I really dig my "job"

Actually, editing manuscripts about far away science is pretty cool. I thought at first it might be just tolerable, but I might look around for more opportunities to do this type of work to keep me busy in the meantime. My one concern- how am I gonna pay these taxes? If I am going to do a lot of freelance work, do those people usually become business entities, or do they just wing it and keep their invoices? Would appreciate any insight before I make a fool of myself.

But yeah, the actual work is pretty easy and not too draining (for now). I can listen to music and drink tea while I do it, too.

Also, I am almost finalized to be a volunteer at the local science center, which is a WAY fun hands-on interactive museum. I'm really looking forward to playing/ helping there. So yeah, one week of work left, and I am looking forward to it. Dr. Boss told me not to worry about getting my stuff cleaned up by the end of the month, I can hang out there if I need for a while. Very generous offer, frankly.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It begins

If Noel is going to continue posting that life is returning to Normal in Texas, then I think it is safe for me to return to posting. I'll just skip to the point:

I did my last experiment today.

I usually like to be superstitiously cautious when it comes to saying things about results before they happened (ie. "That experiment totally worked"is never uttered until it's been repeated in triplicate and shown at lab meeting. Not, say, while I am waiting to read the results). Which is why, even though I sensed this would be the case Monday, I only whispered it to a coworker when we were well away from the experiments in question. And then waited for that to be confirmed by Dr. Boss. "Those are great results. Send them to the collaborator and let's be done wit this."

Awesome, manuscript 4 is set- from my end.

And yes, I've agreed to do more experiments for manuscript 1 (and I suspect 2 and 3 aren't far behind) this summer, I won't be a graduate student then, so it hardly seems like it counts. In fact, that's more like job security. In the meantime, it's time to write. Dr. Boss and I hashed out a timeline and outline for this document. I'm feeling mixed excitement and worry. Doing experiments I can do. I've been doing that for like a decade. Writing long but cohesive documents, using a complex word template and citation manager on a computer that has already been through thick and thin with me is a whole new adventure. It might suck- but the blessing is that I actually enjoy writing quite a bit. (That's why I've been looking for jobs in technical writing) And let's not forget that you only get to write this document when you are going to FINISH. And GRADUATE. AWESOME.

I'm going to try and figure out a system- write from home or work? read while writing or schedule blocks of time? And how do I keep to a deadline? At least while I am getting started, I am stuck by a couple personal limitations- I can't read anything first thing in the morning (it doesn't stick), and although I write really well at night, I can't sleep immediately after I think about my research. Editing or formatting and figures can fill in some of that gaps later, but for now I need to decide what goes into this document.

Rejected

Manuscript #1 got rejected, quite summarily. Dr. Boss thinks we should fight it- it is fairly obvious that one reviewer mostly liked it, and the other reviewer mostly didn't read it. I'm very happy to follow his lead on this, he is immediately thinking of things to do, and I just want to eat ice cream. His way seems more likely to get us published eventually.

Expect a lot of this

A quick check of the "Science" tag suggests that I actually didn't mention the PNAS paper we submitted in the fall. At the time, it seemed like a distraction from my main purpose, which was to submit Mansuscript #1 (a virology story) by the first week of October. Hahaha... Anyway, this was a really good oppurtunity, which is why I tolerated the distraction even though my patience was (is?) being whittled away day by day. One of our collaborators is a really well connected chemist, and a well reputed journal (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) asked HIM to write a paper about the great things he does leading one of the nation's drug development centers. And being well connected and kind of a bigshot, he managed to "write" the review by sending it to a contractor in his lab, asking her to pool the resources and current data from two labs and put together something.

Dr. Boss kinda dropped this on me in the fall- hey, do we have this data?
Me: Data on the chemicals my undergrad just got? No. We weren't planning on that. Should we?
Dr. Boss: Oh, I thought it would be a nice figure.
Me: Well, I can do it in 2 weeks if I pull out cells today. Do we want that?
Dr. Boss: Yeah, actually, that would be great. I want to put it in a manuscript. The deadline is the end of October.

I will admit to being quite offended that he wanted to put data in a manuscript without ANY idea what the result might be. Some might call that intellectually honest, but I doubt that he considered that this might not work. Anyway, the experiment came together in between teaching and hating the rest of my science, and then the figure got pushed back and forth a dozen times (edit font? save as pdf. edit axis? convert to pdf. improve resolution? convert to pdf....), and then the editor of the journal told us it was too big, and I resized all my data from half a page to less than a quarter, and both my undergrad and I tried to read through this incredibly thick chemistry manuscript that was peppered with phrases I was familiar with. We are 2 of some 20 authors. We are both pretty stoked- it is the best quality paper I have to my name, and it actually wasn't that much work. Dr. Boss is really good at seeking out that kind of opportunity for us- and with luck, my publication record will show it when I graduate.

That paper was accepted for publication today. Bring on the Girl Scout Cookies!

