Sentimental Seadragon

The Hurricame... and Went

Occasionally I find myself sifting through the archives here, usually looking for details about something I've since forgotten.  Like, when did Squeakles start putting two words together?  Because as big a deal as that was at the time (and it wasn't that long ago, really), I already can't quite put my finger on it.  As I search around on the site, I usually find myself getting lost for about twenty minutes, taking a stroll down memory lane.

That usually prompts me to think about taking up blogging again.  And that's as far as it gets, until the next time I look something up.

I feel like writing here again would require that I catch you up on what's happening since I left off, but since I don't have time to write an autobiography, here's the quick summary, with the important details to be filled in as we go.

I've changed jobs and I'm currently working as a professor at a big university.  My job is primarily teaching oriented and I think it's going to be perfect for me, though it's been a tough start - prepping for a huge course load with no previous experience or materials o speak of.  I basically didn't sleep at all last year.

J got a tenure-track job that just started this year and he's still settling in - his lab is being constructed from scratch and he's busy doing all the start up things that need to get done before research can happen.

We moved to Newark (DE) to be closer to J's new job, so the kids have started at a new preschool.  Last year at preschool was really tough for Squeakles.  More on that later maybe, as details are needed, but in the immediate, I was really apprehensive about how he would do at the the new school.  Well, I am completely blown away - the school is wonderful and Squeakles' demeanor is *completely* changed.  He's pleasant, funny, and compliant, both at home and at school.

Weeble is also doing great.  She talks all the time and has a really persistent but loving personality.  She's the littlest one among us but refuses let herself get overlooked!

In other news, we just had a hurricane blow overhead ("hurricame" if you pronounce it the way Squeakles does).  We haven't actually left the house since it happened, but we never lost power, the basement didn't flood, and everything from the windows looks just fine.  There was massive flooding in New York and New Jersey (I don't need to tell you that), but I'm headed back to work in Philadelphia tomorrow!

Female Perspective

I just got an email about an upcoming panel discussion regarding female scientists in academia. My first thought was, great, I could use this! And the topics it will cover - various paths to an academic career, the "two body" problem, interviewing tips, job negotiation, and balancing family and work life - are definitely relevant to me, right?

But there's something about this panel being targeted to women that just feels incomplete to me. These things aren't only relevant to me; all of them are also relevant to J. (To be fair, the email (but not the attached flyer) says that the discussion will be "from a female perspective (but not to the exclusion of males!)".)

I assume that the point of the panel is to help women in academia deal with issues that continue to affect women more negatively than men. But I can't help but think that these issues would be shared more fairly between women and men if they were treated more like problems that both sexes have to deal with.

My reaction to this isn't coming from any concerns/issues I have with J. I do think he is just as concerned about these things as I am and he is just willing to consider alternative paths, continually attempt to balance work and family, etc. We talk openly about what we want for ourselves career-wise, what our individual goals are, what we are (or may be) willing to sacrifice for parenting and for dealing with the two-body problem, etc. The extent that I single-handedly take on certain parenting responsibilties (e.g., I make all of Squeakles' food myself) is coming from within myself - there are things I want for Squeakles, things I am willing to take time to do, and things I personally enjoy doing. But otherwise, J and I split the things that I don't take on as personal missives but yet which need to be done, and we are constantly negotiating the balance of time we spend with Squeakles versus work.

So my reaction is not about how J and I personally handle these issues, but about how these issues are perceived in academia (as well as more broadly). The fact that this panel is being targeted toward women (and not just this panel in particular of course, but panels like this) make me nervous about my academic future (or I guess, the immediate future academia itself), that these issues tend to be considered of particular concern to women but, what, not to men? It makes me worry about how men are regarded who want to consider alternative paths to an academic career (and thus whether they are as likely to consider them). And about whether similar assumptions are made about women and men needing to balance family and work life, and what accommodations may or may not be available. Or about the assumptions made when sacrifices have to be made because of the two body problem. Don't these issues become more relevant to only women's lives the less they are considered problems equally relevant to men's lives?

