Life is looking good!

What a lovely week!  Rae Ann was in town to visit, which means we had TWO excuses to get together with the family, and one of those times Rae Ann showered us with outlandishly delicious food.  Grilled Shrimp AND Steak!  Grilled Veggies AND Grilled Peaches & Apricots!  I remember there was more, but not what it was because it sent me into a food coma.  What a great way to start the week!  Rae Ann is in town for her annual association meeting, but has been hanging around doing fun stuff with Nana all week.  Running off to Ikea, or to Gig Harbor or just sitting around reading companionably are pretty much what I imagine a fulfilled retirement looks like. 

Of course, Tuesday Matt passed his CDL test, so we got to go and celebrate, and on Wednesday I went to an AWIS social.  Of course, all of this out-and-about-ness is a side effect of my current work.  I'm contracting from home which means, well, I am at home all day.  So when I am Done With Work, I prefer to leave the house a bit.  It puts a nice bit of a break in there, and prevents cabin fever.

But the work is really good.  I may have mentioned this new company is very organized, has given me a lot of guidance, and generally has their act together.  We are using SharePoint.  I get weekly team updates.  I have an editor who basically responds to me within minutes of my questions.  It's grand.  I'm helping with a career development class for high schoolers.  The work is the right kind of challenge for me as well.  It's hard to write good assessments for some of these abstract concepts, but it also feels good to include some basic mentoring advice in the coursework.  I'm still not sure how much more work they will have more for me (pretty sure I've got stuff next week, not sure about after that...), but I'd like to keep working with them.

This weekend will be filled up with the types of activities one must willfully avoid from the home office, and becomes quickly negligent of when you spend all their free time gaddying about.  Yes, it's time to clear the mountain of tea mugs.  And possibly attend the farmer's market. And visit Nana some more.

A change of pace

A kinda cool thing happened lately that I wanted to share.  I've got a new contract in curriculum development. 

On the one hand, it's a total success.  This is a field that I pretty much asserted myself into, and as a result has provided me intermittent contracts.  This is by far the best pay I've ever earned, and with luck could earn me at least some more contracts.  I like the work, but it is a field that is generally powered by off-site contractors.  Which is to say I like the work, but I hate working from home.  It's hard to stay motivated, and then I beat myself up for not getting enough work done, and by the end of the day, the only person I see is Matt.  And I really like him, but he doesn't like being the focus of so much attention.

This is relevant because I am taking some time off from both of my other positions (at the bank and the internship) to make space for this contract.  It's about time in the whole job hunting affair to reassess what the heck I am doing with myself.  It's been about a year since I defended and I never could have imagined I would have this much trouble finding a job.  Both the internship and the bank job have been nice stop gaps, but... dang, I want a real job.  So I need to figure out what that means, and how to get that.  I still feel like I am starting from square one, which is frustrating.  But I've got another year of experiences to shape this new restart- maybe I will come up with something different.

I'm on page 8!

Check me out!  Also- I'm on the newsletter committee, so I kinda helped make the whole thing happen.  Sweet!

New Blog! Steel City Science!

One of my friends, who is a talented scientist and great writer, has decided that Pittsburgh needs a new blog, a blog to cover the exciting science happenings in town.  It's surprising that there isn't something like this already, frankly.  There are a lot of "Pro-Pittsburgh" blogs etc., supporting this great online community of people who like to shine a light on what makes Pittsburgh unique.  There are dozens of research institutes and museums here, with cool science for Nerds and the Public alike, but no single place where all these great things get highlighted.  Her idea, then, is to publicize it a bit more.  Short news features from cool seminars, updates about great public events written for the average yinzer to understand.  And she asked ME to help!  I'm so excited!

The new blog is called Steel City Science, and you can follow us on twitter @SteelCitySci.  Obviously, the twitter is mostly me.  My posts are written by drsandlin (obvs), and the other bloggers (so far) are former coworkers.

I'm excited about this 1) because it gives me a good excuse to go to events and science stuff still, and 2) because it is a new way to think about science.  AND it's giving me an excuse to learn some new skills- I'm the defacto PR person (uh, Kels, expect some calls).  For example, I am linking here because I know you all LOVE to see what I am up to, but also because we need some more google cred to climb the rankings.  Share the link, send me Burgh related stories and prepare to be excited by the awesome science coming out of Pittsburgh!

