Controlling My Yapper

I have been getting frustrated with my group members lately, and since I have no internal filter, my frustration is narrated to them in real time. Some of the things I say are potentially destructive to our research and to my members' morale. Even as these words pour out of my mouth, I realize that what I am saying is bad, and I feel guilt. The next time I see the student, I totally reverse course and shower them with praise as I try to put out my flaming guilt. From the students' point of view, I probably appear to have wild mood swings. Actually, my emotions are pretty constant: CONSTANT FRUSTRATION. I am frustrated that they forget to come to group meetings, that they make up new Laws of Science that violate thermodynamics, that they don't read papers on which their research project is based even though I begged and pleaded, that they don't perform the experiments I asked for because they forgot, etc. I am frustrated that my members only show me 'good data' rather than showing my all of the data: good, bad, or ugly. Hell - I don't mind looking at noise, it shows me that you at least did something! Yes, this is a bitch fest. Ok, deep breath...

I am not a good boss, and I want to change that. I want to gently encourage my members, motivate them, and teach them to be professional. But how professional can they be when their adviser can't control her yapper in a grown-up way? My sis said that when I get pissed, that I should just walk away and go to the bathroom to gather my thoughts. I also think that working from home more would be helpful for many (too many to list) reasons. The best boss that I ever had didn't hide anything from us, he explained everything slowly and articulately, he was genuinely interested in us, and he cared. I think about what he would do. He would say in an even tone at a one-on-one meeting, "Person X, I am frustrated. Here's why... This is what I want from you... I think you and your project are awesome and will change the face of science. Now get tow work."

My Panties Are Up In a Bunch

Recent circumstances make me feel left out, and I really miss my friends from grad school. Hell, I miss having friends nearby.

I finished my CAREER, turned it, and was ready to relax this weekend. Now the story is complicated, so stick with me here. Mr. JP already has a CAREER award and he is prof. at another university nearby. We frequently hang out with the other junior faculty and their wives (all the jr. faculty there are men) from Mr. JP's school. I consider them all my friends, but not my close friends. So these other junior faculty finished their CAREER, too, so why not have a celebration? The fellow organizing the activity decided to make it guys only - so I was not invited. He invited my husband, though. This made me upset. Should my husband attend this guys only event, I would be left at home celebrating my CAREER submission alone with the Baby, while Mr. JP celebrated other people's CAREER proposals. Hmmm. Mr. JP decided not to attend so that he could simply sleep instead. Problem solved.

But the whole thing was like a slap in the face. Aren't I one of them? I finished my CAREER proposal, too! I want to have some fun, too! Me, too, me, too, me, too! But I think I have been classified as a wife, and not as a professor. Are these people really our friends or are they just my husband's friends? No, there are no other women around with which I can celebrate this submission. I celebrate with my husband and my son. It's lonely up here.

Greener Pastures

Why do academics leave their home universities for greener pastures at another school? Whenever I hear about professors changing institutions, I always imagine some juicy story behind their move. I've only been on this side of the coin for a year, but I can speculate as to why faculty up and move. There is a large activation energy to move one's lab from place to place - funds must be transferred, equipment moved, people moved - it looks really expensive. The reasons should be sufficiently important to warrant such a monumental shift:

1. Lack of appreciation/respect from colleagues at one's university.

Salary may be viewed as in indicator of appreciation. Imagine getting paid substantially less than some tenured jack-off that teaches one class, does service, and has no graduate students, while you are running a muck picking up the slack.

But money is not always the main issue. A lack of respect can translate into more work or fewer resources (also point no. 2) Perhaps you are repeatedly passed up on internal funding because you are not a favorite. Maybe you are forced to teach extra classes. Sit on more committees. All this, while others kick up their feet.

This may also cover politics. Should you foolishly get drawn into university politics, there will always be an opposing side that lacks respect or appreciation for you.

2. Better resources/prestige elsewhere.

Given the opportunity to ride up the US News Rankings List, wouldn't you? Schools that are more highly ranked might have more resources and better facilities. Having that schools name on your proposals might give you a better chance at securing funding. Maybe you care about being at a top 10 place.

3. Personal reasons.

Two-body problems. Family. Weather. City vs. pasture. Culture. Work ethic. Colleagues are goons and no-fun-nicks that don't like punk rock.

Time

My sister, Dr. Mom, had a great post on how many hours per week she works as a tenure-track faculty, ~40 hr. She expressed that she felt shame about working so little, while still being successful. Science Woman then initiated a poll about how hard or how long we work.

