She Falters To Rise

No Promises

2006-10-19T20:27:00.000-04:00

I can't promise you that this won't be my last post. On the other han, I can't promise you that I won't post mundane facts about my life everyday for the rest of my life. I just am not in the position to make promises.

My postdoc is very clinical--no more rat slayings and no more genetic mumbo jumbo...well, at least no more ratocide.

It is also eating up a lot of my time because the learning curve looks a lot like Mt. Everest...and we all know what happens on the way up the mountain. I haven't chopped off any fingers or eaten any frozen bodies yet...but it's still early.

On the other hand, some things haven't changed. For instance, there is an old Korean woman who has a drycleaning business in my husband's office building. I've heard that she is in love with my husband and dotes on him like no other.

I sent some clothes with him last time he dropped of his suits. Big mistake.

Today, I was so concerned that my newly-cleaned pants had a button missing that I failed to notice that the seam on my left leg was gone. We're talking total open air exposure.

By the time I got off the metro on the way home, my seam was split from my groin to my foot. It was almost as though I had turned my day-wear pants into an evening wear skirt...

Accident my ass.

Regardless, life isn't that different.

I do like what I'm doing, I just have so little free time right now.

So many stories that you all have missed...

Don't worry, sooner or later I'll get them out.

I do need a new blog.

I do miss you all...I really, really do.

This is so weird, for some reason.

Soon

2006-09-26T08:42:00.000-04:00

I want a new blog. I am attributing my failure to post, in part, to the fact that this blogs feels like a me that no longer exists.

The problem is that I can't find the time. My new job is a time-whore.

I keep saying, "soon", but then weeks go by....nothing.

Soon.

alive

2006-08-18T08:37:00.000-04:00

I'm alive and well--can't explain now about the MIA.

Hope all is well with you all; I'll be back soon.

The Mayans are nice and who knew that there are Almish people in Belize?

New job is OK, but lots of work.

Gotta run...

Paraformaldehyde Tramp

2006-06-27T09:56:00.000-04:00

Countdown to seeing the Mayan ruins: 3 days.

I can not wait.

I start my new job the day after I get back.

I can not wait.

I then have to help the new grad student in my old lab learn how to stain her tissue and analyze the results as no one in the lab knows how to do it.

I would rather stab myself in the eye.

I hope that she's been informed that this "training" will have to occur after hours as I do have a new job to go to. I'm sure no one found it necessary to tell her this as she is a grad student and thus a victim of The Man. At least she will have someone to help her, and she will not have to learn how to do these things on the Black Market like I did. I can't tell you how many of the lab's precious, disposable filter flasks and surgery needles were exchanged for protocols. Nor do I want to even think about how many animals I perfused like some paraformaldehyde whore in exchange for help cutting brains, use of cryostat and microscope equipment, and aliquots of solutions that I wasn't allowed to buy until I had tried them out. Do you know how hard it is to try something out before you buy it? Paraformaldehyde whore...that's what it came to.

Ahhhh, the life of the scientist. You wait for scraps to be thrown your way and then hover over them to protect them from being yanked away from you. Are there rescue societies for abused scientists? There should be.

Yep, she's lucky and she doesn't even know it.

Mayan ruins--here I come.

Lost Souls

2006-06-26T12:56:00.000-04:00

Where was this a few weeks ago? I'm a lost soul--they need to add "scientist" to their list of lost souls.

Christmas in July, perhaps?

2006-06-26T12:53:00.000-04:00

I love this t-shirt. Down with poverty and Monopoly, I say.

No Home

2006-06-23T09:16:00.000-04:00

As my husband and I looked for a new apartment, I was struck by how bad the housing crisis has become. Three years ago, when we found our current home to rent, I remember thinking, "Wow, how do people working minimum wage jobs pay their rent around here?". Rent has, of course, increased steadily since then, and as we looked at apartment after apartment that we can't afford ($2300 for a two bedroom apartment seems a little impossible right now), I became overwhelmed with grief for all of the struggling families around us.

Just last week, some semi-affordable apartments close to where I live were leveled so that developers could build condominiums starting in the $800,000 range. Single-family homes (2 bedrooms, 1-2 baths) are being snatched up at $600,000, torn down, and rebuilt into $1.5 million dollar mansions. In the downtown areas that used to be relatively cheap (aka "dangerous), "revitalization" projects are forcing people who don't drive Volvos or BMW SUVs to move further South or to live on the streets. Apparently "revitalization" does not mean "let's build nice, affordable housing for the people who have lived here and paid taxes for decades". Overcrowding in areas not touched by developers is soon to lead to spikes in crime and violence as happens when supply can not meet demand. It's a sad, sick mess.

As a carless civilian who patrols the street on foot and by bus, I have had the chance to become familiar with many of the homeless people along my route. Every week, it seems like I'm introduced to a newbie either through formal, friendly introduction or by me accidentally triggering a panic response in some of the more unstable individuals causing them to start yelling/screaming/running/etc. A few of them have become my "watchers", warning me when "Crazy Mike" is around (they call him Crazy Mike because he allegedly steals from them and hits people, but I've only seen him yell). One woman keeps the bus stop so clean you could eat off of the ground, and that's saying a lot for a bus stop. It always amazes me to hear random people stop and give lectures on finding a job, Christ, or some other quick fix to homelessness--people like this. Give me a break.

For those of you who have followed me from the beginning, you will know that homelessness is something that hits close to home for me, as my brother lived on the streets when he first became ill. He was mistreated by police, spit on and cursed by upstanding citizens and church leaders, and labeled as a good-for-nothing druggie by people who needed justification for ignoring him and his malnourished frame. He was sick and lost and just needed somebody to care until his family could find him and get him the help he needed.

So, when I stopped by this blog (the homeless guy), I felt compelled to share a post on gift bags for the homeless. Ideas like this beat spending a Sunday morning at church giving your money to people who spend it on air conditioners and new carpeting for the chapel. Maybe your church isn't like that, but mine sure was.

I just wanted to share.

Yippee!

2006-06-22T08:33:00.000-04:00

Things I'm excited about that prove I'm a loser:

--I have my own, personal FedEx account number. I can FedEx packages without carrying cash or going to the store. This may seem trivial to the average human, but I'm so far removed from the "real world" that getting my FedEx number was a really big deal. It makes me feel real.

--I am going to have a cubicle. I'm so excited about this cubicle that I'm busting at the seams. I've always dreamed of having one and decorating it and getting a red, Swingline stapler. For those of you who have had a "desk" inside a wet lab, you probably understand. I am used to having a desk with 3 drawers in a windowless room filled with boxes and tubes containing old, shriveled brains. My former desk was in the "rat treatment room", so it smelled of urine, feces, and death. Oh, and there was also a deep freeze next to my desk that buzzed so loudly that I'm now partially deaf. My new cubicle will have a window and carpeting and no lab equipment, and I will actually be able to eat and drink at it.

--Our new house has a built in shelf that my sewing machine will fit on. I've had the machine for 3-years, and it's still in the box. It was a random gift from my mom (I've talked about her gifting before), and I've never had a place to put it as housing here is so freakin' expensive that we've always lived in shoeboxes. I can't wait! An added bonus to moving is that I'm going to have a dishwasher. A real, working dishwasher. I'm clapping right now thinking about it.

I'm so excited!

The Last Word

2006-06-20T10:02:00.000-04:00

The official last word of my dissertation:

Tolerance

How appropriate.

Fossil Rat's and Dwight Schrute in No Particular Order

2006-06-15T15:08:00.000-04:00

Living Fossil rat--the new white meat. I posted about this before, but I think it's such a great story.

Also, I just remembered that I have one of these coming soon. I can't wait! Dwight Schrute is partly responsible for protecting my smile muscles from neglect-related atrophy over the past few months.

Sometimes, it's the little things in life that keep you from trying to commit suicide by eating apple seeds.*

*I'm just joking. I would never use apple seeds.

Summer Book Report

2006-06-15T14:56:00.000-04:00

Why I love the government by Falters:

I love the government because after you are hired you have to apply for the job to comply with the Man.

If that doesn't make sense then you understand what I'm saying.

Books For Fun

2006-06-09T08:59:00.000-04:00

I'm reading "The Book Thief" right now as part of my "return to a normal, happy life" plan.

I really, really like it so far.

I also read "Why Girls Are Weird", but I hated it. I was so bored reading it that I almost stabbed myself in the eye to keep myself awake.

Thankfully, I received a lot of books and bookstore gift cards as graduation presents. I didn't want presents, but I think my husband pushed people in that direction so that I didn't blow all of our savings on fun reads after I defended. Little did he know that I would be busier after defending than I was in the weeks prior to finishing.

He has threatened (lovingly) to drop me off at the bookstore every weekend for two hours so that I could read books there without buying them. I told him to blame my mother for allowing me to take speedreading courses when I was 12 and that owning the book was part of the fun. I also told him that without books, I may be forced to take up shoe shopping. He chose the book option.

Sporking it

2006-06-05T16:52:00.000-04:00

Stick a fork in me, I'm done. I'm so done that you could actually stick a spork in me and still get to see the meat falling off my bones. You had better hurry, though, because the line of scavengers picking at my parts grows by the second. They are relentless; they are ruthless.

The dilema of the 110% person is common enough. You give 110%, you are asked to give more. You give more. You become the go-to person, the reliable rock. People begin to believe that you are strong, that you love to spread yourself so thin that you drip over the edges. They forget that you are human. They do not see you crying--they do not realize that you can't sleep at night because your heart hurts and your mind is racing. They forget that you have bills to pay, errands to run, a life to keep track of.

I'm sitting in a hotel room right now, staring at the waves lapping at the shore. I just sent an abstract off for a meeting in the fall and am now working on some random lab stuff. Everytime I open my email, there is another "one more thing to do before you leave". I'm watching the people walking by, happy and relaxed. I've been here 3 days and have yet to feel the sand between my toes. There is so much to do in the next few weeks, and I don't know how to make it happen. This trip was meant to get me out of the house so that I could finish up my corrections in peace, but the list of things to do in addition to my corrections has turned into a monster that can not be tamed.

I'm tired. I'm sad. I feel cheated. I wanted just a few days to enjoy my accomplishment, to relax and reflect. I defended on Friday and then was bombarded by emails on Monday. So many things to do that I really shouldn't be asked to do, but over the last 5 years I became the go-to girl and now the lab is in a state of panic so they keep asking for another drumstick.

You had better hurry.

Hot, Hot, Hot

2006-06-02T08:50:00.000-04:00

It was hot yesterday. Not only was it hot, but the humidity was so bad, the air was so thick, that every breath felt like it was being drawn under water.

Perfect day for a job interview.

My hair is long--it hangs down past the middle of my back. Did I pull it up yesterday? No.

I could feel the sweat mark growing on my back, under my hair, like a demonic ink stain with every step I took.

The bus was hot; the metro hotter.

The walk from the metro to my interview was long and without shade. My backpack felt like it was filled with bricks...wet bricks. My interviewer's office was on top of the hill from hell.

When I finally reached the top (making a mental note to start exercising again), I stopped to catch my breath and to pray that I was not having a heart attack. I don't think that someone will offer a job to a person who has a heart attack every day on their way to the office.

I paused in the entrance of the building to let myself cool down. I thought I was cooled off, silly me, but my interview was on the second floor. It's funny how a 5 degree difference in temperature can change everything.

As my future employer began talking, I could feel the sweat start to bead on my brow. I tried to ignore it, but drip by drip, I could feel myself being blinded. If makeup isn't tested on animals, what is it tested on? Yesterday, it was tested on my eyeballs, and I can tell you that although it did not blind me, it felt as though someone was pouring vodka onto my corneas.

I must have been making a wonderfully entertaining face, because my interviewer stopped talking and stared at me.

I sighed and said, "I can tell by your face that you noticed the look on my face. I'm sorry but...(and I bent over and pulled a tissue from my bad and wiped my face off)...it is just so hot out and your office is on such a steep hill..."

He laughed. I laughed to hide my mortification. I then blurted out that I was mortified, which blew my cover.

I am a moron.

Ta da

2006-05-30T10:10:00.000-04:00

I am now officially an unemployed doctor.
I blame everything on the Bush administration, if anyone asks.

Thank you for all of your kind words and support.

My defense went well, I think. It is all a blur. My family and my husband's family came (our defenses are open to the public). They took up 3 rows in the auditorium--it was cute to see them all sitting down there nodding. I put a few jokes into my slides just for them, but they were so afraid to do or say anything that they were the only ones not laughing.

My committee members were not so bad. They ended up fighting a lot amongst themselves. One member was particularly difficult, but he was smiling so I knew he was doing it on purpose, and it thus didn't bother me. They picked me apart as though my thesis was horrible, and then passed me with distinction when they were done. It's all a game, and I appreciate a good roast, so no harm no foul.

I have a few corrections to make, but nothing major. They want me to prepare an additional manuscript now after seeing all of the data, but that's fine with me. I have time to do these sorts of things as I have no real job to go to.

My husband was wonderful in getting my family where they needed to be. He threw me a really nice backyard party, and it was good to celebrate something for a change. He also revealed that he's taking me to Belize for a vacation. We haven't been on a vacation since our honeymoon 6 years ago, other than quick weekend trips to the beach here, which really isn't a "beach" in my opinion. I can not wait. I'm going to see Mayan ruins and fish off the coast and snorkel. I can not wait. I have said it a million times, but I'll say it again: my husband is the most amazing person on earth. I must keep drugging his drinks so that he does not catch on and run away.

