Alice shares...

It's maybe hard for some of us to believe, but it has been 2 years since the Virginia Tech massacre. Day of Remembrance activities in Blacksburg include a candlelight vigil, a memorial run, and an open house in the renovated Norris Hall. It's amazing for me to think about how we are two years on from this event -- in particular, because I interviewed at Virginia Tech the week before, and turned down their offer the morning of the massacre, right before it happened. It was surreal, almost too much to believe. Once I heard the news, I immediately emailed the folks I had met with, terrified of…

ScienceWoman has shared some thoughts with us about how her spring semester has gone; I'm still in the throes and can't reflect yet. Student end-of-semester projects, a journal paper to submit, a conference paper to submit, reviews for a conference to conduct, a dissertation to read to prepare for a defense, and two proposal defenses coming up, on top of wanting to garden, blog, camp, visit family, and watch Little Dorrit. However, I have realized one thing: that, with busyness at work comes a sneaky pseudo-justification to drive to work. I think I don't have the 25 minutes to walk from my…

Our department turned 5 today. We celebrated it in song. Humorous verse, of course. ;-) This photo was taken by a graduate student in our department. Some of my photos below the fold.

In early February, I received a letter from my university president. A hand-signed letter, addressed to me. In it, she reported how she had been reading this blog and my personal work website. (!) She was very complimentary of this blog, and SW and my contributions to engaging more women in STEM fields. I confess I was rather gobsmacked, verklempt, overwhelmed by the letter. I've scanned it to my computer so I can keep a copy of it, and put the paper copy in my "good things" file that currently remains rather thin. I wrote it up a bit in my P&T file (that was due at the beginning…

For this month's Scientiae, Candid Engineer has asked for stories about overcoming challenges. ScienceWoman has already contributed an awesome story to the Diversity in Science carnival, but I think it does for Scientiae, too. What about my own story? Prior to my current job, my biggest soul-searching career-related moment was when I didn't pass my prelim exam in 2005. Ugh. In retrospect, I think I was taking the prelim pretty casually. I had written my ~100 page, 3 chapter research proposal document, and none of my dissertation committee advisors had raised a hair about it. I had never…

Happiness is boots that makes one feel strengthened and tough when one wears them. Even better is wearing boots called "engineer boots" when one is an engineer. And perhaps even better again is that one buys such boots from here but significantly on sale, and for one's birthday, no less. A photo taken for Isis, among others.

Happiness is time to plant bulbs, even if you plant them indoors, and even if they were already sprouting in their paper bags in the fridge...

Happiness is vegetable seeds arriving, and 70 degree days that remind you you can plant soon. Click to embiggen. Even better is when those seeds are given to you by a farmer friend, so you have way cooler varieties than you would when you just bought them through the seed catalogue. Now, when is that last average frost date again?

Okay, so what on earth *have* I been up to, if not blogging? I'm catching you up (rather like the recitative bits in opera - dry, dull, but advancing the action, rather than arias which are beautiful but don't get you anywhere much) with some RBOCs... As previously mentioned, I had a trip to Washington DC for a symposium on engineering education research. I've uploaded some photos here if you want to see the outcomes of the sticky-note brainstorm (the funnest part of the conference!). I did get a pretty awesome dinner with some attendees: I submitted an IEECI grant, my first PI…

So the readers have spoken: one more vote for hearing about my PI experience than the weird convo with the deans. However, I was working on the draft, and then some more work stuff got dumped on me, then SW had her popular deconstruction of one of Greg Laden's posts and I didn't want to interrupt the flow. But it seems to have petered off, and I'm trying to dig out of my work stuff (next post will be RBOC) and so I'm finally getting back to this. Here you are, then, and caveat emptor or whatever the bloggy-equivalent is: Even though I'm co-PI on a big grant (>$3M when all is said and done…

