, bath.

7:20pm: Get Baby Jane into pajamas, nurse, story, bedtime.

8:00pm: Workout, shower (hopefully)

9:15pm: Back to the computer for more research/class prep/doing whatever didn't get done during the day. And blogging (hopefully).

11:00pm: Pump

midnight: Bedtime, hopefully.

6:30am: Get up and do it all over again.

On a good day, it all works out ok, aside from the relative lack of downtime. On a bad day like today, when Mr. Jane was sick and I had all of the before and after daycare, after staying up way too late to watch tennis? Yeah, it pretty much sucks.

Oh, and I have no idea at all how I'd do this if I didn't have a spouse that was putting in equal time in terms of childcare on a daily basis. (yay for Mr. Jane!)

Sleep

2008-01-21T21:39:00.000-06:00

Baby Jane has always been a pretty good sleeper. She started sleeping through the night at about two and a half months and is also pretty good about going to sleep and putting herself to sleep (and, most importantly, putting herself back to sleep if she happens to wake up at some ungodly hour). She may cry when we put her down, but typically for no longer than a few minutes.

Last night was the rare exception.

We put her to bed at her normal time. Typically, the whole routine on non-bath nights takes about 20 minutes: she gets into PJs, I nurse her, then it's storytime if she's still awake, then kisses and lights out. Well, last night she wanted to nurse for what seemed like forever---she must have nursed for a good 45 minutes! She was still awake, so I read her a story, tucked her into her sleep sack, and said goodnight. All was quiet...for maybe 15 minutes.

Then, the wailing started. We waited it out for about 10 minutes, but it was clear that this was not the normal "I'm tired, but I don't want to go to sleep" complaining. It was definitely getting more insistent. So I went up there. Usually, that's enough to calm her down. But she was insistent that I pick her up out of the crib, at which point she *clung* to me. Mr. Jane and I spent the next hour sitting with her, rocking her, stroking her forehead, anything to get her to calm down enough to go back into her crib and back to sleep. It was bizarre. She finally went to sleep, but boy, was it a struggle.

Tonight, all is back to normal. We still don't know what that's all about.

* * *
I haven't been sleeping very well lately. I had been very good about getting enough sleep (after the extreme sleep deprivation of the first couple of months post-baby), a habit I got into while I was pregnant, out of necessity. But last week, I had one late night when I was trying to meet a deadline, and I haven't been able to catch up since. Usually I can sneak a nap in on the weekends, but not so this weekend. To top it all off, my brain has decided that anytime I wake up during the night, that's the signal for it to go into overdrive. "Oh good! We're awake! We've got lots to think about, so let's get to it!" So I'm dragging, really seriously dragging. My brain is fuzzy and my head hurts. I just wish I could stop time for a few hours, just long enough to catch up on those few lost hours of sleep. Then I'd feel much, much better.

Persistence: How much is too much?

2008-01-17T21:46:00.000-06:00

Man, is this week kicking my butt. Hence, the silence. But I do have something that's been on my mind all week, that I've been turning over and over in my mind but haven't really come to a good resolution.

So. We all have students in our classes that are maybe not doing as well as we think they could or should. That would benefit from coming in and talking to us during office hours, for instance. Asking questions about the course material, yes, but also discussing strategies for how to study, how to read the text, how to approach the homework assignments, even how to ask for help from the TAs and/or other sources.

Some of these students, left to their own devices, may in fact find their way to office hours, will figure out how to be successful in class, and find enlightenment. Many, though, will not, and will struggle unnecessarily.

For some, laziness may be the main factor. But for others, it may be a fear---of the professor (hey, I was scared to death of my professors, and never went to any office hours until my senior year), of who knows what. And it may even be one of those tricky "cultural capital" things---not coming from an environment where you know how to utilize the available resources, including professors. It's hard to tell, sometimes, what forces are at work.

How, and when, and how much, do you reach out to these students?

I probably do more than most. I keep a careful eye out early on to catch those who are struggling right off the bat. I reach out to them as soon as I sense there's an issue---usually by email, because I figure that's less awkward than confronting them face-to-face. ("Hey, you're failing! Why don't you stop by and see me?" Yeah, awkward.) I do this throughout the course, too, especially after exams and other milestones. And I try to check in periodically with those who have taken the time to come and see me.

Many students, though, never take me up on my request, and continue struggling.

Now, I'm not talking about excessive hand-holding here or dealing with lazy students. But sometimes I wonder if I should be doing more for some of these students who maybe fall into one of those latter camps: the fearful ones, or the ones lacking cultural capital. Should I be more persistent? Where is the line between persistent and annoying? In short, how do I help the ones who want my help (but may be too intimidated to take advantage of it, even if I'm the one who reached out) without annoying those who don't?

Maybe this is one of those questions that doesn't have a nice, pat answer.

A new year, a new attitude?

2008-01-13T22:13:00.000-06:00

It is Sunday night, and I am working. Yet, I am not panicked or moody or in a bad mood about the fact that I am working. I am actually having fun, and getting excited about the coming week and the work I will get done this week.

Why?

I think a large part of this has to do with the fact that I did not spend all day working. Or, I should say, thinking that I should be working and then beating myself up for watching football instead of working, and in general not enjoying the time I spent watching football or lazing around the house or doing whatever instead of working.

I used to operate this way.

Now that I am a parent, however, it is not possible for me to spend all day Sunday working. And so I've stopped expecting that I will spend all day Sunday working. I know that I have a finite amount of time to work on Sunday---an hour or two in the morning (a habit I started when I was home full-time with Baby Jane), plus a few hours in the evening after Baby Jane goes to bed. Rather than being panicked about the "lack" of time to work, I find this very freeing. It frees me up to actually feel fine about *not* working all day, to not feel guilty about playing with Baby Jane or just staring at the TV for a bit, and to enjoy my Sunday afternoon, for once.

The crazy thing is, I think I'm actually getting more work done this way, too.

Having a kid is apparently better for my work ethic than reading self-help books ever was. Who knew?

Pluses and minuses

2008-01-10T22:06:00.000-06:00

+: Everyone's finally healthy and we are back on a normal day care schedule.
-: No more excuse to leave work early.

+: Lots of potentially good stuff looms on the horizon. I have a lot of big-picture, long-term stuff I need to think about and plan for over the next few weeks. Most of this involves projects that I am very excited about.
-: Unfortunately, there's also a ton of short-term stuff that needs to get done, too. Finding the balance between long-term planning and short-term survival is tricky.

+: Baby Jane is mobile!
-: Baby Jane is mobile, and fast, and damn inquisitive.

+: Work is mostly good. I'm excited to be back and mostly managing my days, and feeling good about things....mostly.
-: When bad things do happen, they often send me into a tailspin of despair and "I'm never going to get tenure here!" Clearly this is not healthy.

+: I am working out every day again, and it feels great. Exercise has always been fun and relaxing for me, and I'm trying new things out to mix it up a bit.
-: Trying new things = working new muscles = OUCH!

+: Being back on campus after being gone for a year is making me feel like a rock star.
-: No one wants to hear about my research.

What's on your to-don't list?

2008-01-07T20:08:00.000-06:00

Things have been super-crazy here in the Jane household. I knew going into 2008 that I'd have to hit the ground sprinting right after the first of the year. Throw in sickness (Baby Jane and Mr. Jane) and day care closures (we have not had a "normal" schedule day since the year began) and you've got yourself some interesting and stressful times.

Rather than boring you all with how stressed we all are around here, though, I wanted to talk about an interesting idea I saw. Sometimes Baby Jane will allow me to read while nursing, so I've been slowly making my way through the January issue of Real Simple magazine. There's a little card in the back that's titled something like "Your Not To Do List for 2008". The idea being, of course, that just as we spend time thinking of all the things we should be doing, we should spend some time thinking about the stuff we do that's harmful to us, or not fun, or not productive, and resolve *not* to do that this year.

So here are a few things I will try NOT to do this year:
* Feel guilty, about anything (how I'm spending my time, how I'm raising my child, not cleaning the bathroom, etc.)
* Compare myself to others (especially when it comes to things like publications, grants, enrollment numbers, etc.)
* Martyr myself. If I need help, I will ask for it. Period. Asking for help does not make me a bad person.
* Feel frantic about my teaching. One less than stellar class every once in a while does not make me a bad teacher, and is not the end of the world, and does not mean that I will never get tenure.

So, what's on your to-don't list this year?

It's a new year's Scientiae party!

2008-01-03T20:40:00.001-06:00

Hosted by Jokerine. Go check it out!

A first lesson in backup child care arrangements

2008-01-02T11:54:00.000-06:00

It's the call that every parent dreads. Day care called early this morning. Apparently every kid has come down with the same nasty virus (flu? stomach bug?) within the last 48 hours. Day care is open, since Day Care Woman is not sick, but her kid just came down with it, too.

We decided to keep Baby Jane at home as a precaution. (And we're thankful that she didn't go to day care on Monday!)

Our backup child care plan, at least for now, is Mr. Jane. So he's taking most of the day off. Luckily, I don't really need to be on campus today, so I also decided to stay home to give Mr. Jane some breaks (and just in case some work crisis comes up that Mr. Jane has to deal with). In other words, we're really fortunate that this happened today, a day in which both of us could be flexible with our work schedules.

But I also know that we won't be so lucky in the future. And that has both of us a bit worried, and rethinking our backup child care plans.

UPDATE (Thursday): Well, we now have a sick kid on our hands. She's not too bad: feverish and sneezy, but still pretty much her normal self (if a bit subdued). I guess we're lucky in that this is the first time she's been sick, ever. So the child care shuffle continues...

Theme for 2008, and looking back at 2007's theme

2007-12-31T15:22:00.000-06:00

Last year, rather than doing resolutions, I followed the lead of others (see profgrrrl) and set a theme for the year. Last year's theme was Take Back Control of My Life.

So, how'd I do? Well, looking back on the year and judging from my blog posts, I'd give myself a B.

Being on sabbatical certainly helped matters. I was completely burned out at this time last year, contemplating whether I wanted to stay in my job or not. (Hm, some things never change, do they?) The year away from teaching and toxic colleagues and the daily grind of the tenure track was refreshing. I still sometimes let toxic colleagues and situations get to me, but having some distance really helped matters and gave me some much-needed perspective. Not working insane amounts of time per week also was very nice.

Having the kid certainly turned things upside down, but I think for the most part we're all doing a good job of keeping things from dissolving into chaos. We have a routine that works, for now. At least until things really heat up right after the new year. I don't always take the time I need for myself, although I'm working on rectifying that.

So I guess I feel sort of in control of my life, as much as I can at this stage. Which is a good thing.

Now, on to this year's theme. When I look back on what really disappointed me about 2007, the thing that jumps out at me is that I often stand in my own way. For instance, I have 2 (2!) journal articles that should have been sent out for review by now. Yet I am still sitting on them. I had an epiphany the other day about what specifically is holding me back on both articles, and on sending things out to journals in general. (Maybe I'll blog more about that later.) There were also some projects that I really should have done while on leave, but didn't, because I allowed myself to be overwhelmed by the "what ifs" and the thoughts of failure. Again, standing in my own way. And preparing to reenter the classroom has been a bit of a nightmare, because I keep thinking about all of the negative comments from my third-year review, which is making me a bit afraid to do or try anything in my classes.

In light of this introspection, the theme really named itself for the year.

My theme for 2008, then, is FEARLESS. I am going to go right up against my worst fears this year. Stare them down, laugh in their faces. Basically, I'm not going to be afraid to fail and, more importantly, not be afraid to try in the first place. In fact, if my first thought about something is "I can't do this", well then, there's my answer: I'm going to do it.

OK, maybe not skydiving. But stuff related to my career and my personal life and relationships, sure.

I hope you all have a wonderful new year, full of fearlessness!

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End of the year meme

2007-12-28T19:46:00.000-06:00

I've been tagged by ecogeofemme! And just in time, since I was looking for a way to procrastinate...

1. Will you be looking for a new job?
To be honest, it all depends on how things go this coming semester/term. I think I will have a clearer picture by the end of the school year as to whether or not I have a good shot of getting tenure at my current institution (and/or whether I want to stick around long enough for that). So the next few months will be interesting, to say the least.

2. Will you be looking for a new relationship?
I'd like to meet some new moms near me. I feel like I'm the only mom on the planet who's not a part of a moms' group.

3. New house?
Thankfully, no.

4. What will you do differently in 08?
Try not to sweat the small stuff.

5. New Years resolution?
I like the idea of the New Years Theme (a la profgrrrrl---can't seem to find the exact post, unfortunately) rather than resolutions. I am still deciding on a theme, but I'm pretty sure my theme this year is going to be Fearless. More on that later.

6. What will you not be doing in 08?
Sleeping, apparently, given how hectic my life is becoming lately with going back to work full-time.

7. Any trips planned?
Yes. I'll be taking my first trip without Baby Jane (yikes!), coming up soon. We're also tentatively planning a camping trip for the summer with Baby Jane, an anniversary trip to celebrate our upcoming anniversary, and a few trips to visit various friends and relatives.

8. Wedding plans?
Not for me. :)

9. Major thing on your calendar?
Well, there's the start of the semester/term, which puts me back in the classroom after a year away. And our anniversary. And the official start of my tenure review in the fall (eek!).

10. What can’t you wait for?
I can't wait to see how Baby Jane grows and changes this year. It seems like every day brings something new with her, and it's really a treat to be a part of that.

11. What would you like to see happen differently?
My tenure review (in comparison to my third year review).

12. What about yourself will you be changing?
I'd like to be more true to myself, less worried about what other people think of me, and less concerned about fitting into some arbitrary mold. I'd like to be a bit more uninhibited in the classroom, and trust my instincts more when it comes to both teaching and research. I want to stop standing in my own way when it comes to pursuing my goals, like applying for funding or submitting journal articles or finding new ways to mentor our women students. Should be easy, right? ;)

13. What happened in 07 that you didn’t think would ever happen?
I had a baby.

14. Will you be nicer to the people you care about?
Yes. When I'm stressed out, I can be a real pain in the a$$. I'd like to stop being that way.

15. Will you dress differently this year than you did in 07?
Yes. For one thing, I won't be wearing maternity clothes. Since I'm now more or less back to my old size, but with a changed body, I'm reevaluating my look and recommitting myself to only wear things that make me look and feel fabulous. Which reminds me, I think I need to go shopping for some new work-appropriate clothes (that I can also pump in)....

16. Will you start or quit drinking?
I will continue to enjoy the occasional adult beverage, as long as it's not too near nursing time.

17. Will you better your relationship with your family?
See #14.

18. Will you do charity work?
Yes. I have a cool project that I'll potentially be working on, that I'm so very excited about.

19. Will you go to bars?
Maybe. Mr. Jane and I are trying to institute a regular Date Night, so perhaps bars will play some role in that.

20. Will you be nice to people you don’t know?
I usually am, unless they give me a reason not to be.

21. Do you expect 08 to be a good year for you?
Yes! I am optimistic and excited about the upcoming year.

22. How much did you change from this time last year till now?
Oh man, 1000%. It sounds trite, but it's true: having a kid really does change everything.

23. Do you plan on having a child?
I hope to have another one, yes, but not next year.

24. Will you still be friends with the same people you are friends with now?
I hope so.

25. Major lifestyle changes?
Juggling the whole working mother thing is, and will continue to be, a work in progress.

26. Will you be moving?
Hopefully not!

27. What will you make sure doesn’t happen in 08 that happened in 07?
I'm stealing this one from ecogeofemme: failure to submit any of the journal articles I'm working on. Bad, bad Jane!

28. What are your New Years Eve plans?
Mr. Jane and I were kind of lazy about finding a babysitter, so we'll be hanging out with friends early in the day, then hanging out at home at night. And I'll probably work in the morning, too, since I'm going to have to hit the ground running right after the holidays.

29. Will you have someone to kiss at midnight?
Mr. Jane, assuming I can stay up that late!

30. One wish for 08?
A woman in the White House!

And now my least favorite part: tagging people. I'll tag Chaser, Katie (it's ok if you don't get to it right away!), Addy N (once you return from your holiday traveling), Rebecca, and Skookumchick. And anyone else who wants to!

Christmas is winding down

2007-12-25T21:40:00.000-06:00

When we found out that we were pregnant, one of the many things that excited Mr. Jane and I was that we would finally be free to define the holidays as we wanted to. We could decide whether we wanted to travel or stay put. We could start our own traditions, borrowing/modifying ones we liked from our own backgrounds and adopting others that we had heard about and liked. Our holidays would finally be our own, and not dictated by whichever family we happened to be visiting that year.

So this year was our first "true" holiday as a family. And I have to say that it was probably one of the most enjoyable holidays I've spent as an adult. Low-key and relaxing. But still with way too much sugar consumed (note to self: it is not a good idea to keep a plate of cookies out all day long, especially when one is chasing after an infant and does not have time to make a proper, healthy snack).

Of course this is also Baby Jane's first Christmas, and that was really neat to witness. She is way too young to understand what is going on, but she did immensely enjoy the piles of wrapping paper and the boxes. She has officially become mobile (finally got a hang of the crawling thing!), and is having a blast exploring the tree, everyone's presents, and whatever's going on in the kitchen. With her around, Christmas definitely has a different feel this year---it feels more meaningful, in a sense, in a way I find hard to describe.

I hope you all are enjoying your holidays, whatever holidays you happen to celebrate.