Abstracts

Squeakles is all better now. (Thanks to all who emailed or messaged me about it!) He was feverish for three nights, and by the third night I had sort of forgotten what an awesome baby he is and I was going a little nuts worrying about his sleep habits. I felt like he would never be able to sleep independently and that he'd always keep waking up and crying out, so I was ready to start some serious sleep training on the spot. J talked some sense into me, reminding me that Squeakles was still a little sick and to give him more time. And a day later, he was totally fine and sleeping much better.

Today I was even able to work during his naps! Fortunately, I had something that was easy to work on in short bursts - we're writing another abstract for another conference. Unfortunately even if it gets accepted, I won't give the talk (my advisor really wants to give it) and I won't even be funded to go to the conference. However, I'd still be first author so that's good. And we have enough frequent flier miles for me to go to the conference without it being too much of a financial drain, so I am considering that. I didn't really enjoy this conference when I went to it last year, but it's a good one for me to go to, especially for job-seeking purposes.

As for the abstract we submitted to the other conference, the one that I was reviewing abstracts for, it got accepted as a talk. I'm extremely excited about this! And for this conference I will be giving the talk. I'm very familiar with this conference and the people who go to it, so I know what to expect - good questions, good feedback, and hopefully good exposure. The unfortunate part, and the reason I'm only hopeful about the exposure, is that the talk is scheduled for 10 am on the last day of the conference (and that day is only a half day to begin with). Oh well.

Academic Libraries and Digitization

I am not so young as to have grown up with computers all around me. When I was in elementary school my dad used to cart home an Apple IIe for us to play with and eventually he bought one for the family. But I didn't even have a computer in college (mainly because I thought it was an unnecessary expense) until the spring of my senior year (in 1996) when the 10-page limit of my electronic word processor was starting to become problematic (I was writing a senior thesis, and trust me when I say it was more than 10 pages).

Anwyay, computers and the internet are now a completely integral part of my life (academia, photography, news, email, etc.), and so I might be biased in what I'm about to say, but I also think that I'm right about the direction academic libraries need to go in.

When I first got to grad school and started doing intensive library research, I was always really happy when my library didn't own something I needed. That meant I didn't have to take a physical trip to the library (time spent) or pay for the copies (paper and money wasted) and even better that I would get a scanned copy sent to me. That meant I could save the copy on my hard drive instead of filing a paper copy and always having to cart it around (e.g., moving between home and the office). Happily, shortly after getting there, my school started offering email transmission of scanned articles that the library does own, and they opened this program up to faculty and graduate students. At first, I didn't get why they would include graduate students in this because it seemed like a lot of work for the library, and aren't graduate students supposed to be the grunt labor of a university? But then I reasoned that maybe they were trying to digitize their library, and what better way to figure out where the most immediate need is than to work on the articles currently being requested by both graduate students and faculty.

So when I got to my new university, now as a post-doc, I went over to the library and asked whether they have this service. Now granted I asked at the check out desk and not information so maybe they didn't know, but they practically laughed in my face at the idea. However, a few days later I discovered that they do offer this service, but only to faculty. I wasn't sure if I would count as faculty, but thought that I would be likely to be closer to faculty than to student status, especially since my ID card lists me as faculty and my library status lists me as faculty. But no, it turns out I am not eligible for this service, which means that whenever I need an article that my library owns, I have to walk over there, pay for the copies, and only get a paper copy.

So one reason I think this is silly is because many of these articles ARE being scanned somewhere by the publishers (or they are digital to begin with) or even by our own library (for sending to other libraries that we have loan agreements with). So we're just duplicating efforts and that seems silly. Couldn't they open the database up to students who could see whether an article is digitally available, and only if it's not would they have to make a physical trip to the library. Or if the issue is that going directly to the publisher or database is expensive, what about installing scanners so that you have the option of scanning the article (rather than wasting paper by photocopying, but still with an option to print if you need it) and basically use crowd-sourcing to digitize your library? (And I'm sure it would be easy enough to implement a complaint system so that the library could be alerted to bad scan jobs.)

But, well, no one asked me.

I'm curious though, what do you think? Am I missing something about licensing or fees, or even the cost of scanning?

I passed!!

Just a quick post to say that I PASSED my defense last week!

I suppose you'd think that would mean more time for blogging and you might wonder where I've been since then, but so far it has just meant precious time away from my computer and email. It's been wonderful.

But I know I owe some of you phone calls and emails. I'm returning to this world now, and in fact, I'm headed to work tomorrow morning like a normal person who gets paid to work! So I will be in touch soon!