Everyone keeps asking me how I feel now that it's over. I guess I'm feeling a little lost right now. I am no longer a student, but I'm not faculty. I'm not even a post doc. I'm just me, sitting here drinking vitamin water and blogging, staring at my retired neighbors out the window. I haven't been me for so long that it's just a bit overwhelming. I keep feeling like I'm going to cry, and then I start giggling madly. I stare at my bookcases filled with papers and text books and wonder what I should do with them. Do any of you need some fluff to read? Perhaps a little "DNA Repair and Mutagenesis" or "Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience"?

Now I'm giggling again.

D-Day

2006-05-26T07:55:00.000-04:00

Wish me luck.

I hope I don't say "crap". I said crap once when my slides started auto-changing. Oh, I hope I don't say "crap".

Where the Yellow Brick Road Stops

2006-05-24T08:13:00.000-04:00

In a few days, it will all be over.

I cried the whole way through American Idol last night. Partly, because Catherine has no self-esteem, and I find that really sad. The other reason for the tears was because Taylor reminds me of me. When you watch him, you see his roots (I don't mean his hair), and you really see what this means to him. It's more than just winning. I also cried because I would rather be in an American Idol finale than defending my dissertation. That is sad.

Whenever I get nervous about my defense, I think, "at least you don't have to sing". I don't know if you have ever sung in front of an audience (other than when you are drunk on karaoke night), but I think it is much more difficult than giving a talk. If you mess up during a talk, you can go back and fix it--you can cover your ass on just about everything you say, other than if you accidentally yell out an obscenity. Once I said "crap" when my slides went crazy during a talk, and that was hard to cover. At least my brain was functioning enough to let crap slip instead of what I would say behind closed doors.

When you sing, however, everything is final. I'm glad I'm not singing.

I'm exhausted, and I'm confused, and I wish I had a job so I didn't have to worry about it. I thought that maybe I could work at a department store for a few months until I got the job thing settled, but when I went shopping this week, the department store girls were annoying and mean to me, and I don't want to work with them. Granted, I was "shopping" at Saks, but just because you sell clothes that I can't afford doesn't mean you can afford them either. This city is very pretentious at times.

Can you tell I'm all over the place today?

Tick Tock

2006-05-12T11:09:00.000-04:00

I must hand over this bad boy on Monday. Before then, I have to write and introduction and an overall discussion. Totally feasible...right?

The good news is that I wrote each chapter up as though it were an individual manuscript. Each chapter, thus, has an abstract, intro, and discussion. I'm hoping that the overall intro and discussion will just be cut and paste from the other chapters. So much of intellectual challenges. Time kills all that it is good in this world.

I tried to put all of the chapters into one big file yesterday. Big mistake. Big. My computer cried out in pain. Maybe I should have closed down some of the running applications. Yeah, I'm one of those people.

I might go dark (isn't that what they say in the CIA?) for a while. I don't know, we'll see.

Bubble Wrap Bonus

2006-05-10T11:48:00.000-04:00

Several people (my mom and the guy next door) are curious to know how I deal with all of this stress. Aside from the wine and head banging and bizarre motor ticks, I feel that this has been tremendously helpful.

Thank me later.

Official Word: UFOs are not hostile

2006-05-10T08:28:00.000-04:00

I feel so much better. Thank you, UK.

But now, I'm curious.

For in depth, quality UFO research.

Here are the reports from the Ministry of Defense.

I really do feel so much better.

How I Feel Right Now

2006-05-08T14:37:00.000-04:00

As my sister-in-law, who teaches photography and short-film making, points out: "Technology may be causing a decline in verbal literacy, but visual literacy is reaching new highs."

So, here we go:

This is how I feel right now. It sounds really crappy to be me, right? Well, I would rather be me than be this little guy. That makes me feel better.

Astrocytes are Insensitive

2006-05-07T11:41:00.000-04:00

I'm losing it. I just wrote "astrocytes are insensitive" in my fruksis and now I can't stop laughing. It's funny...really.

Can't See

2006-05-07T09:02:00.000-04:00

I feel blind.

Maybe it's because I finally managed to get someone to send me new contacts even though I haven't been to the eye doctor in 5 years. Eyes go a little nuts when they've been using 6-month old contacts that are only supposed to be used for two weeks. When you finally get new contacts, your eyes rebel against the change even though it is a good change.

Eyes are sort of like people.

Maybe I feel blind because I've been working well over 14 hours a day on my fruksis, yet there appears to be no end in sight. Another girl in my lab took over a year to write her thesis, which was only 150 pages long. I don't know why I thought 2 months for twice as many pages was feasible.

Maybe I feel blind because I have no idea where I will be in two months. I have no job lined up, we will be moving to a different place, and my husband may be switching careers very soon.

One thing I do know is that I don't want anyone else to tell me that my thesis is not going to be crappy. I appreciate if you think that my most craptacular work equals someone else's best work. I understand that you think I can't see the end because I'm a perfectionist.

But, how does that help? You know--you understand.

If you can't meet your own standards of excellence, especially when you are pathological about such standards, then it doesn't help to meet someone else's. Furthermore, when you are handing something in to people who have been exposed to your standards for half of a decade, does anyone really think that those people aren't also holding you up to your standards instead of theirs.

These people have watched me move figures one pixel on posters measuring 4.5 feet by 3.5 feet. It obviously didn't matter to me that you wouldn't be able to tell on the final product that the figures were off by one pixel. That pixel means everything.

It doesn't matter that it doesn't matter. I know that it doesn't matter. It does though--it does to me.

I remember a picture I drew when I was 13. It was a charcoal drawing of a woman dressed in ballroom attire,clutching a child to her chest. I loved the picture. It was the first piece of art that I created and loved. Usually there was lots of creation but little love.

The woman was obviously wealthy as evidenced by her attire, but the wealth didn't matter. Looking at her clutch that child made you see that she was unhappy. She was unhappy and so vulnerable. I was so proud of that picture.

My art teacher, unfortunately, wanted me to make the lines darker so that you could see everything in the picture from afar. It had to be darker so that we could display it, and people could walk around like pigeons looking at it.

I still regret making the lines darker. They were supposed to be soft; that was the point. The softness of the picture made you come in closer. It made you vulnerable.

Does that picture really matter in the grand scheme of my life...should it matter? Probably not.

But it does matter to me.

Am I crazy? Yes. Maybe that is why I feel blind.

Some of you are crazy too, though.

Those of you who don't get it, won't get it. It's not about age or wisdom or life's lessons. It's about drive and who we are and what makes us feel "proud of ourselves".

I'm so very tired...and blind.

Go Shop For Me

2006-05-05T11:31:00.000-04:00

I need someone to go shopping for me. I am really cutting it close with my fruksis deadline, and I don't have the time to look for myself. I need something sharp to wear to my defense that screams, "I'm smart but not a frump".

I'm thinking black because I usually only wear black/gray, blue, brown, white/cream or some combination of those colors. I look horrible in purple and bright greens. My presentation is going to be shades of blue and orange so I can't wear anything that clashes as the screen is huge and will be behind me as a backdrop. I could do a light color for a dress if it had a dark cardigan.

Obviously my shoulders should be covered, but I'm willing to layer if the dress is strappy.

I'm trying to not do pants because I have a hard time finding pants that fit on my waist--I almost had a wardrobe malfunction at my last presentation because the microphone battery was clipped to my pants and ended up pulling them down. I caught them before anyone was traumatized, but then I had to hold the stupid pack the entire presentation.

I don't do skirts that are above the knee because I hate my knees. Maybe slightly above the knee if you must, but please respect my body issues.

What else...I have narrow shoulders. I usually stick to A-line type deals. I really like the dresses with the belts or that wrap around--like the kind Kelly Ripa wears all of the time.

It has to be under $200. Way under would be nice, but as this will be my only "professional" outfit that I own, I don't want to go too cheap.

Update: More info

Here are some styles that I like, but that I can't afford.
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C
Exhibit D
Exhibit E

OK, now go shop for me...please. Please.

Where Am I?

2006-05-05T07:17:00.000-04:00

"Some time around 2:45 a.m., I drove the few blocks to the Capitol Complex believing I needed to vote," his second statement said. "Apparently, I was disoriented from the medication."
--Rep. Patrick Kennedy after crashing into a barrier (in order to avoid hitting a police cruiser) near the Capitol

At least he didn't kill an intern.

I used to think my Uncle Billy Bob's excuses were so lame because he was an alcoholic and drug addict and not very smart or educated. Apparently, he was just being a politician when he claimed that he hit a fence to avoid running over a chicken, and then went home and drank a case of beer in an hour (explaining why he was drunk when the police arrived at his house). You see, it wasn't really a hit-and-run either because he left a note--the chicken must have eaten it.

Which story is more believable? I'm not sure.

What Your Mentor Didn't Tell You

2006-05-02T08:27:00.000-04:00

Everyone tells you to begin writing your dissertation early, well before you finish your research and plan your defense.

For some, this may be possible. For others, however, I think this bit of advice is not necessarily clear and easy to follow.

If your project is like most, it is a living, breathing creature. You are not merely checking "to do's" off of your proposal; you are collecting data and changing your ideas based on those data and exploring new paths as the literature on your topic grows. For some, projects will change completely. For others, you may be scooped or your hypotheses may have to change with some new discovery occurring halfway across the world.

Thesis research is a dynamic process.

This is why writing your dissertation "early" is not always easy to do.

I don't want to hear the peanut gallery whining about "starting with the introduction". Sure, you can write literature reviews on your topic. In fact, if you have the time and energy, a review is a good way to get out a publication. If you think about the purpose and nature of an introduction, however, you will begin to see how intimately it is linked to the meat of your thesis. Your introduction is, thus, a growing, living creature also.

Now, listen closely, because I'm going to tell you something you can do.

For those of you who present posters often (more than 2 times a year, including the first year of your research), you can tune out. The rest of you should stay on board.

Pick up a pencil and a piece of paper. For you computer junkies, paper is that thing that is usually white and flat, and it comes out of a printer. A pencil is something you put in your hand and make lines with.

Now, grab all of the data you've obtained in the last 6 months (or longer if you have data from over 6-months ago that have nothing written about them). Pull out the data that can fall under a single-hypothesis.

Now, write an abstract. I'm giving you a 300-word limit. You must have a rationale, methods, results, and conclusions/discussion section. Go online to a society (like the society for neuroscience) and look through their abstract databases for help, if you need to. It's sometimes helpful to have a model when you write (a model does not mean copying passages, just so we're clear, here). It doesn't matter if your data aren't finished or if you only have an N of one. Write about what you have. Do it now. Don't sit there and think, "I'll do it when I have time" or "I'll do that on Cinco de Mayo". Do it now. It's 300 words; you can do it. You are not too busy because you are reading my blog right now. You can't fool me.

Now, put the abstract in a file that you will not lose. Remember that you may need to pull it out in 5-years, so label it with care.

You now have a skeleton ready for dressing when you want to submit an abstract or write a paper. When you go to write your dissertation, you have an immediate outline to use for the chapter covering the data in that abstract. You can change the abstract as you go along in seconds. Quick, easy, done.

Thank me later. I accept all major credit cards.

Holy Crap, I Have No Lips

2006-04-30T17:54:00.000-04:00

I decided I deserved a present.

I went to my local Bath & Body Works and bought some of my all-time favorite body lotion.
It's light and smells like honey and I love it.

I know...it's way more than I would normally spend on lotion, but it smells so wonderful and makes your skin so silky smooth.

As I browsed through the store, I stumbled upon the mother load of most-wanted beauty items. Let the quest for non-invasive anti-aging treatments begin!

As I have no money and no job lined up, I couldn't really splurge on the entire line, but I did end up buying this. It was on sale, so I thought, "Why not?".

After my trip to the mall, I went home and resumed working on my thesis, which from now on, will be referred to as my "frucksis". If you think really hard, you'll understand. Where was I? Oh, yeah. I returned home and started typing away. I learned that an entire weekend of working results in one, almost-finished chapter, just in case you are wondering.

So, as I struggled over making negative data look sexy, I decided to try out my lip plumper. I applied it mostly to my lips--these things are difficult when you don't have a mirror. It didn't smell or taste funny, which was a plus.

Within minutes my lips started to feel plumper and then...then they didn't feel anything at all.

Numb. It made my lips feel like two little drunk blobs, passed out from a night of drinking on my face.

I ran upstairs to get a good look in the mirror. Placebo effect or real result, I couldn't really tell, but my lips looked...fuller. Amazing. It also made the skin around my lips where I had slopped on the plumper look a little different, but no matter.

Could the chemicals in this product be dangerous? Ummm, maybe. Is it insane to torture myself this way. Ummm, maybe. Was it worth it?

Absolutely.

Everyone needs numb lips when they are trying to finish their frucksis.

How Long Should A Thesis Be and Jellyfish Gangs

2006-04-29T13:09:00.000-04:00

How long should a thesis be?

It's like asking , "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie-roll pop?"

In my program, theses range from 100 pages (including references, copyright page, etc.) to 400 pages.