Getting back into the teaching mindset

2007-12-20T20:45:00.000-06:00

In a post last week, I mentioned that I was struggling a bit with the whole class prep thing, since it's been over a year since I've been in the classroom, and how this came as a bit of a surprise to me. I guess that teaching is more of a skill than we tend to think, and like any other skill, if we don't practice it regularly, we get a bit rusty. That's what I'm facing right now.

I'm teaching two classes when I return: a section of intro and an elective. For various reasons---some externally imposed, some interally imposed---both courses are undergoing some not-trivial revisions this time around. So I'm trying to figure out how these changes fit into each course while at the same time trying to construct the flow of each course (syllabus, assignments, core concepts, objectives). And having a hard time trying to wrap my mind around it.

I was complaining about this to a friend and colleague from another department, and she gave me a great idea. "Why don't you start from the end, and work backwards?"

Well. This turned out to be brilliant advice, at least for the intro course. Once I started from the end, the course almost seemed to construct itself. Getting from Point A to Point B, it turns out, is easier if you've been to Point B and know what it looks like. And, as a bonus, I'm actually now really excited about this iteration of the course, and can't wait to introduce the series of assignments to the students.

Unfortunately, the advice is not working so well for the elective. The elective is less "linear", let's say. I have a very clear picture of where the students will end up, but because of the nature of this course, the path back from that to the beginning is not as clear. Actually, the unusual thing is that I've structured the first and last assignments already, and have some ideas for the middle assignments, but matching up the course concepts to the assignments (and some of the segues) is proving tricky. I do remember not being happy at all with the way I matched concepts to assignments the last time around (which was echoed in the student evaluations), and I want to avoid that this time around, but the way forward is not clear at this point.

(Changing the first and last assignments is not an option---I have very specific reasons for doing these two assignments when I do them and how I do them, and I think that these two assignments are the perfect bookends for this class. And the students agree with me. The issue is that the assignments don't neatly fit in with the "traditional" ways that this particular subject is taught. I have to think carefully about how I introduce the related concepts, so that the assignments don't seem so....standalone is probably the best way to describe it.)

I know that I will get unstuck eventually, but in the meantime, I continue to spin my wheels a bit. I think what I might need to do is take a step back from the details and spend some time thinking of the larger picture. Maybe that's the thing that will get me unstuck and get the course flowing again.

Where do you get stuck when you're planning your courses?

Year-in-review meme

2007-12-16T21:42:00.000-06:00

As seen over at Adventures in Ethics and Science.

The rule: post the first sentence of the first post for each month. (Note: I'm cheating a little bit, here, because halfway through doing this post, I realized that the majority of my first-of-the-month posts were those announcing that the new Scientiae carnival had been posted. So instead, when that's the case, I'm including the first sentence of the first non-Scientiae post.)

January: I don't remember where I first saw this, but I last saw it at Dr. Crazy's. [New Year's meme]

February: Greetings from Top Secret Location!

March: As a way of getting past the journal article block I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm revisiting some of the papers that I've cited in most of my own papers, sort of as a way of reminding myself what differentiates my current work from others' work in the same space.

April: It's Monday.

May: In my last post in this series, I set out a series of three questions that I've identified as central to deciding whether I should stick things out until tenure or go look for greener pastures.

June: Back in the day, when parenthood was still an abstract concept, I looked forward to the arrival of Hypothetical Future Child as a time where I could take a nice little hiatus from my professional life.

July: So the first big post-baby conference trip/trip with Baby Jane went very well.

August: Subtitle: If you've seen my brain, could you please return it to me?

September: I spent a blissful long weekend sans computer access, hanging with family and friends. [This was actually the third sentence; the first two had to do with the latest Scientiae carnival.]

October: I am at an exciting phase in my work right now. [See note for September.]

November: Sometimes I really need someone to give me a good swift kick in the seat of my pants. [This post was about the importance of mentoring.]

December: OK, so, today was the big day: my first day back at work, and Baby Jane's first day at daycare. [See note for September.]

Strangely, I think this sampling of posts is actually quite representative of what's been on my mind this year. Since I was out of the classroom for the entire year (first on sabbatical, then on maternity leave), I was much more focused on research, and much more introspective about my research work. (The latter is a luxury I often can't afford while I'm teaching!) And of course, having Baby Jane made me much more keenly aware of work-life balance issues, and I think I probably blogged about those more than any other topic in the second half of the year.

It was definitely a full and exciting year, that's for sure.

Random Bullets of Monday

2007-12-10T22:22:00.001-06:00

* I had the craziest morning today. It's amazing how one little thing going slightly awry can throw off your entire morning. Luckily, things greatly improved around lunchtime. Otherwise, I might have just gone home and gone back to bed.

* Even so, it was a very, very long day.

* Class prep. It's only been a year since I last did this, but man, has it been hard to get back into the mindset of class prep! Even simple things like "how long does it take to cover Topic X" and "how much can I realistically expect intro students to be able to do on an assignment in Week 3" are baffling me right now. (I'll post more on this later this week.)

* Research has been going much easier. Perhaps because most of the "work" I was doing while on leave was research, so I didn't have to adjust my mindset as much.

* One of the other things I'm having problems adjusting to: re-learning how to make small talk with my colleagues. It's been so long since I hung around adults all day....

* Recommendation letters are the bane of my existence right now.

* Since entering day care a mere week ago, Baby Jane has not only decided to drop a daytime feeding, but has also gotten herself on a completely predictable napping schedule. And her "vocabulary", such as it is, has increased exponentially. Unbelievable.

* Oh, and the best part of the day? Learning that classes start a few days later than I originally thought. Woo hoo!

3 days back and I'm wishing for a vacation

2007-12-05T21:40:00.000-06:00

This cannot be a good sign. After 3 days back at work, I'm completely stressed out and exhausted. And I'm not even teaching! If it's this hard now, what is life going to be like when classes resume??

OK, let me back up. I know I'm being melodramatic/way too hard on myself, here. I know that we'll all get used to the schedule and figure out what works and what doesn't by the time classes start again, and it will be (mostly) fine. And for pete's sake, I've been "off" work for over half a year, so of course adjusting from "work in half-hour snatches of time once or twice a day" to "work full time" is going to be difficult.

But it's been a hard week.

Baby Jane *loves* daycare (yay!), but is having some eating issues. For some reason, she is getting major, painful gas after her first bottle, which makes her not too crazy about eating at all after that. We're sort of baffled by this; the obvious place to look is the bottles, but we've been using these same bottles with no problems since the beginning. So now we get to do some trial and error to try and alleviate the gas problem so that she'll eat normally again. Yippie. (But at least this means I'm not falling behind on the pumping....)

Work-wise, even though the theme this week has been "easing back into things", things have been stressful. I'm held up on one project because I need our IT folks to do something relatively straightforward, but there's apparently only one person who can do this (???) and s/he is backed up. So I'm working on other things, which are not going so well and stressing me out further, and everything is taking me about six times longer than it needs to. And yesterday I really, really missed Baby Jane and almost started crying in my office, thinking I was the Worst Mother Ever for wanting to work and leave her in day care. (Of course I don't feel this way normally; it's just the stress of everything coming to a head.)

And to top it all off, Mr. Jane has had The Week From Hell, and so I've been doing most of the baby care. Today was the worst, because I had both pre- and post-work baby duty, by myself. My god, I don't know what I would do if I had to do this all the time----I am so glad to have an enlightened spouse who, at least during non-hell weeks, believes in sharing kid and household duties equally.

So I'm exhausted and cranky and Mr. Jane and I are picking fights with each other because he's exhausted and cranky from his hell week. What a fun household.

Deep breaths. I know that things will get better. Mr. Jane's hell week is over, so he'll be picking up some of the slack now. I'm going to take part of tomorrow off to preserve my mental health, maybe even go for a walk in the middle of the day. And every day, something about the new routine gets a bit easier, and I know this will continue to be the case. We just have to hang in there and keep plugging away.

We survived the first day

2007-12-03T21:04:00.001-06:00

But first, a note that the new Scientiae carnival is up at Kate's! Do go check it out.

OK, so, today was the big day: my first day back at work, and Baby Jane's first day at daycare. And I have to say that it went pretty well, overall. I got pretty upset/weepy on Sunday afternoon, while I was getting Baby Jane's daycare stuff ready. But at the dreaded drop-off this morning, both she and I were remarkably composed. There were no tears from either of us when I left---she was playing happily on the floor, and I was happy that she was happy. I definitely think it would have been much harder to leave her if she had been clingy or upset, but seeing her embrace her new surroundings really put me at ease.

The day was not without drama: Baby Jane went on a bit of a hunger strike, refusing to take a bottle. Which is weird, because she'll usually take a bottle from anyone. We're guessing that it was probably due to all of the changes and stress of the day. Luckily, she ended her strike by mid-afternoon and seems to be ok. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

Being back at work, though, was a challenge. I started off pretty well---deliberately planning a busy day, with stuff that was more busywork than really involved thinking-work, was definitely a good plan. But by about 2pm, my brain was dead and my head was pounding and I could have really used either a nap or a glass of wine. Or both.

Pumping was also a bit of a challenge---my output was down a bit, but considering the stress of the day, it wasn't that bad. (And the new pump is helping tremendously; it's nice to not have to stress about that anymore!) I really do hope that by the time classes start, Baby Jane will be down a feeding or two, so that I don't have to pump so much during the day. The pumping itself is not bad, but the setup and cleanup is a bit of a hassle.

I think that the person who had the hardest time adjusting was Mr. Jane. As he put it, "I've lost *two* people today!" I guess he's right; I've spent all of this year either home with the baby or working primarily at home. And I have to say, it was weird not having Mr. Jane around today, too.

So we all survived and now we just have to do this all over again...tomorrow.

Transcending the debate: A call to arms

2007-11-30T21:21:00.000-06:00

So the topic for this month's Scientiae carnival is "transcending the debate". When the call first came out, I thought "cool! what an interesting topic! I can't wait to come up with a post for this one!"

And in trying to come up with a post, I've struggled mightily. For reasons I didn't understand, until today, when I had an epiphany.

I think a lot of the struggles I've had, particularly in my current position, especially around my legendarily bad third-year review, come about as a direct result of not transcending the debate. Instead of transcending, I tend to mire myself in the muck, let colleagues and situations drag me down and make me question myself and my instincts and generally deter me from pursuing the things I want to pursue.

I'm not sure why I do this. Is it a misguided attempt at acceptance? Is it a weariness with being outnumbered and (pardon the war analogy) outgunned in departmental situations? Is it self-consciousness, low self-esteem? Or is it because I'm truly passionate about these things and don't understand why others don't share my fiery passion for the same things?

My mom has a great saying/philosophy: Sometimes acting oblivious is your best defense/strategy. And when I've remembered that and really put it to practice, difficult situations have become...not quite so difficult. Sure, it doesn't work all the time, but it works more often than it doesn't.

This year, as I return to work, I pledge to really work on transcending the stuff that normally gets me down, to follow my instincts, and do what I know is right and righteous and good. I will mentor our young women (and other underrepresented folks) with abandon. I will resurrect the lunch/cookies tradition. I will ignore any negative comments or criticisms about such activities. Most importantly, I will work to make my department a place that's welcoming to all, and if my colleagues don't like it, tough nougies.

I'd better start practicing being oblivious.

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Thoughts on returning to work

2007-11-29T20:49:00.000-06:00

While I don't "officially" go back to work until January, I am "unofficially" going back to work full-time next week. I decided on that date months ago. At the time, it seemed like a long, long way away.

I can't believe it's here already.

I have to admit that I've been looking forward to returning to work for a while now. I've loved being home with Baby Jane and feel so fortunate that I was able to stay home with her as long as I did. I wouldn't trade that time for anything in the world. Even though some days seemed like eternities and sometimes the sheer drudgery of taking care of an infant day in and day out made me contemplate jumping out the nearest window. Recently, I've been increasingly frustrated by only having small chunks of time to get work done---I have so many ideas and things I want to get cracking on, but such limited time in which to do them. Besides, I miss thinking for a living. (Not that taking care of a baby doesn't require thinking, but it's a totally different kind of thinking.) So yeah, in theory I'm so ready to go back.

But the reality of only having one more weekday at home with her is breaking my heart a bit. Ok, a lot. We'll both have to get used to a new routine---her at day care, me at school. No more midday snuggles during feedings. No more afternoon walks or trips to the mall or library. No more sneaking in to her room to watch her as she naps. Sure, we'll still have weekends, but I'll have to share her with Mr. Jane then.

I don't know what Monday will feel like. Unfortunately, I have day care drop-off duty (Mr. Jane gets to pick her up every day), which is probably the worst possible thing for me, emotionally. I thought briefly about working from home that day, but I figured it would be way too hard to get anything done with all the reminders of Baby Jane around. So I will drop her off and head to school and try to get something worthwhile done that day.

Maybe it will be fine. Maybe I won't cry at all. Maybe I'll cry all the way to school, and then be fine. Maybe I'll count the hours until she and I are both home.

God, I can't imagine what I'd be going through right now if I was at all ambivalent about going back to work.

Seven random facts before bathtime

2007-11-27T19:04:00.000-06:00

I've been tagged by ScienceMama! Let's see if I can finish this before bathtime (Baby Jane's, not mine). And come up with different ones from the last time I did this meme. So, here goes.

Seven random facts about Jane:
1. I used to sing a lot, in choirs and school musicals and such. Now, I only sing in the car (and to Baby Jane). I was a (second) soprano, although I'll bet I'm more of an alto now. I am actually very self-conscious about my singing voice.

2. I failed the final exam in one of my grad courses. And the weird thing is, it was a take-home exam, and I helped almost everyone else in the class with it, and they all passed, but I somehow managed to fail it myself. I still haven't figured that one out.

3. Caffeine gives me wicked migraines. Even the amount of caffeine in green tea is enough to send me to migraine hell. And I get the classic migraines, with the flashing lights and the nausea and the sudden feeling that your head has just been run over by a train....good times.

4. I have never worked in retail.

5. I used to hate the color orange, but now it's one of my
favorite colors. I especially love wearing orange accessories.

6. I pushed Baby Jane out in less than 20 minutes just to avoid having a C-section.

7. My personal idea of hell is any dessert containing lemon. Or lime. Yuuuuuck.

And now it's bathtime, so I'll be lame and just tag anyone who hasn't done this one yet.

Rough day at the office

2007-11-26T20:46:00.000-06:00

Apparently I've jinxed myself with my last post, because today was the Day From Hell. Actually, it was really only the late afternoon that was bad, but it was bad enough to render the whole day the Day From Hell.

It all started with the lack of nap. Baby Jane did nap, but not nearly as much as she normally does. And if there's one thing we've learned about Baby Jane, it's that she needs her beauty sleep. I held out hope that she would be tired enough to take a late afternoon, pre-dinner snooze, but no such luck. Oh sure, she was tired enough, but in denial about that. So no nap.

The result was that I think I spent about 4 hours straight dealing with a crabby, super-clingy baby. She would not let me put her down. (Thank god for the sling!!) She would not let me out of her sight, not even for a minute. I tried all my tried-and-true tricks; nothing worked. She didn't want to play with her favorite toys; she didn't want to swing in her swing; she didn't want to bop around in the exersaucer. She just wanted to be held, and to walk around. It was almost like she reverted back to her former, just-born self---we spent many evening hours walking around and holding her to calm her down during her first two months. Thankfully, Mr. Jane put her to bed to give me a bit of relief. Otherwise, I might have lost it.

The funny thing is that I'm not so much physically exhausted as I am mentally exhausted. I feel the same way as if I'd spent a really long and hard and tiring day at school---like during midterms or finals week (or after an especially trying encounter with my colleagues). It's not like what I was doing was mentally taxing! Or was it? Maybe trouble-shooting Baby Jane's extreme neediness is more mentally challenging than I'm giving it credit. At any rate, I'm too tired to analyze that at the moment.

I sure hope tomorrow's an easier day.

Baby Jane update

2007-11-25T16:56:00.000-06:00

It's hard to believe, but Baby Jane's been around for more than 6 months now. 6+ months! Ay caramba, where has the time gone? I haven't done a proper update since Month 2, so I figured it's high time that I update you on what Baby Jane is up to these days.

Baby Jane has always been a fairly easy baby, and that trend definitely continues. She has a definite schedule now for eating, sleeping, and (most days) napping. Most days, she can be counted on to take a 2 hour nap (heaven!), sometimes longer. She has a regular bedtime and sleeps through the night (although we still are waking her up for a "dream feed" before we go to bed). The regular bedtime and sleeping through the night happened fairly early, about 2.5 months; the regular nap schedule is a recent thing. It is amazing what a difference this regularity makes: I can actually plan on getting things done during the day! (Of course, sometimes laying on the couch and watching bad daytime TV wins out, but hey, I figure once I start work, there goes any sort of downtime, so I'd better enjoy downtime now.)

The development stuff, though, is the really neat part of watching Baby Jane grow up. And there have been a lot of developmental milestones lately. The first was sitting up, which she did fairly early (just past 5 months). Then came eating solids. Her favorites so far are bananas and avocados, although she will pretty much eat anything we feed her. And now, she's on the cusp of crawling. She can get up on all fours and rock, but she hasn't quite figured out how to keep moving forward. (For a while, she could only move backwards, which frustrated her to no end.) She can pull both legs forward, but then she loses her balance and falls on her tummy. But she has figured out that she can get to something if she keeps doing this up to all fours-drag legs forward-fall routine. And when she wants something, she can get to it fairly quickly. Hence, the rush to baby-proof the house.

