what did they say about "balance," again?
skookumchick | January 15, 2009A friend of mine posted this article to his Facebook page, and I thought it well worth pointing your attention to it. Researchers at University of California, Berkley surveyed over 8,000 doctoral students from the UC System about their career, family and life plans. Unsurprisingly perhaps, they found that "major research universities may be losing some of the most talented tenure-track academics before they even arrive. In the eyes of many doctoral students, the academic fast track has a bad reputation--one of unrelenting work hours that allow little or no room for a satisfying family life…
sciencewoman | January 5, 2009Like 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 not so sure.
This year I'm going to take a slightly different tack on the same general idea, and I'm not moving from my spot in the alphabet. My theme for 2009 is Sustainability. As in, I'm going to focus on trying to live my life that is sustainable in the long run for my body, my mental health,…
skookumchick | January 3, 2009I'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…
sciencewoman | December 27, 2008There'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 thought the current US societal set-up fails us, so I tried again this afternoon:
I fervently hope that there could be a better way than having a woman work a "man's job" (in my case, science professor) and then come home and work a second "woman's job" (mother, cook, housekeeper). How many times have…
sciencewoman | December 23, 2008It'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 all of the things that slipped between the cracks at the end of fall semester"? Am I the only one that feels this way? Are the rest of you reading this post by a crackling fire after making snowpeople with your families? Or are you reading this post in the lab while waiting for the centrifuge to do…
skookumchick | October 4, 2008Both SW and I are trying to make/find/take back extra time outside of our jobs to support "the rest of life," with SW trying to support both Minnow and Spouse as well as herself. (Has anyone else noticed that, when women academics talk about balance, they tend to mean "work and the rest of life," and when men academics do, it's between teaching and research? Not all men... but it seems a pattern...)
Sometimes for me this means giving up on getting work stuff done, and prioritizing other things. This weekend, this meant finding time to visit my young friend Annika, who is rapidly heading…
sciencewoman | July 18, 2008So I attended a pedagogy workshop this week and I brought Minnow along. For those not keeping track, she's now almost 18 months old and still going strong with the nursing (>= 2 x/day, >=2x/night). When I signed up for the workshop, I'd intended her to stay with my mom in Midwest, but in the end she came with me instead. The workshop organizers have been fantastically accommodating, and I want to give a shout-out to the other participants who have been super-friendly and helpful. (Especially, Kim. Thanks!)
But I still feel like a trouble maker. There are plenty of other moms here. Some…
sciencewoman | June 19, 2008Katie @ Minor Revisions has decided to take the good job close to her family, rather than the dreamy job many states away. She sounds a little sad about the decision, but I am rejoicing for her.
The lack of a support network in Mystery State is one of the things that has and will continue to make my life harder over the next few years, and it is a big reason for pondering whether to go on the market again eventually. Here in Mystery City, we are 1100 miles from my parents and 1400 miles from Fish's parents. Our closest family of any sort is an aunt and uncle 200 miles away, and we have very…
sciencewoman | June 5, 2008Dear Sciencewoman,
I'm currently in the last 6 months of my PhD, and I have an 8 month old. I love research, but I want more time with my child, and I am curious if there is such a thing as a part time post doc. How did you get that kind of position? Did you have to create the position with your advisor?
Thanks!
Mommy, soon-to-be PhD
Dear Mommy, soon-to-be PhD,
My part-time post-doc began as a full time position, and switched to part-time only for a few months between the birth of my daughter and me leaving for the tenure-track. It worked really well for me, personally and professionally,…
skookumchick | June 3, 2008ScienceWoman mused about the completion of her first year here, and I had hoped I would develop similar observations and reflections while on Isle Royale. Truth be told, rather than taking the hiking time to think, uninterrupted, about the last year, I did anything but. Think, that is. Instead, I turned the intellectual brain off, and instead looked for orchids and wolf tracks and birds, and engaged in random brain static conversation with my husband about our house and his developing job. It was like a brain vacation.
However, on the 600 mile drive back, I did have chance to think a bit…
sciencewoman | May 29, 2008So I meant to have a nice post today addressing Ecogeofemme's challenge of describing how we write papers/proposals, but I haven't actually managed to do any writing today like I was supposed to.
Instead, I am going to point out the at times thoughtful, at times heated discussion going on around the blogosphere about whether academics with kids really have it harder than the rest of working adults. The discussion originated from an IHE piece about new studies that found that academics had lower birth rates than doctors or lawyers.
From there, Dean Dad wrote a post with his observations on…
skookumchick | May 23, 2008I'm taking a vacation next week. For real. Miles from anywhere. We're headed to the isolated Isle Royale National Park, which is the island in Lake Superior that is the eye of the wolf, as it were. We take a boat there Monday, and come back on the next boat, which runs on Friday.
Guess what else?
There will be no Internets.
I wanted to write a similar post to ScienceWoman on my reflections on my first year, but I feel I need a little space to be able to do this first. My head is so full of static - what to read next, should I really read that next, shouldn't I work on the revisions for…
sciencewoman | March 29, 2008There is an occasional faint light at the end of the tunnel of the academic year, and with that light come a lot of planning for the summer. I'm trying not to place unrealistic productivity expectations on the summer, but I also know that it is unrealistic to think that I will have the summer "off."
As I start to make my summer plans, I'm realizing that I'm going to be out of town for ~5 weeks this summer, and that Minnow will be coming along with me. That fact, combined with really wanting to see Minnow more than just breakfast, dinner, bedtime and weekends has got me wondering whether we…
skookumchick | March 26, 2008I've survived my spring break; now I have my first week back, while my husband tries to survive his.
Week of March 17-23
Monday we moved the appliances and all the kitchen stuff back into the kitchen, packed up all my stuff from the previous week, all my husband's stuff for the forthcoming week (his spring break), all my parents' stuff for their trip to visit my sister, and a bunch of extra boxes to move to our other house. We packed up the fridge so we'd have something to eat when we got back to Indiana, and put it all into 3 cars. We put one more poly coat on the floor, cleaned, and made…
skookumchick | March 26, 2008*Whew.* I have been slammed down by work and life, absolutely no room for blogging. Today I get a breather, and so you get an update.
Week of March 10-19
My spring break started out pretty well. Monday I had a phone conference with people I am co-authoring a paper with for the Frontiers in Education conference - the paper was due on March 24. I had lunch with my husband. I caught up on email and, because it was spring break and other people were actually taking time off (a good thing) most of the email questions didn't come back. I bought my plane ticket to the Engineering, Social…
skookumchick | March 18, 2008I had thought that I was getting on top of things over spring break. My folks came to visit us in the Illinois house, we refinished our kitchen floor and made umpteen home repairs, and drove back to W. Lafayette yesterday. My first full day back at work has been outrageously busy, I have a full slate of things to do tonight, let alone tomorrow, and not enough time to do it. So sorry for the lack of posting, but it will persist for a couple more days at least, and my folks will be heading back this way on the weekend...
But spring is definitely in the air here. It smells like earth, the…