In other news- I'M GOING TO TEXAS TOMORROW!  Don't leave your babies unattended or they will be kiss-tickled into hysterics. 

I've got a "job"

This is my last month of work here in the lab. I was feeling more than a little freaked out that I didn't have something else to do. My boss suggested I teach a course, but I have this hope that it will take less than a semester to find a job (but what if it doesn't?) so I turned it down. This made me feel like I was being wreckless, since, y'know, there isn't a better job forth coming. We've looked at our finances, and we can get by without me working for a pretty long time, as long I don't do anything but sit at home and fret about getting a job. This just sounds miserable.

Then a former grad student from my program suggested that the company he does editing with needs new editors. They want native English speakers to fix manuscripts written by Chinese scientists before submission to English speaking journals. You can do as much or as little as you want, and he says it is a nice side gig for him. He put me in touch, they read my CV and had me do a practice edit and said I have the qualifications they need. This seems like a great way to supplement both my CV and my income. It takes the pressure off me to accept a mismatched job, and actually lets me think about enjoying some free time for a bit. That might let me relax enough to figure out what kind of job I really do want. Of course, this means the job hunt is still on, but it takes care of the short term plan in a very pleasant way.

Something new

If I am to be honest, there are not many aspects of the job hunt that are fun, and there isn't a good way to me to enjoy the parts that I do enjoy. I like telling people what I am learning while I am poking around- it helps me organize my thoughts, and I like to imagine it might benefit some of my peers. But let's be serious, my angst over graduating and worries over where to go while I sit at home and let Matt make bank are not really problems, in the scale of problems. It is hard not to dissolve into whining when I am talking with my friends or husband, and I don't really want to wear them out.

All of this combined to a pretty hysterical job hunt last week prompted me to start writing about it elsewhere. I think that this will perhaps benefit me by serving as a writing sample that does not include a lot of personal information, and perhaps preserve some of these details for when my peers/ colleagues might want to be reminded of them. I am collecting my resources and experiences on a blog at careerscientist.blogspot.com

You are welcome to check it out, please let me know if you run across typos or you think I am writing things that might be negatively tied to my online presence (I am thinking about that quite a lot these days). If you know anyone else who might be interested, please share it! Or you can ignore it- it is probably boring content for non-job-hunting-biologists, and I will still be writing here. I wanted to share since I am kind of excited to have a positive outlet for my experience.

Getting done and getting back to normal

As Dad pointed out, I defended my Ph.D.! This is a big milestone for me, and it was really fantastic to have my family around to help celebrate what has felt like a very personal struggle culminating in such success! Much fun (and food!) was had by all over the weekend, and served as a well needed break.

Because when I got back to work on Tuesday... there were literally 1,000 pages of comments waiting on my desk- that is 2 full reams of paper, dog eared and with post-it notes sticking out. That actually has been fairly managable to tackle, and I expect I'll be done with the worst by the end of the week. But I'm not sure yet, since I am doing some experiments this week too- I feel like I'm getting right back to normal. Well, not normal, precisely. Absolutely better. I don't feel anxiety about coming in to work, mostly because the one most important thing I've had to worry about (getting my degree), I got, and they can't take it back. My papers may never get published and it may take a long time to get a job, but I've got the degree.

And otherwise things are moving along. I'm covering some experiments for my undergrad while he crams for the MCATs, hoping we can all get a manuscript 3 or 5 or whatever out of this deal... Oh, and good news, Manuscript #2 was resubmitted today. I'm fairly confident it will be accepted, and hoping that can move forward quickly, since a publication would greatly improve my scientist credibility. This paper has been a lot of back and forth with the collaborators in many timezones, and although I am the first author, I've had very little influence on the actual written document (for better or for worse). For me it has been easy to participate in, although if I had any more pull on the project, I'd have written it up differently- but it probably wouldn't have been as interesting to the people we want reading it that way. I'll happily overlook all that if it gets published, so keep your fingers crossed!