The other neat thing is watching Baby Jane's personality develop. She is very observant and very vocal. She's insistent when she wants something (and is sometimes hard to distract!), and is pretty strong-willed. She loves people! She smiles and laughs and has her own little games that she plays with Mr. Jane and me. (Mostly these involve head-butting, hair-pulling, or face-gnawing. Thank god she doesn't have teeth yet!) She is now an "interactive" baby, which makes interacting with her a lot more fun.

When I look at pictures of her, even from just a few months ago, it's hard to believe how different she looks and how much she's changed. Some days it feels like she's been around forever, while other days it feels like she just arrived. And I will admit that there are still some days where I feel like a babysitter rather than a parent, but these days are pretty rare.

At 6+ months, I feel like I've gotten a pretty good handle on this parenting thing. It's still a wild yet thoroughly enjoyable ride.

A low-key holiday weekend

2007-11-23T15:33:00.000-06:00

One of the nice side benefits of having a kid is that we are now free, without guilt (externally-imposed from both sides of the family) to decide where and how to spend the holidays. So this year, we decided to stay put and have a low-key Thanksgiving. Just us and one guest, a very dear friend.

When I was growing up, holidays were crazy, hectic times. My mom is Queen of All Martyrs, so holidays often featured at least one dramatic scene or meltdown (and still do). Plus, the way my extended family is....well, holidays are just huge and noisy and lots of work. Fun, yes, in a way, but completely draining. And the older I get, the less I want to participate in that every single year. I find that I really prefer the smaller, more intimate, lower-key-no-drama holiday celebrations.

We decided on a simple menu, and prepped everything that needed to be prepped the night before or that morning, so that we could just pop things in the oven at various times. Turkey (for Mr. Jane), roasted chickpeas (for me), cornbread stuffing, roasted green beans, mashed sweet potatoes. Pumpkin cake and a special dessert prepared by our friend. Yum. Baby Jane had her first taste of green beans in honor of the holiday (she liked them). And we just sat around and ate and talked at a leisurely pace. (The best part was that I put Baby Jane to bed, and when I came back out, the dishes were all done! Yay!)

The low-key relaxation theme has continued into today. Mr. Jane has been installing various child-proofing things, since Baby Jane is on the verge of becoming mobile. I've been going through old magazines so that I can get rid of them, skimming through a book that needs to be returned ASAP, and organizing clothes that Baby Jane has outgrown to be handed off to other moms. We've been trading off child-caring duties so that each of us can spend time with her and also get our own stuff done. I will need to get some work done this weekend: following through on a research idea from last week's coffee shop visit, plus way too many recommendation letters. (I had hoped that my year away would mean that the students would "forget" me as a reference. No such luck.) And we'll be starting our Christmas shopping---online, of course (*hate* the shopping craziness this time of year!)---and putting up Christmas decorations. And, most importantly, hanging out with each other and watching lots of football. Ahhh.

Hope you are all having enjoyable and relaxing holiday weekends as well!

Don't worry, I'm still here....

2007-11-18T21:50:00.000-06:00

I just realized that it's been over a week since I last blogged. (And that I still haven't updated the blogroll. Yikes. I will get to it, I swear.) So I figured I should check in just to let you know that yes, I'm still here. It's just been a crazy, crazy time around here. Lots of family drama, a medical emergency (not me, but someone close to me), lots of little things that needed to be taken care of. And on top of everything else, my breast pump is dying, which means that (a) I'm getting almost no milk when I pump, which is a major source of stress, and (b) I'm scrambling around trying to figure out if I can/should fix the old one or just get a new one (or borrow one---yeah yeah, I know, unsanitary blah blah).

So once I catch my breath and catch up with everything that life's been throwing my way, blogging will resume. And I have some posts brewing in my head---an update on Baby Jane (it's been a while!), some thoughts on returning to work and day care, and some more thoughts on the whole tenure rat race.

Thanks for your patience!

Another reminder of the importance of mentoring

2007-11-06T21:35:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I really need someone to give me a good swift kick in the seat of my pants. Today, I got that much-needed kick.

Let me back up. I don't know if I've posted about this before (I just did a quick search of the archives and came up empty-handed), but a while back I decided that it was high time that *someone* started doing some community-building among the women majors and potential majors in our department. This is one area where, in my opinion, we do rather poorly, and where we really should be doing more, particularly if we'd like to increase the number of majors (not just women, but across the board, too---if we're welcoming of women, we're probably more welcoming of everyone else who doesn't fit that narrow CS stereotype). Anyway. So I decided to start small: lunch (or cookies and juice) every once in a while, just me and the women majors and other women from my classes and my colleagues' classes. I'd send out an email and see who showed up. Turnout was sometimes good, often small, but I kept doing it. I enjoyed it, the students enjoyed it, I thought I was doing a good thing.

To make a long and not very interesting story short, I got some flak from some of my colleagues about it, the third-year review stuff was coming to a head, and I just got all frustrated with everything and stopped organizing things.

Today I got an email from one of our former majors, one I was particularly close to. And she mentioned those lunches/cookie sessions, and how important they were to her and how important she thought they were to the morale of the women in the department.

Well, dang.

Guess I'll be resurrecting that lunch/cookie tradition when I return. And guess I'll remind myself of this the next time I get demoralized about "just" doing the "little things".

Textbook woes

2007-10-31T22:07:00.000-05:00

I foolishly thought that ordering textbooks for my classes would be easy this time around. I'm only changing one text, so how hard could it be?

Well. I forgot that in one class I have two required texts. The last time I taught this particular class, the second required text was a bit out of date in parts, but easy enough to work around. This time, it's very much outdated. But I figured hey, there has to be a new edition of it!

Yes, there is. But it's not being published until next spring.

Aaaarrrrgh.

So now I have to decide if I want to:
(a) go with the outdated text. The concepts are still all good (very good, in fact---I really love this book), but the examples are not---and without going into a ton of detail, the examples are rather important to the course in this case. So if I went with this, I think I'd have to do *a lot* more in-class work "fixing" the outdated examples.

(b) go without this text altogether, and figure out some sort of course-packet-esque thing to throw together.

(c) find another text to fill the void. I've been looking, but so far have come up empty-handed on this. The problem is that the book I was using really was a perfect fit, and I'm having a hard time finding something even remotely equivalent.

The old text is unfortunately in my office at school, so any decisions will have to wait until I can get there and get the book and see just how outdated it is.

Not exactly what I want to be stressing about this week!

Things I'd rather be doing than working right now

2007-10-25T21:32:00.000-05:00

1. Lounging in the comfy chair and flipping between the World Series and college football.

2. Making baby food out of some of the farmer's market bounty from this week.

3. Eating the rest of the fabulous dessert I made today (basically, molten chocolate cake, made in the crock pot. Yum!! and a nice surprise too, since the recipe was labeled "chocolate pudding".)

4. Wondering if "crock pot" vs. "slow cooker" is a regional thing, or if one term is more correct than the other.

5. Wondering why a molten chocolate cake recipe would be labeled as "chocolate pudding".

6. Taking a bath and sipping a glass of wine.

7. Reading something completely mindless.

8. Giving myself a pedicure and/or manicure.

9. Snuggling with Mr. Jane. Or Baby Jane. Or both.

10. Sleeping!

What about you---what would you rather be doing than working right now?

Getting my feet wet again with the whole teaching thing

2007-10-23T21:28:00.000-05:00

It's hard for me to believe, but it's been nearly a year since I last taught a class. A year! So the idea of getting back into the swing of preparing courses has been a bit daunting. But I can't put these things off forever, so over the past week I've started thinking about and prepping one of my classes.

One of the bad things about being out of the classroom for a year, and from being away from my department for a year, is that all of those criticisms about my teaching, significant and niggling, that came up in my review, became magnified in my brain. It got to the point that I had completely convinced myself that I was the World's Worst College Professor and that there was nothing remotely redeeming about any of my courses. (Yes, I am a bit of a drama queen.) And, of course, that there's not a snowball's chance in hell that I will get tenure.

So I decided to start my preparations by reading over my end-of-course notes to figure out what went well and what didn't go so well the last time I taught this course. And I realized that, you know, the course didn't go so badly last time. And that students actually *liked* the course and *liked* my teaching. Huh.

Tonight, I'm reading over some of the assignments from last time around---I'm trying really hard this time to configure my course around the assignments (and thus, around the learning objectives), rather than around particular topics as I've done in the past. And, you know, those aren't so bad, either. In fact, after reading over one particularly strong assignment, I wondered if I had actually written it myself! (Answer: yes.)

Getting back into the teaching mindset is tough. I've taught this class before, but thinking about things like learning objectives and what kind of things I can assume the students know/can do has been tricky. The whole pacing thing, too---I know in the past that I've tried to jam too much into the course, and I'm working to cut that down to a manageable size this time around, but it's hard to judge things like that when you haven't been standing in front of a classroom day in and day out for a while.

But being away for a year has also given me some much-needed perspective. I'm committed to changing my textbook this year (the text I used to use was good info-wise, but tough to read, and I want to move in a new direction with the material), and I have to say that the time away from the classroom has helped me read textbooks with a more critical eye than before. I have a better idea of what I want a text to do, and I'm looking explicitly for that as I review texts. I'm less frantic about covering certain material and more focused on what skills and ways of thinking I'd like students to gain from my course(s). I have a lot of new ideas I'd like to try in the classroom, things that will require less lecture and more participation on the part of students, but that I think will ultimately make them better computer scientists.

And so, the adventure begins....again.

Thoughts from the coffee shop

2007-10-21T10:56:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting here at my favorite working coffee shop. Believe it or not, I haven't been back here since I had the baby! But it's still working its magic---I've only been here for a half hour and I've already gotten through half the items on my to-do list.

Sunday mornings are quickly becoming my work time. Mr. Jane likes watching Baby Jane on Sunday mornings (they can lounge around together), so I have a few hours to myself between the mid-morning and lunchtime feedings to just shut myself in the office, or leave altogether, and concentrate on work. Weirdly, I find myself looking forward to this time all week long. So I get lots of stuff done, which helps with the oh-my-god-I'm-going-back-to-WORK-soon-and-what-have-I-accomplished panic I sometimes feel these days. And the time to think "deep thoughts" helps me to be a better mom, because it rejuvenates me.

It's also nice that they have a new drink here (yummy!)---although I'm not 100% sure they made it decaf like I asked. I guess I'll find out in a few hours---if I get the shakes and start bouncing off the walls, followed by a wicked withdrawal migraine, I'll know.

One thing I'm noticing, as I work on the latest journal article, is that when I work on articles, whether for conferences or journals, I often get stuck on the results. Because often there's something in the results (or lots of somethings in the results) that doesn't have a neat explanation. In this case, I tried to summarize the results in a particular way, because I thought I could get a nice strong conclusion from them. But as it turns out, that particular summary actually muddles the overall picture! So now I have to come up with a better way to summarize the results, to demonstrate what I know the data is telling me...but I'm not 100% sure how to do that just yet.

In the case of the journal article that will not die, I made the mistake of writing the rest of the article first and then putting in the results. And that, frankly, made a mess of the article, because after compiling all of the results I realized that my results are not coherent---it's kind of a kitchen sink full of results that are somehow connected, but I haven't made those connections strong enough yet. So it seems as though this is a recurring pattern with me. Something to work on as I move forward, I guess. (And I'm thinking that fixing this particular issue of mine will help me get publications, especially journal articles, out more quickly, which is my big sticking point right now. I sit on these things forever.)

OK, back to work---I don't want to squander all of my precious work time!

Random Thursday Snippets (sleep-deprivation edition)

2007-10-18T20:49:00.000-05:00

* It feels really weird to not be at GHC right now. But given how busy this week has been, I'm still glad I decided to skip it this year.

* Last night I stayed up late, working on the latest journal article. (I got on a roll and wanted to finish a particular section before I quit for the night.) Then I was so wired that I had to read for a while before I could fall asleep. Needless to say, I was exhausted today. But I think it was worth it.

* I kind of fear that this is what my life will be like when I return to work. Or, as I put it to a friend of mine, "I'm sure something will have to give when I go back to work, and most likely that something will be sleep."

* I have started thinking about the classes I'm teaching when I return. I am super-excited about one and kind of dreading the other. I need to start prepping the latter, but I can't bring myself to do it. It's just easier to focus my energy on the former.

* It's getting harder to breastfeed Baby Jane in public, because she's at the stage where everything captures her interest. Today there were two women having a conversation nearby and she had to stop and stare at them for a good 5 minutes before I could convince her to continue with her meal. It's cute, but also a bit annoying.

* It feels like I've spent my entire week doing laundry.

Blog action day

2007-10-15T19:53:00.000-05:00

I doubt my parents realize it, but it's their fault that I consider myself an environmentalist.

I doubt they were thinking in environmental terms when they took me on hikes on the weekends and in the summer. Or when they planned vacations to mountains and rustic lakeshores and other naturally scenic places. It probably was more for economic reasons than anything else that they shopped almost every weekend at the local farmer's market. Or took me to actual farms to pick apples and strawberries and cherries. Or that we mostly only ate fruit and veggies that were in season. And it was mainly because of convenience, or maybe a sense of civic responsibility, that they started recycling as soon as our town started a recycling program.

But whatever their reasons, they did all of these things, and I watched and learned from their example. Most of all, I learned that we may not be able to solve the big problems, but we can all do little things that just might help out.

So today, my environmentalism is "small environmentalism". Because that's what I know how to do best. So I recycle and go to my local farmer's market and try to eat "locally" and "in season". I bring my own mug to coffee shops, and my own bags to stores. I walk when I can and consolidate driving trips when I can't. I compost. I've started to consider packaging when I buy something (I don't always do great with this, but I'm trying).

Some people say that saving the environment or stopping climate change is too hard. Maybe so. Maybe in the end small things won't matter. But I like to think that every little bit helps. And so I keep doing what I'm doing and hope that what I do will inspire others to do the same. Baby steps to a better planet.

Little luxuries

2007-10-14T22:26:00.000-05:00

The biggest luxury for me these days is "me time". (Well, and sleep, of course, although we're pretty lucky because Baby Jane is a fairly good sleeper. Somehow, we're all still managing to be sleep-deprived here, though.) I only get time to myself in bits and pieces, usually when the baby's napping or after she goes to bed. I've become pretty good at using those little snatches of time well, but it's still hard to manage. Particularly since just a few short months ago, I was completely in charge of how I spent my time.

Today I was able to spend larger chunks of "me time". Mr. Jane took over almost all of the baby care today (except for the feedings), so I had most of the day to myself. It was exactly what I needed. Holed up in my home office with a big pot of decaf, the lavender candle burning, and music going, I was able to make significant progress on a particularly tricky part of the newer journal article. It felt almost decadent, to be able to think deeply for such long stretches of time! And I even got out to see some friends, too, later in the day.

It's amazing how little things like that can be so restorative. And how my definition of "luxury" has changed so drastically since I became a mom.

Is a journal article in the hand worth two in the bush?

2007-10-07T20:28:00.000-05:00

Let's say that you have a paper that you've recently presented at a conference. Your plan is to combine this paper with another conference paper, with some additional extension work thrown in, and submit it as a journal article. (This is pretty much standard practice in CS.) And in fact, you've already started working on it. You feel that the work is strong enough that it has a good chance of being published in a pretty good journal, maybe even one of the "big" journals in the field.

Let's say that you were contacted by the organizer of that conference, inviting you to submit an extended version of the conference paper to a different journal. The paper would still undergo the peer review process, so no guarantees that it would be accepted; but you assume that the odds are pretty good that it would be accepted. You are not sure that this other journal is the best fit for this work, however; in fact, the extensions in order to make it fit to the journal may be tricky (or at least not something that you pictured doing with this particular line of research). And then there is the whole dilemma of what do you do with that other paper, the one you were going to combine with this one. (Most likely, the paper would sit around until the next conference paper gets written, which may not be for a while....)

If you were in this situation, what would you do?

Random scattered thoughts

2007-10-04T21:25:00.000-05:00

The latest installment of the Scientiae Carnival is up at Wayfarer Scientista's! Great stuff as always. Yami's hosting the next one on or about November 1; here's the call. (And I love the theme for the next one, too---very creative!)

I am at an exciting phase in my work right now. See, I had this idea for a journal article that I could construct out of my two most recent conference papers, but I needed to do some additional analyses. Well, I just finished the analyses, so now I can proceed ahead with the paper. Given that on most days I have maybe a half hour to devote to research, this will be a challenge....but I just keep telling myself that a half hour a day is better than nothing, and that eventually I'll finish the article.

I'm starting to panic about the classes I'm teaching when I return. I think this is fallout from the pre-tenure review from hell: all those inadequacies I've felt as a teacher since then, that I largely felt free to ignore while on sabbatical, are back in full force. I really have no reason to panic, since I'm not even being observed until next year and Baby Jane will be going into full-time daycare about a month and a half before classes start. Rationally, I know this, but it's not helping.

Where did the week go? I've been so overwhelmed by life this week---even the most mundane household tasks have seemed monumentally difficult. There are a ton of little things that need to be done, and I think I'm just letting the sheer volume of them get to me (even though each one would take in the range of 30 seconds to 5 minutes)....It's made me wonder how the heck I'm going to be able to handle working full time.