So how many hours per week do I work? Definitely less than 40. I wake up at 6, and it takes me 90 min to get myself ready (breakfast, baby shit - literally, hygiene, etc.). My morning routine is slow because I am very sluggish in the morning. Then I commute about 60 min to work. By then, it is 9 am and I work until 4 pm. During this time, I am writing, reading, labbing, with very limited goofing off. I spend my lunch hour surfing the web. By the time 4 pm rolls around, I can barely keep my eyes open so I know it is time to drive 60 min home. I pick up Sparky from daycare and frantically cook dinner, feed and entertain Sparky, do dishes, and do chores until it is time to collapse around 8 pm. I sneak in email checking and paperwork here and there, but nothing substantial.

I feel intense guilt about working so little, but I am doing the best with what I have. I never talk about how little I work to other colleagues because I feel like they might hate me if they knew. I don't like to hear about how much they work because it revs up my impostor syndrome. I have managed to do as much as I have so far because I delegate tasks to everyone - including undergrads. Instead of asking people to do X, I tell them to do it: "You will do X by Friday, and you will report to me on it Monday." This "You will"-phrasing seems to work very well for my lab. If I wasn't limited, how many hours would I work? If I had energy, if I lived next to my lab... I think I would work 45 hr. per week.

The Next Generation of Sexist Pigs

Mr. JP was working at Big Name University doing high impact research last week. He worked alongside an REU student from Berkeley who said some atrocious things. REU student said that female faculty automatically get tenure and that they get more grants because they are women. And once women get tenure, all they want to do is get into administration. Mr. JP asked the REU student, "Where did you hear this?" He said, "From my adviser." To which I want to scream, Are you f**cking kidding me? Is that why I am writing so many grants - to go be an Administrator!!

Mr. JP said to him, "Hmmm, interesting. My wife was considering Berkeley for graduate school, but on her visit, they took everyone to a nudie bar so she decided not to go." REU student said, "Nudie Bar!? Awesome!" Sigh.

I really really want Mr. JP to write the Berkeley Dean about this exchange, and have the student CCed. I am so seething, but I cannot do anything myself (except whine about it in this blog) because I wasn't there for the conversation. What would you do?

On Hair

The receptionist at the doctor's office pointedly lifted one of my rogue hairs from her log book and let it fall to the floor. I said nothing. These days, I'm leaving a trail of fallen soldier hairs everywhere. My hoodie is nothing more than a repository for wayward hairballs. The bathroom floor is a carpet of brown strands. My hair is falling out prolifically. But I feel great, so the medicine is doing its job.

I have been getting multiple complements on my new haircut (although I don't have a new 'do'), so I feel OK about how I look. I had a ton of hair, and now I have a normal amount. No one would notice the loss, save myself, but it is still saddening to leave little pieces of myself everywhere I go.

Hair is a strange thing. We caress our lustrous locks, wash them, brush them, and coif them. But transform those locks with the simple action of snipping scissors (or evil medicine in my case), and the fallen hair looks forlorn and ... disgusting. It goes from being voluminous and lively on the head to limp and lifeless on the floor. So I conclude this memorial service for my hair, and look forward to a lively future with my 'new do'.

TCB

Some items on my To-Do list have been festering there for weeks. They are mostly boring, inane little things, so why do I have so much trouble getting off of my ass and doing them? Why am I putting off setting up our behemoth shiny new piece of equipment? Why am I procrastinating on updating my faculty webpage? Filling out paperwork? Organizing a new course?

And I have stopped working in lab. Ayay yi! All my time has been sunk into this CAREER proposal, which I have turned in yesterday. My graduate student asked me a funny question last week, "Professor, why are you still writing proposals if you already have funding [from one federal grant]?"

The JP-In-Laws are Here!

Mr. JP is off at Big Name U doing a week of special, high-impact crap. The in-laws are here for the week to help me out with Sparky. Thank goodness for the in-laws.

MIL (mother-in-law) is a germophobe and cleans our house from top to bottom (love it!). MIL and FIL love playing with Sparky, and Sparky loves playing with them. I get to work on my CAREER, sleep relatively late, and relax. Having extra hands around the house is so nice. I bet that after a week they will be driving me nuts, but I can always go to bed early and avoid the craziness. Mr. JP Skyped with us this morning. Sparky tried to claw into the computer screen to touch Daddy. Silly baby.

Well, you look fine.

