More Gray Hairs

The bathrooms at the NSF have some weird lighting that make all my gray hairs illuminate like light bulbs. I was sitting on a panel, went to the bathroom, and saw a fresh crop of gray gnarly worms growing out of my head. I plucked them out, and moved on. Maybe that bad lighting is causing all my proposals to get rejected.

Goodbye, Spring Semester

The final grades are turned in, and I suddenly have so much more time (to work). I'll be spending the summer writing proposals, getting preliminary data in the lab, arranging the move, and moving.

This last semester has been a big one with lots of changes. I survived the proposed elimination of my department. Mr. JP and I secured positions elsewhere at an ideal place. I got a paper published and another one accepted. Lots of rejected grants :( I taught another class successfully. I wish I had written more proposals, but the proposed doom of my department had frozen any productivity out of me. This semester has been good considering the final outcome.

Goodbye, spring!

Email My Husband If You Want To Reach Me

Mr. JP and I are excited about moving to our new university, where we will be in the same department together. A weird side-effect of being a married couple in the same department is this whole email thing. An administrator will email my husband only with critical information, addressing the email to both of us. My husband doesn't regularly check if I'm on the recipient list, so this information doesn't reach me until something annoying happens. The same is true the other way around where I'll be emailed with information and my husband's name has been "forgotten".

I'm sure this is a genuine oversight, but it is still frustrating. We're married as "one" person on a spiritual level. On a professional level, we are two persons and have two separate email addresses!

Happy Mother's Day

I was so sick that my Mother's Day went by in a daze. Mr. JP was at commencement, so Sparky and I were alone at home most of the day.

I remember Sparky whining all day over something. Sleeping in front of Sid the Science Kid. Trying to put weed killer in the front yard and getting to tired to finish. Damn dandelions. And then giving up on the day all together and just playing Super Mario on the Wii. Mr. JP got me some awesome cards, and the night before took me out for vegan food. Yummy. Just wish I felt better.

Ebb and Flow

My graduate student's future is secure. He can move to the new U. and get a PhD from the old prestigious U. We've figured out funding, visas, and thesis committees. So I can breathe a sigh of relief...

But, now my awesome post-doc tells me that he cannot move to new U. His wife doesn't want to move to the new U area. She wants to remain near the big metropolitan area near old U so that she can pursue her fine arts studies. He is heartbroken because he wants to make the move, he loves the new U area, and has many friends there. But his duty is to his wife. Further complicating the issue is that they are international, so if they cannot find a job soon then they must leave the U.S. and the wife cannot pursue her fine arts studies here. I empathize because I know too well how two-body problems can work. I will try to find a position for him with colleagues, but funding is so tight here. I hope it can work out for them.

Sparky's First Sentence Was...

"I poo!"

On Time Management

I am a bit of a time management nerd. I used to wear a digital timer on my belt so that I could time every minute of my work day from coffee breaks to manuscript writing. But lately, I've been in a funk. I've been surfing the internet (gasp!) and overmultitasking to where nothing sticks in my brain.

I recently attended an NSF workshop for junior faculty that reset my clock and I think I'm back on track. The most effective piece of advice I heard was concerning email. Checking email consumes time, and it takes X minutes to get back on task after checking the email. If you check your email 20 times a day (yes, you really do), then you waste 20X minutes getting back on task. A solution is to check your email only 3 times a day at prescribed times. I tried this for a week, and the change was immediate. Instead of checking my email (all the f**king time), I forced myself to focus on other pieces of work. For the first time in ages, I was able to leave work satisfied with my day's accomplishments. Let's keep it up.

So I think that *wasting* a day attending a workshop may have ultimately saved me 20X minutes per day...