So I guess one could answer the two questions in the same manner: It depends on who is doing the licking.

Alright, now on to more important things.

Thanks to William the Coroner, we now know what to call a group of jellyfish. It's a "smack".
Makes perfect sense, if you don't think about it.

He was also kind enough to give us a handy reference sheet so we no longer make fools of ourselves when discussing wildlife in plural terms. All this time I've been referring to a "sloth" of bears and a clusterf***. Actually, I think that I usually refer to most things as a clusterf***. That is because I'm trying to finish this stupid thesis and I'm very hostile. Now, however, I won't have to refer to such vulgarities.

Thank you, our body dissecting friend.

David and Goliath: Jellyfish Style

2006-04-26T08:37:00.000-04:00

Last night, while in the throes of insomnia, I watched a rather odd show on jellyfish. The entire show kept leading up to the deadliest jellyfish of all--I was hooked. When the camera crew dove in, I held my breath. When the narrator indicated that they had found not one, but 20 of the deadly monsters, I was ecstatic. Slowly, the camera zoomed in.

And in.

And in.

And in.

Apparently, the deadly Irukandji jellyfish is only about 2.5cm in diameter.

Here's another story about the little devils.

So, it was a huge buzzkill. I did, however, get to see one eat (for the first time captured on camera, mind you). I also go to see a box jellyfish sleep (also for the first time captured on camera).

To top it all of, I also got to see a very attractive model in a bikini swim with the jellyfish. The narrator also used the word "sex" a lot. These elements were noticeably out of place, but I guess it's hard to make jellyfish sexy enough for viewers to tune in. I wonder how much they payed that model. Do you think it came out of their research budget?

I'm a Ruff Mighty Mouse

2006-04-25T16:45:00.000-04:00

How do you think DMX would react to the fact that I made my amygdala graphs to "Ruff Ryders"? I'm pretty sure that Gorillaz would be cool with the fact that I analyzed the CA1 to "Feel Good Inc." because they have a slight, geeky edge buried deep inside them, but do you think 50 cent would understand how he helped me through the dentate gyrus analyses? Don't freak out, I mixed in some of The Postal Service and Mighty Mouse, and of course I worked Staind into the mix, but at the end of the day, when I close up to 2-Pac's "Ghetto Gospel", do you think any of these artists could even dare to dream of who did what to their music?

I bet they have NO idea.

Copy Cat Blues

2006-04-25T11:41:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Harvard University sophomore promised to change her debut novel in future editions after acknowledging that she had unintentionally borrowed material from an author she deeply admired.

We have all pulled our hair out over the issues of intellectual property, plagiarism, etc. so I'm not going to start yet another discussion over this growing epidemic of intellectually-cloaked academic regurgitation.

In my opinion, the biggest issue with this book is the fact that it lacks the creativity and inspiration that I would want to see from a Harvard student or any college student for that matter. The book's concept is the same-old repetitive story, so why should we expect the actual passages to be any different? She should be more embarrassed that the only story line she could come up with is "hard working high school girl didn't get into Harvard".

I'm sorry. I really shouldn't badger this girl when there are a million authors out there doing the same thing. I'm just so sick of "chick lit".

On a brighter note, what I do want to point out and relish is this phrase from the article: "unintentionally borrowed".

I love it. I unintentionally borrowed 1,000 MP3s...or...I unintentionally borrowed all of your data and put it in my paper.

It's like saying "he accidentally fell on my knife" instead of I stabbed him.

Love it.

Bomb-sniffing rats

2006-04-23T10:56:00.000-04:00

Bomb-sniffing rats. Brilliant.

Why have we not tried this before?

Maybe I could start my own DOD-supported company.

Mentorship in odd places

2006-04-20T08:55:00.000-04:00

Every morning, my husband makes coffee for me. The reason why this is so special is because he has to run around like a crazy person to get to work while I sleep in for another hour and then work the rest of the day from home. He could just go to work and drink the coffee at his office and leave me to my own demise with our complicated little coffee pot, but he doesn't. People used to say that we did these little things for each other because we were "newlyweds" and that it wouldn't last. We've been together now for 8 years; we've spent 6 of those years as husband and wife, and yet, I still get coffee.

That's why I am able to finish this bizarre process of getting my PhD.

We look in weird places (i.e., advisors and our program) for support, but sometimes the support we need is off in a corner, small but mighty.

My advice to new grad students is to not expect your mentorship to come from your mentor. There are definitely good mentors out there, but just as all teachers are not good teachers and not all doctors are good doctors, your particular mentor may not be very healthy for your progress.

If your advisor is lacking in social skills or mentoring abilities, look for the support you need elsewhere. You might find help from another faculty member or a family member or a friend or a peer.

My mentorship and support has come from many odd sources. The day I realized that it was not going to come from my mentor, I went hunting.

I found technical help from research assistants in random labs and from fellow students.

I found the phrase, "when are you doing X again, and do you mind if I watch you?".

I discovered that my husband is great at helping me put together my presentations and posters. I learned to send rough drafts out to my mother or friends who were always good at writing. Who cares if they don't know what the X gene is--they know the difference between affect and effect.

I sought out junior faculty who were eager to help, as they still remember what it is like to be a student. They would spend countless hours looking at my data and helping me figure out how to fix problems. To date, my advisor has never looked at any of my raw data or numbers. He has never looked at my protocols and never offered advice on a technical problem other than, "well it didn't work so you obviously must have done something wrong". I used to think that I was hurt by this, somehow--that it impeded my progress. Now I realize that it didn't really hurt me. I found the expert advice I needed to move forward; it was everywhere around me except for my lab, but it turns out that location isn't really important at the end of the day.

I spent a lot of time upset that I didn't have any guidance--I didn't even have the pat on the back that all of us crave. I felt like I was killing myself to get approval, to be the student that all mentors want to have. This type of thinking leads to frustration, bitterness, and depression. These are bad things.

What I didn't realize until much later was that I did have guidance and approval. I look around now at all of the people who helped me, at the countless names listed in my acknowledgements. How could I have been so blind? How could I have let one person's lack of mentorship skills drive me so far down?

I took it personally, but why? It's not that my advisor did not want to mentor me because I was a bad student or not worthy of his time--he just didn't know how to mentor me. It's not that my geometry teacher didn't want to teach me about proofs, he just didn't know how to teach me about proofs. I didn't take it personally when I was 12, so why should I now? Silly rabbit.

It doesn't really matter where your support comes from; you may think it does, but it doesn't in the long run. Your job is to get in, get out, and stay healthy during the process.

So, my little grasshoppers, learn from my struggles. Your advisor is not your mother or father. You do not need approval or food or shelter from them. It's nice if you can get those things (well, maybe not the shelter...creepy), but if you can't, start your hunting expedition.

Be proactive and seek out wisdom from those who want to give it and who know how to give it.

They are out there.

ps This goes both ways. Not all students are good students. Advice number two is to always be introspective and evaluate how to reasonably improve yourself--not for the approval of your mentor--but for the sake of becoming better at what you do. We'll talk about this more when I'm a mentor venting about students;)

Implicit Associations

2006-04-19T11:04:00.000-04:00

After reading Blink, I decided to take some of Harvard's Implicit Association Tasks (IAT) to find out what my sublevel biases are. I just took the Male/Science/Female/Liberal Arts IAT and discovered I have no association bias. It made me happy to know that I'm not against myself:)

I'm going to take a few more and see what comes up. I know, I know--I should be dissertating...

To do, To do

2006-04-18T09:53:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I feel like Alice in Wonderland--in pursuit of a white rabbit through a world that makes little, if any, sense. When I'm feeling large, the world around me becomes so small, yet, when the world around me expands, I shrink to a size so tiny that I can't see above the chaos.

And then, there is the tea party...

I've tried to figure out if the Mad Hatter is the Man or if the Mad Hatter is my alter ego standing in between me and the white rabbit. Oh, and let's not forget those annoying talking flowers.

Regardless, my checklist is overwhelming me. Sometime, between now and the end of May I have to:

--Turn in all of my paperwork to the graduate school
--Prepare my oral defense presentation
--Finish crunching numbers
--Finish writing my thesis (100 pages down, 200 more to go)
--Finish writing my next manuscript
--Get signatures from my committee members and turn in my thesis proposal that I should have turned in years ago
--Study for my oral defense
--Find a job

If that Mad Hatter doesn't stop singing "A very merry un-birthday", he's going to find himself sleeping with the fish.

My Interview Question

2006-04-13T07:51:00.000-04:00

I've decided that when I'm someone important, these will be two of the questions that I ask all applicants:

a.) If you could describe yourself as any drug, which drug would it be?

b.) If you could be any drug, which drug would you be?

I think my answers would be a.) meth-amphetamine (because you love me but I drive you crazy and move entirely too fast) and b.) heroine (because I would slow the world down and make it feel good)

This is what happens when you try to start working before you've had your coffee. On that note, I would never want to be coffee.

Science Podcasts

2006-04-10T16:32:00.000-04:00

OK, OK...I know it's really dorky, but I thought I should let you know that you can now watch podcasts made available from Science/AAAS.

I really wish that they would find people who don't sound like NPR broadcasters, though. I found the lack of prosody to be more boring than a medical school lecture--I would rather listen to the "door closing" subway message over and over again. Morgan Freeman must be a little out of their price range--or maybe he only does penguin-related work.

On a different note--I discovered today that I am in a bit of a pickle. I love that saying--the pickel one.

One of the top scientists in my field retracted several papers recently. This individual did not retract all of the papers related to my area of interest, but quite a few of the key articles are now taboo to use. This is, of course, after I've written a large section of my thesis discussing the findings in these now retracted papers, and how their data may relate to mine.

So, like a good little scientist, I've taken out those references. I'm a bit puzzled, however, over what to do next. Do I take out the findings from papers that haven't been retracted, even though the authors of the non-retracted papers--and, thus, the potential "data manipulators"--are on the retracted papers? There are very few people doing research in this area, so I don't have many other sources to turn to.

Why do people have to lie? They did it on purpose to make my life harder. It's all about me.

Proofs: The Big Punisher

2006-04-07T16:50:00.000-04:00

Correcting your proofs is the biggest, meanest punishment ever.

They'll publish your paper alright, but first you must go through it yet another time to look for mistakes. Now you not only have to worry about your own stupid errors, but you also have to look for errors introduced during the typesetting. Is that one space or two? Is there a word missing here?

Not only do you have to find the mistakes, but you also must use some sort of bizarre code to mark up your paper. You have to squeeze things into tiny margins while remembering to leave enough space at the edges for faxing errors. I just can't go on...

Blah.

What to Do

2006-04-06T09:16:00.000-04:00

How do I procrastinate/work offline?

First, I read this.

Then, I decided to learn Hebrew.

Then, I began studying Hebrew using a crappy online tutorial.

Then, I got tired and forgot that I was learning Hebrew.

I decided to go for a jog.

After my run, I was cold, so I took a nice hot bath and read a chapter of this.

Then, I decided I wanted to know more about Easter Island. I began an intensive online research project.

Then, I remembered it was my dad's birthday. I always get his birthday and Easter switched in my fragile brain.

Then, as I tried to figure out if I should dig up the 8-foot tall, pink yard bunny that is hiding in my basement with the other holiday crap, I miraculously thought of a way to transform my data so that I can do a parametric analysis and hopefully pick up the small trends I believe I'm consistently seeing.

Then, I couldn't breathe because that sentence went on forever.

Then, I started working on my dissertation again.

Then, I typed this.

Black Holes

2006-04-05T10:26:00.000-04:00

"I am not that crazy lady who calls 911, just so she can take a ride in an ambulance. I do not call toll-free numbers in lonely despair so that I may talk to someone with a friendly voice. I have no love of your service repair men, as cunning as they may be...."

They (Comcast or a.k.a. the Man's evil helpers) refused to believe me that there was a MAJOR problem with our cable because every time they left here, my internet was magically fixed. When I say "fixed" I mean it would work for 1 or 2 hours and then disappear into la-la land where politicians, elves, and the occasional sea serpent walk around wondering what happened to their cash transfer from Mr. Obo's African estate.

Finally, after convincing them that I really do have a life and don't live and die to see their van outside of my house, they agreed to rewire EVERYTHING. So, I am back now. Actually, I was back last week, but it took me awhile to catch up with the world and all of my deadlines. I couldn't allow myself to even peep at the blogosphere until I was done with my "must do's".

Let's hope for some smooth sailing for the next few weeks.

I'll be back

2006-03-15T07:59:00.000-05:00

I'm here...trying to read your blogs when prying eyes in the lab aren't looking, or when my neighbor leaves for work allowing me to sit on his porch and use his internet. Just kidding...or am I?

The current truth is that the problem with my Comcast internet is that my signal is too strong. They kept telling me that I was the idiot, that I was bumping the button or not plugging it in or overheating the modem. I knew I was not doing any of those things, but they did not know that. I'm sure they have to deal with their share of idiots.

Finally, they came. They come when you cry.

At first, it seemed like it was still my fault. My cable is spliced in a half dozen places, so the signal must just be weak. But, no. It turns out that even at the last splice, my signal is stronger than what most people have coming directly into their home.

Who would think that your internet won't work if your signal is too strong?

They are probably messing with me, but I'm too dumb to know it.

