When the professional and personal collide, part 2

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.

Heading into the homestretch

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.

End of the year meme

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!

Year-in-review meme

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

* 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!

Thoughts from the coffee shop

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!

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

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

• 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.

A snapshot of what's on my mind lately

(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.

The week from hell

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.

When the professional and personal collide

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

Professional nesting

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....

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.

Introspection time

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.

Revising fun

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???

Productivity is relative

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.

How do you pick research problems?

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?

Lit searches can be fun in unexpected ways

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. (Along with finding new references for things that probably should have references, etc....Suffice it to say that the past few days I've been scouring the web and various library databases and doing lots of reading. Fun stuff when you have the time to do it!) This careful rereading (OK, reskimming) of these papers has led me to pick up on stuff I missed the first (or second) time reading (OK, skimming), which is leading me to new references that I missed before.

In the course of looking up some of these new-to-me references, I've made a startling discovery: Some of the most interesting related work has been done in an entirely different subfield, one that I hadn't thought of looking at before for this particular work. The *very* interesting part is that this particular subfield is one that I've had a growing interest in, and have started taking baby steps to follow, over the past year or so!

This whole experience shows how quickly we can develop "tunnel vision", especially in how we scope and classify our work as computer scientists. I've realized for a while that my work straddles several areas, but I've sort of narrowly defined what those areas are, based on my own background and training, not even dreaming that there might be other, and perhaps better-suited, connections too. And the work I'm finding has been around for a while. Part of me wonders: if I had known about the connection of my work to this other subfield before, would that have changed the scope or flavor of my research at all?

The universe wants me to publish more

It never fails. I call it Jane's Law of the Call for Papers. It goes something like this:

Whenever Jane decides to not submit a paper to a conference due to lack of time/focus on other things, the paper deadline is invariably extended at the last minute for such an amount of time to make submitting to the conference worth her while.

Yes, I realize this is a good problem to have. I'm not complaining. And yes, this just happened to me....again.

About a week ago, I looked at my calendar, noticed the deadline for this conference coming up, looked at everything else currently on my plate, and decided not to throw something together---even though when the call came out months ago, my first thought was "I really should submit something to this conference." Part of my decision was influenced by the fact that I didn't have a crystal-clear sense of what exactly I would submit---I have a few things I could submit, but I didn't want to expend the time and energy to sort through and figure out which would make the best sense for this venue.

But now that I have this reprieve of sorts, I actually have two strong ideas for possible submissions. One is the previously-unpublished work from this journal article I've been working on. (Yes, the same journal article that I said I would submit, oh, a couple of months ago. I hit a major roadblock with it and basically set it aside for a month. Which, I think, was ultimately a good thing, because I just picked it up again and figured out where the block was coming from, and I think I know how to move past it.) The other is some work that a student did for me last year that I just finished writing up/analyzing. My original thought was that this particular study was not strong enough to stand on its own, and that I would have to combine it with other work; but the other day, I had a revelation that perhaps with a bit of tweaking this could be good enough on its own.

So my inspiration to submit to this place is back. I just have to revisit the CFP, reread what I have so far on each possibility, make a decision, and write the damn thing up. I'm hoping that the writing will be fairly straightforward, since I have some stuff written on each idea already. (One of the benefits of writing up results as you go along!) Thank god I'm on sabbatical and thus actually have time to do this without completely disrupting my life for the next few weeks.

Let the games begin!

UPDATE: Man, when it rains, it pours....I just found another completely appropriate CFP with a deadline around the same time as the conference with the extended deadline! So now I have two decisions to make: which idea AND which conference. (Because, realistically, I only have the time and energy to submit to one of them, unless I want to spend all of my work time writing over the next two weeks....)

Happy Woman Professor Day!

As promised, here is my contribution to HWPD, aka Why, Despite All the Crap, I am Insanely Happy With My Job. In no particular order.

1. I get paid to play around with technology. How cool is that?! I get paid to break things, take them apart (sometimes figuratively, sometimes physically), figure out how they work, put them back together, figure out how to improve them, ... How many people can say they get paid to *play*?

2. If I want an excuse to learn about a new technology or a new-to-me subfield, I can always do something like offer to teach a class in it. This allows me to make the time to play around with something (see #1), dabble in different subfields, and, best of all, drag students along with me. And, once again, I'm not only paid to do this, but highly encouraged to do this!

3. My students. Sure, there are the ones you want to strangle, but the vast majority of my students are truly a joy to me. I think sometimes that my students teach me more than I teach them. I love getting to know a new crop of students every term/semester, figure out what makes them tick, figure out how to reach them....and just get to know them. They are fascinating people doing remarkable things. They never cease to amaze me.

4. My research undergraduates. I want to put them in a separate category, because these are the students I get to know the best. I love working closely with such students, getting to know them, etc. Most of all, I love wrenching them out of their comfort zones (sometimes kicking and screaming) and getting them to accomplish things they never dreamed possible. Plus, working with undergrads has tremendously helped my own research, bringing a clarity, focus, and organization that was not there before.

5. Teaching. Teaching is hard work, and something I struggle with (but really, who doesn't?), but I love love love the challenge of teaching. Boiling down tons of information to the essential points. Figuring out ways to get students to grasp these essential points. Designing activities and assignments to get students to learn and practice the important concepts, activities that are relevant and that speak to the students' experiences. It's the hardest work I've ever done, but definitely the most rewarding---and, frankly, the reason why I'm working in academia and not in a straight research lab somewhere (or industry).

6. Finally, I love that this job gives me the visibility and opportunity to be a mentor, particularly to young women. I didn't have a single woman professor or role model in college (in my technical courses, that is). I appreciate that I can be that role model to our majors (and the non-majors who end up in our courses), even if I am the only one. I am so grateful that I can be the voice for our women majors, that I am in a position where I can encourage them to do things they would never consider doing, like applying for REUs or going to graduate school or applying for a prestigious fellowship. Our women majors are truly amazing people, and I am so blessed that I get to know them as part of my job.

So that, in a nutshell, is why I am a Happy Woman Professor.