I know I've been really down on the science lately (the last year or two?), and it seems like a lot of these frustrations are becoming quite acute. I'm of the attitude that "A paper in press is with two in preparation," meaning that while we have plans for another 2 manuscripts (#2 - a drug screen and #3- Medicinal Chemistry), these are basically timesuck failures until they get submitted. I am frustrated by every little set back, and feeling a lot of pressure to make fast headway given my time limitations, which doesn't feel like headway until submission. So forgive me if I act like I am at the collapse of the scientific universe because Dr. Boss didn't return my email, and then instantly it's Girl Scout Cookie time because something good came from all that struggle. Hopefully there will be more reasons for cookies than tears as we approach the defense date (117 days), I'll try to keep the monologue here on balance in the meantime.

Here's how it goes down

I promised you a run down of how I expected the process from writing to publishing this manuscript to go.
Loosely, here are the steps:
1) Write Manuscript
2) Submit to co-authors for critique
3) Incorporate critique
4) Submit to co-authors for acceptance
5) Submit to journal for Review
6) Repeat steps 2-6 until step 7.
7) Acceptance from a Journal
8) Party Time!

First thing you should know, is I have 6 other co-authors- 4 PIs and two students, but I am the main author on this work. This means I will prepare the manuscript the way I think is best, and then the other 6 people will weigh in. It is in all of our best interests to send out a polished manuscript that will be accepted at the highest tier journal as possible, but my co-authors are unlikely to have to do anything about the changes they suggest. Right now I am getting this document into a form I think is acceptable to send around, and then they'll take a couple weeks with it, and send it back with all manner of suggestions- from proofreading, to re organizing to nitpicky stuff with my figures that I'll end up learning photoshop to fix. I am not good with the figures. This may take a long time, or a short time. I don't know some of my coauthors well enough to imagine how they will respond, and in fact, some aren't in my building, so if they are slow, I can't very well drop by and bother them. But before you go hating on the coauthors- I've been a coattail coauthors on several manuscripts, so really, it's my turn to do the hard work.

Once everyone agrees that we've written the best damn manuscript possible, we'll submit it to a high tiered journal in my field. I'm pessimistic that they will love the article for several reasons (what I do is anti-viral research, and this virology journal prefers to publish things about viruses, not the compounds that work on them), and if they don't reject it outright, we have to wait Some Time to get comments, which can range from Accepted, Accepted with criticism (just do a couple more experiments), Rejected (with comments that make you think you can do a couple experiments and resubmit), or Rejected (ouch). You can imagine the decision chart here, helping you decide to resubmit to the same journal, or submit to another journal one tier down, or another journal in a different sub field. We may have the opportunity to use this decision chart a lot.

You see, I know I have done solid science, and everything we are describing is true- but there are some pretty obvious critiques, and some lame political plays that may make it hard for this paper to get out in a timely fashion. Again, this is why I've been impatient to get this process started, since this is going to take a long time to deal with. And I have not interest in graduating without a primary publication in hand- it would be nearly impossible for me to get a job without one.

Dr. Boss and I are meeting this afternoon to look over all the figures to decide on a standard formatting style to get everything in to. He is also going to talk to someone who said a year ago they'd like to try and do some experiments (and we haven't heard from since), to see if that panned out. I have my doubts. I am hoping to give him my manuscript to read/ get permission to give it out to Dr. Rockstar and the other co-authors ASAP.

Finally, some good (science) news

Yesterday, Dr. Boss finally agreed that I was finished with this Most Terrible of Experiments (that tedious thing I've been working on since July, to get around a problem I've had since... last January? Ugh). We both agreed to make some conservative conclusions about the data, and leave it at that. Which is the last figure I need for my manuscript, which means we are back on track. The document is nearly written, and all the figures need to be reformatted (to 8.4cm wide and large bold fonts and some other tedious things to change on graphs), so we are on track to get this out to the collaborators soon. We haven't yet discussed a submission date- I don't really think this will be until late Jan (ergo, my interest in getting this moving ASAP).

I'll write a little more later about how I expect this process to go for my paper (spoiler: Slowly), since this is directly correlated to my ability to graduate, but for now, please join me in an Epic Happy Dance.

WIP- also how much I rocked that seminar

I'm not sure if I ever mentioned that early in the semester there was some confusion with my boss about some seminars he asked me to give (angsty GSR eye-roll, is this HARD to keep straight?). It turned out for the best, I got to give a pair of seminars to two different Cancer audiences. The first one was a 'Prize,' and the second one was a WIP, or Work In Progress talk. The WIP was this morning, and I was worried about how I would stretch the 15 min Prize talk to a 50 min WIP. For cancer people. Since, I don't actually study cancer....

Turns out I had lots of extra stuff to add in, and it's easier to give the slow explanation. And dammit, my work is interesting. Dr. Boss and I drove to the seminar site together (it's off campus), and he was very supportive. He punted me prompts in response to the barrage of questions so I could come off as really bright. He was very gracious about the whole thing, so I felt good about it. I had loads of questions, which makes me feel like I explained myself way and other people think my work is interesting.

- - -
I've had some stressful interactions with students and my class recently, which have been making me question my motivation for teaching long-term. But really I've just been feeling busy, and not thoughtful or reflective, or in any position to respond well to students concern about their grades, or the overall course structure.

