sciencewoman
Posts by this author
January 20, 2009
The real world intervened (i.e., I got a nasty cold) with my best intentions to provide more thorough blogging coverage of the wonderful conference (hi everyone!). Maybe someday I'll manage to work my thoughts from the sessions into coherent blog posts, but I know I'm pretty bad about promising and…
January 17, 2009
Gender and science session - Alice, Zuska, and Abel
Non-chronological note-taking from a great session.
What is an ally? How do you become an ally?
You can be an ally for any oppressed group. (http://partnersinchange.umich.edu/page1_2.html)
Be an ally all the time, not just in front of the person…
January 16, 2009
I'm sitting at the edge of the auditorium at the Sigma Xi Center, comfortably sandwiched between Scicurious and Christina Pikas. I'm listening to Rebecca Skloot describe how a creative writing class assignment to write about a place and her response about the freezer in the Colorado State…
January 12, 2009
It feels like forever since I wrote a blog post (although the new Movable Type platform informs me that it's been less than a week). In that time, I've found myself a bit snowed in by the start of a new semester and my mom's successful(?) ankle replacement surgery. It will probably be a few more…
January 6, 2009
Despite being the keeper of a very well organized blogroll, I was surprisingly flummoxed by a request from a friend of a friend of a friend. She's decided to go to graduate school in an environmental science field, but she's unsure whether to go for a M.S. first or straight to a Ph.D. Specifically…
January 5, 2009
Like many others in the blogosphere, I've adopted the profgrrrrl model of defining a theme for each year rather than a list of resolutions. In 2008, my theme was "Seeking Strategies for Survival, Sanity, and Success." As I said a few weeks ago, the survival part was achieved, but beyond that, I'm…
January 2, 2009
There's a cool new blog on the Sb block, Culture Dish, written by Rebecca Skloot, author of the forth-coming "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks." As Skloot's sidebar says: "[The book] tells the story of HeLa -- the first immortal human cell line ever grown in culture (pictured in the blog's…
January 1, 2009
Happy New Year everyone!
I just read a fantastic post by Pat at Fairer Science, where she quotes from writings by mill girls in 19th century New England. The ideas put forward by the young woman who wrote the essay are eerily prescient of the sentiments I expressed 170 years later.
I also wanted to…
December 29, 2008
This news is a bit old, but I'm still excited about, so I thought I'd share with others who may not have heard. Jane Lubchenco, an honest-to-goodness-working-mommy-scientist, is going to be the nominee for the next head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA is the uber…
December 28, 2008
I have a dream that one day, academics--both men and women--will be able to take time to go the mountain top--or just the hill in the local park, or even a slope on campus--and cherish watching their toddlers roll down, confident that their careers aren't rolling downhill with them. I have a dream…
December 27, 2008
There's quite the discussion going on over at Dr. Isis's house about different approaches to feminism and how the actions and choices of mothers and others do or do not conform to particular feminist philosophies. I made a comment early this morning that perhaps wasn't clear enough about where I…
December 26, 2008
Three papers, an introductory chapter and some broad conclusions. Those are the ingredients of a Ph.D. dissertation in it's simplest form.
That recipe doesn't tell you anything about all the blood, sweat, tears, and sleepless nights that go into those papers. It doesn't mention how your personal…
December 23, 2008
It's December 23rd, grades are in, my daughter is in daycare, Christmas shopping still needs to be done, and I'm working on a review for a journal. What's wrong with me? Shouldn't I be enjoying the break between semesters? Why do I feel like the "break" is really code for "time to get caught up on…
December 21, 2008
It's the end of the year, and I'm feeling a bit reflective. (I'm also avoiding a daunting between-semesters to-do list. When will I manage to take a break?) In a recent comment thread, Female Engineering Professor commented:
I often find myself wondering about various random threads on these blogs…
December 20, 2008
Don't tell my university administrators, but sharing my latest science results is only a tiny fraction of the reason to go to a conference like AGU. Even hearing the latest and greatest science is not the entire reason. This is a lesson that is taking me a long time to learn. I get giddy with the…
December 16, 2008
The last few weeks have been completely chaotic, over-crowded, and exhausting. On top of the end-of-term crunch, with its usual flurry of grading, review sessions, and exams, I was also trying to finish revisions on a paper, and get some research done in time to make the poster for AGU. The…
December 12, 2008
While many of you are thinking about issues related to blogging and interviewing, let's take this opportunity to have a more constructive conversation on benefits and pitfalls of blogging while on the job market. Warning: I want the discussion in this thread to be focused on a wide range of…
December 10, 2008
Remember the post on "Negotiating Beer with the Guys on a Job Interview"? from back in August. We had a lively discussion in the comment thread on the way a teetotaler interviewee could handle an interview schedule that included "throwing a few back" in a tailgate reception.
Today, a new comment…
December 8, 2008
One of the perks of blogging at ScienceBlogs is that our overlords send us free copies of Seed magazine. In fact, Seed loves me so much that they send me two free copies of every issue, even though I've asked them to stop. This is an especially interesting issue, with profiles of global science…
December 4, 2008
For those of you who liked my footwear selection, you may be interested in knowing about Red Ants Pants. They claim to be "the first ever company dedicated to manufacturing workwear for women" and it is a small woman owned and operated business in Montana. The pants are not cheap, but they are…
December 2, 2008
You've got a blog. You've developed a comfortable voice. Your writing has found a receptive audience, with thoughtful and supportive commenters. Things are going well.
Then, WHAM! You defend your thesis. Or you get a new job. You have a baby. Or get a divorce. You move to a new continent. Your blog…
December 1, 2008
I'm no longer the most junior member of the department, so I'm not quite as sheltered from service obligations as I was last year. That means that when a faculty position opened up unexpectedly, I got tapped to serve on the search committee. As the woman on the committee, I'm finding myself tasked…
December 1, 2008
Dr. Isis has issued quite the challenge with her prompt for the December Scientiae. I knew exactly how I wanted to respond.
My science is hotter than Dr. Isis's Naughty Monkeys, because I wear better shoes [when I do my science]. To demonstrate, I present a sampling of actual shoes I have worn…
November 30, 2008
The month of November has but 11 hours left, and with it, I bid farewell to InaDWriMo, the month in which I (and many other brave souls) pledged to make significant progress in our academic writing. I set before myself three goals: complete and submit a grant application; complete major revisions…
November 27, 2008
It's nice that Thanksgiving is here, and not just because I need a wee break from teaching. It's also a very good reminder to me to look beyond the challenges and annoyances that seem to appear daily, and see instead the big good things in my life. And when I squint my eyes just right, I can see…
November 22, 2008
Having worked on my writing every day for the first two weeks of November, I concluded last week feeling rather optimistic about InaDWriMo's success in getting me to increase my productivity. But I was also very tired. And in order to make time for writing every single day, I was working longer…
November 20, 2008
Mountain streams erode
but isostatic uplift
keeps relief the same
A humble contribution to the geological haiku meme, originated by survat, with a listing of contributions by Chris R.
November 17, 2008
Isis tagged me for the five things meme that's making the rounds (again, actually, I know I've done this one at least once before.) But this time I borrowed Abel's idea and added a cool graphic that I got from takoma-bibelot on flickr.
5 things I was doing 10 years ago.
working towards my…
November 17, 2008
Open Lab 2008 is a printed anthology of the best science blogging of the year. We're now only two weeks from the deadline (December 1) for nominating posts for inclusion in this year's anthology. The fifty best posts, plus one poem and one cartoon, will be chosen by a panel of judges, and the…