Dissertation, Done! and a seminar primer

I turned in my dissertation today! Hand delivered to each of my committee members (except for the one who left for Atlanta this morning, but he doesn't mind), who each recieved it with varying degrees of ambivalence and dread. I realize that this milestone for me is actually the starter's gun for them. I finished writing 200 pages! Now you have to read it! Needless to say, this drained the excitement out of the moment like a whistling slow leak on a bike tire. In fact, while hanging around waiting for various committee members to be available, I ended up chatting with enough of my peers to acknowlege that Yes, I am graduating in 9 days and No, I don't know what I'll do next, but Yes, Dr. Boss won't be paying me in September. What should have been excitement about a writing break, quickly turned into acute panic about my employment status. Ugh.

In the next nine days, I am hoping to find some jobs to apply for and prepare my seminar. I've had the privilege of going to some other defenses lately, which reminded me that people who don't do this often might like a primer on The Seminar.

I'll be giving my seminar in a lecture hall, which will hopefully feel well attended. The only people required to be there are my committee members- you'll recognize them by having a 200 page document they bring with them. They might flip through it while I talk- this is not rude. Those of you in attendance will get to see me sweating about projector set ups as early as 12:30. At 1pm sharp- or whenever all my committee members have assembled, Dr. Boss will stand up and give a brief introduction. Some faculty like to tell embarrassing stories or get choked up. Fortunately Dr. Boss will say something fairly flattering and professional, but don't expect a well rehearsed speech. The last time he introduced me he admitted my project was "something of a mid-life crisis that turned into a really great opportunity to work with Dr. Rockstar. Here's Sandlin!" "...?" I guess I am saying, don't read to much into whatever he says.

Then I will talk for about an hour. For those not already familiar with my work, I would hope you can understand the first slide or two, and you can be awakened for the slide titled Conclusions. I've decided to keep my acknowledgments strictly professional (people sometimes take the opportunity to publicly thanks their family and friends. I don't think I can do that with dry eyes, and I need my professional dignity for the committee meeting), so I'll probably go through three slides of collaborators and people who've taught me techniques, and then I'll say "and with that, I'll take any questions." Everyone will clap- but it's not over yet! Now is not a good time to take phone calls! Dr. Boss will jump up to moderate any questions, and everyone will stay in their seats to hear what is asked and how I respond. Anyone is welcome to ask questions, but please keep in mind the above regarding my professional dignity. I've seen a spouse ask a devastatingly prescient question the graduate had no response for, and everyone felt awkward about it. Hopefully this won't drag on more than 15 minutes. After that, Dr. Boss will say something about reconvening the committee, and everyone will clap again, and leave. I'll break down my computer while everyone else shuffles out, and then race upstairs to the conference room for my committee meeting. I know it may seem tempting to do otherwise, but this is the peak of my professional career, so no matter how flustered, or blubbery or astoundingly brilliant I seem, please don't come give me kisses, yet! Just brave smiles and I am off to The Defense. This is the end of the part you'll see.

After that, I'll have a meeting with my committee. I actually have no idea what will happen in there, but I expect it will be an hour or two. Eventually, I will be on the receiving end of 1,000 pages of comments and some congratulatory handshakes. Those in attendance are welcome to retire to their hotel, or hang out at my desk and harass my coworkers- they love funny stories! - since this is probably where I will head first to deposit 1000 pages. Those in absentia can expect texts before 5pm EST. Once Dr. Boss is out of sight, pile on the hugs and kisses, my professional obligations for the day are over! I promise I'll come hunting for family to hug no matter where you are, so go ahead and enjoy a nap or a lemonade or something else to kill the time.

Insert Title Here

I apologize for being a bit negligent of the blog of late- I think by next week I will be resigned to my fate, but for now it still seems like I can vastly improve (change?) my dissertation, and I am compelled to do so. This means the few things I've been doing that weren't writing have slipped by the way side, as has my regular sleep schedule alongside the balanced part of my diet. Good thing you can't OD on yogurt! I promise- for the sake of the blog- to do lots of fun, blog-worthy things over the summer to make up for the boring-ness of the springs blog posts. Y'know, for the blog.