Body image

2007-09-30T21:57:00.000-05:00

Before I had my daughter, I sort of took my body for granted. I was comfortable with my body: how it looked, how I dressed it, how it operated. I felt like I knew it well: its quirks, its abilities and its limits. I don't own a scale, but could usually estimate my weight by how loose or tight my clothes were fitting.

Having a baby changed all that.

Pregnancy was utterly fascinating to me. All those changes, the new sensations, the way my body morphed....it was like one big science experiment! I didn't really think at the time what my body would look like or feel like or be like once the baby came out. I just took for granted that it would go back to the way it once was....eventually.

Emotionally, I'm in a totally different place about my body. Seeing what my body was capable of, during the whole labor process, completely awed me. As I told a good friend afterwards, "I can never hate my body again after going through that." And I still feel that way.

Physically, though, it's clear that my body has changed, and will never quite go back to what it once was. I don't have stretch marks, but my hips are definitely wider. My stomach will probably always have a bit more "give" to it (hey, it sounds better than calling it "flab"). And my upper body is completely differently proportioned. (This is probably largely due to breastfeeding---but I'm not completely convinced that things will go back to the way they were once I'm done breastfeeding.)

Learning how to dress my new body has been challenging. This weekend, I went through my closet to see if I could find anything else from my former self that fit yet. I purged a lot of stuff that, it was clear, would never look flattering on me again. (Goodbye, super-skinny jeans.) I also purged a lot of stuff that, to be honest, was never flattering on me, but that I hung onto and wore anyway. It was much harder to find tops that fit and flattered my new body than it was to find pants and skirts. There are a lot of holes that need to be filled in my wardrobe. (On the bright side, I now have to go shopping! I just wish I had the time and energy to do so.)

The purging of my closet, and the acceptance of my current body image, is a great metaphor for all the other stuff going on in my life now. Accepting my current body image is forcing me to live in the moment and live with who I am here and now---not on who I might or might not be in 6 months or a year---and work with who I am right now. Building a new wardrobe that works with the current me, and focusing on just getting the staples for this wardrobe, reminds me that I should concentrate on the truly important stuff and let go of the superfluous and trivial stuff. (Quality, not quantity.) Purging the unflattering stuff...well, I'm trying to do that in my life as well, figuring out where I'm wasting my emotional energy, revisiting how I react to certain things and people in my life (especially in my job), etc. (And, I guess, trying to determine if my current job is a good "fit", as-is or with some alterations.)

What's on my desk right now

2007-09-27T21:39:00.001-05:00

(A totally frivolous post, as I try to figure out what the hell my data is trying to tell me.)

A laptop (Mac, of course).

A Mac Mini.

That VGA-to-whatever converter thingie.

A keyboard and monitor that I'm not currently using.

Various cord corrallers that don't quite work with my setup.

A metal gooseneck lamp (currently off).

My iPod, charging so that I have something to listen to during the late-night feeding.

A large blue water bottle on a photo coaster (with a photo of my family).

A lavender candle (not currently lit).

A Koosh ball.

A handheld back massager thingie. (People keep giving me these as gifts. Perhaps my stress is evident to everyone else on the planet, too.)

A paintbrush. (Not sure why. It's been there for months.)

A scorpion beanie baby. There's a long story attached to that one---suffice it to say that I had a close encounter with one on a trip that was...well, let's just call it "interesting". Anyway, my mom loves the story attached to it and so she bought me the beanie baby. It's my muse.

An accordion folder with my current drafts-in-progress, papers to read, and various other research-related paperwork.

A draft of a journal article.

My research notebook.

Gel pens of various colors, a highlighter, several Sharpies, and a Bop-It pen.

An O'Reilly book of the programming language I'm attempting to learn.

Textbooks for the classes I'll be teaching when I return.

Wheat Thins crumbs, most likely.

So, what's on your desk?

Lessons from mentoring

2007-09-26T10:27:00.000-05:00

The other day, I got an email out of the blue from a former mentee of mine. (Can I just say how much I hate the word "mentee"? I always think "manatee" when I hear that word. I wish there was a better word.) I mentored her when she was an undergrad, then we lost touch after she went to grad school. She's just about to finish her PhD and doing fabulously, just as I knew she would.

This mentoring relationship was interesting, in that I felt completely unqualified to mentor this person. When we met, she was already a wildly successful student, confident and super-smart, well-rounded and well-grounded. Frankly, I was in awe of her. I really had no idea what I could possibly offer her as a mentor---in fact, she seemed much more together than I was! (I briefly thought that maybe I should ask *her* to mentor *me*, but thought that it might be too weird.) We met at a point where I was struggling a bit, professionally, too, so I was really unsure as to whether I could really be an effective mentor. But I decided to soldier ahead.

My perception of myself as a mentor was that I wasn't really effective. Sure, she asked me lots of questions about what it was like to be a female academic in CS, what I did, what I thought about various things, etc. And I answered them, honestly, even when the answer didn't paint the best picture of the field or of me as a professional. We chatted a lot about our lives, what we were doing outside of school and the lab. But that was it, really.

I'm guessing her perception was different, though. She always thanked me profusely for my advice and insight. She kept asking hard questions, and trusted my answers. She said that I really and truly helped her. In one of her last emails, she thanked me again, and told me how much of an influence I had been on her and how much she appreciated our relationship. And her latest email repeated that sentiment. I was totally floored.

This was one of my first true mentoring experiences, and it really shaped how I approach mentoring now, as someone more established in the field (and confident about her place in the field). (In fact, I sometimes wonder if this mentoring relationship helped me develop more confidence in myself professionally, and in my sense of belonging in the field. I suspect it did.) I try not to second-guess my qualifications to be a mentor. I try to be as honest as possible (and appropriate) as a mentor. I try to be freer as a mentor and to not be afraid to be a mentor (although sometimes I regress on this). This mentoring experience, above all else, taught me that there is no right or wrong time to be a mentor---that being a role model can happen even if we don't feel ready or adequate to be one.

Thank you, old mentee.

scientiae-carnival

A question for the Internets

2007-09-24T20:31:00.000-05:00

(Oh, and I just noticed that this is my 400th post! Wow!)

All right, all you etiquette gurus out there, I need your help, please!

Good friends of ours have repeatedly offered to babysit, and we are finally going to take them up on their offer. I'm sure we will reciprocate for them in the future, but I'd like to do something for them as a way to say thanks. Paying them, I'm guessing, would be too weird. So what do we do instead? My first thought was to cook them a nice dinner and leave it for them. Is this a good idea or a bad idea? If you were in my shoes, what would you do?

Thanks in advance!

Small victories

2007-09-23T21:28:00.000-05:00

Guess what I did today?

I went RUNNING! For the first time in months!

Yes, it was only for 10 minutes, sandwiched in with a walk, but still---what a glorious, glorious feeling.

It's amazing what a little run will do for the psyche.

Random Bullets, Wednesday Edition

2007-09-19T20:21:00.000-05:00

* I'm back from my long weekend. It was fabulous. Although I did cave and check my email once...but the rest of the time was computer-free, I swear.

* Baby Jane seems to have regressed with the bedtime routine. She used to cry for a few minutes after we put her to bed, at most; most of the time, she just went right to sleep. Tonight? She's been crying for almost an hour now. (Last night, too.) Not sure what happened (although she is teething, so maybe that has something to do with it). Whatever happened, it's annoying, to say the least.

* I'm trying to put more structure into my days, partly to keep my sanity and partly to try and combat the "stuck-ness" I've been feeling. The current plan includes squeezing in an hour of work each day (which is easier to do when Baby Jane goes to sleep right away!) and doing something physical every day, like going for a walk or doing yoga or weights. I've also restocked the nursing areas with journals and articles, so that I have something worthwhile to read while nursing. (I'm hoping that will get me back into the "work" mindset, as many of you have suggested.)

* There is no chocolate in the house. I'm having a mad chocolate craving. Life is not good. (And what is up with that, anyway? I thought the cravings would go away once the pregnancy ended. But no, turns out that I have nursing cravings, too. Egads.)

Three good things

2007-09-12T20:42:00.000-05:00

OK, I know this is going to sound hokey, but I've gotten into the habit of making myself think of 3 good things in my life whenever I find myself feeling sad or angry or stressed out or whatever. (How very Oprah-ish, I know.) So I feel like I should come up with 3 good things, to counterbalance my last post. So here goes:

Baby Jane's little personality quirks: her giggles, her noises (and the "conversations" we have), her mannerisms. She is quite the character.

The fact that I actually DID get some work done last night! Woo hoo!

A long weekend away, to a place I love, with people I love, and no computer access (self-imposed).

And on that note, see you next week!

Stuck

2007-09-10T22:09:00.000-05:00

That's the best way to describe how I feel lately. Stuck. Or paralyzed---maybe that's more accurate.

This is actually a tough post for me to write, because I've been struggling with how I'm feeling for a while now. It's even gotten to the point over the past few days where I've wondered if this is what mild depression feels like. Of course it's so hard to tell, and I have a million other excuses for why I'm feeling this way---sleep deprivation, for instance. I guess that's why I feel compelled to blog about it---because I've been turning it over and over in my mind and I haven't come to any good conclusions as to why I feel the way I do.

The best way to describe it is that I feel overwhelmed and inadequate. Like there's too much to do and take care of, but I feel like if I try to do any of it I'll just screw it up, so why bother. Now normally when I'm feeling this way, I just do something, anything, on my to-do list. Doing something successfully, no matter how small, is usually enough to get me unstuck and back on track. But this time around, I just can't bring myself to do anything, and so I remain stuck.

This is true of the big things, like research, but even stupid little things, like cleaning the bathroom or sorting the mail. I'm still functioning, but inside I feel panicked almost all of the time.

I think this has been going on for a while, although it took the whole GHC decision to make me realize and acknowledge it. And I wonder if there was a trigger, or if it's just a manifestation of all of those little worries amplified by sleep deprivation (and hormones). There's the journal article that refuses to be finished---I did a read-through a few weeks ago and realized that it was all over the map and would need some major reworking before it could be sent off. There's the feeling of dread, like I'm going back into a snake pit, I have about returning to work. (I know I don't want to stay home full-time, but in my darker moments I have severely mixed feelings about returning to my institution.) There's the boredom I feel about once a day about being home with Baby Jane full time. And a thousand other stupid things. So who knows.

I think my plan right now is to wait this out a bit longer. Try to take better care of myself for a bit. Try to get more sleep (!) if at all possible. See if some self-love gets me out of this funk. I sure hope it does.

Early lessons in prioritizing

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

So the short story is that I'm not going to the Grace Hopper conference this year.

The long story is not all that interesting, but I'll tell it anyway.

As usual, the task of organizing/rallying the undergrads fell to me, so I spent the latter part of last month "recruiting", in a sense. And worrying about the initial lack of response from the students. And stressing about finding funding so that I could go.

A few days ago, I was searching online for flights, hotel, registration information, etc., and mentally composing the email that I'd have to send to the dean in charge of discretionary funds. And...I had to stop. I just couldn't do it, didn't want to do it, was just getting all sorts of stressed out about it.

It was about that time that I realized that maybe I'd be happier skipping out on GHC this year.

I was very conflicted about this. I love going to GHC, love the environment, love being in a place where I don't feel so darned weird about being a woman in computing. I love taking undergrads, many of whom have never been to a conference before, and seeing them experience a whole other side of CS. I love the energy, love the ideas I hear about and bring back with me, and love meeting other women in CS, particularly other junior women faculty.

But I just couldn't stomach the thought of going to yet another conference at this point. I knew I'd have to do some serious juggling, just like I did in the last two conferences, between baby care/breastfeeding/pumping and conferencing/networking. And this time, I'd have to add in the whole traveling-with-students thing, too. All three of those things, individually, takes a lot of energy, and I just don't feel like I have the energy to do any of that right now, much less all of that. I'm exhausted already; the trip might just kill me.

So I've decided to skip out this year. On the one hand, I'm disappointed. On the other hand, I'm relieved. I figure there will be plenty of time for the whole work/baby care balance circus to play itself out once I go back to work; the longer I can defer that, and enjoy my time at home with Baby Jane, the better.

Random snippets

2007-09-03T21:19:00.000-05:00

The next Scientiae is up at Zuska's. As always, brilliant stuff well worth reading!

I spent a blissful long weekend sans computer access, hanging with family and friends. A perfect ending to the summer.

The only blemish on the weekend was that I got some bizarre allergic reaction to something that left me with hives all over my body. (Even on my hands!!) Needless to say, I did not sleep well last night.

Computer woes seem to be hitting the blogosphere lately. Here's my latest tale of woe: I have an email account where the email is forwarded from an address I don't use to one that I do use. The forwarding stopped working a few weeks ago. I finally sent an email to their tech support address last week. Is anyone surprised that the email bounced back to me as undeliverable??

It looked for a while like none of my students were interested in going to GHC this year, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth on my part. Now it looks like we will have a group of undergrads going after all. Yay! Now I just have to get on the ball with organizing everyone (and finding funding so that I can go). Yikes!

Jane, unleashed

2007-08-27T21:42:00.000-05:00

It seems like I spend a lot of my professional life trying to be a "good girl". Picking my battles. Biting my tongue (way more often than I'd like). Smiling when I really want to drop-kick a colleague or student out the nearest window. Being "collegial". The idea, of course, is that not rocking the boat and playing nice will some day get me to where I want to be. You know....what we were all raised to believe.

But sometimes in my career, I've gone against this tendency and let what some might call my Inner Bitch out. It doesn't happen often, and a few times it's backfired (spectacularly), but sometimes, letting the Inner Bitch out has led to better-than-expected results.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about those times lately---hey, you need something to keep your mind busy during all those late-night feedings! And I've realized that the Inner Bitch has actually helped me out quite a bit during my career. So, in honor of this month's Scientiae carnival, I've compiled a list of some of the things I have done when I've let my Inner Bitch out:

* Told off a member of my dissertation committee who was holding up my graduation for what I thought (rightly) were trivial reasons. (The entire time I was doing this, I was thinking to myself that I was surely committing career suicide, but oddly, this tirade convinced him that I was in fact ready to finish. Apparently I had earned his respect by standing up to him. Who knew?)

* Stood up to a sexual harrasser.

* Finagled an interview for a position for which I was not "on-paper" qualified.

* Informed a dean that his "solution" for dealing with my harassing phone calls issue was completely unacceptable, and spelled out exactly how I wanted the issue resolved. (Result: I pretty much got what I wanted, with a minor exception.)

* "Enlightened" my department about how some of the things they were off-handedly saying to and about our female majors were, shall we say, less than helpful. (The jury's still out as to whether anything sunk in, but I sure got their attention.)

* Told a dean during an interview, when asked what I wanted to be doing in 15 years, that I wanted his job. (It just kind of slipped out. But he chuckled, and we actually had a good conversation about the administration side of academia, and I think I've found a good resource there.)

* Convinced a corporation to fund part of my research---several times.

I'm thinking that I should print out this list and keep it in my office, as a reminder to be a little more fearless in my career life and that sometimes it does pay to be a little bit bitchy.

scientiae-carnival

A snapshot of what's on my mind lately

2007-08-22T22:16:00.000-05:00

(Longer than random bullets, but not long enough to warrant separate posts.)

* * * * *
Item #1: CS conferences are too expensive. It's only August and I've already burned through my entire travel budget for this year. Why? Because CS conferences are out-of-control expensive. I'm talking just the registration fees (although the two conferences I went to this summer were in pricey locales, which certainly didn't help the budget). Now, I'm really grateful that my institution does give me travel money each year; that's not the issue. The problem is that if I want to get my work out there, I have to submit conference papers; if I submit conference papers, I have to go present them; but the price structure of CS conferences makes it difficult to attend more than one conference a year. So it's a catch-22. I am now in the position where (a) I have to figure out if there's a way to finagle travel money out of some dean or my department chair so that I can go to GHC this year and (b) I'm screwed if I get another conference paper accepted this fiscal year. Not exactly what I want to spend my time and energy stressing over.

* * * * *
Item #2: Perception is everything. Mr. Jane is one of the most enlightened men I know. However, last week I had to read him the riot act, over time spent on child care. Or, should I say, the lack thereof on his part. His perception was that he was doing a fine job; the reality was that I was basically doing child care 24/7, even on weekends. Lessons learned: him---he's gotta step up to the plate and not wait for me to ask for help (duh); me---be more assertive in letting Mr. Jane know what I need, in terms of time and assistance, and in taking time for myself.

* * * * *
Item #3: Why peer mentoring is important. I get together regularly with a few friend/colleagues to talk about life and work. Ok, mostly life, but the goal is to keep each other on track with our research. These women are currently kicking my butt to get me to submit the journal article that I *still* haven't submitted. Which is just what I need right now. If not for them, I'd probably continue to ignore it and let it languish. Because of their pestering, though, I have recommitted myself to submitting this article ASAP. Hopefully it's in as good shape as I remember before the baby arrived, and I won't need to do too much to it before I can send it off.

Actually, to be honest, if it weren't for this group I would really be tempted to blow off work altogether until I return to work. It's amazing what accountability to others can do for your productivity.

