what did they say about "balance," again?
skookumchick | December 6, 2009Okay. It's been another month since I blogged. But since I last wrote, my dad wrote the family holiday letter and asked me how many places I've traveled to. Here's the list.
January
To Detroit to look at the SWE Archives
To RTP for ScienceOnline2009
February
To Arizona, invited to a workshop on engineering and ethics education
To Washington DC for a panel on research in engineering education
March
To Kentucky, to do some intense PEER mentoring in engineering education
April
I think nowhere
May
To Madison for my dad's retirement
To a room at Purdue for a week's development of a…
sb admin | November 27, 2009This week we are reading Judith Viorst's Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. This video was produced with a dedication to Kate, who explained to me why kids like this book so much even before they understand everything that's happening in it. She wisely told me that it's because kids rarely get to hear a story about a kid getting really mad, expressing their feelings, and without a neat fairy-tale or moralistic ending. Alexander just has a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day, and he's not afraid to tell us about it.
I'd also like to dedicate this post to all of…
sb admin | November 20, 2009I am not in charge of SciWo's Storytime. Sure, it might look like I'm the one reading the books and operating the video camera, but Minnow exerts the ultimate executive authority as editor-in-chief. Some weeks no videos whatsoever are allowed to be made, some weeks she's content to let me pick the book, and some weeks she is quite happy to make a whole string of videos, so long as she chooses the content.
With that proviso, Minnow presents this week's edition of SciWo's Storytime featuring the book Little Squire the Fire Engine by Catherine Kenworthy and illustrated by Nina Barbaresi.
Now…
sciencewoman | November 8, 2009I'm not going to apologize about lack of posting over the last month or so, and I'm not going to make any promises for the future. That said, here's what I'm up to for InaDWriMo this month.
Here's what I wrote at ring-leader Dr. Brazen-Hussy's kickoff post:
Finish revisions on the paper-that-won't-die (goal: November 6)
Internal release time application (due November 15)
NSF proposal (due ~December 1)
After one week, I haven't finished the revisions, but I'm 90% done. No question as to me getting it done this week. I've got 3 pages of first draft of the 5 page release time application. This…
sciencewoman | October 6, 2009I'm preparing material for this week's class on experimental design and data analysis, and I ran across this paragraph which I thought was very interesting:
"The cost of analyzing collected sediment samples usually exceeds that of collecting them. However, the funds for the analysis are wasted if samples are collected at inappropriate locations or do not represent the study area. Further, the proper selection and use of sediment sampling equipment, sample handling, storage and transport are all equally important to the selection of sampling locations. Therefore, about 60% of the time…
sciencewoman | September 29, 2009In 2009, I've done ~9 reviews of journal articles, including two in the past week, and not counting the 1-2 more looming in the next two weeks. During the same period, I've submitted one 1st author manuscript, still in review, but probably only going cost 3 reviewers some time.
Anyone see a mass balance problem there? Or do y'all just see a case of a junior faculty member correctly working to build her international reputation in time for tenure? Or something else? 'Cause I'm no longer quite sure what to make of the situation. I'm dancing around the question of "How many reviews are enough?"…
sciencewoman | September 22, 2009This afternoon, as I was busy working with graduate students and my daughter was napping at daycare, an email from AGU reminded me to renew my membership for next year. AGU is one of my two main societies and early renewal gives you a discount on electronic access to their articles, so I dutifully headed over to their site to pay up. Like all good organizations, before they'd let me pay their dues, AGU wanted to know if I would give a gift to one fund or another. Maybe I was feeling in a generous mood because I'd just come off good meetings with my grads, but I decided to browse the list of…
sciencewoman | September 8, 2009Those following along on Twitter know that late August became my #weeksofdoom in which I triumphed over three major deadlines on top of the beginning of classes and starting Minnow in a new school. (Hence, the unexpectedly long bloggy absence).
Now that the weeks of doom* are over, I'm finally trying to settle into a productive but sane rhythm for the semester. It was such a blessing to have a long weekend to just hang out and play with Minnow (we tented in the backyard and baked an apple pie), and for the first time this semester, I feel mostly prepared for my new prep EDDA class tomorrow.…
skookumchick | August 23, 2009As usual, I find myself at the beginning of a semester trying to figure out how to balance my life a bit more better, and perhaps contradictorily, how I can structure my days better to be able to find time to recharge.
Because of my work with ADVANCE, I'm interested in understanding the work experiences of all women faculty in STEM, including and particularly women of color. To this end, when a colleague who is the director of the Black Cultural Center on campus recommended the book The Black Academic's Guide to Winning Tenure Without Losing Your Soul by Kerry Ann Rockquemore and Tracey…
sciencewoman | July 31, 2009Abel, host of the next edition of Scientiae, has asked us how we balance our summer "musts" and "needs" (work and play). I think I've come up with a personally satisfactory answer to that question: lazy summer mornings.