They were supposed to come out last week, but "something happened", and they weren't able to make it.

I just want my freakin' internet to work.

How can I work from home, if my home has no internet?

People are going to start thinking it's odd that I walk my dog holding my laptop.

I will see you all again soon.

Blond Lobsters

2006-03-08T08:01:00.000-05:00

Check out this new find. It is described by this article as being "white and just shy of 6 inches long about the size of a salad plate." I wonder why they chose a salad plate as a size reference? Regardless, a blond, furry, blind lobster-like creature is still pretty cool.

Reflections

2006-03-03T08:04:00.000-05:00

I have a friend who got pregnant and had a child when she was 17. She was a good girl, trying to survive in an abusive and disturbing family. She didn't drink or do drugs or sleep around. The child's father was her first boyfriend and love. She thought he was her salvation.

As the story usually goes, she married him because he begged her to, and because she wanted to be a "real" family. In return for her love, he beat her and cheated on her and once tried to kill her. He is very lucky I didn't know her at the time.

He refused to support her when she wanted to go to college, and that meant that her dream of medical school was never going to happen either. He took her money and her confidence and made her sole provider and caretaker for their son.

She was, and still is, an amazing mother. I don't know if I've ever met a better mom.

She managed to put herself through college, slowly. She made the decision to not go to medical school because she wanted to be there for her son during his preteen/teenage years.

She spent a lot of time wondering, "what if". What if I had not gotten pregnant? What if my life had worked out the way I thought it would? She would never take it all back, because she couldn't stand the thought of not having her son by her side, but it's hard to not wonder.

This year marks the year she would have completed her residency had she never become pregnant.

This is also the year that she found out that she has a disease that has destroyed her ovaries. She can no longer have children. In fact, had she not had a child so early, she would most likely would never have had a child at all.

She no longer wonders, "what if".

Once her son is done with high school, she is going to try to go to medical school.

We must always remember that we are not in control of this life. I don't know who or what is, but everything has a time and place, even if we don't understand.

That's my Friday reflection.

While We Are On Monkeys

2006-03-01T17:38:00.000-05:00

While we are on the topic of monkey behavior (see post from earlier today), I thought you might find this banana guard relevant--or at least you might find it interesting. I should have thought of that.

Monkeys Know Their Place on the Social Ladder

2006-03-01T15:54:00.000-05:00

I thought that you all might find this interesting.

It's from a short piece, a correspondance article in Current Biology, but it provides some interesting insight into non-human primate social behavior. I don't know if it demonstrates snobbery in macaque social cirlces, but it does open the doors for some lively discussion.

Here's an abstract view from the article:
Social status gates social attention in monkeys
Stephen V. Shepherd, Robert O. Deaner and Michael L. Platt (all out of Duke)

Humans rapidly shift attention in the direction other individuals are looking, following gaze in a manner suggestive of an obligatory social reflex. Monkeys' attention also follows gaze, and the similar magnitude and time-course of gaze-following in rhesus macaques and humans is indicative of shared neural mechanisms. Here we show that low-status male rhesus macaques reflexively follow the gaze of all familiar rhesus macaques, but high-status macaques selectively follow the gaze only of other high-status monkeys. These results suggest that gaze-following in monkeys involves reflexive and voluntary components, and that the strength of these mechanisms varies according to social status.

Environmental Influences

2006-03-01T08:33:00.000-05:00

According to my mother's latest email, my father is miserably depressed because he thinks I don't love him anymore. He thinks I don't love him anymore because I never visit.

She left out that he is also trying to quit chewing, so he is going through some really bad withdrawal right now. Why would that have anything to do with his emotional state? Nor does she contemplate that his moping might be due to the fact that she only talks about people dying of cancer or war or old age.

She's a tricky one.

Regardless, her email made me think a lot about happiness...specifically, how childhood environmental conditioning affects adult happiness.

When I was a child, I spent 90% of my free time outside. I was Indiana Jane, and I explored every last inch of our 100-acre woods. I collected "specimens" in Maxwell House coffee cans, turning over every rock in hopes of finding the "big one". I once found a trout in our creek, which is really weird because our creek is only a few inches deep in most parts and doesn't really connect to any larger body of water. I once read somewhere that fish eggs can be transported in raindrops...or maybe I dreamed that. Regardless, it definitely fell under the classification of a "big one".

I picked berries in the summer and filled the house with fresh wild-flowers every day until the snow came. In the winter, I built forts and tried to ice-skate on puddles. Then, in the spring, I started it all over again. I planted crops and chased chickens. I learned that goats don't discriminate--they bite children as well as adults without regard to any concept of "innocence". I learned how to knock cans off of fences with BB guns and how to start fire with flint.

Accordingly, I learned to stay out of the water during the dog days of summer because it was stagnant and disease riddent. I also learned to avoid starting fires during droughts. Contrary to popular American belief, children aren't stupid and will not be idiots if you don't allow them to be idiots.

Now, years later, I sit under fluorescent lights in a city without stars--at least without the ones that hang in the sky. You never smell soil here, and the odor of grass is always combined with that of gasoline and smoke from the weed wackers and lawn mowers. City folk have an obsession with growing perfect grass only to cut it down to barely-there status. There are weeks where I may get a total of 5 hours of sunlight on my body, and my lungs barely remember what "clean" air feels like.

We study so many things in science, especially in the area of mood. We spend billions on drugs and therapy and guesswork. We spend a lot of time contemplating why "bad" things in childhood cause us to feel "bad" or act "bad" in adulthood, but we rarely talk about why "good" things in childhood--or even just things in general--may be required for us to feel "good" in adulthood. Would I be happier if I moved to Alaska and spent my days collecting soil samples?

I don't know.

Wartroos, Credit Scores, and A Tag

2006-02-24T09:02:00.000-05:00

First, I want you to know that I'm very disappointed that this conservative-run mocracy of a government let Jack Hanna appear on Good Morning America with a kangaroo that had an affinity for wart hogs. Jack claimed that the kangaroo had never acted like this before, but I find that hard to believe. Once a wart hog humper, always a wart hog humper...or so I've heard. There is something ungodly about wartroos being conceived on television, I'm sure.

Second, FYI for all of you who don't know (although maybe I'm the only idiot out here): unpaid medical bills can appear on your credit report and hurt your credit score. Even if it is not your fault and you and your insurance company are fighting the hospital, if the bill gets sent to a collections agency, you are screwed (although it doesn't seem to impact your score that much). Their advice to me, you ask?

"Even though this will be resolved and you will not owe this ridiculous amount of money, we suggest you pay it until things get sorted out, and you will be reimbursed later on. This will prevent your credit from being damaged."

You can fill in all of the things that I'm yelling at that "advice" right now. When did North Korea take over our medical system? Rat bastards.

Third, Edie tagged me so I'll play along.

So, you are supposed to acknowledge with a link who tagged you (see above), answer the questions, and then tag four fellow bloggers.

1: Black and White or Color; how do you prefer your movies?

Both. I do, however, have an extreme aversion to movies with a yellow/warm tint. A lot of movies in the 70's have a warm tone, and I can not watch them. It took all I had to make it through "The Shining" because of this adversion.

2: What is the one single subject that bores you to near-death?

Post-game sports analyses. They are out of control. They have followed the lead of 24-hr news programs that will take something that needs little explanation and expound on it for a needless amount of time. Boring.

Oh, and I can not watch Ann Coulter interviews. I can not be entertained by interviews of people who have nothing to say. It's like random dinner-party dribble. Who cares?

3: MP3s, CDs, Tapes or Records: what is your favorite medium
for prerecorded music?

Medium doesn't matter as long as I'm listening to something that moves me. There are certain artists that I prefer to hear on record, because that is how I first heard them and fell in love with them. I don't think I have any tapes that didn't melt in my old beater car, so I guess you can cross that off the list.

4: You are handed one first class trip plane ticket to anywhere in the world and ten million dollars cash. All of this is yours provided that you leave and not tell anyone where you are going… Ever. This includes family, friends, everyone. Would you take the money and ticket and run?

No. I wouldn't even consider it. What's the point of being alive without other people?

5: Seriously, what do you consider the world’s most pressing issue now?

A lack of real civic/social awareness. All pressing issues trickle down from this.

6: How would you rectify the world’s most pressing issue?

I don't know. I spend restless nights thinking about this--I just don't know.

7: You are given the chance to go back and change one thing in your life; what would that be?

I wish I could go back and be a better daughter and sister. I wish I could go back and be more selfless. I'm getting better, but I wish I would have started sooner.

8: You are given the chance to go back and change one event in world history, what would that be?

I don't really know enough about history to answer this question responsibly. I've recently been trying to catch up in this area, so maybe I'll be able to answer this question in the future.

9: A night at the opera, or a night at the Grand Ole’ Opry–Which do you choose?

Opera

10: What is the one great unsolved crime of all time you’d like to solve?

There are a lot of crimes that I'm interested in: Jack the Ripper, Jimmy Hoffa, the Zodiac killer, etc. I think, however, the unsolved crime that I would personally pursue is the mass murdering of women in Ciudad Juarez.

A young girl who goes down to Aruba, gets trashed, runs off into the night with a strange man and then disappears gets over a year's worth of press and "analyses", causing many outraged American vacationers to ban travel to Aruba. At the same time, over 300 women have been abducted, raped, and brutally murdered in Mexico without a peep from the American press.

There's a reason why books like "Crime and Punishment" mean so much to me.

11: One famous author can come to dinner with you. Who would that be, and what would you serve for the meal?

I now make it a point to never try to meet any of my heroes. I've had the opportunity to meet some writers and scientists who I looked up to and admired, only to be disappointed. I like blind love better than reality.

12: You discover that John Lennon was right, that there is no hell below us, and above us there is only sky— what's the first immoral thing you might do to celebrate this fact?

I would start robbing rich people and leaving the money in the mailboxes of the poor. I live my life the way I want to now, so I don't think there's anything that I would want to do differently.

Now, the hard part: who to tag next.

Dr. Zeus: because he's a coroner and must have something unique to add

Shrinky: because she always has something interesting to say

Trisha: because she is finding herself right now and I miss her

PK: because she is freakin' hilarious

Comcast, Publishing, and Tears of Something

2006-02-23T09:28:00.000-05:00

Comcast and I are not friends right now. They tried to tell me that my endless internet problems are resulting from "something" bumping the modem button. "Maybe a cat or a pet?" the Man says with lackluster helpfulness.

My modem is locked up in a room that the animals haven't seen...ever.

Regardless, I have a connection right now. We'll see how long it lasts. I thought I'd try to post before it goes out again.

My big announcement for this special moment in internet bliss is that my paper got accepted at a really good journal. Not a Science or a Nature, but still a journal with a nice impact factor.

I've been crying non-stop since I read the acceptance email this morning.

I don't know why I can't stop crying. Maybe it has something to do with 5-years of wanting, yearning for some sort of positive reinforcement, some type of "good job, ole chap".

I thought I'd dance around in a circle when this happened, but no...just tears.

Go me.

My urinal looks a bit girly

2006-02-15T08:00:00.000-05:00

I know...sorry, I've been busy.

First, without beating a dead horse or anything, I would like to point out that my childhood friends and neighbors have gone out hunting with real bullets since they day they turned 13, often drunk and groggy from heading out before 5am, and there hasn't been a hunting accident in my town as long as I've been alive. Well, a cow did get killed, but they do kind of look like deer.

Second, my V-day was really sweet and fun, and my husband got me the most gorgeous calla lilies because he knows that I turn up my nose at roses. Actually, I just heart calla lilies a million times more than any other flower.

So, in the spirit of the calla, you must go here. It redefines the saying "when nature calls".

It doesn't take a brain surgeon

2006-02-12T12:23:00.000-05:00

I love people who think that they should "gas it" when they are stuck in the snow. I especially enjoy it when people "gas it" while you are trying to push them out of the ditch in which they got themselves stuck. After you yell at them to lay off the gas several times, they relent. Oh the joy on their faces when they finally find themselves magically on their way.

I love driving by those people when they get stuck a second time because they still believe, with all of their hearts, that hitting the gas in the snow is the best strategy.

This is why we need better science education. If your hypothesis is that a lead foot will get you out of the snow, and someone comes along and proves the null hypothesis, you should learn something.

Poetry, Dr. Phil, and Avoidance Strategies

2006-02-08T07:39:00.000-05:00

Sometimes
I want
to
quit.
Everything.

There's my poem for the day.

On another note, sometimes when I'm bashing the illogical babble-speak that spews from Dr. Phil's mouth, that effusive little bastard, people ask me "what kind of doctor is he?"

Well, he got a PhD in clinical psychology...from the University of North Texas.

Then, he started a clinical practice...with his father.

Then, he left the practice to start a business advising lawyers how to pick jurors...using his expert "psychology" knowledge. He helped Oprah when she was being sued for saying that she was never going to eat beef again after the mad cow panic a few years ago.

Apparently now he wants to practice again...in an arena where he talks at his clients (the TV audience) rather than in a setting where he has to put forth a tremendous amount of effort absorbing what clients say and offering strategies, advice, etc. based on their individual experiences and needs and mental state. Generic, unsolicited self-help from a man who constantly contradicts himself is what I always dreamed to find on TV.

Ooooo, you can use this Dr. Phil Random quote generator if you need some morning advice from the wise one.