But I am here today, because I need your help. I have been in a kind of "don't jinx it" denial about getting a Ph.D. for a long time. Yesterday, the announcement of my seminar was sent around my department and to other departments on campus, and something about seeing my name on the formal announcement made it seem real. Really, stomach clenching, blood freezing real. And Shaoshu reminded me of one of the many aspects that I am totally unprepared for- How am I going to use the title?

I know some people who feel they worked hard to earn that title and are gonna use it- dang it!, but I think I am little embarrassed about it. Maybe because I have spend the last several weeks working on revisions, this process hasn't left me feeling profoundly smart. My plan is to get through the remainder of my adult life without people knowing immediately that I have a Ph.D. I mean, I don't want to be the Central Casting type for the next episode of Big Bang Theory. And I REALLY don't want people turning to me in case of a medical emergency; "I thought you were a Doctor!?" I am hoping to get to use it in other less important places- signing petitions or writing checks or getting a home loan. Maybe I'll finally get my married name on all my magazines and catalogues with the upgrade. Any thoughts on where and when a person should use the title ? (which you'll notice, I couldn't bring myself to append to my own name in a blog post. It's gonna take some getting used to.)

Matt to the rescue. Again.

It hardly seems worth commenting on the obvious challenges in writing a dissertation. Finding the right way to summarize large data sets, find the right word to give nuance to my conclusions, organizing a giant file- I think we all expected this to be challenging. It's the unexpected challenges that I think are worth commenting on- they make me both glad I am keeping up on my writing schedule and also that I live with Matt. Let me explain.

On Sunday night while I was writing (finally writing, I enjoyed the sunny part of the day), Noel Skyped me for a quick Nana & Tyler adorableness update. And my computer kept dropping their call/turning itself off. While this didn't hinder my laser focus on the adorableness of my best nephew, one symptom I noticed was that while the battery was dying, my power cable was burning hot. When I showed Matt, who got apprehensive about continued long term use. Once I was all but done for the night (let's say 11pm), he took another look. The kind of look that requires taking a flashlight to the garage to dig out tools. He assured me that while there would be a part in this where my power cord would absolutely NOT work, he was confident he could get it to work again, and if not, we'd buy a new one first thing in the morning. I think you know where this is going.

On the adhoc workspace, Matt razored open the end of my power cable, which was predictably frayed and damaged. While I had no expectation about what he would find in there, he was surprised by the arrangement of the wire. After some finagling with his voltimeter, he was able to figure out how the tangled fragments of wires SHOULD power my computer. He approached this with a cool, objective confidence- this stoic bedside manner kept me from panicking. From my perspective, he performed minor surgery on a MAJOR component of my writing process, unleashed some microscopic bundle of medusa hair which was carefully reconstructed by soldering and wrapping into a non-electrifying, working power cord again. I am sure you can recognize several aspects there where panic or hysteria would have seemed appropriate. Who even knew you could take apart a plug?? Who takes a writing break to rework their electronics? If I didn't have Matt on all forms of technical support, my choices would have been watch for fire, or drop loads of money - both with panic and hysteria.

Thanks to Matt, writing continues at an efficient clip, right on schedule.

Getting harder...

I am working on the last chapter of my dissertation. This is good, of course, because that is the last chapter, and also because the final deadline is now breathing down my neck. The last Chapter has been the most emotionally painful so far. After revisiting years of experiments, what have I added to the field? Did we discover what we thought we would? No, I thought I was going to find some life-saving drugs, and we didn't. It's hard to verbally justify this: "I tried REALLY hard, but... sometimes science doesn't respond to that." I am supposed to describe how the project should continue into the future, even though I feel we pretty well plumped the available options already-I find myself tempted to suggest it might be preferable to just "Cure AIDS," as if no one had considered that option before.

The next two chapters need to get to Dr. Boss by the end of the week, so I am hoping to incorporate comments from my coworkers... soon. And get this final chapter out to coworkers for comments. This week seems crazy busy. I am not really sure why I feel so acutely worried about my pending joblessness, but that isn't helping anything.

Stats: 36 days until Defense- 28 days until I submit my document
Dissertation is now 186 pages long
445 references
26 figures and 11 tables
The first table of contents is 4 pages long...

I was going to say something about my fun weekend, but...

A paper came out last week that reclassified the family of viruses I study into 3 viruses. It doesn't change the way I did or should have done my experiments, but it certainly changes the way I should describe them.