During the academic year, mornings are a blur of getting everyone breakfast, dressed, and out the door. Sometimes Minnow would rather stay at home and play, but those 9 am classes and meetings won't wait for a toddler.
In the summer that time pressure is off. Rather than leaping out of bed with alarm clock, we let the dogs whining and our body's inclinations do the trick. We…
sciencewoman | July 21, 2009Amazing momma-scientist Janus Prof asked me to ask y'all how many hours you really work.
Janus Prof is just completing her first year on the tenure-track at a prestigious university, and in the course of that year, she also gave birth to her first child and was diagnosed with an uncurable, chronic illness that limits her work hours. Yet she's also managed to get her lab up and running, recruit students, teach, and write a CAREER proposal. (I get out of breath just thinking about it.) So Janus Prof was understandably inspired to read a recent post from Dr. Mom, in which she admits that she…
sciencewoman | May 30, 2009Despite being the one to pick the topic for the upcoming Scientiae, I have struggled and struggled to come up with anything to post for this month's Carnival. As Alice alluded to earlier, I'm having a particularly tough month, feeling like I am treading water most of the time, and not making any headway against the current.
I tried to write a post in which I listed the things I had gotten done this month, but it was just too damn depressing. Especially when I compared that list to the optimistic list written on the whiteboard in my office. And even more depressing when compared to the list…
sciencewoman | April 28, 2009This being the last week of class, it seems appropriate to reflect a bit more on the semester just finishing. Bluntly, this has been an awful semester for me in terms of things that count toward reappointment, tenure, and (nonexistent) merit raises. If you don't want to hear me whine a little about the suckitude and where that puts me going into the summer, then don't click through.
After two rounds of painful reviews, I had a paper rejected. I'll resubmit it to a lower tier journal, but not without another round of revisions. I have never liked this project.
I missed the deadline for a…
skookumchick | April 15, 2009 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…
skookumchick | March 28, 2009ScienceWoman has been a rockstar carrying the blogging load this week, and I'll have to crave her (and your) indulgence a little bit longer. Apart from discovering that both my university president and my university provost read our blog (hi again!), I had a site visit on Friday, attended a poster session one evening, am working towards a quarterly review, and am 3 weeks late on submitting my P&T document for my annual review. I hope to dig out of this soon; but for today, I am completely zonked. Sorry to not be pulling my harness in the blogging wagon still even longer... :-(
sciencewoman | March 11, 2009Even though it's spring break, I'm in my office today because I need access to some software and datasets that I don't have at home, and because, frankly, I work more efficiently and with less guilt at school than at home. (Unless I'm blogging, that is!)
I didn't ask very many colleagues about their spring break plans, maybe because the internet consensus was that spring break was a time to recuperate from teaching and get some research done, and those were basically my plans, too. (Plus taxes, whee!) I assumed my colleagues here at Mystery U would do some variation on the same themes.
So…
sciencewoman | March 6, 2009Unbalanced Reaction ponders who really needs spring break more? Undergrads or faculty? Go cast your vote at UR's blog.
As for me, all I know is that I am ready for a break. Even if "break" translates into "a week of working on research and taxes without having to teach class."
Figure 1. A friend of the blog sent this to me and I decided it was quite appropriate for this time of year.
skookumchick | February 16, 2009As I sit here, sending comments to a colleague on his slides, trying to figure out what we're teaching for class on Wednesday, uploading TA slides to Blackboard (BBTBOME=BlackBoard, The Bane Of My Existence), with 16 flagged emails in my "highest priority" smart mailbox, 50 pages yet to read in reading the dissertation proposal I'm supposed to attend the defense of tomorrow, and 3 pages yet to write in the grant proposal summary I said I would send to colleagues last weekend, I am reminded by a maxim I read somewhere on Teh Interwebz (Merlin Mann?) that I have written on a small index card…
sciencewoman | February 1, 2009Another valiant attempt to combine motherhood, teaching prep, and watching the superbowl. Last year I made it to the third quarter before giving up (i.e., Minnow needed my attention for the rest of the evening). Let's see if this year goes any better.
6:22 pm: The TV has been on for about 15 minutes with the various pre-game antic. We shut it off because it's distracting Minnow from eating dinner.
6:29 pm: I'm changing a poopy diaper during opening kickoff. Minnow decides she wants to wear underwear for the next round.
The over-turned first touchdown: I'm dishing up home made apple pie and…
sciencewoman | January 23, 2009SW Notes: This post was begun a few weeks ago...you know, in the break between semesters. But I've been delayed and delayed in getting it done, and today is a day of metaphorical desk-clearing. So I'm just going to put it up now, half complete and let you all finish discussing it in the comments section.
The scene: My car insurance office
Insurance agent: You work at Mystery U.? You're on break now for a couple weeks, right?
ScienceWoman: Well, sort of. Classes start back up in mid-January, but there's lots of work to be done before then.
Insurance agent: Oh.
That scene is hardly unique in…