I got this one:
"You don't need endless supplies of avocados to pee in a monastery."

For some reason this morning, I'm really agitated by Dr. Phil.

Regardless, I must stain the last of my slides to see if our freezer breakdown ruined all of my remaining tissue. I've been putting it off for a few weeks now, dreading it.

You see, my anger at Dr. Phil is much more complex than it appears to be...it all can be traced to the freezer breakdown...

Chapter 5

2006-02-07T09:21:00.000-05:00

I have a chapter done for my thesis. It's Chapter 5. I started with chapter 5 because it was already semi-put together in manuscript form. I lifted about 1/2 of the chapter from the manuscript, and then I just had to write the other half and rework the whole thing so it flows smoothly.

It is about 50 pages--I still have to put together a few figures, so it could be plus or minus a few pages. If I have 6 chapters, plus references and random stupid pages (a whole page just to say "this work is copyright protected"), then I should be somewhere around 300 pages when I'm finished. I don't want it to be over 300 pages because then it will have to be organized into two volumes, and that annoys me for some unexplainable reason. Regardless, I feel good knowing that I'm on my way.

I feel like I should have a party for myself, or something.

What's that you say? You want to read some of it? OK, here's an excerpt:

DNA[Fe(II)] + H2O2 --> DNA[Fe(III)] + ·OH + OH-

Isn't it poetic?

I've been aiming too low

2006-02-06T10:00:00.000-05:00

When I was little, I always told people that I wanted to win the Nobel Prize.

Then, the other day while having dinner with friends, we got on the topic of the IgNobel Prize.

This all came about because one of the people at the table had once tried to microwave ants that had crawled onto his slice of pizza. He noticed that they didn't die unless they touched the cheese/sauce. So, he did a little experiment and came to the conclusion that ants were highly resistant to the killing effect of microwaves. Because he is a genius, he decided that his observations could be explained by the ants' low water content and surface to volume ratio or something or other--he's the physics genius, not I.

Then he brought up the IgNobels, and I was enthralled. Now, maybe all of you have seen this before, but it's new to me.

Here are some recent winners.

I really like the medical winner for their development of Neuticles. I also really like the study where they monitored a locust's brain cell activity while it watched Star Wars--that won a peace prize.

If you scroll down to the 2004 winners, you will notice that in public health, someone (Jillian Clarke) actually tested the validity of the 5-second rule.

I've been setting the bar too low. I've got to start writing up some of my interesting self-funded projects.

Please

2006-02-05T15:46:00.000-05:00

Dear God,
Please let the Steelers win so that my husband is happy. If my husband is happy, he will clean off the stovetop tomorrow and put his multiple, random sock piles in the dirty-clothes basket, freeing me of those two dreaded tasks. I hate to bother you for a sporting event, because I believe that people who pray for their team to win need to reconsider their priorities when it comes to contacting almighty, supreme beings. I hate it when people ask me for stupid things that really don't matter, and in turn I usually respond by being less than helpful. I'm sure that upon extrapolating those behaviors to a God level, annoying "chatter" down here makes God send down asteroids and famine and avian flu. Nevertheless, if I have to sit here and watch people praying for all this crap that they deem important, I might as well throw one out there. There's so much chatter on Superbowl Sunday, you probably won't even figure out who said what, so I'm safe, I think.

Sincerely,
Me at my wit's end

It is not legal

2006-02-05T15:40:00.000-05:00

So, your comments have encouraged me to get off my ass and do some detective work. The last 5 students to graduate had their insurance cut off the day they took their paperwork in. However, in the insurance information book, it claims that we will have our insurance until August 14th, even if we graduate before that.

The student insurance office has confirmed the information booklet. I did not get a straight answer on the COBRA stuff.

Now I must go snoop around the University administration offices since the insurance company is claiming it's innocence.

How is that legal?

2006-02-03T14:44:00.000-05:00

I don't understand. The Man, he is trying to kick my ass once again.

In August, my health insurance premium is deducted, in full, from my grant. My insurance then runs until the following August. August 14th to be exact.

You can not pay by semester, you must pay for the full year.

You can not take that money out of your grant to pay for different insurance. It is allowable by the grantor, but not by the University. I think it's because they can't figure out how to do it, so they just claim that it is not allowed.

Regardless, I have paid for the 2005-2006 academic year for this crappy, shitty student insurance. Heaven forbid you are even slightly unhealthy when you decide to enter a life of poverty in order to cure diseases and contribute to the world's scientific knowledge. This year, I managed to rack up several thousand dollars in bills with my wonderful insurance. Thank God they pay me so well.

OK, so here's the most craptacular part--the part I don't get.

Your insurance is cut off the exact day you turn in your paperwork, right after you pass your oral defense and hand in your written thesis.

No COBRA, no you-have-your-insurance-until-the-end-of-the-month, no exceptions, no refunds, no prorating of your premium. No nothin'.

Thank you, have a nice day, don't get sick, and let the door slam you in the ass, while praying it doesn't break anything in the process, on the way out, sucker.

How is that legal?

Don't Get Bit by Kama Sutra

2006-02-02T17:50:00.000-05:00

If you haven't already done so, please update your virus definition files so that you don't get killed by the Kama Sutra virus tomorrow.

From my UIS peeps:

Infected computers are exposed to programmed attacks scheduled to run on the third day of every month, beginning on February 3, 2006. The worm destroys antivirus software, leaving your system vulnerable to further attack. All Win32 computers ( Windows 2000, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP) can be affected by the worm.

Beware: The worm generates e-mails with familiar or inviting subject lines such as "Fwd", "Re", or "My photos." Once in your computer, it can destroy an array of files, leaving nothing but an error title, "DATA Error [47 0F 94 93 F4 K5]", in its place. Take precautions now, before the worm has a chance to remove items that run on computer startup, such as antivirus software and other security applications that are essential to protecting your computer.

Go Here To Remove It
More info here and here

I've been tagged

2006-02-02T13:32:00.000-05:00

Science woman tagged me, so here goes:

Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so.

1) BrightStar
2) Seeking Solace
3) Statgirl
4) ScienceWoman
5.) She Falters to Rise

Next select five people to tag (Sorry!):
If you have not been tagged for this one, please consider yourself tagged, and let me know when you do it so I can list you. This is called delegating responsibility, people.

What were you doing 10 years ago?
I was beginning my second semester of my freshman year of college. It was cold, and I believe we probably had about 20 inches of snow on the ground. I was happy, but in a manic, crazy kind of way so I don't know if that counts. It was the last time that I had a large group of friends that I hung out with, drank with, cried with, and got into mischief with. I was single, which meant that I spent a lot of time on the prowl, cherishing every Red Lobster dinner I could manage to squeeze out of the cheap frat guys. Because I generally refused the midnight booty calls, I spent a lot of time at Burger King. Valentine's day was coming so I had a guy from back home lined up just in case--it turns out the steroids both killed his brain and made him very angry when my roomate laughed at him for being a phys-ed major so that V-day was, um, bad.

I was also working part time at a deli, making sandwiches and trying not to kill the owner's 18-year old daughter who decided not to go to college (because she couldn't get into any) so that she could manage the deli. Her idea of managing consisted of sucking her boyfriend's face in the back while she yelled out random orders and told all of the employees how stupid they were. It's funny that on the day the electricity got knocked out by the snow, she wigged because she couldn't figure out how we were going to calculate diner's bills without a register. She, my friends, was a certifiable jackass.

What were you doing 1 year ago?
Praying that this stupid PhD thing would be over soon. Worrying about my brother who had taken ill again. Basically, exactly what I'm doing now.

Five snacks you enjoy:
1. cheese of anykind except for the blue kind
2. tomato and basil wedged between fresh (real) mozzarella
3. peanuts and almonds mixed with raisins
4. super nachos
5. Sheetz MTOs

Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:
I'm going to give you song groups instead of individuals because I tend to learn the lyrics to all of the songs by particular artists

1. Folsom Prison Blues, Ring of Fire, Hurt -- Johnny Cash
2. TNT, Dirty Deeds, and anything else by AC DC
3. All of the songs from the Wall + Wish You were Here--Pink Floyd
4. Yellow -- Cold Play
5. The entire Stripped CD -- Christina Aguilera

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
1. Set my family up (including my in-laws) so that they never have to work for the Man ever again
2. Pay for my husband to explore every hobby, interest, or occupation that he desires
3. Travel--back to Costa Rica and then off to Turkey, Australia, Spain and everywhere else
4. Buy/build a house and decorate it with real furniture and matching everything
5. Start up a chain of wonderful communities staffed with kind, caring people to house, employ, entertain, and educate people with mental disorders and disabilities

Five bad habits:
1. worrying
2. passive aggressive revenge
3. being stubborn in a maladaptive sort of way
4. not putting my laundry away
5. leaving half-full glasses of water all over the house

Five things you like doing:
1. spending time with my husband (especially if I'm getting head rubs) and my family in general
2. playing with my dog
3. reading
4. not thinking
5. doing artsy things

Five things you would never wear again:
1. anything made with wool
2. my little blue dress (it was really little)
3. my crushed-velvet boots
4. belts around my oversized shirts
5. jelly shoes

Five favorite toys:
1. books (I'm not much of a "toy") person
2. Japanese Chef knife
3. laptop
4. digital camera
5. my vocal chords

A childish moment in science

2006-02-01T16:50:00.000-05:00

This is me when I see the man. The man does not hear my inside voice. The man, he sees only the smile. He thinks, "Ah, the man, he is a good man. See how she smiles. She does not care that the man used up all of the paper that she brought from home to print her very important documents."

The man knew that the paper was not from the lab.

Turd.

Who Knows?

2006-02-01T16:38:00.000-05:00

I have just spent 10 minutes discussing with my dog all the reasons explaining why I chose not to organize my data CDs by date. Everything I do is organized in color-coordinated folders and bins. In fact, Ikea should dedicate their office section to me because I'm pretty sure I funded its recent expansion at the store by my house.

So why on earth do I have 200 CDs/DVDs that are arranged in no particular order?
Why? How did this happen?

Oscar doesn't know either. After I took this picture, he ran over to his toy bin, pulled out his tug toy and shook it at me. I'm not sure what shaking toys means, but I have a feeling it's his way of trying to communicate with a crazy person.

I'd like to point out that his toy bin is organized by frequency of toy use. Moreover, because Oscar's play area is in my office/dining room, I've also made sure that his toy bin matches my file folders and desk organizers.

Why didn't I invest less time in his toy bin and more time in CD organization?
Why?

Neuron Moon Rocks

2006-01-31T14:49:00.000-05:00

If the water wasn't drip, drip, dripping, I wouldn't be going so crazy. If I weren't going crazy, I could focus and finish counting. If I could focus and finish counting, then spending 20 minutes turning my neurons into purple moon rocks would be justifiable. These are rat neurons from the hippocampus CA3 region. The black hole areas are the nuclei; the purple, cell bodies/cytoplasm.

The plumber did come yesterday. He looked at the faucets (note that multiple faucets are dripping, which explains why our water bill last month almost killed us), and said he would have to get parts and come back. The hardware store is less than a mile away, but he couldn't come back until a different day.

So now I have to drip, drip, drip myself into insanity.

Fun Times

2006-01-31T11:16:00.000-05:00

What are you doing right now? I bet it is not as exciting as what I'm doing. If you want your kids to become scientists, let them have a looks at my glamorous day:

Ready, Set, Go:

*open green channel
open red channel
convert green channel to grayscale
save picture in new folder
switch programs
open grayscale channel 1
invert
set particle size
switch programs
grid out targets on channel 2
switch program
circle target 1 on inverted channel 1
analyze particles
copy measurements
switch programs
paste into spreadsheet
move over one column
switch programs
**circle next target on inverted channel 1
switch programs
make sure the target you circled is correct on grid created over channel 2
switch programs
analyze particles
copy measurements
switch programs
copy into spreadsheet
***move over one column
repeat from ** to *** until all targets on channel 1 are analyzed
repeat procedure from * to *** until all 150 pictures are analyzed

It's like knitting...sort of.

Why don't I used software that automates all of this, you are wondering? I would LOVE to say software like that doesn't exist. It does, however, exist. It's just not free. Free is my spending limit. Being that Kelly Ripa makes more in one second of working (I learned this on VH1's Fabulous Life of Kelly Ripa) than I do in one hour, the cost of my time isn't worth gifts of time- and energy-saving software. I know I've complained about this before...

I should have been a dancer.

Not the exotic kind, though. I'm sure the spin around the pole, take off top, spin around the pole routine gets just as tedious as data analysis.

Your Brain Gave You Away

2006-01-31T09:34:00.000-05:00

Because I watched 24 last night and had dreams that Jack Bauer was trying to save me, I thought this would be my offering to you today. We knew it was coming--we've seen the gambling studies and the preliminary data leading up to lying studies. Will it be better than the polygraph? Will it be better than Jack Bauer? I fear that those of you dreading the polygraph portion of your security clearance now have one more thing to worry about.

Who's the Liar? Brain MRI Stands Up to Polygraph Test

from Temple University/Feroze B. Mohamed, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Radiology

My suggestion for expanding this study, the one thing I bring up every time I meet an investigator in the field of "lying", is that one needs to have a group of people who are "expert" liars to see if you can still pick up brain activation in the "lying" regions/patterns. In studies of language, working memory, etc., one always makes sure to keep the demands of the task even across groups, and that is an important factor for "lying" studies also. There are probably folks who have included this group; I've noticed, however, its absence in the few talks that I've gone to on the subject.