Positive Feedback

So it looks like there may be life after my dissertation after all! In spite of all the time I've spent working toward finishing, it was feeling less and less like a possible reality and more like wishful thinking.

I didn't end up going to Baltimore on the day I said I was going to (in my previous post) because I just had too much to finish up and to do before going to Florida. In fact, I didn't finish writing everything until I got to Florida - I spent the first day and night finishing it up, sent it off at 5 am to a friend in Baltimore who very kindly agreed to print it out for my advisors for me, and then I went to bed with the idea of relaxing for the rest of the trip.

And I definitely relaxed, but the dissertation was always in the back of my mind. As the days went on and I wasn't working, I certainly appreciated the time off and I think it was ultimately the best thing for me to step back from this project. But I still worried that I had taken my dissertation in a direction that my advisors wouldn't like or that I had made some really fundamental errors.

But my main advisor sent me an email on the 2nd, just before she left for a 10-day trip, and this really set my mind at ease. She wrote "Congratulations-- you are nearly there, and I think you've done an outstanding job of pulling together two very different approaches to the problem." and "I am so pleased with this penultimate draft-- congratulations again!" (well, obviously she wrote more than that, but those are the particularly good parts). She also talked about having already contacted the one committee member who is from a different university and said that when she gets back we should start setting up the whole comittee and setting a defense date.

So I am quite relieved. The time off was very necessary in so many ways, and it's a relief that finishing up my dissertation looks like it will be manageable and that I am very, very close!

I haven't actually gotten back to work yet though after getting that email because I still had to make the trip to Baltimore to collect the rest of the boxes of files and books from my office there, and then my friend Chiaroscuro came for a visit and we spent the afternoon yesterday walking around Philly with my newly acquired (on loan) cameras from my husband's father - a Mamyia C330 and a Canon AE-1. I will have more to say about these in the future, and hopefully photos to show! But since they are film cameras, I have no idea yet if any picutres I have taken will actually come out. Also I am resurrecting my old photoblogs, which I haven't posted to since last September. (I'll let you know when they're active again.)

So it's back to work for me today, and I have to confess that I am not particularly excited about it. There is a big part of me that is simply so tired of this project that I just want to leave it as is. But my advisor gave me some comments about very specific things to fix, so I'm going to do that while she's still away so that it will be as ready as possible when she gets back.

Getting There

Either I ate something bad, or my stomach is simply tied up in knots at the prospect of turning in a full draft of my dissertation to my advisors on Monday. Given the emotional turmoil of the past couple years from working on this, I'm inclined to think it's the latter.

I have to say that this dissertation is hugely improved in the last few months and it's finally something that I feel I can hand in. I still have my issues with it though, and I'm still terrified that my advisors are going to hate it so much that they refuse to pass me and instead kick me out of the program. Hey, it's possible!

But I'm trying, really trying, not to allow these thoughts. Yesterday I was considering what I would do if that happened, how would I react, who would I talk to... and then I caught myself because that it is really just ridiculous to entertain these ideas. First of all, it's totally counterproductive. And second, I do actually think it's unlikely. I didn't write 350 pages (yes, 350 pages, I know, it's way too long) of complete drivel. I hope and think that it's passable drivel. We will see.

Anyway, very soon I plan to return to this world and I hope that my shift in perspective, the feeling of completion and moving on, will be worth it. I suppose that won't happen until I've really passed, but I do think that just turning this in is a big deal. I'm turning it in in person on Monday in Baltimore, packing up the rest of the boxes in my office (hm, Tuesdayscoming, got any plans on Monday afternoon?), then hopefully catching up with Chiaroscuro for a bit, and then driving back home. On Tuesday I'll pack a suitcase and then head to the airport with J to visit his family for ten days! I cannot wait. If I can keep my mind from things like potentially failing out of grad school when I have no evidence that this is imminent or even likely, I might even be able to relax.

I sound a little crazy, don't I? Hopefully, this too, will pass.