* * * * *
Item #4: The next Scientiae. So the theme for the next Scientiae carnival is "Unleash". I've been thinking about what I want to write about for this carnival. Unfortunately, I'm feeling very "leashed" lately. In particular, I'm sort of feeling trapped by my current situation, that even if I wanted to leave, it would be difficult to do so. My concern? Letters of recommendation. I feel like I'd need at least one from my current institution if I wanted to go elsewhere, but I don't know if I can fully trust those who could write me a letter to write me a letter that could get me another job, if that makes sense. Maybe I'm wrong about this (I hope I am), but it is something I'm thinking about, particularly as the next hiring season starts.

* * * * *
Item #5: Where the hell did the summer go?! Self-explanatory, I hope.

Things they don't tell you about motherhood

2007-08-15T19:52:00.000-05:00

Mr. Jane is putting Baby Jane to bed and doing her pre-bed feeding.

Baby Jane is screaming at the top of her lungs and has been for the last 5-10 minutes.

It is taking every single ounce of willpower I have to not go to her.

It is breaking my heart.

Sigh.

On not fitting in

2007-08-12T20:56:00.000-05:00

Earlier this summer, I went out to dinner with some of our undergrads and some of our faculty. It was a great evening and everyone, students and faculty, had a great time.

At one point during the evening, the talk turned to "who was the biggest high school geek". This is a common icebreaker among techies. The conversation was high-spirited and fun, and I certainly learned a lot about our students as a result.

But it also made me realize one more way in which I don't "fit in", because apparently I was *not* a big geek in high school. At least not by the standards set by this group.

I found that our students (and my colleagues as well) had common high school experiences. Science Olympiad. Math Team. Science Fair. Band (marching, jazz, orchestra). Robotics and engineering competitions. And so on. The students who didn't know each other well previously delighted in their common experiences, and their stories typically triggered "me, too!"'s from around the table. They were in their element. It was refreshing, in a way, because I'm sure that most of them felt like they had to hide that part of themselves from their peers in high school, and now they were among peers who knew of where they came from.

But while this was nice to see, it was also, I admit, a bit uncomfortable for me. Because I was *not* that type of person in high school. I did not have traditionally geeky interests. I don't have the same shared experience with them that my colleagues do. And so while they sat there conversing easily with them about Science Olympiad and the like, I sat there and smiled and felt like a visitor from another planet.

Granted, this was a small group of our majors, and I know that our majors come from all sorts of backgrounds. Perhaps this was a representative sample of our majors; perhaps not. But the experience got me thinking about our majors (and potential majors) that, like me, don't fit the classic "geek" mold. Is this why some of our majors shun department activities and avoid the computer labs? Does this sort of chatter cause some people who are considering majoring in CS to say "no thanks"? How much does "fit" factor in to the decision to major in CS and/or to become involved in the department once deciding to major?

I don't have any answers, but this experience has gotten me thinking, again, about lab culture and department culture, and how I (and we as a department) can make the culture more welcoming for everyone...even the non-geeks among us.

Professional malaise

2007-08-07T21:28:00.000-05:00

(Subtitle: If you've seen my brain, could you please return it to me? Thanks!)

After returning from the last conference, I decided to give myself a little break from work. I originally thought that after a couple of weeks, I'd be reenergized and ready to spend a few hours a week on my work again---mostly research, with a bit of teaching related stuff.

That hasn't happened yet. I'm finding I have zero motivation to get any work done.

I've been thinking about possible causes for this professional malaise, and here are my current theories:

1. It's back-to-school time. The blogosphere, my friends, and my colleagues all have the start of classes on the brain. I'm not teaching this fall. And oddly, I am missing the last-minute scramble and the anticipation of a new set of classes and getting to know a new bunch of students. And this is translating into me not wanting to work, because I feel disconnected from the rhythms of my job.

2. I spend so much time and energy just trying to get through the day, working in "now" mode: Comfort the baby. Feed the baby. Entertain the baby. Clean up that mess. Do Yet Another Load of G*ddammned Laundry. When I do have a free moment, it's hard for my brain to immediately switch to "smart" mode, let alone remember what the hell I was working on a few months ago. It's easier to blow off work and save myself the trouble of thinking. And this is making me feel disconnected from the work that has defined me for so long.

3. I am anxious to return to work in the abstract, but have mixed feelings about returning to my current position (still). (Which reminds me, I should probably finish that series I started a few months ago, "To Stay Or Go", since I only got to Parts 1 and 2. Look for more posts on that in the future.) And this is making me feel disconnected about my place in the world---I don't want to be a stay-at-home parent, I want to continue being a professor, but I'm not sure if I want to be a professor at my current institution, so where does that leave me exactly?

I'm hoping that just sitting down and getting some work done will be enough to get me out of this slump. I know that if I really tried, I could squeeze out a few hours of work this week, and Mr. Jane has already said he'd support me however he could. It's just a matter of commitment, I guess. (But will that help with the disconnected feelings? I'm less sure about that.)

Scientiae #I've-lost-track is up!

2007-08-03T18:48:00.000-05:00

And it's a fabulous one! Check it out here, at twice's place.

Next Scientiae: September 1, hosted by Zuska!

The mom/professional dichotomy

2007-07-30T20:41:00.000-05:00

The inspiration for this post came at lunch one day during the last conference I attended. I was sitting with a group of people I hadn't met previously (as I like to do at conferences), making the sort of small talk you do at conferences with people you don't yet know. One man at the table mentioned that he and his wife had just had a baby. And I did what I suspect many career women with kids sometimes do:

I hesitated.

I ended up sharing that I, too, had just had a baby, but I struggled with whether or not to speak up. Would I blow all my carefully cultivated professional capital if those (mostly men) seated at the table knew that I was a mom? And why, in 2007, is it that I'm sitting here worrying about this question when I am fairly sure that the man with the new baby didn't even think twice about sharing that factoid about himself?

After this incident, I thought about my conference experience this time around (and the one last month), and how it was different from the conferences I've attended in the past, pre-motherhood. There are the obvious things, like skipping out on some (most) of the sessions and some (most) of the social events, mainly because of the logistics of baby care and breastfeeding. But there are the less obvious things too, like where my mind is during sessions. The former has more obvious repercussions: one of the reasons I go to conferences is to network, and networking is difficult when your opportunities to do so are limited by the fact that you have to run up to the room to breastfeed during the break instead of grabbing coffee, or that you skipped the big dinner where all the real conversation happens. But the latter also affects the conference experience. There were a few sessions between the last two conferences where I was able to "forget" about the other half of my life, motherhood, and just concentrate on the papers and speakers. But most of the time, I found myself worrying about how Baby Jane was doing, when I'd be able to sneak away and pump, whether or not I should run up and check on her during the next break or sneak out during the session itself. Having to deal with both roles was exhausting---and I'm sure this is nothing compared to what I'll be dealing with when Baby Jane is older and I'm working full-time.

I wondered, and still do, how the experience is different for men who have children. How often do they think about them during the conference? If they bring them along to the conference, do they skip sessions and events to take care of them? Are they as exhausted as I was, switching back and forth between roles, or do they do a much better job of concentrating on one role at a time? I wish I could have had the opportunity to ask that man sitting at my table some of those questions, but of course I'd feel funny doing so, since we'd just met, after all.

And this got me thinking, closer to home, about how differently Mr. Jane and I deal with all of the stresses related to parenting a new baby. We both try to give each other "me time", but I think Mr. Jane does a much better job of taking advantage of that "me time". He'll leave the house, get away, and thoroughly enjoy himself. I struggle mightily. Mainly because I don't get much "me time", so when I do get an hour or a couple of hours, I'm at a loss as to how I "should" spend it. Do I try and get some work done? Exercise? Sleep? Do something fun? Clean? Often I won't end up doing anything, and then kicking myself about it later. Or if I do leave the house, I find it's very hard to completely shut the "mom" side of my brain off, and I spend a lot of that time thinking about Baby Jane or about what I need to do when I return home. Again, this is exhausting and, of course, not healthy.

So this, apparently, is my introduction into what I know will be a life-long struggle in figuring out how to balance career, parenthood, and life. In a sense, I'm glad I had the experience early on of going to conferences with the baby, because it's gotten me thinking about things I should be thinking about, especially before I return to work.

scientiae-carnival

I'm supposed to be the adult here, I guess

2007-07-24T21:33:00.000-05:00

95% of the time, I enjoy being a mom. Sure, it's challenging, and things rarely go smoothly, but I'm learning to accept the chaos and even enjoy it, because I realize that Baby Jane will only be a baby for a brief time.

The other 5% of the time, I really want to run away from home.

(Maybe it's closer to 90/10. Hmmm. Will have to think about this some more.)

Tonight fell into that 5% category. Mr. Jane was out, and that meant that bedtime duties fell solely to me tonight. Not usually a problem, since we have a pretty good routine established, and even though she's at her crankiest at bedtime, it's really short-lived, and she goes to sleep fairly quickly. But tonight was Bath Night. Now, Baby Jane looooves the bath, *except* when I'm the one giving it to her. When it's just me giving her the bath, she cries. A lot. It doesn't matter how warm or cold the water is, how quickly I try to get her washed and out of there, or how upbeat and happy I act while she's in the tub, she's unhappy with the process. Tonight, she not only cried, she SCREAMED. The whole time, from the moment I lowered her into the tub until well after she was dried off and in her pajamas, she screamed at the top of her lungs. Thank god the A/C was on so the neighbors couldn't hear.

And I totally lost it. I was so frustrated that I just started sobbing. And once I started, I couldn't stop.

The worst part was that Baby Jane had, unbeknownst to me, calmed herself down just at about the time my meltdown started...and once she saw me crying my head off, she joined in!

Ah, the joys of motherhood....

Back from trip #2

2007-07-19T20:31:00.000-05:00

Another conference successfully survived! We're back from the second trip of the summer, and thankfully this should be the last trip, at least for the next month or so. The conference went well, and once again traveling with Baby Jane went very well, so all in all a successful trip! I have some posts about the conference and about motherhood in mind that I hope to get up in the next few days, and apparently I've been named a Rockin' Girl Blogger (thanks, addy n!) so I'll have to see what that's all about and probably post on that, but since I'm exhausted and brain-dead right now, I'll just post some random observations about the trip.

I am so proud of how well Baby Jane does on airplanes. The biggest compliment: Towards the end of our first flight, someone passing by said to us "Oh, what a cute baby!" and the guy sitting directly in front of me turned around in shock. He had no idea there was a baby sitting behind him. Sadly, I fear this will not be true forever.

I was so impressed that the vast majority of conference attendees actually listened to the session talks...until I discovered that there was no wireless access in the conference rooms. But no matter what the reason, I do think the level of questions and discussion after each talk was much better as a result.

I survived the day alone with Baby Jane. Unfortunately, the only times she was truly cranky was when I was trying to eat. Nothing like ordering a lunch or breakfast that you ultimately only eat a few bites of! (I guess that's one way to lose all that baby weight, though.)

My talk went extremely well again. But I realized that I don't get nervous before talks anymore. I actually think this is a problem: I think I actually do better when I'm nervous. I may post more on this.

I'm really struggling with the whole dichotomy between being a mom and being a professional. At some points during the conference, I was able to be away from Baby Jane and focus on being a computer scientist. At other times, I found it harder to do so. I also wonder if men feel the same struggle. This is definitely going to be expanded into its own post.

There are many things I enjoy about being a mom, but one thing I miss from my former life is being able to go out to dinner. Dinnertime is Baby Jane's fussy time, so we ate a lot of takeout after she fell asleep. I know this phase is short-lived, but still, I long to eat in good restaurants again!

Update on Week from Hell

2007-07-13T21:06:00.000-05:00

Progress has been made!

Submitted annual report.

Dealt with time-sensitive issue.

Found semi-solution to the breast milk issue.

Found one pair of work pants and 2 (!) pairs of jeans in my closet that fit again. Huzzah!

Bought appropriate button-down shirts for conference.

Am halfway through packing.

Responded to what felt like 50 emails that I've been ignoring.

Haven't finished the slides yet, but I'm close. I'm having a real hard time figuring out how to best present the results---the way they're presented in the paper does not translate well to a research talk. I've decided that completely finishing them is not necessary, since I'll have a bit of time to finish them before the conference.

Stuff I still have to do:

Backup my laptop. I haven't done this in ages.

See if laptop will fit into diaper bag, to cut down on carry-on items.

Finish packing.

Make 5 more slides (ugh, ugh, ugh!).

Quit reading blogs and watching movies and get back to work!

I'll try to post while I'm away, but posting may be light, depending on the wireless situation at the hotel and conference.

The week from hell

2007-07-11T21:46:00.001-05:00

I love to travel and I love going to conferences, but it always seems as though my life gets more...interesting...the week before I have to leave. Add a baby into the mix and watch the fun ensue.

So here is what I need to get done before I leave for the next conference:

Finish the slides for my talk.

Submit my annual report.

Figure out if any of my decent work pants fit me yet.

Go shopping for a couple of button-down shirts and, depending on the previous bullet, pants, so that I look presentable and not schlumpy for the conference.

Pack (for me and for the baby).

Figure out how much expressed breast milk one can carry on a plane, and figure out how to keep it cold (enough) in transit, just in case pumping does not go well while we're in Conference City.

And here's what's happened so far this week:

Toilet overflows at 4am a few days ago. I mean seriously overflows.

Simultaneously, Baby Jane pees all over herself and me while I'm trying to feed her. Apparently in my sleep-deprived haze, I failed to put her diaper on correctly.

Much swearing and yelling ensues as a result of the two previous bullets. Nobody gets much sleep.

I get about 2/3 of my slides done, at least in a rough-draft sense. One positive thing!

I start my annual report. I make the mistake of starting my annual report on a day in which Baby Jane decides she must be cranky for most of the day and that she must also snack every hour and a half. And did I mention that I only got 4 hours sleep the night before? I get two sentences written.

I find out that I have to deal with a time-sensitive issue before I leave town. Not a huge deal, but given everything else I have to deal with this week, ...

I go to a meeting which takes 3 times as long as I think it will, and accomplishes about a third of what it should have accomplished. At least the baby sleeps through the whole thing.

We decide that this week is the perfect time to institute a regular bedtime for Baby Jane and to move her to her own room/crib. (This actually has gone rather well, considering. But it's a bit time-consuming.)

We find out that Mr. Jane has to go to Nearby City while we're in Conference City, for business, on one of the days we're there. We dodge the "oh sh*t, we need child care!" bullet when I realize that I can skip the conference that day. However, this means that it will be just me and Baby Jane for an entire day, which is a first. I'm a bit panicked by this.

I am so exhausted. Even though I'm looking forward to the trip and to presenting my paper, part of me can't wait until this trip is over. At least then we'll have some relative calm (and no more pressing deadlines!) for the rest of the summer.

Back from trip #1

2007-07-05T11:42:00.000-05:00

So the first big post-baby conference trip/trip with Baby Jane went very well. Aside from some rough times the first couple of nights adjusting to the time change, Baby Jane traveled like a champ (and charmed everyone she came into contact with). We were lucky to be in a place that was easy to navigate with the stroller and generally easy to get around, so that was really helpful. The conference presentation went extremely well, too (especially given that I got maybe 2 hours sleep the night before the talk); there was a lot of interest in the topic, and I had some great conversations about my work afterwards. All in all, I'm really glad I went, and now that I've done one trip with the baby, I feel more confident about traveling with her in general.

Some random observations and notes from the trip:
* This was probably the most expensive conference that I have attended. At the same time, I attended less of the sessions and events of this conference than I have of any other conference. The money spent vs. time spent ratio is ridiculously high.

* Note to session chairs at conferences: If you are going to do speaker bios, do them for *all* speakers in the session, not just the ones you already know! Or don't do any at all. It is unfair and unprofessional to do otherwise. (Our session chair had plenty of time to get bios from us before the session started, but chose not to. Can you tell I was annoyed?)

* The further I travel from home, the more likely I am to run into former colleagues.

* Weirdest social interaction: The obviously drunk guy who introduced himself to me and then proceeded to tell me why my dissertation topic/field was "crap". Without knowing that, in fact, the topic/field he was dissing was my dissertation topic/field. (Low social skills + copious amounts of alcohol = uncomfortable social interactions for the more normal among us.)

* Second weirdest social interaction: Running into a guy who interviewed me for a job several years ago. We knew each other through another contact, and I wasn't 100% sure that he remembered that I interviewed for a position at his place of employment, so I just said "oh yeah, we know each other through Mary" rather than saying "oh yeah, you interviewed me for a job". Plus I thought the latter would be a bit weird. But it was a bit awkward for me.

* In addition to the incident above, I had several other "six-degrees-of-separation" moments at the conference. These weird connection thingies happen to me quite often. It's bizarre.

* Apparently Baby Jane is scared of the dark. Who knew?? We became very good at sleeping with the lights on during this trip.

* To all the strangers who did little things to help us out---opening or holding doors, helping us lift the stroller up stairs, making a fuss over the baby, entertaining the baby on the plane, smiling and giving us sympathetic looks while the baby was fussy---thank you. You have restored my faith in humanity.

Random Bullets of Aaaaarrrrgh!!

2007-06-21T23:33:00.000-05:00

I have to cut one more slide from my presentation. I have no idea which one to cut, especially since I feel like my presentation is already pretty bare-bones. I need to finish this tonight, too. Ugh.

Have I mentioned how much I hate, hate, HATE making slides?

The making of slides, plus Baby Jane being in a cranky mood all day and all evening, plus the sleep deprivation, has put me in a very foul mood.