What Science has Done to Me

2006-01-26T10:20:00.000-05:00

Science has done something very bad to me. OK, so I don't know if it's necessarily bad; it could be good. All I really know is that it has done something to me.

It has made me into a leisure-time multitasker.

I used to be able to sit down, relax, and focus on something fun. Notice that I said "something fun" and not "some fun things".

Sadly, I fear those days are gone.

During the day I can always be found carrying around a minimum of 4-different files filled with papers on 4-different topics as I run around campus using equipment or teaching. If I have managed to sit down at my desk, you'll find me praying that my computer can handle the 3 Word files, 2 uber-large Excel workbooks, and data analyses software while I try to balance dissertation writing, manuscript editing, grant proposing, and data crunching.

You would think that I go home and slow down--I used to go home and slow down.

Now you will find me simmering several pots of lovely (mmmm...turkey meatballs and homemade marinara) on my stove while I run bathwater and read a few dozen pages of this, this, this and this. Reading one book at a time is for the weak.

Here's the sick part. I've actually also tried to throw in Yoga while the food is cooking and water is running, but my books kept getting in the way and/or closing on me while I suffered in down-facing-dog. At least I drew the line on that one.

I need to slow down. No wonder I'm tired.

Ripped from the Headlines: Politicians Don't Think

2006-01-25T11:41:00.000-05:00

This is even more self-explanatory than my brain/testes post today.

From LiveScience:

Political bias affects brain activity, study finds
Democrats and Republicans both adept at ignoring facts, brain scans show

When I Grow Up

2006-01-25T10:51:00.000-05:00

Actually, I believe that this means I should be professional nomad. Thanks, William the Coroner. By the way, William, have fun watching Pittsburgh take home the SuperBowl win while the Browns drown in their own misery. I'm sorry, I just can't help myself.

You scored as Psychology. You should be a Psychology major!

Biology

100%

Dance

100%

Philosophy

100%

English

100%

Linguistics

100%

Journalism

100%

Psychology

100%

Sociology

100%

Anthropology

100%

Art

100%

Theater

83%

Engineering

83%

Mathematics

58%

Chemistry

25%

What is your Perfect Major?
created with QuizFarm.com

My brain is big at the expense of my testes

2006-01-25T09:29:00.000-05:00

An inverse relationship between testes and brain size?

So many things I want to say...but I'll let the data do the talking.

From the Associated Press:

"A research team led by Syracuse University biologist Scott Pitnick found that in bat species where the females are promiscuous, the males boasting the largest testicles also had the smallest brains. Conversely, where the females were faithful, the males had smaller testes and larger brains."

"Large brains, meanwhile, are metabolically costly to develop and maintain. "

Maybe that's why I'm so smart. I don't believe I have testes.

I wonder how this relates to male-dimorphism and mating practices in other species, such as my favorite example, the dung beetle (I know you all remember my dung beetle post). Being that I'm not sure you can measure a dung beetle's brain size (even neuroscientists have limitations, my friends) we will have to instead substitute brain for horn size. Still, I think that it could be somewhat related in the grand scheme of things. If this does relate, I would lock your back door (to your house, silly) if you have a small-brained man with huge testes lurking about. He's a sneaky one. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if he has horns of any size you should probably avoid him also.

One more thing, you have to read this article on Bluegill cuckolders (sneaker males). It's hilarious. The small little males sneak in, dump their sperm, and run away. When they get older, they pretend they are females (because they look kind of like chicks) to avoid the larger, paternal males.

"Sometimes a parental will even court a mimic"

Well who hasn't had that happen at least once in their lives?

Science in a Sec

2006-01-24T09:07:00.000-05:00

Science in a second:

Rabbit-human embryos
Rabbit embryo + human DNA = ?
"Legal experts say it is not clear whether the embryos would be regarded in law as rabbit or human."
Ummm...I'm not sure why it is an either/or question. We should definitely let lawyers and politicians decide because they are so very smart. Maybe, we should let a few develop into a hubbit and see how we feel about it then. We could give it some rights and make it work for less than minimum wage. Of course we couldn't let it get married because that would be against the biblical, hubbit-marriage law.

Man Should Fear Birds
This explains what was going through Alfred's Head.
"Berger concluded man's ancestors had to survive not just being hunted from the ground, but from the air. Such discoveries are "key to understanding why we humans today view the world the way we do," he said."
It definitely explains why I hit the ground every time a bird flies overhead. Maybe this also explains the reason why fighter jets are so freakin' scary, even when you know they aren't going to bomb you. Actually, I can't wait to read the article to see how Berger discusses "why we humans today view the world the way we do". I love thinking about how early-evolved instincts translate into today's world.

Limit your Flavors and you will be skinny
"The idea is perhaps less boring than it sounds. For example, pineapple day features pineapple juice and cereal for breakfast; pineapple-walnut chicken salad and crackers for lunch; pineapple shrimp, bulgur, sauteed peas and tossed salad for dinner; and caramelized pineapple rings for dessert. "

Whether Katz's diet works because it limits flavors, or because it promotes healthy eating and exercise, is unclear, Raynor said. "If you're eating healthy and exercising, you're going to lose weight," she said. "

Here's an idea. Why don't we do a real study between people who limit flavors and people who eat healthy without limiting flavors before we go promoting this concept as being supported by any type of real data? Real data exist only in a world of appropriate controls and analyses, lest we forget.

I'm going to start my own "diet plan" to make money off of such ideas. Because I've noticed that most of the people in the gym are overweight (let's not get bogged down with any real numbers), I am going to conclude that the gym makes you fat. Thus, if you avoid the gym, you will get skinny.

This is why scientific training is important for all people, not just scientists.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

2006-01-23T13:36:00.000-05:00

I haven't had a chance to read the articles yet, but I thought it was a light bit of science that everyone might enjoy so I wanted to share with you ASAP. It makes me wonder if I should stop wasting energy being so incredibly hilarious and just laugh at my husband's jokes more often. Now, don't get me wrong, hubby is quite funny, but it's hard for him to realize his full potential with someone as polished in the realm of humor as myself living under the same roof.

Articles:

Bressler E. R.& Balshine S. . Evolution & Human Behavior, 27. 29 - 39 (2006).
Bressler E. R., et al. Evolution & Human Behavior article in press (2006)

There's a summary in this month's Nature:
Laughter Paves the Way for Romance

"Women generally preferred men who were funny, while men favoured a woman who thought he was funny, the team report in a second paper accepted for publication².

Bressler believes that the findings might hint at why humans have evolved a sense of humour at all.

According to one theory, proposed by psychologist Geoffrey Miller at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, women prefer funny men because their wit reveals an active and healthy brain - and a fine set of underlying genes. "It's a very powerful and reliable way to show creativity and intelligence," Miller says. "

I laugh at G dubs all the time, but I think that must be a different kind of funny.

Dirty Harry Days

2006-01-23T13:11:00.000-05:00

I know what you're thinking: "Did he fire six shots, or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But, being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya punk?

When I was young, everyone around me worshipped Rainbow Bright, Strawberry Shortcake, and Barbie. I, however, being a girl in a man's world, was a big fan of Dirty Harry. I've decided that this idolatrous relationship with a fictional bad-ass has helped me through periods like this--times when the whole world is out to destroy me.

So, here's the secret to this scientist's productivity today.

I am going to conjure the spirit of Dirty Harry. I don't believe there is a scientific way to do this, so I'm going to light some candles, play some angry music, and shoot foam darts at my binders with my bad-ass foam dart gun.

I am going to kill my way through my dissertation's methods section. I am then going to write a brilliant response to my paper's reviewers. Everyone will find themselves wishing they could remember if it was 5 shots or 6.

Go ahead, make my day.

If I keep telling myself that I can do it, maybe I can. Right?

Happy Happy, Joy Joy

2006-01-21T19:56:00.000-05:00

To top off the wonderful week of doom:

"We regret to inform you"

You should never get a letter that begins with those words at the end of a week like this.

And last, but not least:

The microscope is not working. The one and only microscope available to me in this stinkin' university--the one piece of equipment that I need to finish my work--has become unhappy after having some routine maintenance done. Oh the irony. The one thing that was working perfectly fine. Thank God the "experts" came in to "tune it up" and destroyed it in the process. I hope they choke on their happy hour drinks. Well, maybe not choke, but I definitely their drinks taste "tuned up" in a funky sort of way.

It's all so funny. Ha, ha, hee, hee.

I'm going to sit here like a pro and wait for Ashton and the camera crew to jump out and tell me that I've been Punk'd.

Yep, that's the only explanation.

ps
Do you find it odd that neighbors who we barely speak to just popped in 5-minutes ago to ask if they can borrow our car to move a piece of furniture?

That, my friends, takes balls.

Oh well, we'll help because they are really nice and, obviously, outgoing. Also, I guess we'll help because we're those kind of people. You know, the kind without any balls.

Every Little Thing Gonna Be Alright

2006-01-19T08:04:00.000-05:00

I did not cry. I will not cry.

I will not let the Man see me cry. Swallow it down, get back on the horse, and smile like you just fell on a needle filled with valium.

The Bad: All of my samples were stored in that fridge so I can not continue any experiments that I hadn't started yet before the freezer died. The samples are from chronic animal treatments, so to repeat them would add 6-months to a year onto my thesis.

The Good: I busted my butt for two years and generated enough data to have a complete thesis even without looking at the samples in the fridge. There will be a few unanswered questions (a.k.a. "holes), but I can live with that. Some of the fixed tissue will be OK, so I can still get a little more data from those samples.

What did the Man do in response to the incident, you may be wondering?

Absolutely nothing.

Not a word, not a comment, not a suggestion.

You would think that someone who badly wants tenure, someone who has less than a dozen first author papers (and no papers as a PI) in his 20-some years of research would care more. He's not teaching, he's not at the bench, there are no grants currently do. We have never had a lab meeting in all of our years here, and he has never written more than one sentence of any of my grants, papers, or abstracts. He sees my presentations the day I present them, and he didn't even bother looking at my posters this year, let alone coming to them.

You would think he would at least pretend to care more, at least until he got tenure.

Thank God I have two mentors. One is obviously not enough.

I'm OK. Thanks for your support. I just need to get out.

As a wise man once said:
Don't worry, 'bout a thing.
'Cause every little thing, gonna be alright.

That wise man was also extremely high at the time, but the words are still valid.

2006-01-18T09:12:00.000-05:00

There's no crying in ~~Baseball~~ Science...right?

Water was the least of my worries

2006-01-18T07:51:00.000-05:00

Mental Note: Next time you complain about the water being messed up, stop and remember that it could be worse.

For instance, the -20 freezer could stop working overnight, leak all over the lab, and cause the destruction of all of your slices and/or protein samples. That's right, you could lose 5-years of samples just because your lab thought it would be a great idea to buy a Sears standard freezer instead of a medical freezer. "We will save so much money", the Man proclaimed.

I promise to not stab myself.

I think.

To My Happy Place

2006-01-17T15:19:00.000-05:00

The dH20 is acidic for some unexplainable reason today. Because this has happened before, I always check it before I start making up solutions. Thank God, I checked.

If the department would give me a key to the ddH20 room, this wouldn't be a problem. Apparently, the key elves are on strike so we can never again get another key for that room. That doesn't help me when it's early in the morning and no one is there to let me in. Did I mention that many other labs have a key? In fact, we may be the only lab who has been banned by the elf union.

In times like these, I go to my trusty spare water that I bottle and hide for emergency use.

Only, today the caps were stuck. I don't understand how that happened because I specifically remember leaving them a little loose. Perhaps someone found my stash....?

Regardless, I decided to use a screwdriver to encourage the lid to come off. It works with jars of pickles, so why not water?

I would have never guessed that I am strong enough to hack off the entire top part of the jar, lid included.

This is why it's hard to motivate myself to finish these last few control slides.
Water should not be the most difficult part of the protocol.
I'm going home.

Busted

2006-01-17T15:11:00.000-05:00

This is why owning a talking monkey would not be a good idea, no matter how seemingly charming it is.

Science and the Walmart Sisterhood

2006-01-11T11:15:00.000-05:00

Reading this made me realize that science is Walmart. Well, not exactly. One could just as easily argue that Science is China or India, but I think I'll stick with Walmart.

Conduct your business in a global market where the number of workers/manufacturers far exceeds the demand. Rely on a market that creates a surplus of skilled laborers who will take what they can get just to have a piece of the pie. Lock in your employees and make them rely on public assistance instead of providing it yourself. Healthcare...what is this healthcare that you speak of? Why pay $10 per DVD player when Korea will sell them at $2?

If you want to compete, you had better stop relying on how good you are at doing A,B, and C because there are a lot of people who can do A,B, and C. And, as your 11th-grade economy teacher pointed out, that makes your value as low as the lowest bidder's. Because the lowest bidder feeds off pipe dreams, pride, and making ends meet, he is willing to undercut the competition--well, at least he's willing to do A,B, and C for chump change.

You can sit around and complain about the system--you can round up the masses and demand change. I'm willing to bet that those tactics will work as well as those being employed to stop outsourcing, offshoring, and free trade agreements.