Perhaps one of the most annoying things about being sick is not looking sick. Michael Jackson's death has put a spotlight on Lupus, now that some of his doctors said that he had the autoimmune disease. (Btw, I don't have lupus - just something else). The New York Times Well Blog did a piece called "The Voices of Lupus" that I was so happy to see. Autoimmune diseases are so frustrating to those who have them, perhaps because everyone around us doesn't understand what we are going through. Our loved ones can give us empathy and support, but it seems like only other patients get us.

There is a beautiful piece called "The Spoon Theory" where a lupus patient describes in tangible terms what it is like everyday. To use a similar analogy, consider our daily energy runs off of a tank of gasoline. It seems to me that healthy people have a bottomless, endless tank of gasoline, and that I wake up with maybe 5 gallons. The amount of energy that I have is very limited, so I have to choose wisely on how I will consume my energy. By 8 pm, I'm usually spent. At work, I look fine and I work fine, but I don't have energy for having fun at night. I used to be frustrated with this change in lifestyle, but I have come to accept it.

I guess, the point of all of this is that I want to highlight that many people have disabilities that are invisible. We should empathy for others in this situation. We aren't 'lazy' or 'faking it'. We are just plain tired.

My CAREER's Project Summary

The overall objective of this proposal is to get my bad-a** tenure. I propose to explore a little niche of a field that has been beaten to death. This niche is completely unexplored and absolutely fascinating to me, and probably fascinating to the other 10 people working in our little field. I have been looking at this proposal so much that I no longer feel enthusiasm for it, but I hope that you, the reviewers, will pee in your pants over how this work will be a transformative, paradigm-shifting, melt-in-your-mouth foray into the great unknown.

The technical merit is that I can do a triple axel while skating on thin ice, and that I will teach my students to do so also. I am going to study the properties of a thingy, where the properties have been impossible to measure. This will not get me a Science or Nature publication, and I am at peace with that.

The broader impact is that I will get tenure, my students will graduate and won't be let go because of funding issues, and that we will make really cutesy pop-sci thingys. Yes, I like interacting with K-12 and undergrads, and I'll show them my cutesy thingys. I don't feel like inventing a new class so I'll just create a module, which really means that I'll create one lecture and maybe a HW assignment related to this work. No, I'm not curing cancer or creating a perpetual motion machine. My parents don't understand what I'm doing, and keep asking 'What's the application?" Do we always have to have an application? Is 'curiosity' an application? Should I be asking questions in my broader impact statement?

Feelin' Groovy

I'm feeling pretty good these days! My evil little pills are working, and I find that I can go an entire day without even thinking about my symptoms. This is great timing because I can work on my CAREER and not be so limited by physical exhaustion. My improved health has made home life much happier, too. The drug's side effects are pretty crappy - losing my hair, dry eyes, general zombie-ness, immune system shot to hell. For all peeps working on pharmaceuticals, I urge you to make a wunder-drug that has minimal side effects (I would gladly pay twice the price just to get some hair back!).

I have been able to do simple things again - wash the dishes, do laundry, bathe - without dreading the discomfort. I will never take this for granted. I almost cried while washing the dishes the other day because I realized that I could do them.

And Sparky has started playing games with us. He plays 'hug', where we give each other hugs back and forth. Very fun.

Phone-Slave

I have a really old cell phone; it's so old that it doesn't even have a camera. I have been considering upgrading to a Blackberry-ish phone so that I can be a 'real' professor. However, my colleagues' phone etiquette appalls me and I hope that I do not turn into a phone-slave like them.

My department chair has an iPhone, and he uses it to check his email constantly - even during seminars. In another example, I was out at lunch with another junior faculty member. In the span of our 30 min lunch, he checked his email, wrote an email, and took a phone call - while sitting at the table with me. During a committee meeting another junior faculty took a phone call without excusing himself.

I have added italics to the times and places that it is inappropriate to use one's cell phone. Is the seminar so bad that you have to check your email? What example does the set to the rest of the department? Is our lunch so trivial that my company is not good enough to keep you entertained? Are your emails and calls really so important that they must be attended to at that moment? Is some one going to die if you don't pick up your phone?

Yes, its pretty cool that you can check your email anywhere at anytime, but that doesn't mean that you should. A great selfless compliment is giving one's undivided attention. How would you feel if your students started taking calls and writing emails during group meetings? Or if your department chair started texting his buddy during your promotion and tenure review? Annoyed? Then put the phone down, dummy!