I am more worried about getting through security with a baby, a stroller, and assorted carry-on items, than I am about how we're all going to get from the airport to the hotel in a strange city that neither Mr. Jane nor I has ever visited.

For some reason, I felt the need to update my CV and publications list on my web page, since I'm guessing people from the conference might look me up. Wow, it's been over a year since I updated either. I wish I had done this, oh, four months ago when I first thought of it rather than waiting until the last minute.

I really hope I can fit everything for me and the baby in one suitcase. Preferably a smallish one.

My must-do list is impossibly long. Something's gotta give. (Besides blogging, that is.) Hopefully that something is not my sanity.

And on that note, blogging will resume after I return, in early July. (Unless I find the time and energy to post from Secret Conference Location.) Have a great week, everyone!

Panic time!

2007-06-19T09:40:00.000-05:00

I'm leaving for a conference + mini-vacation at the end of the week. Travelling for me always induces a state of panic that sets in a few days before departure. I think this is because deep down I am somewhat of a control freak, and with travel there are all these things over which you have limited control at best. So I worry about various things, and I don't really relax until I've gone through security at the airport (for flying trips) or we're well underway in the car (for road trips). Plus, it always seems like the week before a trip is just a crazy busy week---deadlines happen, bizarre administrative requests come up, etc. And the sleep deprivation isn't helping matters at all.

This week, for example, before I leave, I have to finish writing my talk (and practice it, to make sure it's not too long, etc.), finish revisions on a paper and send it off, write and incorporate author bios for all coauthors on said paper, and make travel arrangements for the next conference. I also have to try on every single outfit in my closet to find enough clothes to pack for this trip that fit and, dare I hope, flatter. (Ideally, these will be non-maternity clothes, but I fear that this will not be the case. Sigh.) Oh, and that look professional enough for conference-wear. And that fit the climate of this particular locale. I really should get my hair cut, since it's in dire need of a cut, but I doubt this will happen. (Anyone want to come over and cut my hair for me? Or maybe tackle some of these revisions? Make a slide or two?)

And, since I'm travelling with a young infant, I have to worry about what to pack for her, buy diapers and wipes, determine what stuff needs to be schlepped (do we need the car seat? what about the breast pump?), and figure out what we can carry on and what needs to be checked. Then there is the worrying about the travelling itself: will she be fussy on the plane? what if she doesn't want to nurse on take-off and landing? what if she also rejects the pacifier? how badly will the time-zone change throw her off? will she (and we) survive the loooong flights?

I will be so happy when we arrive at our destination. Until then, I'll probably continue to be a bit frantic.

Scientiae #8 is up!

2007-06-16T16:00:00.000-05:00

Check it out at Fairer Science. As usual, lots of excellent posts!

Motherhood, Month 2: The Unschedule Continues

2007-06-15T18:58:00.000-05:00

We're into Month 2 of Life with Baby Jane, and I'm starting to realize all of those cliches about parenting being the most rewarding and most challenging thing you'll ever do are, in fact, true. Baby Jane is a tremendous joy. I love spending time with her (even if our conversations are mostly one-way at this point), and watching how quickly she grows and changes is truly amazing. Yet there are times---when she's been crying inconsolably for what feels like hours, or when she's going through a growth spurt and it seems like I've spent my entire day feeding her (like today)---that I contemplate running away from home and forgetting to leave a forwarding address. Oddly, though, I'm finding that I don't miss my "old life" as much as I'd thought I would. (Talk to me in a month or two and I might have a different answer.)

Well, that's not entirely true. There are some days when I think back fondly on the freedom I used to have to go where I wanted, when I wanted, without checking in with anyone. Now, I rarely leave the house without Baby Jane, and I have to think of ten thousand things (when did she last eat? will I have to feed her while we're out? is there a suitable place to feed her? is the diaper bag packed with all the necessary stuff? do I need to take the stroller, or the front carrier?). Or, if I do leave the house without her, I have to worry about how long I'm gone, if I'll need to pump while I'm out, if there's enough milk in the freezer for her, etc. It's amazing how many logistical questions are tied up in the whole breastfeeding thing.

The "unschedule" largely continues, although at least there are some "trends" in the unschedule so that it's not entirely random. For instance, we can mostly predict her feeding times at this point, when she'll wake up at night, and when she'll be fussy. But we still can't predict when she'll be awake during the day, which makes it hard for me to plan on when I'll be able to squeeze in some work. (Maybe that's part of the reason that my attention span for work stuff is about 20 minutes at this point. Not really conducive to getting stuff done.) And we've only had a handful of nights where both Mr. Jane and I ate dinner at the same time; usually one of us eats while the other paces around with Baby Jane (see "fussy period" above).

The day-to-day stuff, though...that's the really neat part, watching her develop. She smiles intermittently. She has an elaborate wake-up routine. She has all these little vocalizations---little hums is the best way to describe them. She grasps at things. She is beginning to suck on her fingers to soothe herself, although at this point she mostly tries to shove all of her fingers into her mouth at once (the "more is better" philosophy?). She sometimes tracks objects and follows voices. And the faces, especially when she's sleeping, are hysterical. Minor things, you could say, yet I'm totally fascinated by them, because every day there's something new and different, and it's all contributing to the formation of this little girl, my little girl.

Some days, it still feels like I'm babysitting someone else's child, like it still hasn't fully sunk in that I'm a parent and this is my kid. Some days, Mr. Jane and I have entire conversations about poop. Some days, it's a victory if I get to brush my teeth before noon, or get a shower in. Some days, I wonder if I will ever get to see a movie in the theaters again.

But I wouldn't trade this experience for anything.

Life Lessons #134

2007-06-10T16:51:00.000-05:00

It is very, very hard to get back into the mindset of doing Real, Actual Work when you haven't done any work of any sort for over a month.

(With two immovable deadlines coming up very soon, I'd better find my productive groove quickly!!)

Scientiae #7 is up!

2007-06-01T14:37:00.000-05:00

Another most excellent version of Scientiae is up at FemaleCSGradStudent's place. Go read it---go on, it's Friday, you know you're not doing any real work at this point! Lots of great stuff as usual, and very creatively presented too.

When the professional and personal collide

2007-06-01T14:04:00.001-05:00

Back in the day, when parenthood was still an abstract concept, I looked forward to the arrival of Hypothetical Future Child as a time where I could take a nice little hiatus from my professional life. I thought that of course it would be no big deal to put my research and teaching and everything else on hold for a few months and concentrate on Hypothetical Future Child.

Well, now Hypothetical Future Child is not hypothetical anymore, and ironically, it seems that now is the time that my career has decided to really take off.

Within the next couple of months, I will be presenting my work at two significant conferences. Turnaround times on papers are getting shorter and shorter, which means that either I'm a much better writer now or that my ideas are really at the mature stage and that the field is really interested in them. (Probably a bit of both.) I've received a lot of good professional news just in the weeks since Baby Jane arrived. And I'm at the stage where I could get a journal paper out, an entirely new one, by the end of the summer, based on these conference papers and talks. Things are coming together rapidly and opportunities abound: a perfect storm of career productivity.

So much for that break from my career, huh?

So now I find myself with an interesting dilemma. Part of me wants to capitalize on this career momentum while I can, because who knows how long it will last? And it won't be long before I go up for tenure, so sustaining this momentum is very important. But how much can I conceivably get done with a very young infant? And how true do I want to be to my original plan to take some time off and *enjoy* this time as a mother and not as a professor? Where should the balance be?

At least I now have something new and concrete to think about during all those middle-of-the-night feedings. It should be an interesting couple of weeks while I try to figure this all out.

scientiae-carnival

Reflections on the first few weeks of motherhood

2007-05-29T13:13:00.000-05:00

Hello, blogosphere! It has been weird taking a few week's hiatus from blogging. I felt like something was missing from my life, as odd as that may sound. Last week I started catching up on everyone else's blogs, and this week I feel like I'm ready to start blogging, at least occasionally, again. We'll see how it goes.

I wanted to mark my return to blogging by talking a bit about the adjustment to motherhood. In many ways, I think I was prepared for the adjustment, and in some ways, the adjustment was a bit easier than I expected. The reason it's been a bit easier is that Baby Jane is, for the most part, an easy baby. Except for a fussy period every evening, she is good-natured, sleeps like a champ (and in 3-hour chunks at night---which, trust me, makes all the difference in the WORLD), and is just delightful. Part of the easiness, too, is that Mr. Jane and I are both fairly laid-back about the whole parenting thing. We're both taking things in stride, sharing the responsibilities (and waking up at odd hours), laughing at ourselves when things go awry, and just trying to go with the flow. And enjoying every single minute of it. (OK, maybe not the minutes where Baby Jane is screaming her head off for no apparent reason, but the rest of them, sure.)

The hardest part of the adjustment, and the part I really didn't expect, was going from somewhat highly-structured days to completely unstructured days. Everything, really, is at the whim and on the timetable of Baby Jane. And while we're getting better at figuring out her "schedule", such as it is, every day is different from the last. Sometimes she's awake in the morning, sometime not until the afternoon. Sometimes she likes the front carrier, sometimes she'll wail inconsolably while in it. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes to feed her, other times an hour. It's so unpredictable, and for someone with control freak tendencies, it's been a tough adjustment. But I'm getting used to it, and even starting to embrace it.

Other random notes:

* Breastfeeding is HARD at first! It's definitely more of a learned skill. Why don't they tell you these things up front?? Why do all the ads and literature make it seem like the most natural thing in the world?? Liars.

* The first week was BRUTAL in terms of sleep deprivation. I'd never felt so tired in my life. Now, it's not so bad. Either that, or my body is just used to the lack of sleep and it feels normal.... Anyway, naps are my salvation.

* I find that I need to get out of the house every day. Otherwise, I feel like climbing the walls. Luckily, Baby Jane is fairly portable and enjoys being out and about. (And I finally feel comfortable enough breastfeeding in public that I can be out for longer periods of time.)

* I am dying to begin exercising again (not until the 6-week checkup, alas). I do walk every day, and it's been great for my physical and mental well-being.

And on that note, someone has just woken up from her nap, so it's back to the unschedule for me....

Posting is going to be non-existent for a while...

2007-05-09T18:14:00.000-05:00

Hint: See the "Projects in Progress" sidebar for details.

(And since I know you're wondering: I won't have to change the pseudonym currently attached to the, um, project.)

I hope to be back in a few weeks, with at least occasional posting. (And thanks to everyone who commented on the last post---I had a chance to read them and they are great. I wish I had time to respond!)

To stay or go, Part 2: Institution and department

2007-05-03T22:27:00.000-05:00

In my last post in this series, I set out a series of three questions that I've identified as central to deciding whether I should stick things out until tenure or go look for greener pastures. I actually started writing this post thinking I'd address the first question, but I seem to be stuck. Mainly, I think, because a lot of "good day" vs. "bad day" is tied to the second question, which is "how much of the good/bad is tied to the institution/department, and how much is tied to the whole idea of what makes an "assistant professor?". So I'm going to skip to the second question, and mainly deal with the first part of that.

In other words, what are the good and bad things about my institution and my department?

I'll start with my institution, because this is where I find many things to like. My institution treats its faculty well---there is a lot of support for various forms of development, travel, special projects, etc. It has good resources. Smart people. Some good people in the administration, even. :) The service requirements are there, but not stifling. I've made lots of great friends here, and there's a cohort of strong junior faculty women (which I think scares some of the senior faculty a bit, to be honest). The students are by and large one of the better parts of this job, too---for the most part, smart and engaged and neat people. I've been incredibly lucky to only have a few "problem students" so far (of course, those problem students were *real* problems...but on balance, I think it's been fine).

What I don't especially like about the institution: the pace of change (but I suspect this is true most places); the gender balance, especially in positions of power (see previous note); the "strong department" structure, which can be dangerous; the amount of "homerism"---"this place is so great, why would we ever want to change a thing?". I'm not sure how prevalent that last one is in other places, but I feel like it's especially pronounced here, and in weird ways.

OK, now on to the department side. I'll start with the good stuff. As much as I complain about them, I personally really like my colleagues. We do lunch and chat in the hallways and share resources and some of us are friends outside of work. Again, good resources and pretty decent support if there's something you really want to do or try. The senior faculty do a pretty decent job protecting junior faculty from overcommitment---my chair, for example, really went to bat for me to protect my time during sabbatical. There's a lot of faculty interest and energy put into improving the community among our undergrad majors, and I can see that starting to pay off. On good days, it's a great place to work.

Now for the bad stuff. Well, there's the whole I-don't-trust-the-senior-faculty that's a direct result of my third year review. I still don't trust that they will give me the feedback or support that I will need as I try to earn tenure here. (I still don't trust them, because I still don't see them doing those things, even after lengthy conversations with them and with much prodding on my part.) This is a biggie, unfortunately, especially given the "strong department" structure we have here. I feel like my department prizes getting along over all else, and as a result disagreements are seen as Bad and there's a bit too much "groupthink" that occurs as a result, at the expense of honest discussion. Alternate opinions are viewed as suspect---not always, but often---which is not good, because I'm often the one with the alternate opinion. Conflict is avoided at all costs, even when doing so is detrimental to one of us or the department as a whole. And I often feel like I'm not listened to or supported by my department in general, like my ideas are not taken seriously (unless suggested by someone else) or are immediately discounted. I'd say that about 70% of my bad days are a direct result of an encounter with one or more members of my department.

So that's kind of the landscape in which I'm working right now. I've had a pretty good sense for most of my time here about what the good and bad things are (and the fact that the good things seem to be more skewed towards institutional things and the bad towards department things), but as I mentioned in my first post, figuring out the balance of good and bad is tricky. That will be the subject of a future post...probably the one after next, since in the next post I think I'll address the whole role-of-junior-faculty aspect of this thought process.

scientiae-carnival

Scientiae #5 is up!

2007-05-01T23:00:00.000-05:00

Go check it out at Clarity. As usual, lots of great and thought-provoking stuff.

Next Scientiae is at ScienceWoman's on May 15.

To stay or go, Part 1: Framing the issues

2007-04-30T10:18:00.000-05:00

One of the things I was hoping for as part of my sabbatical was to gain a clearer perspective on whether I wanted to stay here and try to get tenure, or cut my losses and leave for another academic position. It's hard to think when you're completely frazzled, as I have been pre-sabbatical, so I was hoping that the less-frenzied time of sabbatical would bring some clarity and focus.

Sadly, I find myself more confused than ever, and less sure what to do.

The "problem", if you can call it that, is that I don't overwhelmingly hate my job. If I did, the decision would be easy. There are certainly days that I hate my job and fantasize about resigning, where the despair is so deep that I can't see my way out of it. But there are things that I love about my job, too, and days where I do literally pinch myself and dance around my office (with my door closed, of course) because I love my job so much.

There are a few central questions that I find myself coming back to again and again:

1. Do the bad days outweigh the good days, and by how much?
2. How much of the love/hate has to do with the institution/department, and how much with the general parameters of a job as "assistant professor"?
3. Would things really be better somewhere else, or would I feel this way pretty much anywhere? (In other words, do the majority of the problems come from individual institutions or the culture of the field?)

It turns out that these are hard questions to answer.

When I started this post, I thought that it would be a self-contained post. But as I'm writing this, I'm beginning to see that this is definitely a larger topic than a one-shot post warrants. So over the next several days, I'll be addressing my thought process, framed by the questions above, around this issue (for my personal circumstance). Partly to help put my own thoughts into perspective, and partly because I think this is something that women and underrepresented minorities in STEM fields deal with frequently. You know, the whole "fit" thing. So I do hope that those of you who have thought about this, recently or otherwise, will chime in in the comments with your stories and how you gained clarity or acceptance or whatever---how you made peace with your own choices on whether to stay or go.

One last thought: I keep coming back to the analogy of a bad relationship when thinking about my current circumstance. Sometimes when you find yourself in a bad relationship, you go into denial, thinking that things really aren't that bad and that if you just do X, Y, or Z then things will improve. You focus on the good and gloss over the bad. Part of my struggle to think about my situation clearly is that I really still can't tell if I'm in a bad relationship here or not, or if this is par for the course. (And this is where this whole blogging community really helps: the whole sharing of stories is one way to help us figure out whether our circumstances are normal or outliers.)

scientiae-carnival

Same campus, different planets

2007-04-29T21:03:00.000-05:00

Scene 1: On campus, I run into a male colleague from another department that I haven't seen in months. Small talk ensues.

Jane: Oh, congrats on getting tenure!

Colleague: Thanks! You know, the process was really great overall. Very transparent, you know. My department let me know what was going on every step of the way, ... [prolonged gushing ensues about what an uplifting experience the tenure process was for this person and the joys of working in this particular department]

Colleague stops in mid-sentence after noting the look---of horror? disbelief? despair?---on Jane's face. (Jane has many good qualities; a poker face is not one of them.)

Colleague: [stammering] Um, of course, every department is different and such...and I'm incredibly lucky, I guess... [mumble mumble]

***
Scene 2: On campus again, at lunch with colleagues from various departments.

Male Colleague #1: [Launches into story about a female colleague's recent bad experience with a disgruntled student who didn't like the grade he received in her class.] ... And of course, the student immediately blamed the bad grade on Female Colleague's teaching.

Jane: Oh, how terrible! Sounds a lot like my experience with Student From Hell a while ago.

MC #1: Yeah. You know, in all my years of teaching, I've never had a student call my teaching into question over a bad grade. Or anything else, for that matter.