Today just got extra busy.

Manuscript #2 submitted!

Not much really changes in my daily routine, which I recognize is getting a bit repetitive. But this week, breakthrough! My collaborators submitted manuscript #2- and I am the first author! There has been a lot of back and forth to get this story together, which draws heavily on the distinct expertise of 3 different labs. The bumps in the road will hopefully pay off when the Journal of Biomolecular Screening reviews is and LOVEs it.

Actually, I am not really holding out hope that this will be different than manuscript #1- I expect to get it back in another month and we'll make up our minds about what else to do to it. Weird though it seems, this is still what progress looks like.

The dissertation continues too. 140 pages, 269 references. I doubt the final product will be more than 200 pages, I feel like most of it has been committed to paper by now. I continue to feel intermittently very clever and very foolish about the experiments we've done and the results we've gotten. 57 days left until my defense... I gave Dr. Boss the first draft of a chapter- we'll see if I am as close to on track as I feel.

In other news, we fired the wood kiln over the weekend. This was WAY less work because there were twice the people we usually have around. This also means there was WAY more food too- double awesome. The weather was great too. The firing went very quickly, and we got home quite early on Sunday. We crack it open Wednesday- I'm excited to see what we get. I made LOTS of plates this time, and baking dishes. Both are relatively new forms for me, with luck they look great. No pictures this time, I guess it is starting to feel pretty routine. Our teacher was a little ill, so we kept sending him away to sleep while we took charge of things. It's nice to know what you are doing.

This is better than I thought

Obviously, I like writing. If I didn't like writing, I certainly wouldn't keep a blog. But I thought that "writing I like doing" and "writing you do under duress to get a PhD" would not overlap. This is in part because my efforts to write Manuscript 1 and get Dr. Boss to read it were so frustrating. Yet here I am, happily writing my dissertation. Sure, my interest/motivation ebbs and flows a bit, but I haven't hit any major blocks yet.

This is probably because there are so many different things to do, update references, make figures (find figures), create tables, read loads, about LOADS of really different but interesting things... all of which are at this stage equally productive.

I couldn't sleep this morning (it is so humid out, my sleepy brain thought we were at a lake or something), so I popped up around 5:30 this morning to write in a bit more about how cool Table #2 is, and add in that my perspective on this whole field is pretty unique... and then I added some figures to the second chapter (which I mostly loaded yesterday- this is manuscript 1 + whatever negative results I feel like adding).

There are also way more read-outs for progress than I would have thought, and it is really gratifying. For example, this morning I crossed the 100 page mark (23 of which are references- and yes it's double spaced, but still!). I am at 257 references, which makes me feel well read. I've got 10 figures and 5 tables. I want to make progress bars for all these things! I also think I am about at the halfway mark of getting it written, which is actually a bit ahead of schedule. That makes me feel really good about it. Today I am going back to work, to split my time between some experiments and making some figures. With luck this experiment will be done next week (and then it will go into my manuscript AND dissertation- more progress!), and I can focus full time on writing really.

Knowing things seems to make a difference

Two interesting things happened this week that made me feel like spending 3 weeks cloistered and learning some science were not a waste of time. First of all, this scientist came to visit Dr. Rockstar, and he wanted people to talk with her. We talked a little bit about my work, and how that might intersect with her work (on how viruses assemble), and we agreed that she would send me reagents to do an experiment that would be interesting to both of us. I felt really capable of talking about, not just my own work, but also how that intersects with fields, and was able to reference specifics. We actually got into this 3 way discussion about... well it doesn't really matter what, but I felt pretty awesome reminding Dr. Rockstar about the evidence from the mid-80's that showed that these late 90's hypotheses were well founded, even if they still haven't been thoroughly tested. Yeah- my dissertation has some 200 references right now- so I've been doing a LOT of reading.