One thing that might help take my mind of stressful things is the Mamiya C330 professional camera that J's father has from his earlier days as a wedding photographer that he's going to let me try out. To say that I am excited is a gross, gross understatement! I'm not expecting magic though; in fact, I'll be lucky if the photos turn out looking like I took them with a Holga. (Actually, that would be lucky, since I really like the effects of a Holga.) But what's going to make using the Mamiya especially difficult is that 1) it's film so I won't be getting any feedback about whether I'm getting the exposure right or not, and 2) it doesn't even have a built in light meter so I'm going to have to use my camera's light meter and then do conversions to account for differences in ISO, aperture, and field of view. And yet, this still sounds fun to me. :)

A Metaphor of Sorts

When I took this picture, I was thinking about the red color from the autumn leaves in the background and the bokeh from the light coming through the leaves, and the almost-symmetry of the remaining red berries hanging from the branch.

1/160 sec, F/4.5, ISO-100, 94 mm, Canon EOS XT 350D

But when I got home and looked at it, I thought, hey that looks just like my dissertation: kinda cool in some ways, actually starting to hang together, but also kind of weird and with strange unfinished ends sticking out.

Unrelated to this picture, I think my dissertation is going to be very, very long. I have almost finished fully revising chapters 1 and 2 and they alone are 100 pages. (There are 5 chapters.)

And now I'm off to Baltimore for the night, where I will spend a lovely evening with jcm (who comments from time to time here, but doesn't currently have a blog for me to link to!) and her husband. And then tomorrow I'll be in an up-to-three hour meeting with two of my professors to make sure that the math I've done makes sense and that this chapter really does fit in with the others (I hope they know that even if it doesn't, my opinion is that's just too bad at this point and it fits well enough!). I'm a little nervous because one of the professors was essentially named Man of the Year in our field, so I really, really don't want to be bringing him something stupid. But I've been working like crazy the past couple of weeks to get this chapter really into shape, and although I hit a major low when I thought I'd discovered a huge flaw, I've since convinced myself that not only was my approach a reasonable one but in fact it's totally correct and solves some of the big problems I was having with a previous version which I actually worked out with this professor. So let's hope I'm right...

After the meeting I will then pack up as much of my Baltimore office as I can manage into the car and drive back to Philly, clean up the apartment in antipication of J's sister coming to visit on Saturday (fortunately, J did a lot of the pre-cleaning before he went out of town this week for a conference, so I don't have an unsurmountable task ahead of me), and then... I'll just keep on writing.

However, it will be wonderful to have J's sister and her husband here! I think it will be the perfect amount of breaks and socializing to keep me sane, but they are also going to NYC for a couple of days so I am sure I will also be able to get work done. I really love that they have all been coming to visit, in part because we haven't seen them in forever so it's nice that they are now coming to us (!), in part because it's fun to explore this city with other people, and the real reason... because it creates lots of situations for eating out (SUSHI!). :)

FaciliTaTory

"Can you believe this is free?!"

Yes, I just said that to J just now, about the fact that you can hear someone pronounce the word "facilitatory" on Merriam-Webster Online.

J looked up at me, unimpressed, and said only, "I've always wanted to pay for that."

Sigh.

I need to get out more.

Still, I'm happy that facilitatory is actually a word, as it should be. (I thought it was, but MS Word totally disagreed with me.)

(I suppose it goes without saying that I am not out and about tonight, but instead I am sitting in front of my computer still writing? Yeah, thought so.)

So MucH Fun

Lots of fun around here today...

This morning, I didn't go to the pot luck brunch I'd been invited to.

Then in the afternoon, I didn't go to Reading Terminal Market for the Harvest Festival. (I did, however, go to the farmer's market stands in Rittenhouse Square Park to pick up some apples for the upcoming week.)

And finally in the evening, J and I did not go to the pot luck dinner we'd been invited to.

Instead, J nursed his perpetual hacking phlegmy cough and watched his alma mater lose a big game, while I typed at my dissertation in hopes of making a dent. I think I made a nick, which I guess is better than nothing. I've still got tomorrow to finish this up (this being the 40-page introduction, and not the whole thing, of course) and there's nothing like a looming meeting with my advisor to cause words to come flying out of my fingertips and onto the virtual page.

(In case any of you are new readers to my blog, I have actually written more than just the introduction. I've also written the majority of the three content chapters, so once I'm done with the introduction, I just have bits and pieces of the content chapters to finish up, and I have to write the discussion. According to my advisor, the discussion should be "easy". We shall see about that.)