Jane: It's not fun when it happens.

MC #1: Not to mention not fair! You know, it really opened my eyes.

Male Colleague #2: Oh, that's happened to me before, too.

Everyone turns to face MC #2.

Jane: It has?

MC #2: Sure! I've had plenty of students ask me to regrade things.

Jane stares at MC #2 incredulously. She wonders if it's possible to anonymously send him this.

MC #1: Er...we're really talking about something completely different here, you know.

MC #2: [Blissfully unaware, launches into a story about regrading, completely missing the point.]

***
Sometimes I wonder what color the sky is on the planet on which my male colleagues live. And if their campus planet has better food in the vending machines.

Professional nesting

2007-04-23T16:19:00.000-05:00

It occurred to me today that perhaps now is not the best time to let days lapse without posting, lest everyone thinks I've gone into labor or something. (I haven't; I'm still here and still sans baby.) I've just been really immersing myself in work lately, that and running around getting all the last-minute baby stuff done. Both have been big time sucks.

Everyone keeps asking me if I've felt the "nesting instinct" yet. (Basically, the urge to clean everything in sight and get everything organized for the baby's arrival.) I *have* experienced the nesting instinct, but for me, it's been completely about my professional life.

So what does "professional nesting" look like? It's finishing up projects that have been languishing. Writing up long-forgotten-about results. Getting various pieces of research organized into various conference and journal papers. Revisiting analyses and experiments that some of my past students did but never finished, either because of time constraints or because at the time we thought we'd reached a dead end. (In the latter case, some of them turned out to not be dead ends, as later work showed.) Getting new projects at least sketched out, so that if I have to wait 3-6 months before I can start them, I'll at least have some idea of what I was thinking and what I want to do. Getting lots of inspirations for papers and trying to get those outlined (see previous sentence).

I think I've had this professional nesting instinct because I really don't know what is going to happen when the baby arrives. I have no idea when, realistically, I'll have the time and energy to start picking up a little bit of work again, because I'll be the primary caregiver for a while. In a sense, I'm hedging my bets, preparing for the worst-case scenario, which is that months will go by before I do any sort of substantive research work again. So I'm trying to finish up as much as I can. At the same time, I'm setting things up so that, whenever I do return to work, I can hit the ground running and pick up where I left off, hopefully.

And to me, right now, that's much more important and interesting than scrubbing my house.

One monkey off my back....

2007-04-18T14:20:00.000-05:00

I finally got to update my "projects in progress". Conference Paper #1 is out for review and out of my psyche, at least until the reviews come back. Woo hoo!

The other monkey on my back, the journal article, will be going out next week no matter what.* And then I'll feel like I can relax a bit, because everything else I'm working on is still in the relatively early stages. (With the possible exception of Conference Paper #2---I may try to meet a relatively-soon deadline, just to get it out there.)

But for now, I'm celebrating by taking the afternoon off.

*Well, ok, the one exception will be if Baby Jane arrives before then. In that case, all bets are off.

Tragedy

2007-04-16T14:23:00.000-05:00

My heart and thoughts go out to the Virginia Tech community today.

Horrible, horrible, horrible.

Scientiae Carnival #4: Spring Cleaning Edition

2007-04-16T12:55:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone, and welcome to Scientiae The Fourth: Spring Cleaning Edition! Ironically, before we could get this out we had to do some spring cleaning of our own at Scientiae, as Blogger had classified the Scientiae blog as spam for some odd reason. But, the good Scientiae name is now cleared, and we can proceed with the good stuff!

Cleaning up cyberspace (of the bullies and jerks)

The big buzz around the blogosphere continues to be the saga of Kathy Sierra and the horrible, horrible cyberbullying she's had to endure. People continue to share stories, their own and others', about being harrassed in cyberspace. tekanji at Shrub.com posts on harrassment and silencing in gaming communities. FeministSF has a thoughtful and powerful response.

One result of this whole situation has been a call for a Blogger Code of Conduct, part of which questions whether anonymity/pseudonymity are leading to the whole toxic culture online. Charlieanders at She's Such a Geek and Bitch, Ph.D. both respond with their takes on why anonymity/psedonymity is necessary, particularly for women to be able to tell their stories online.

Finally, Chris Clarke at Pandagon has some helpful advice for those (particularly men) participating in the larger discussion: how not to be an asshole.

Cleaning up the FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) Communities

There are an appallingly small number of women developers of free and open source software---only 1.5%. Liz Henry and She's Such a Geek discuss a talk given by Angela Byron about the experience of women as FOSS developers. (Liz's post has a link to Angela's slides, too.) Clancy at CultureCat has a long and very informative post on gender and open source (with good background on what FOSS is, for those not familiar with the term or the surrounding culture). Mairin, an open source developer and co-founder of GNOME Women, has a thoughtful response from the trenches.

Reflections and Introspections on STEM Careers

Spring cleaning often means reflecting on where we are in our careers and where we want to be. Lots of good stuff in this category, from women scientists at all stages of the pipeline.

Amelie starts us off with her reflections on her PhD program, one year in. Emma posts on how she discovered that the teaching life was not for her, the very real danger of burnout as a new professor, and how she's starting to find more peace on her current career path as a post-doc.

Motherhood and career is on the minds of a few of us as well. ScienceWoman interviews herself, illuminating her dual challenges as new post-doc and new mom. I've also caught the introspection bug, reflecting on impending motherhood, sabbatical productivity, and how I feel about my department. Geeky Mom talks about why she works, the fulfillment she gets from her job and career, and how she and her family have dealt with the family/career balance over the years.

Annual review time is here for many of us. Female Science Professor shares some of her frustrations with the process, which is often more political than we'd like to admit. (Be sure to stop over and congratulate Female Science Professor on her teaching award!)

Zuska presents us with Part 3 in her Life as a Leak series. In this installment, she addresses the question of whether you can call yourself a scientist if you are not actively "doing" science in a research lab---in other words, what makes us scientists, exactly? (And if you're not following Zuska's "online course" on the Joy of Science, you should be! The current discussions revolve around women's access to science, passionate reason and pseudo-passion, and the experiences of international women. Reading summaries are here.)

Finally, Dr. Rosie Redfield, a microbiology professor at the University of British Columbia, and her research group blog about their research. Neat stuff! A great look into the daily lives of women doing science.

Cleaning up perceptions of female ability

Jenny F. Scientist at A Natural Scientist presents us with her lab's latest edition of Sexist Ninny Bingo. In this round: pregnancy, maternity leave, and the "discrimination" against men in the job market. tekanji presents us with Geek Girl Stereotype Bingo, complete with bingo card! You, too, can play along at home, during your next faculty meeting/department meeting/group meeting. Hours of fun!

If your blood pressure hasn't risen yet, my readers respond to the question "what's the dumbest thing someone has said to you recently?"

In the News

Pat at Fairer Science has an update on the Discovery Channel's casting call for a (male) host for a new engineering series. Turns out women are welcome to apply, too. (Gee, how darned refreshing!)

Pat also passes along a call for writers from The WIP. From WIP's site: "The Women’s International Perspective, The WIP, is a comprehensive news website of women contributors that reports world news, opinion, and commentary. Our mission is to provide quality news from the unique perspectives of women that is accessible worldwide and free to our readers." They are especially interested in improving their science and technology coverage.

The big finale: Logo submissions!

The call for Scientiae logos went out, and readers responded! Check out the submissions from FemaleCSGradStudent
and Jokerine. We should probably have a poll for this at some point, but for now, please feel free to leave your logo comments in the comments.

Some final housekeeping: Acknowledgements and the next Scientiae

Special thanks to John Dupuis, Propter Doc, and Rosa Carson for nominating posts for this carnival. And thanks to all of you for continuing to post such thoughtful reflections on gender and race issues in STEM!

The next Scientiae is scheduled for May 1, at Clarity. As always, information on how to submit posts is here. Happy posting, and happy Monday to all!

Reminder: Scientiae deadline approaching!

2007-04-11T22:12:00.000-05:00

UPDATE: Our problems with Blogger have been fixed, finally! Because of the delay, I will be accepting submissions until Sunday morning, the 15th. Thanks for your patience!

Just a friendly reminder that the deadline for submitting posts for the next Scientiae carnival (Spring Cleaning Edition) is rapidly approaching! The deadline is Friday the 13th (although, to be honest, I'm going to start compiling this on Saturday afternoon, so if you get them to me by Saturday morning you should be fine). Thanks to everyone that's submitted posts already; please keep tagging your own posts (and emailing their links)! You can also nominate posts by email, too. The email address is scientiaecarnival [a] gmail [dt] com.

Here's the call for posts, and instructions for tagging and submitting posts. Also, here are instructions for submitting logo ideas (and thanks to those of you who've submitted logos already---good stuff!).

Happy posting!

Introspection time

2007-04-11T21:43:00.000-05:00

I've been in sort of a weird mood lately. I've always done a fair amount of self-reflection, but lately I seem to have taken it to a whole new level. I've been super-introspective, almost to the point of withdrawing---from posting here, from keeping in touch with people, etc. Not that I've exactly become a hermit, and I haven't completely withdrawn or anything crazy like that, but lately I've really just wanted to spend time alone, thinking.

Part of this, I think, is mentally and emotionally preparing myself for the big life change that's about to happen. My due date is approaching. I'm excited, yet terrified. I'm ready, yet not. Almost everything is in place, yet I still feel vastly unprepared for this birth. I came to the realization the other day that I probably never will feel completely prepared for this birth, or for being a mom, and I have to accept that, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me. So a lot of the introspection has been around that.

Weirdly, the introspection has also spilled over into my work life. I've done a lot of reflecting on what I've chosen to work on during my sabbatical, what I've accomplished, and how that's been very different from what I set out to accomplish. The introspection, oddly, has also fueled this incredible burst of creativity in my work. The creativity burst is helping me find the energy to finish up some things and get them out for review. Today the creativity burst inspired an idea for another conference paper, which in turn can be combined with two recent conference papers for a journal article (which, unlike the journal article I'm currently struggling to get out, will not require a ton of work to put together, I think), which means that I could potentially have 4 things in the review pipeline at once. But the creative burst has a downside, too: there is so much I want to do in my research, and I know that my time is limited, and it's frustrating to not be able to get to all of it. Which I know is ridiculous: it's not like I'll never have time to do research again once my sabbatical is over. But I'm impatient. I see all these connections and paths in my work, and it's frustrating to not be able to follow them all at once. I don't want to prioritize; I want to clone myself and get it all done! :)

I've also been reflecting a bit on my department, taking advantage of my distance from the day-to-day happenings to think about things like department dynamics, what I want my role to be when I return, and department leadership. One thing I've realized is that I'm deeply unhappy with many aspects of our department's leadership. I've been trying to think creatively about how I'm going to deal with that when I return from sabbatical and maternity leave: whether it's better to work around it, with it, or confront it head-on and contribute to improving it. I don't have any good answers yet.

So that's where my mind's been lately.

Pregnancy by the numbers

2007-04-05T21:24:00.000-05:00

Five recent food cravings/fetishes:
1. Ice cold (or really hot) drinks. It has to be one temperature extreme or the other.
2. Fruit juice.
3. Fruit in general, particularly tropical fruits like guava, pineapple, papaya.
4. All things dairy.
5. Chocolate.

Four things I really miss:
1. Wine.
2. Sushi.
3. Having a waist.
4. Running.

Three things I can no longer do:
1. Put on socks.
2. Get through a workout without having to use the bathroom.
3. Prepare or eat a meal without breaking something, burning myself, or spilling something. Usually, all three.

Two words I thought I'd never say or hear in a conversation with colleagues:
"nipple confusion"

One thing you should never, ever say to a pregnant woman in her third trimester:
"Wow! You're huge!"

Revising fun

2007-04-04T11:35:00.000-05:00

Crap.

My plans for today were to spend the morning doing penultimate revisions on the conference paper that's due mid-month (but that I'd like to get out by early next week, just to get it off my desk), and then spend the afternoon working on an entirely different project. This, of course, was assuming that the conference paper was in pretty-close-to-finished format already, and that the revisions would be fairly minor: clarifying arguments, filling in details or missing citations, beefing up the discussion section, etc.

I just finished reading through the draft, and it is a MESS! I'm not sure why I remember this paper being so close to being finished, because frankly it is just all over the map. The good nuggets are in there, and I think the paper even has a point in there somewhere, but the organization is UGLY and makes absolutely no sense. Plus, there's a lot of extraneous stuff that was obviously pasted from other papers and doesn't belong. And did I mention that the paper is about 5 pages too long?

So now I'll be spending this afternoon doing some major surgery on this paper. After reading through it, I still don't have a crystal-clear idea of how it should be organized, but I have one possible way that I will try. (Any organization is better than what's there now!) At least the results section is halfway decent; most of the major work will be on the motivation and algorithm sections, which are the weakest and the worst right now.

I think I can still get it out by early next week, though. So that's the one bright spot this morning.

Isn't revising fun???

Time for a bit of levity (and a poll, of sorts)

2007-04-02T22:36:00.000-05:00

It's Monday. It's been a long, slow day. I think it's time to lighten things up a bit around here. So, dear readers, I pose a question to you:

What's the dumbest or most bizarre thing someone has said to you recently?

Here's mine, courtesy of my mother-in-law. Who is a really lovely person, but comes out with the most off-the-wall things from time to time.

Scene: Mr. Jane and I are talking with his parents. Somehow, the topic of Mr. Jane's childhood obsession with Legos comes up.

Mother-in-law: Mr. Jane should take up that hobby again!

Jane: (laughing) I have a feeling Mr. Jane won't have much time for hobbies, at least not for the next few years!

MIL: He will if it's a girl.

Jane: (totally not following) Huh?

MIL: Well, if it's a girl, then he won't have to play with her! Because girls play with dolls and such, not Legos and blocks.

(You will be happy to know that I resisted the urge to bring out the Clue Stick. Mr. Jane, bless his heart, jumped in with the appropriate comment at that point. What that was, exactly, I don't know, because I was too busy shaking my head and saying "no, no, no!")

OK, now it's your turn!

Scientiae Carnival #3 is up!

2007-04-02T10:33:00.000-05:00

Head on over to Lab Cat's for the goods. As always, lots of thought-provoking and interesting posts to fuel your Monday procrastination!

The next Scientiae will be....here! On April 15. Get your taxes done early (those of you in the US) so that you can get those thoughtful posts on women and science written and submitted on or before April 13.

Here are the instructions for submitting entries to the carnival. (Note that you need to tag your post AND email the link, too!) And, if you need a reminder as to what this is all about or if you've never submitted before, here is a quick synopsis of what the carnival is all about.

Frustration

2007-03-29T12:44:00.000-05:00

frustration (n): the feeling that sets in when one decides to install a piece of software and/or make a tiny change to one's desktop or network settings or whatever, in the interest of making some work task "easier", that should theoretically take ten minutes, but in reality takes over two hours (most of which is spent tracking down weird and obscure errors), thus ruining one's perfectly planned morning of writing and revising.

Productivity is relative

2007-03-28T16:07:00.000-05:00

I've spent the past few days beating myself up because of my recent lack of productivity. In the past week, I've had several days where I didn't do any worthwhile work at all, and the days when I did get work done, progress was painfully slow (and interruptions plentiful). I was really unhappy with my lack of progress, and this sort of snowballed into a whole "woe is me, I've done nothing worthwhile on my sabbatical and I'll never finish this stuff and I'll never get tenure and die penniless in a ditch somewhere." (OK, not so much the last part, but the rest of it was on the endless loop playing and replaying itself in my mind.) Not enough to completely derail me, but enough to make me feel less than wonderful about the work I was doing.

This morning, I had to send an email to my chair outlining all of the things I've done in the past year---teaching, research, service---so that he can put together his departmental report. And you know what? I've had a pretty damn good year. I've been productive. Research-wise, I have what I think is a pretty good combination of new projects, in-progress projects, and just-needs-to-be-written-up-and-sent-off projects. My research students are producing publishable work. There are publications that will appear this year (soon, in fact). There's lots at various stages in the pipeline right now, and some new directions just waiting to be explored, too. Teaching-wise, I developed and taught a brand new course and I'm working on developing another, cross-disciplinary one for sometime in the future. And my extra-college service has been particularly strong this year. So I have a lot to be proud of.

Funny how I didn't believe it until I had to justify it to someone else.

This whole exercise, though, made me go back and reconsider what I've done over sabbatical. Sure, this week was slow, and sure, what I've been doing on sabbatical is not what I intended to do. But sabbatical has been "differently productive". I did a whole new line of research extending something that I originally thought was a dead end, done by some students a year ago; that will be going out for review within the next two weeks. I've been writing up lots of stuff that previously was just sitting around, gathering dust. Tying up loose ends of various projects. Going back and reanalyzing things that didn't make complete sense before, but that I never had time to go back and look at. And I've sketched out another major piece of my work, one that will probably be 2-3 separate projects---but it's all outlined and ready to go (and I've even started a small part of it).

So I'm once again happy with my work and my progress, and not beating myself up anymore.

The one thing I'm still unhappy about is the damn journal article that is still hanging around. The one I was supposed to submit by the end of December, remember? Yeah, well, I got so frustrated with it that I had to set it aside, and ended up setting it aside for the better part of 2 months. But it's back in the active rotation of projects, and the new plan is to submit it by mid-April. And I will do it, even if I think it still sucks at that point, because it's more important to get it out and in the pipeline than to wait for it to be perfect.