You can cook or get out of the kitchen. You can stand by a happy face sign and be rolled back, or you can figure out a way to put yourself in a different market...maybe a Target-quality market so that you are no longer one of the A-,B-, or C-ers. It's not about learning the D. The D is a short term fix, a solution with boundaries and limits.

No you have to figure out how to make yourself something totally different than A,B,C, or D. You need to figure out how to become a full WORD.

You must not only think outside the box, you must convince them that what they need is a circle.

I need some sleep.

This year

2006-01-11T08:32:00.000-05:00

I noticed many people are recapping last year, highlighting all of the major highs and lows of this crazy thing called life.

I have decided that I'm deleting the year 2005 from my memory banks. I have never in my life deleted an entire year before--even the really rough ones that could have killed me had I not been asleep.

So, I guess I will have to unleash my goals for 2006, instead.

Resolutions:
1.) Drink more than 6oz of water every day.
2.) Be satisfied with my best. Try to feel some pleasure knowing that I did everything I could given the circumstances.
3.) Stop waiting for tomorrow to be happy today.
4.) Stop being so angry at the stupid things stupid people do
5.) Go fishing more often
6.) Play outside when I'm sad instead of watching crappy TV
7.) Read one novel written in Spanish (I try to do this every year, but last year was so...I don't remember).
8.) Write something for publication, other than a data-related journal article.

I'm going to stop at 8; it's a good number.

Festivus and Finales

2006-01-09T14:53:00.000-05:00

My fellowship proposal, albeit imperfect, is turned in. I'm hoping that my inability to eat without feeling like I'm going be singing to the porcelain goddess will now go away.

On a brighter note, my husband and I celebrated festivus with his father, step-mother, sister, and sister-in-law with a surprise pop-in by a family friend.

For lack of the neurons required to talk about anything thought-provoking today, I am now going to waste time by telling you about Festivus. Feel free to ignore:)

We had festivus in a log cabin this year--I think we were so far out there that we may have actually been visited by a bear. Damn terrorists.

Our Festivus rules each year are pretty simple: all gifts must have been attained without monetary cost to the attainer and wrapped in anything except wrapping paper. For instance, my sister-in-law made paper (she is an artist) out of dryer lint and used it to design Festivus cards. You should have seen my microbe-fearing face when I realized what I was holding. After the initial shock, however, I was quite amazed at her skill and creativity. I usually give away all of the free promotional items I get at conferences. Thus, my entire family walks around promoting neurons and pharmaceuticals. You are also allowed to regift things that you don't need/want anymore (ex. books, CDs, games), although usually we give each other crap.

Where was I...oh...gift wrappings are to be made into sculptures during festivus and attached to the festivus pole (a plastic pipe). Decorations are kept and reused from year to year. Usually we use recycled foil to wrap the gifts because it's easy to mold and it's a good, non-capitalist form of tinsel.

Each year one participant invents a game that we all will play during the festivities. Prizes can be won during these games, but you can lose your prize in a subsequent challenge. Challenges involve mental and/or physical feats of strength. This year, we played a family trivia game made by my father-in-law and held nose Olympics.

Another (new) rule is that we have a food theme each year. This year it was soup so everyone had to invent a soup and bring it. We were only allowed to eat soup for the 48-hr stay, so you had to make your soup with this in mind. We made bacon-mushroom-cheeseburger soup, fruit soup, and potsticker-stirfry soup. Others brought pumpkin potato, strawberry cream, creamy carrot, turducken wedding, and chicken minestrone soup. Needless to say, I was dying for solid food when we got home.

Because my brother couldn't go this year, we used one of his Festivus gifts, a Freud action figure, as his replacement. We took pictures of Freud gazing at the stars, swinging from a ceiling fan, and chugging from a wine glass. Those pictures will be great gifts for next year...

And last, there is the airing of the grievances. We won't go into those, though;)

Breakdown or Just Offline?

2006-01-05T18:56:00.000-05:00

I like to think offline. Wait...one minute...scratch the word like and replace it with "need".

I have always been an offline thinker. I do not study by agonizing over notes and text--I read everything in short segments once and then walk away from my books to do some random chore, take a bath, or read a few pages of a book. When I come back, it's somehow all there in place.

When I write, I am never at the computer. I am washing dishes or playing with the dog outside.

When people talk to me about ideas, I stare at them blankly. At no point do I feel like I have processed what they just said. In fact, I probably would have difficulty repeating what we had just discussed. I let them know that I have to go do something else, and I will have an opinion or suggestion when I get back. Some people find that odd or annoying or maybe just plain inefficient.

I believe in the power of offline productivity. You may have to wait--there may be an unbearable delay--but you will get top-notch productivity in exchange for your patience.

It's difficult to explain to my husband, when he comes home and finds me covered in a blanket, from head to toe, in front of the TV, that I am writing a grant.

I may also have been having a nervous breakdown, given the tears and the gasping for breath, but that's when I do my best work.

It's weird...this thing called the brain.

Fine Art

2005-12-30T09:30:00.000-05:00

The other day on Project Runway, which I do not watch, the designers criticized another designer for working like a fine artist--he did not really allow "deadlines" into his world. He focused on his body of work, primping and prepping, taking apart and revamping only to revamp a million more times, as the clocked ticked away. It was about producing perfection, a tiny piece of him, and not about getting it out in time for others to see it. The focus was always how he felt about it, not how others would feel about it.

So now, instead of thinking of myself as neurotic or obsessive, I believe that I'm a fine artist.

My 3-page proposal is officially 4.5 pages because I decided that 2 working hypothesis were not enough; the third was absolutely necessary for balance. I have revamped it several times and wordsmithed it to death, agonizing over words as if each one could be the deciding factor for whether or not I get this fellowship. I have read 200 background papers even though I probably only had to read about 50 to grasp the material enough to write something coherent.
I really should send it off--especially given the fact that my generous extension is not going to be generous for much longer.

Coherent isn't good enough.

I'm a fine artist, baby.

The Spy that Bribed Me

2005-12-30T09:24:00.000-05:00

Dear NSA,
I will offer you a deal. If you pay for this stupid internet service that I can't really afford and replace my phone lines so that I can talk without hearing that crackling noise, I will allow you to spy on me. You can not place cameras in my bedroom or shower, but you are welcome to watch me write and/or blog, cook, and sleep. You can read my blog as I write my posts--it's kind of like advanced standing, which everyone appreciates. That's about all I do, just to warn you ahead of time.
Thank you,
Me

Blank Stare

2005-12-29T14:48:00.000-05:00

One of my mother's former students was set on fire by a young man (they were both tweens) a few months ago. The firestarter was angry over something trivial and a notorious bully--he forced his way into the victim's house, doused the poor child in some flammable liquid, lit a match, and watched the flames.

This led my mother and I to discuss psychopathy. As much as we would all like to believe that the parents are to blame or the schools or the Evangelical Christians or Al Qaeda, for a small group of people, it appears that they are not born with the necessary processing systems required for appropriate social behavior. There are a lot of theories about psychopathy, including the role of empathy and affective processing in developing a social consciousness.(for reviews: Blair, RJ. Dev Psychopathol. 2005 Summer;17(3):865-91; King, JA. Neuroimage. 2005 Nov 21).

If in these individuals, there are serious impairments in the circuitry mediating socially appropriate behavior and a lack of functioning in the regions needed to "teach" social norms, then all the behavior modification, parenting, and warm fuzzies in the world are not going to prevent the instrumental aggression characterizing psychopathy, that aggression resulting in deleterious societal consequences. Currently, we do not have a pharmacological intervention that is optimally efficacious in treating psychopathy and, if we have learned anything from the treatment of other psychiatric illnesses we would understand that we have no way of ensuring compliance even if we found a miracle drug.

My mom looked at me for a long time after our conversation had wound down...and then she asked the question with no answer. It's even better than the "if a tree falls in the woods..." question.

Should psychopaths be held accountable for their actions, then?

I just stared at her blankly.

Obviously, if someone can not exist in society without causing harm to others then they can not be allowed to be free...

What does "holding someone accountable" mean?...

There is no real answer to this question--I do, however, think it is good food for thought, albeit contextually morbid...

You're welcome.

I forget but then remember

2005-12-28T20:22:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, I forget that I'm an adult. I forget that, if I am sad and hungry, I can order whatever I want to eat, including ultra-spicy Indian food. I am not bound by the random, sad tidbits of food lingering in my empty pantry. Yes, I should make the economically-wise choice and mix that tuna with that can of diced tomatoes and spread it on the left-over, 4 strands of soba noodles. I should, but I don't have to. I wouldn't do it if my husband were here and not at work, so why should I do it to myself? Sometimes, I am important.

I also forget that I'm allowed to open a bottle of wine and have a glass while I work, even if it is a weekday. I don't have to stare at it and wish that I could have it. I'm allowed to drink without showing my ID to an invisible, parental bartender--especially if it is a school night.

It's nice when I remember that I can do these things. I'm glad I don't remember all of the time, but every so often, it's nice.

The Tail-End of Heaven

2005-12-28T09:42:00.000-05:00

As crazy as my family is, I wouldn't have them any other way. They are loving and their home is warm (although incredibly loud--almost illegally so) and they know how to make Christmas a non-commercial, non-Capitalist enterprise. I'm very blessed.

And then, I returned back to the lab--the anti-christ...mas.

Blah.

Without going off on an angry tirade, I'll just say people who look a gift horse in the mouth get kicked in the head for their stupidity. Also, when someone does something that you are too lazy to do, don't complain that they did it in a way that is not convenient for you and, under no circumstances, don't explain to everyone how you are busier than they are unless you are positive that your blinders are off.

On the other hand, I did get one of these from a caring friend. She knows that I'll be spending a lot of time sitting at my desk and in the car over the next few months, and she knows how painful that is for me, literally. I'm using it right now, and I actually love it.

When are we going to figure out how to glue tailbones back on?

I guess I should have thought about that before falling down the stairs twice in one month. Even though that was forever ago, I still have a little PTSD when I stand at the top of the stairs.
At least I know my amygdala is intact, albeit a bit dysfunctional.

Where was I?

Merry Christmas

2005-12-24T10:03:00.000-05:00

Mom: Where are the dog treats?
Me: Don't worry about it, the dogs are fine.
Mom: I want to give my grandpuppies dog treats, they are here somewhere.
Dad (yelling because he's deaf): What are you looking for?!
Me: Nothing
Mom (yelling): the dog treats--where did you put the dog treats?
Brother2 (talking over the parents): Mom, what is this on the grocery list--I can't read it.
Mom: I can't find anything--where did you put them last?
Brother1: Mom what is this?
Dad: What? I don't know where they are at. Why does everyone blame me?
Brother1: Have you seen Madagascar yet?
Me: No I haven't. Mom, stop worrying about the freakin' treats.
Dogs: Barking and growling over chew toys.
Dad: Where's the grocery list?
Brother2: I already told you, I have it. I just need to know what this word is.
Mom: Honey, did you see the picture of your cousinX yet?
Me: Mom, Brother2 needs you to answer him.
Dad: What? What picture?
Brother2: I really thought the giraffe was funny.
Dad: Where's the grocery list?
Mom (leaving the room): I'll just give the dogs ice cubes.
Brother2: Mom, come here.
Dad: Are we going to the grocery store?
Me: Everyone just stop for one minute. Mom, read the list to brother. Dad, brother has the list--give him one minute and you guys can leave.

Merry Christmas Everyone! God bless family!

Santa Part II

2005-12-21T08:08:00.000-05:00

Alright, so Trisha got me thinking that perhaps Santa may not be as generous as we all wish he could be. This is understandable given the rumor that there is no Santa. It looks like it's up to my family to come through this year and pick up the slack Santa has left behind, so here is part of my real wishlist. It's really hard for me not to check and see what my mom got me already, but I'm holding back. For those of you thinking that it is awful that I still make a Christmas list , I would like to say that this list was created specifically for my mother to curb her spending and direct her to things that I can use/want. She is trying to make up for all those years that she didn't have money by now buying me expensive things that I really don't need, so this was the solution my brother and I came up with. This way she still feels like she can choose our gifts, but at the same time, she is not picking out things that cost more than my rent.

Learn Something:
Blame my Amygdala
The Tipping Point
Cook Something:
Love the Cuban Food
Polish Cookery
Measuring Heaven
Silicone for your kitchen not your chest
Read Something:
Memories of My Melancholy Whores
You are Not a Stranger Here
Gilead
Treat Yourself:
French Kiss (this is my favorite LUSH product, by far)
Gemstone Bracelet
DuWop Lip Venom
Listen To Something:
Rosemary Clooney's greatest hits
Garbage
Walk the Line
Dress Yourself:
I do my own stunts T-shirt
Parsley Makes it Fancy
Sweater

Dear Santa

2005-12-20T08:09:00.000-05:00

Dear Santa,
I never understood why I got the made-in-China, knock-off barbies or the homemade, Canadian Cabbage Patch Kid or the uncool sweaters from last year's stock. Now that I'm poor, I understand, but there are a few things that I want this year anyway. I noticed that there have been no hits on my Amazon wishlist, and it's not that I doubt your miracle working abilities, it's just that I wanted to remind you that if you don't shop now, I will never get my presents by Christmas. I haven't been good this year, but in my defense, I haven't been bad either. In case you are feeling extra generous this year, you could also look over my wishful, wish list:

Boots from my Roots
Rainy Day Boots
It's Just Me Dress
I Love You, Vera
Necklace for the Rest of Us
Blue Christmas

Are you there, Oprah...It's Me, Margaret

2005-12-16T08:33:00.000-05:00

Warning: Random content resulting from severe lack of sleep and feelings of worthlessness.