The other kinda cool thing was I gave a seminar this week. Just my usual, annual seminar for the department. I barely spent an hour putting the slides in place, gave a pretty scattered practice talk for the Dr. Rockstar's lab, who gave me really helpful comments, which I didn't have time to deal with until the morning of the talk. I spent another hour and a half on the talk (which, since it was 30 min- means flipping through it twice). I felt a little nervous giving a talk I spent so little time preparing, but I think it was perhaps one of my more interesting talks. Part of my nervousness was talking about a project that didn't exactly fail, but surely gave us disappointing results. How do you say that without opening yourself up to being eaten alive by criticism? With some help, I decided to go the open and honest approach, which was really well received. But more than that, I felt like I had a lot of context to add. After all this reading and thinking, I am starting to understand that what we undertook in the project is not straightforward. That is why I felt like the seminar was quite successful, even though I talked about a project that was basically an epic failure. Lots of positive feedback after that.

I am still stymied with my one "easy" experiment, so I'll be doing bench work for at least a few more days. Today, I am going to try and incorporate some of the comments from my coworkers on the introduction to my dissertation. Dr. Boss wants to see that on May 1, although there is lots more work to be done (figures? tables?), I feel like that is pretty do-able. Next weekend is also the wood-firing, so I am trying to get work done ahead of that so I can really enjoy it.

I crack me up...

Writing is making headway. I've decided I can give a rough draft to a couple coworkers without the accompanying figures, so I am on track to pass that out tomorrow. There is one minor (major?) omission in my introduction though. Dr. Boss suggested I finish the introduction with what he termed "Perspectives" this is pretty common practice, you sort of sum up everything above, and use your enlightened position to suggest areas of further research and highlight the cool contributions. Even though I get it, I can't think of a single word to put here.

Yeah,... I need some perspective. Ha!

Oh man, I should get out of the house more. Actually, I went to visit a friend for dinner yesterday and was shocked to see that it has abruptly (from my perspective) become spring- flowers on the trees, people wearing shorts and skirts. Why am I still wearing sweats and a hoodie?

Still writing. And a spotty egg.

Still chugging along. I think I am on track to give a rough draft of the introduction to my coworkers with week, and hopefully get feedback and get it to the boss the week after that or so. Part of the reason for this break-neck pace is that Dr. Boss does think I should finish up that experiment- so I need a couple days back on the bench. And I am giving a seminar this week (what?). But more than that, I am enjoying writing. I figure I should do what I can while I don't hate it.

I am getting flustered with the other things I am apparently supposed to take care of- it's hard to feel like I've made sufficient progress for the day writing when I should have put together some slides for a talk, or planned an experiment too... so I planned to work straight through the weekend. Matt agreed to give me some momentum by going out for breakfast this morning. I woke up, made some figures that had frustrated me yesterday, and then we walked up the hill. It kinda ruined the glow to see Dr. Boss at the restaurant - eek, guilt attack! I stopped working for an hour!- but breakfast was yummy and gave me a chance to clear my head. I've got a reasonably short list of things that need to be written for the first time, before I'll turn to the business of making this one coherent document. (It current reads like a long list of heavily referenced facts- readability needs work).

That aside, there has been some time for fun stuff too. I was in the studio over the weekend making stuff for our upcoming woodfiring(!) which I really hope I'll be able to attend AND enjoy. And one of my friends had an egg decorating party- not just any eggs, but pysanky eggs- you know, those crazy intricate Ukrainian/Polish designs on eggs? I was quite intimidated, but opted to go for Polka-dots, in a sorta-kinda Eastery theme. You can judge for yourself, but I'm pleased with myself.

Yesterday sucked. Today I made up for it.

Yesterday I actually had to go in to work, which made the day not so good. For starters, I had to go there because I had non-writing things to deal with, so the day was inherently less productive than I wanted it to be. I had an abbreviated talk with Dr. Boss about the fate of manuscript 1 (now he is really worried about getting it out on time, arg) that made me feel good about the writing, but kinda crappy about the timing of everything else. He won't be able to pay me unless I commit to TAing in the fall, which I don't think will give me enough flexibility to find and take a job, so the end is really in sight now.