Just super busy in the 3D world, as Janet calls it. Burning the candle at both ends. But I have a little time carved out tomorrow morning and I hope to get a blog post written then. And next week is spring break for us, so I hope to have more time then. In the meantime, let me offer a choice of blog posts running around in my head - vote in the comments by Friday morning, and I'll write the one with most votes. What microethics and macroethics are in the context of engineering education from my trip to Arizona State University 2 weeks ago A beginner's guide to NSF grantwriting, from my…

Sorry for my blog silence -- I've been swamped in work, and then to top it off, I got sick yesterday and missed a day of work (!). I'm heading to Arizona State University today to go to a workshop on engineering ethics, and to visit my sister-in-law and her family, so the blogging silence is likely to continue on my part. Looks like ScienceWoman will capably hold down the fort - she's a super-poster! Until then, I've been walking around with a camera in my bag for the last 2 weeks with some random photos on it. It includes a photo of my office door, which is decidedly more bestickered…

Happy Valentine's Day! Voila a Facebook crossover, inspired by a friend of mine who is on the faculty at Wake Forest University. See my responses below, and consider yourself tagged if you like: 1. YOUR REAL NAME: Alice Pawley 2.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME:(mother and fathers middle names) Jane Binfield 3.NASCAR NAME:(first name of your mother's dad, father's dad) Harold John 4.STAR WARS NAME:(the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name) Pawal 5.DETECTIVE NAME:(favorite color, favorite animal) Yellow Dog 6.SOAP OPERA NAME:(middle name, town where you were born)…

It was one February ago, as in one year ago in February, that I abandoned my old pseudonymous blogging pad, and threw my lot in with the formidable Science Woman as a new coblogger. We were both working our ways through our first year of tenure-track, and I think each struggling a bit with keeping up the blogging (particularly on my end). She invited; I accepted; and as of now we have survived year 1. I'm so very grateful to have been invited, and to have been welcomed by all Science Woman's readers. To Science Woman: thanks for a good year of blogging together, and even more for becoming…

Slightly less significant... Apparently both Diane Feinstein and Obama are left-handed. Let's hear it for lefties! ... forgetting that so were GHWBush and Ross Perot. ;-) Clinton (him, not her) is left-handed too.

Ahem. I made it back from ScienceOnline 2009 with no mishaps. And today, I turn 32. That is all.

OMG I am at ScienceOnline! In (also cold) RTP! And I've now met ScienceWoman! And let me say she is as lovely in person as she is online. And I've met a whole bunch of other folks, but am still trying to sort out the politics of pseudonymity. Hopefully I'll get to post some official blogger photos later. But in the meantime, both SW's and my sessions are this morning. Wish us luck! :-)

I've been spending the past week or two trying to get my groove on with respect to work. I scared myself quite badly with how overwhelmed I got at the end of last semester, and how quickly. I vowed to myself not to let myself get sucked into such unhealthy patterns, and then beat myself up over and over because of how often I tell myself not to get sucked in, and then how I get totally sucked in again. However. It is a new year. So I have another chance to start over. And am apparently trying to do so publicly, as what else would a blogger do? Besides, I don't want to give anyone the…

I'm finding the thing I need the most is a break from my computer. A break from emails saying I should do things, a break from my overflowing calendar, a break from long-overdue papers. So I'm doing other things instead. Like reading. And cleaning up the house. And putting away Christmas gifts and spoils from a quick trip to IKEA. Okay, and a little time on Facebook, because everyone else is too. I know I should write an update post about Christmas and my family's party and such, perhaps even a year-end post although I haven't been here at Scienceblogs for a whole year yet, and…

I'm sitting at my desk at home, feeling the cold air blowing through the window, and watching the birds eat at the bird-feeder. I submitted the last of our grades yesterday, including one for a student who hasn't attended class since October and who I am worried about. I am now dreading the release of my course evaluations. I am working on the interim report for our ADVANCE project, officially due to NSF on New Year's Day but I'm desperately trying to get out the door before Christmas. I have just started the wheels in motion to hire another student on the ADVANCE project, and am waiting…