Has Oprah ever done a show on women scientists? She talks a lot about equality and leadership and encouraging women to ignore whatever glass ceiling is lingering over them, but has she ever focused on the issues facing women who made it really far while at the same time stood still the whole time? She spent a lot of time promoting that quack, Phil, who deserves less air time than Tyra Banks in my opinion. At least Tyra only offers fake empathy and doesn't try to pretend she is anyone other than who she is, unlike that poser, Phil. She has also spent a lot of time convincing us that all we need is independence from abusive men, a makeover, and a car to be happy. As much as people believe that Oprah cares about real issues (as opposed to profiting from them), I often wonder if she really cares about the deep issues.

Anyway, I've decided that because I am too old and not sexy enough to be America's Top Model or American Idol, I need to find a different dream. I guess I'll lower the bar for myself and choose successful scientist. Oprah needs to do a show on this as I can't possibly figure these things out on my own.

Topics Oprah needs to cover:

--Why do you feel alienated from other people, even successful people, who are not in science?
--Why are you so angry with people on TV (movie stars, reality stars, and general folk)?
--Why do you avoid telling people that you are getting your PhD and that you are a scientist?
--Why don't you correct people when they assume that you are a psychologist instead of a molecular neuroscientist? Note--I'm in NO way saying that it's more hard core to be a molecular person; in fact, the opposite can absolutely be the case. I have just found that people are more comfortable with believing that I'm a psychologist--probably because it has traditionally been a woman dominated field for several decades now.
--Why do you apologize after correcting people or debating with them over their misinterpretation of a medical or scientific fact.
--Why do you demean your own intelligence in front of people after winning games? Why do you purposely lose games sometimes?
--Why do you lie about your scores to people, subtracting off points or honors?
--Why do you feel like you have to be extra prepared when collaborating or debating with men in your field, even if you have more knowledge on the topic of discussion?
--Why do you email people when you first interact with them as opposed to talking with them directly or on the phone?
--Why do you feel that there are not more tenure-track women in science?
--Why do you think the leaky pipeline exists?
--How do you explain the data showing differences in the evaluations of productivity of men versus women?
--Why do you avoid women mentors?

That's just a start. I know that some of these things are specific to my own issues, but after an interesting talk with another woman in the lab, someone who is so different from me but, at the same time, so similar, I think these questions could apply to a lot of intelligent women. By the way, just to eliminate any confusion--I still want the makeover and the car. Also, don't get me wrong, I occasionally find myself enjoying Oprah--she serves a purpose and I respect that.

Interesting side note: Spell check substitutes macabre for makeover. Hee...hee...

Ratcicles

2005-12-13T08:01:00.000-05:00

I forgot to warn our student not to open up the upright freezer. I'm an asshole. I knew by the expression on her face that she had opened it. There is a certain face one makes when they open up a freezer door at work, on a Monday morning, and get knocked over by a ratcicle avalanche.

I don't want to hear any of you complain about the funk in your work fridge.

I owe her for spacing on this one.

Very funny

2005-12-13T07:49:00.000-05:00

Be careful what you ask for.

My meeting went well. All I have to do is finish staining the brain slices that I already have and then spend the next two months analyzing the data. Everyone was on board with me defending in April/May; I can't even begin to express how happy that makes me.

An important piece of advice for fellow students: start constructing your tables and graphs early. It's important after collecting the majority of your data to determine the comparisons you want to make and what groups you have/need to support your conclusions. This will help you avoid having "holes" in your data. You do not want to get almost to the end and then realize that you need one more group to make the necessary comparisons and to convincingly support your conclusions.

So, in addition to the successful completion of the meeting, God (who I did not bite, by the way), decided to throw me a second bone weighing about two tons.

At the end of my meeting, we started to talk about jobs. Everyone got really excited about a particular fellowship that I may be a competitive applicant for. "Go for it!" they cheered.

The deadline is this Friday. Yep, that means transcripts, letters of recommendation, a grant proposal written with a mentor at my chosen institution, and a completed application form that asks for everything except for my blood type. There is nothing like calling a random person whom you've never met or spoken with, who does research in an area you know nothing about, and saying "hey, you don't know me, but what are you doing this week?".

Hee...hee...hee...thanks, God.

Memo to God

2005-12-12T08:34:00.000-05:00

Today is my big committee meeting. I had a semi-big one last month, but today is the large-scale, shock and awe campaign. Well, I hope it goes better than that, but who knows;) I just wanted to share with you my early morning conversation with God.

Dear God,

I know we have not been on the best of terms since way back during the days of traffic cone stealing, bridge decorating, and political sign defacing. Granted, I seemed to have "strayed", but let us remember that you never did send that elephant or childhood friend to occupy my idle time. I'm not accusing you or saying it is your fault, but, as my mother likes to say "it takes two to tango--you are both grounded". Speaking of, it doesn't always take two to tango, but that is a different grievance.

When I spilled my coffee on my brand new sweater that I couldn't really afford this morning, I realized that you and I may not be on the same page today. I specifically did not ask you to get rid of that wrinkle on my forehead in exchange for today. Let me remind you also that I did not ask you for world peace or new energy sources or any of the other large-scale demands that exhaust you. All I am asking for, aside from my health, the well-being of my crazy family, and maybe a small fortune in the foreseeable future, is that you make today go smoothly.

To strengthen my case, I would like to argue that I used to be good at one time. I used to not question or doubt or shake my hands at the sky in anger. I used to "understand". There is a good chance that, if today goes smoothly, I may be prone to less anger and, in turn, a more open heart. I can't make any guarantees, but statistics are on your side; we always turn to you during weddings, funerals, and catastrophic world events (not to mention right before almost being killed by a car, airplane, or wild boar) so an event such as today may just push me in your direction. When people win the lottery, they often scream "Oh, my God" or "Praise the Lord", and today would kind of be like winning the lottery...

So, I'm just asking you to take a few moments to reconsider how this day should go for me--I'll even forget the coffee incident if you just throw me a bone.

Thank you (and this is one big joke so don't get angry),
Me

Christmas Gift Stresses

2005-12-09T09:47:00.000-05:00

So, what do you get for a father who is suspicious of "the man", who loves sci-fi, and who has no hobbies other than pretending to hunt? I think you get him a 2X4, some rope, and this book. I think he has great potential for becoming an expert crop-circle maker given his tremendous drafting abilities and his engineering brain. At least he can try to make it onto one of those "UFO's Revealed" shows.

500 words of paralysis

2005-12-08T14:39:00.000-05:00

I think we all know that I have no problem spewing out 500 words of verbosity. In addition to my blogging tantrums and tidbits, I often have to churn out 500-word abstracts an hour before the deadline. You would think that a 500-word writing sample should flow out of me like the product of a bad sinus infection. Unfortunately, I am paralyzed by this task. I draw a blank everytime I try to start--I, your chatty cathy of bloggers, can not think of anything remotely important to write about. All of this training and education, and I'm reduced to tears by this simple task.

What the hell is wrong with me?!

Zombies Want My Brain

2005-12-08T09:44:00.000-05:00

Will I need this when I'm gone?

Would you donate your brain to science?

There is a particular brain bank that wants my brain (because I'm special--interpret "special" liberally). I found out about this brain bank through a researcher in my field. She gave me a list of "special" brains that the bank would like to have. This issue has come up before, and I've thought about it so many times that one would think that I've come to a decision.

I am already an organ donor, but your brain is a different beast. I can't figure out how I feel about it. My brain won't really let me understand; it loves to avoid big issues.

Would you fork over your think box to someone like me?

What I learned

2005-12-06T14:48:00.000-05:00

Things I learned at my meeting:

A.) I think I'm beginning to speak well and present my science convincingly because everyone kept thinking that I was junior faculty. It was hard for me to correct them, and there may have been an occassion or two where I let it slide (accidently on purpose of course). This was an important revelation because this was the first time I've gotten positive reinforcement on how I speak/present myself. There were several times where semi-famous people directed their questions to me instead of my mentor. That was nice and brought warm fuzzies to my tummy.

B.) The word DNA freaks people out. They respond better to "genetic information". I'm still trying to figure this one out, but it was a pretty consistent difference.

C.) Don't make assumptions about how supportive (or non supportive) people will be until you test them out. I ran into my grant manager, and she asked me about my next step following graduation. Upon sensing my apprehension, she immediately went into lots of career choices available to me and gave me the names of some people in a variety of "non traditional" science positions. This was weird for me because I assumed she would push me into finding a post doc. My grant is a competitive grant given to people who show promise as young researchers and is meant to train them to become research faculty. I thought she would be the last person to be honest with. I was wrong.

D.) Do not buy gloves that cost more than $5 because you will lose them the next day. It doesn't matter that you have never lost a glove in all of your life--you will lose them. Moreover, the "Lost and Found" department will laugh at you when you try to impress upon them how important it is that you find your gloves.

E.) The field of epigenetics is underrepresented in neuroscience, especially in translational research. I can't wait for this to change.

F.) When someone is critical of your work, get even more excited as you present it to them. Shakespeare was not a stupid man. Everyone wants to be entertained deep down inside.

G.) People really like my work. They really do, and I think I convinced several labs to hop on board my train and start looking at some of the things I've been looking at. I'm excited about that.

H.) There are only 3 women associated with my program who are on the faculty tenure track right now. One of them is probably going to get axed, even though she came from a famous lab and does great science, because she is having difficulty getting a grant. Apparently it doesn't matter that the tenured faculty judging her can't get grants right now either.

I may have learned a few other things, but I'm tired and can't really think right now...

I am not a freebie

2005-12-06T14:35:00.000-05:00

I am a funny person. At least, I belive I am funny, and self-denial and illusions are the stuff reality is made of so, yes, I am funny.

When people come to my poster, people who are not researchers or doctors but who are pushing a particular drug, and go into depth about how they hate sleeping in hotel rooms, about how hotel rooms are lonely and cold and maladaptive for sleeping, how should I respond? When there are 28 men for every 1 woman, and you have been testosteroned out of your mind, how can you really take someone like this seriously.

I advised him to take the very same drug he was there to sell. It's very sedating.

I thought I was being funny, witty if you will.

You really shouldn't come to my poster unless you are really interested in the incredibly boring genetic/cellular mumbo jumbo that I'm talking about. I do not have free blinky pens nor do I have flashlights or candy.

I am not a freebie.

That would make a good blog title.

Where Am I? Not Where I Should Be.

2005-12-02T08:31:00.000-05:00

Right now, I am supposed to be at a conference (yes, another science fair). It is across town and a pain to get to because they (the man) refuses to put a subway stop at my Univ. for fear poor people might find us. It would have been easier to leave directly from my house, but I just stopped by the lab to do one more little thing...

And now I'm stuck. I'm stuck for several reasons. The first reason is quite practical. Both my feet are asleep because I sit on them when I'm at the computer. I try not to do this as it causes my knees to hurt continuously, and I'm sure it does nothing for the swelling in my legs, but I can't help it. I also hold my thumbs when I'm nervous or walking by myself, but that's a whole different issue.

The second reason is also practical. I can not finish up here until I get into the core facility, which does not open until 9 or 10am, depending on who is working there today.

The third reason is psychological. I do not want to be pushed into the crowds of people pretending to care about research and medicine when all they really care about is showing their face and gaining recognition for whatever bullshit study they are presenting. This meeting is comprised of physicians mostly, and it shows in the science. Sorry doctors, it's nothing personal--I understand there are limitations when you are working on human primates instead of rats.

The fourth reason is physiological. I'm freezing. My lab is cold, the bus is cold, the outside is extremely cold...I'm paralyzed by the ice building up on my nose.

The fifth...what was the fifth? Oh, yeah--I'm blogging instead of conferencing (I know, conferencing is not really a word in the way I just used it).

Laugh Away

2005-12-01T15:39:00.000-05:00

We make plans and God laughs at us.

Miss You

2005-11-29T07:45:00.000-05:00

I miss all of you.

I have not had a chance to stop by and visit you lately--I'm sorry. I tried to skim here and there over the past couple of days, just for a glance, a glimmer of what you are all going through right now. Some of you are going through a lot, and I am thinking of you. T, PK, and Sue--I hope you guys feel better. B*--I'm sending you all of the good ESP vibes I can muster (if you smell smoke, you may want to make sure your hair is not on fire). I choke up everytime I think about what you are going through. Shrinky*--because you post so frickin' much, I'm still not sure how court turned out (yeah, I'm that behind). I hope it went well. AAYOR--your site is so pretty and your belly so wonderful. Muse--I'm sorry that you're going through this all over again. And, the rest of you, I'm thinking good thoughts for all of you too. I'd like to keep going, but the beeper, it calls.

I have designated Thursday as my catch up reading and posting day as this is both my first and last day of rest for a while, the calm after the storm and before the storm one could say.

Miss you guys...