Then I had to run up the hill to get some drugs from a transplant surgeon for some experiments I had planned. He works in my field, and if he weren't such a nice guy, I would consider him a major competitor. Which is why it totally shatter my confidence when he seemed slightly worried and confused about why I had bothered doing all the experiments I've done on my project, and the conclusions I'm going to be able to draw from them... ("But do you have some other side project besides those two screens that didn't work? Something else to talk about at your defense?" "Uh, no. That's pretty much 5 years of work in an egg shell...") And then I tried to get some work done at my desk, but people kept coming by with weird questions, that given my seniority I am supposed to answer. It makes me feel like a jerk to be so irritable (Really? You want to know where the alcohol waste goes, and you thought because I have my headphones in and haven't looked up for 20 minutes I would want to tell you about that?), so the best solution for me is to work from home. For me and everyone else. But when I got home (late), I didn't have any energy to do anything but whine about how I haven't found a job to Matt. Ick, what a lame day.

But today, I decided I don't have time for sucky days. I am hoping to get ahead of my writing schedule, and get back into the lab for a couple of days and finish up the easy experiment for manuscript 1 (since we are worried about the timeline now). I got up, took my breakfast in front of my computer and decided I have so much to do, I can write whatever I feel like, stop whenever I get stuck, but just keep writing (I think I am better at editing than first writes). Yesterday, I had barely 6 pages of "content" and 23 references. Right now I have 15 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables and 70 references. I am kinda feeling like a rockstar right now. And I do mean unshowered.

Unfortunately, I am going back in to work tomorrow, so I expect less progress, but hopefully I can clear up a few things with Dr. Boss- like this table that I have running on to a second page, how will I know when to stop? And is the figure a bad idea? And should I try to get back in to do that experiment? And if so, do I really need to keep coming in 3 days a week for all these meetings? Wish me luck.

Working on a system

One of the things I've started to improve while writing is my system for organizing papers electronically. Since so much is available online, I have maybe half of the papers I read downloaded, and many of them I just view online (Pub Med Central- how did people learn anything before this??). Just to give you a sense, I am still on a the first couple pages of this document, and I have 30 references- and LOADS more to fill in for just those pages. I knew that dealing with references was going to be A THING.

I didn't quite realize that my plan was going to be so lame. I usually have open my email and RSS feed, and then the next couple tabs of my browser are papers I'm looking at, or looked at. Well, the part of my paper I am writing now is about the history of this feild, so I am ILL'ing things from the library( one tab for library login, one tab for journal search, another tab for updating my ILL requests) and when I find papers, I don't want to lose them to the cloud- so they stay open. I decided this was all getting out of control yesterday and broke it into 3 windows. One for the library- log in, search, request, each have a separate tab. One for the papers I am finding via pubmed- one search, and already half a dozen papers I am half done with. And finally one for my email, RSS feed, pandora and yeah, pictures of Tyler. He's still got his own tab open so I can browse photos while I imagine what the rest of my family is up to.

Getting forgetful

All I can say in my defense is that when I get focused on writing projects (which involve burying my nose in a book and thinking about 60 years worth of literature), I tend to become impervious to social cues. Last week, Dr. Boss gave me the green light to write full time, which I've been doing. So I was a little miffed when he stopped by my desk yesterday to ask me about some experiments we have planned for the summer- like namely what I was doing about them. First I had to return to reality land to engage in conversation, and why are we talking about this anyway? I'll deal with it in July, right?

I confided this to my coworker who at first was equally confused. Does Dr. Boss not want you to be writing? Or maybe he just wanted you to volunteer some clues about how it is going. Have you told him how it's going? Well, no, actually. I didn't feel like I had anything to say yet because there is a lot of work to be done, and I know what I need to do right now. But he works really hard at not putting pressure on by asking "how's the writing going?" (which would probably make my head implode), so maybe I could help him by giving him some clues that I am on track. Or asking for the help that I want. Something so he doesn't worry I've just taken a vacation for the next couple months.

I suppose from his perspective, I just stopped coming in to lab, which doesn't look any different from when I do go on vacation. I've sent a couple emails today to give him some clues that I am working, and still really committed to this project, and interested in having it succeed so he doesn't worry I am just going to cut out once I have my degree.

And in case these seem like really obvious and normal interactions to have, and you are not sure why I am being so intentional about it, yesterday my foggy brain actually responded "Oo, fun!" to a friend who told me she had been at the doctors. So yeah, the social interaction center of my brain is clearly on sabbatical until the think about science part of my brain gets this thing under control.