Beyond incomprehensible

2007-03-26T22:50:00.000-05:00

I saw a link to this over at Geeky Mom's blog, and even though it is quite horrible, I feel like it *should* be publicized, precisely because it is so horrible.

Kathy Sierra, who blogs at Creating Passionate Users (which I occasionally read), has written some kick-ass books, and is a usability goddess, recently cancelled her appearance and workshop at the ETech conference. Why? Because of death threats she received, on her blog and on various other blogs.

That's right. Death threats.

She blogs about the incidents in this post. (Warning: content not suitable for children or the faint of heart.) Disturbing doesn't even begin to describe the whole thing.

I have a ton of respect for Kathy Sierra. It breaks my heart that she, or any other woman in tech (high-profile or otherwise), should ever have to go through this. This whole incident shows *exactly* how f***ed up our whole tech culture is. And why we need to start being serious about changing it. Right. Now. Because this is totally, TOTALLY, wrong and unacceptable.

Kathy, I hope you come out of this OK, and I hope that you continue to blog and continue to be the fabulous techie that you are.

Vacation is over, and panic sets in

2007-03-21T16:33:00.000-05:00

I'm back from my "spring break", and it was a lovely, relaxing, and fun trip. (Well, except for the emotional/hormonal meltdown I had in a very public place the last day. Fortunately, it passed quickly. Boy, these pregnancy hormones are sure fun! Mr. Jane should be sainted when this is over, by the way.) It was the perfect March escape, and the weather largely cooperated. We have a number of friends in the area we visited, and we got to spend time with a number of them. And, as a bonus, we found a fabulous vegetarian restaurant---the best meal I've had in a very long time.

Now we're back, and I'm panicking over really stupid things. Mainly I'm panicking because I'm convinced that I'm going to go into labor ANY MINUTE NOW and there are still things that need to get done, like finishing the nursery (and clearing out all of the crap that's accumulated there) and finding a pediatrician and organizing all of the closets in the house, as well as organizing the garage and....

Let's stop to note a few things first:
1. The chances that I will actually go into labor at this point are quite small. We're talking tiny.
2. Even if I did go into labor at this point, Baby Jane would certainly not be coming home with us, so the nursery not being complete is a non-issue (and, needless to say, the least of our worries).
3. Organizing the closets/garage/junk drawer is really low priority in the grand scheme of things. Nice, maybe, but totally not necessary.

Intellectually, I realize all of this, but emotionally, I just keep thinking "ack! I'm not ready for this yet! I need more time!" (See reference to pregnancy hormones above.) Is this what they call "the nesting instinct"? Because if so, nesting sucks!

I had a dream last night that I was sitting in a house with a whole bunch of family and friends, just hanging out. I happened to look out the window just in time to see a huge tornado headed directly towards the house. I started screaming for everyone to go downstairs to the basement. I was the only one who went downstairs; everyone else stayed upstairs as it hit (in fact, no one else seemed the least bit fazed). There were two cats in the next room, and I ran to get them and then ran down to the basement with them, throwing myself over them to protect them just as the tornado hit....and that's when I woke up. I've never had a dream whose meaning was so clear to me, and such a perfect reflection of what I've been feeling lately.

Luckily, I realize how foolish I'm being here, and I'm being proactive about it. I spent some time (the time I meant to spend revising an article....oh well) setting up consultations with a few pediatricians over the next couple of weeks. I confessed all of this silliness to Mr. Jane and found out that he is also panicking as well, so now we can feel silly and panicked together. And I keep reminding myself that we have plenty of time to get everything done, and that everything will get done. And if not...well, in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter.

Scientiae Carnival #2 is up!

2007-03-15T09:13:00.000-05:00

Head on over to Propter Doc's for the goods. As with the last one, lots of good posts---what better way to celebrate the Ides of March?

And on that note, I'm off for a computer-free extended long weekend. I decided that just because I'm not teaching doesn't mean I can't still go on Spring Break! There will be no excess drinking, no MTV-style partying, on this spring break (although I have to say that I never went on a "real" spring break in that sense); just a lot of relaxation in one of our favorite parts of the country. (And no, we're *not* calling this trip a "babymoon"....I hate, hate, hate that term! Although it is our last trip before Baby Jane arrives.)

(As a weird side note, Baby Jane has been more active than usual this morning. I wonder if s/he is excited about this trip, too? Does s/he sense that something is "different" about today?)

See you next week!

When bloggers dream

2007-03-13T20:53:00.000-05:00

...they dream about other bloggers, apparently.

I don't normally share my dreams on my blog, but this one was so bizarre that I had to share. (Interpretations are welcome in the comments!)

In my dream, a friend of mine (I'll call her C), profgrrrrl, and I were at the pre-race area of some marathon. (Now, the funny thing about this is that profgrrrrl and C are both currently training for marathons in real life. I, of course, am not.) Apparently profgrrrrl and C were both planning on running this marathon, and it was clear that they expected me to run it, too. But neither of them had told me; they just told me to meet them at this particular place. I was a bit concerned about my lack of, well, any training at all, and of course in the dream I was just as pregnant as I am in real life. But I decided to give it a try.

The race organizers called everyone to the start line. On our way to the start line, C and I realized we still had our purses with us, so we went to find my mom, who promised to hold them for us. I wanted to take some things with me, like lip balm and my cell phone, but I realized I had no pockets, so I left everything with my mom. Profgrrrrl came with us. We were all set to head to the starting line when profgrrrrl started having problems with her outfit. She was wearing a plaid skirt, thick gray tights, and these flats with these huge ribbon ties---she said it was her "lucky running outfit"---and her shoes were untied. C and I tried to help her tie them, but they wouldn't tie correctly. The race organizer came over and tried to help. None of us could get her shoes tied. We tried to get her to put on a different pair of shoes, but she insisted that she could not run unless she wore those shoes. Meanwhile, the race had already started, and C started getting impatient. "If we don't get to the starting line soon, we'll be disqualified!" she said. I was torn; stay and help or go with C? Finally, just before we would have been disqualified, C and I decided to leave profgrrrrl and run the race. We barely made it, but the starting official (who was a colleague from my cohort) waved us on.

C and I started running. I could tell she was pissed, so I said "hey, I don't want to slow you down, so don't feel like you have to run with me." At which point she took off, without saying a word to me. So now here I am, running a marathon that I haven't done any training for, 7+ months pregnant, all by myself!

I decided to just keep running, and see how far I could go. I was running pretty slowly, but at a consistent pace, and I was surprised by how easy it felt. I didn't feel tired, even when I was running up stairs or on a hill. I didn't feel sore. I just ran. 5 miles passed, then 10, and I still kept going, slowly and steadily plugging away. I felt confident and relaxed, just willing to see how far I could go.

I don't know if I finished the marathon or not, because I woke up at Mile 12 or so. I'd like to think that I did.

Pregnancy post

2007-03-11T21:01:00.000-05:00

I haven't really done a pregnancy post in a while, and I thought it would be nice to post about something lighter after my angsty post on Friday. Plus, this pregnancy thing was really a big mystery to me before I started to actually go through it, so you could think of this as an educational post, if you've ever wondered what it's like to be pregnant. Anyway, I'm in the homestretch now, the good old third trimester, and so I thought I'd share some of my thoughts on what it's like to be at this stage of pregnancy.

The most surprising thing, for me, is how much I am enjoying being pregnant. The first trimester was hell, with all of the nausea, but since then, even with all of the restrictions, it's been much better. I think the thing I enjoy most is knowing that there's a little person growing inside of me, sharing my days and experiences. It's neat to imagine what this little person looks like and what this little person will be like once s/he makes an appearance. I love feeling the little movements, and I'm now at the point where I am starting to distinguish between kicks, punches, flips, and headbutts. (I'm not kidding about that last one. I've been headbutted. I'm sure of it.) It's just a fascinating experience to have another being hitchhiking along with you for 9+ months.

I'm surprised by how much I'm still able to do. My workouts have definitely slowed down a bit, and I've had to adapt some exercises (especially weight training stuff), but I'm still working out regularly and feeling great. My energy level is high---I haven't been napping excessively or anything.

I have, sadly, had to stop running. I had a running injury a while back that had for the most part gone away, but the extra weight I'm carrying seems to have aggravated it again. (If this isn't an incentive to go back to and maintain my "ideal weight" after this pregnancy, I don't know what is!)

Some things that have surprised me: I do become short of breath easily, especially when taking the stairs. Eating too much makes me extremely uncomfortable---smaller meals are definitely better. Basically, your uterus expands so much that it squishes everything else, like your stomach and diaphragm, into a very small space, so that's the reasoning for the two things above. I wasn't prepared for the back pain---although it makes sense, since I'm carrying an extra 20+ pounds all in one section of my body. And things like cleaning or doing the laundry take longer, because I have to find positions that don't hurt my back.

The other surprise is that Baby Jane seems to already be on a schedule. There are definitely times during the day when s/he is always active and times when s/he is rarely active. Unfortunately, "late at night" is one of the active times. I shudder to think what this kid's sleep schedule will be like...

Oh, and I'm definitely waddling now instead of walking. And I can't see my feet anymore.

I haven't had any weird experiences of people coming up to me and touching my belly, but I did have someone ask me the other day if I was carrying twins. (Ouch.) We have, however, heard some flak from a few of my relatives that our totally gender-neutral (and cute) nursery theme is "too masculine". The gender conditioning starts early, apparently....sigh.

So that's a glimpse into the life of a third-trimester pregnant woman. I have no idea if this is interesting to any of you, but I'd be happy to take questions in the comments if there's anything about pregnancy that you're curious about. (Hmmmm....everything you wanted to know about pregnancy, but were afraid to ask?)

Mentoring on the sly

2007-03-09T12:35:00.000-06:00

As the only woman in my department, I often find myself in bizarre situations, where the answer is not immediately obvious and it's not like I can run down the hall and ask one of my male colleagues how I should handle the situation. Particularly when my male colleagues are, shall we say, part of the problem---sometimes inadvertently or unknowingly, but still, part of the problem.

One of these bizarre situations is this: I feel like I have to *hide* most of the mentoring that I do when the mentoring is specific to women. I feel like I have to mentor women on the sly.

You may be thinking that this is silly, given that my department apparently considers me to be the resident expert on mentoring. But the truth is there are some members of my department who make me feel paranoid about showing any sort of special treatment to anyone, but particularly women. It's a bit easier to deal with the ones that come right out and say that what I'm doing is wrong-headed and---my favorite---"unfair". But most of them will express their displeasure---perhaps unknowingly, I really don't know what their motives are---in a more subtle way. For instance, saying things like "I was talking to [female major] the other day, and she was saying that she is really uncomfortable about applying to such-and-such a program, because she doesn't want to feel like she's getting an edge because she's a woman." Or comments on how it's so much easier for our women majors to get into grad school, and isn't that a shame for some of our talented male majors. (I can hear Zuska throwing up on someone's shoes right now in response!) These comments seem to crop up with increasing frequency when the subject of mentoring/recruiting women comes up, or when it becomes obvious that I'm doing some sort of mentoring or nice thing for our women majors.

Anyway, whatever the motive or intent, these statements don't exactly make me want to go shout from the rooftops that I'm doing something nice or positive for our women majors. And they do tend to make me sort of paranoid about mentoring in the first place---I second- and third-guess myself before going ahead and doing something. But what this has really done is drove my mentoring almost totally underground. And I think this is a shame, because I think our women students, majors or not, *should* know that there is someone here who can be a resource and ally to them. Even if they decide not to take advantage of that resource, or decide that they don't need to use that resource, I think they should know that there is such a resource out there in case one day they do need it.

The latest example of this came when I decided to give copies of She's Such A Geek to some of our women majors. A nice guesture, right? Well, I thought this thing out to death. To whom should I send the books? Will the students think it's weird? How can I get the books to the students without my colleagues finding out? What sort of flak will I get from my colleagues for this if they do find out? So what started off as a "random act of kindness" turned into something very unnecessarily stressful for me. (In case you're interested, I ended up sending them to the women I took to Grace Hopper and to one of my advisees who's had a rough time of it lately.)

This is not to say that the actions of my colleagues will deter me from mentoring or from doing these things---far from it! I just think it's a shame that I have to feel so guilty about doing things like this and that I can't really have honest and substantive discussions with my colleagues about mentoring women. Because I think all of us---faculty and students---could benefit from open and honest discussions and actions like this.

scientiae-carnival

How do you pick research problems?

2007-03-07T18:10:00.000-06:00

This post was inspired by a series of comments to my shameless self-promotion post. In my interview with John, I mentioned that one of the things I really like about my job is the freedom to work on whatever research problems I like. Both Iris and Anna then asked excellent follow-up questions about selecting research problems. Iris is coming at this from the leaving-the-PhD-nest angle (how do you pick research problems post-PhD?), while Anna is applying to graduate schools and wants to know how to go about picking a research problem for your Master's or PhD thesis. I thought that each of these questions was important and interesting enough to warrant a separate post, so here goes.

First, here's Iris' original question: "How do you recommend us new PhD graduates pursue being active researchers, where we tackle new ideas without spending ages in literature Review sort of thing?"

Everyone finds something different that works for them, of course, but a good place to start is with your thesis work. There's always the spin-off-as-many-papers-as-you-can approach, which definitely should be done (easy, or at least easier, pubs), but this doesn't really address the issue of "how do you start your own research program, separate from your advisor?" A good place to start is, again, with your own thesis. I found that there were questions that I didn't have time to address in my thesis. In addition, as my thesis work progressed, I found myself thinking of other, peripheral problems, things that were sort of tangential to my thesis work, but still related. Once I finished the thesis, I had time to explore these ideas a bit further.

The thing I found most useful, though, was keeping an open mind and, most importantly, talking to other researchers. I did read a lot, post-PhD. I explored some related areas that I thought I might be interested in. I talked to a lot of people to find out what they were working on. And in the midst of all this, I got the inspiration for my current line of research (and, by talking to people, found my original collaborator too, who really helped me refine my idea). I guess my research path was kind of serendipitous. But keeping an open mind and being willing to think creatively about how you want to contribute to the field can help foster new research ideas, I've found.

(Of course, I'm really curious to find out what's worked for others, too. Chime in the comments, O Seasoned Researchers, CS and non-CS alike!)

Then, Iris asks a follow-up: "do you prefer the CfP line of research (have a CfP then work on a problem to publish a paper) or do you prefer the do your own research and whenever a decent CfP appear in the horizon go for it?"

This is a great question! I tend to do the latter, almost exclusively: I work on my own research and constantly monitor the calls for papers for appropriate venues. I find that there's not enough lead time, usually, between when a CfP comes out and its deadline, to come up with a problem and a decent solution---maybe I'm a slow worker that way. :) That said, I will sometimes be inspired to finish up a particular piece of a project in response to a CfP, and get something out earlier than anticipated. (The conference paper I'm putting together now, actually, is one of those things. It's research that I wasn't sure what to do with, originally, but the CfP inspired a particular framing of the work in a way I hadn't thought of previously.) I do also have a rough idea of the deadlines of the main conferences in my field---these don't change much year to year, so I also try to structure my work so that I can meet at least a few of those deadlines.

Now, here's Anna's comment and question on the issue:

I've been looking around at master's and doctoral programmes.
Unfortunately, they seem to want me to give a description of what I'd like to research - and right now, I haven't a clue. Pretty much most things sound interesting, and it seems impossible for me to judge what areas might actually have achievable and relevant stuff to do, because I don't know anything yet.

So, how do you come up with ideas at the MSc/PhD stage? Is it common for undergrad students who go on to further study to have One Big Thing they want to look at, or is it fairly common for people to be a bit vague and undecided?

This is another great question! And while I was mulling over my answer, I found a link (thanks, John!) to a series of posts from the blog Computational Complexity on being a graduate student. There's a post on graduate school apps, where the whole "how important is the research statement?" question is addressed, but there's also a post on how to pick a research problem. There's some good advice in that post; the author's main point is that reading the current literature (conference proceedings) in whatever field interests you is a good way to figure out both what people are working on currently and what questions are out there remaining to be answered.

I think it is fairly common to only have a vague idea of what you want to do, coming out of your undergraduate years. After all, your undergrad education gives you breadth but almost no depth. If you've done some research as an undergrad already (which I highly, highly recommend to any CS undergrad even remotely considering grad school), then you've either found an area that's interesting to you or ruled out an area that you want nothing further to do with....both good things. :) Or, you've probably taken a class that really caught your interest. Either way, you now have a starting point.

One thing you can do while still an undergrad is talk to your professors: the ones you're doing research for, or the ones who are teaching the classes that are catching your interests. Go to their office hours. Let them know you're interested in the field. Ask them where to go to read up on the field further. Let them know you're thinking, maybe, of pursuing the topic in grad school. Unless they are jerks, they will be thrilled to talk to you and give you some pointers. You can also do this your first year in grad school---talk to your advisor, if you have one; otherwise, take classes that sound interesting and talk to the profs teaching those classes.

(Hmmm, I guess the advice I'm giving to Iris and Anna is not so different after all! It all boils down to "find what interests you, read a lot, and talk to a lot of people", apparently.)

Anyway, those are some of my thoughts on the whole picking a research question dilemma. Again, I would love to hear comments, both from other CS people and from the non-CS people out there---how is it different in your field, in your life, at your institution? What's worked and not worked for you?