This weekend we are going out to the wood kiln- its expected to be cold. Fortunately, we'll have a raging inferno to keep us company, and distract us from real life.

Turning the corner on GSR angst

They tell me the best sign you are ready to graduate is when you can't stand your boss anymore. I've been trying to move past the science equivalent of teen angst ("he doesn't notice how smart I am," "he doesn't understand what it is like to do these experiments!"), and today I think we turned a corner. And it was a corner that I really thought would be a clif. See, I tend to get irritated with my boss when he takes too much interest in what I am doing. He isn't usually up to the minute on things, so I feel like I have to slow way down and reach WAY back to explain things to him. (Picture adolescent eye-roll here) Other methods to tame my attitude were only partially effective (patience, looking for my own errors instead if his, setting my expectations more realistically), but I was pretty confident that the togetherness of actually writing a paper together would push my patience past the brink. Fortunately for everyone involved, I was wrong.

We are writing a part of a paper, for a collaborator, which is serving as a nice dumping ground for some data we can't follow up on. We got involved in this madness about a month ago, at which time Dr. Boss suggested I try (as a Go For It experiment) an extra experiment that would round out the data nicely. We want to get it done by early November. But we needed some more details, and there was waiting, and then I was kinda slacking last week... and yesterday, my slightly flustered boss says they want EVERYthing done by Saturday- which means we need to get it out by Friday, which means.... I need to get that experiment done! And also the written part, and make the figures. Arg!

I didn't want Dr. Boss to think I wasn't taking this opportunity (big opportunity for me) seriously, so I mashed out the data- but the writing, I can't really fake. Fortunately, he can. So I spent half an hour in his office today, writing up one short part of the paper. And it was really good- I felt like the paper was better because we both wrote it, and I felt like he'd say that too. He kept saying things like "Good point" and "Well put." I didn't feel defensive about it (since I didn't have anything written before), so it actually seemed quite collaborative. Awesome!

A relevant side note, my technical writing isn't any better than it was in high school. I still write like you get charged per period, and my liberal use of tenses makes me seem like a time traveler. Ah well, with luck, we'll write a couple more papers.

Practicing,...

The next major event on my list this week was to practice the talk (The meeting is July 13-18, my talk will be on the 16th). I was scheduled to give lab meeting for Dr. Rockstar's lab, and since they are the experts in this field (not Dr. Boss's lab), I elected to practice for them. Dr. Boss and I had work through the slides, but I had carefully chosen all my words yet. My undergrad told me he was excited to come see me talk. I cringe, but I can picture how flattered/interested he must be to see his work fit neatly into the bigger picture.

My twelve minute talk was done in 10 hyperventilating minutes. Fortunately, Team Rockstar had good suggestions for me. I feel good about this- I prefer to give bad practice talks, gets the nerves out early, and practices all the pitfalls so they are easier to avoid in the future.

It all boils down to this- I am nervous about presenting this work because I feel like any fool with an inkling would make the same choices we did, do the same experiments, and end up with the same results. That is the blessing and curse of science- given the same results, we should all be able to make the same conclusion. Since it seems so painfully obvious to me, I skip past describing in detail the experiments I actually perform- they aren't hard, but I am the only one in the field that still does these things. Oh. Right. In fact, working for Dr. Boss (who is not a virologist), means that none of the assumptions of my work would be obvious to a virologist. That is the beauty of working for Dr. Boss. Team Rockstar also helped me through so sticky points- make the hypothesis sound stronger, connect some ideas more often. There were some opposite suggestions to what Dr. Boss had suggested, which made Dr. Boss laugh. With yet more practice, it can indeed be a good talk.

Going to Madison

I got some good news earlier this week- I've been given a spot to speak at the National Conference of my especial sub-field. This is a meeting I went to a couple years ago (remember Dr. BigBucks?), and actually speaking about my research is a HUGE deal for me. Hands down the biggest thing I've done for my career- sharing my work with the experts in my field in a public forum.

And it makes me feel quite sick. I have 12 minutes to describe the last three years of work - not hard per say, unless you want it to be interesting or convincing. Actually, all that work boils down to just a couple of figures. Ugh. And Dr. Boss won't be there- so if there is a showdown, um, well- it's all me.

Dr. Boss has been very supportive, we've talked through what should go in to the talk (what SHOULDn't go in to the talk), how to frame it, and I'll probably talk to him about it again today, again Monday, and Wednesday I'll give a practice talk. I'm still very nervous, but the best way to deal with that is make it a very polished talk.

Best Possible Outcome

Let me set the stage: Weeks of preparation go into this day, and everything is assembled just so, from the notepad and pen to the papers that were left behind. This is a meditation on readiness. People start filing in slow at first. Eventually the steady flow increases until every chair is full, and they keep coming. More chairs are packed in, but they keep coming. It is standing room only in here, and they are standing 3 deep out the door. And they are all restlessly waiting, all carefully watching me.

It's hard not to be nervous- of course I know what I am talking about, I might be the only person in the world that REALLY knows what I am talking about. But I want to be able to convey that I DO know what I am talking about with authority. And some 100 pairs of eyes dispassionately watching can be a lot to take on- but I start talking. Dr. Boss told me in my first talk to memorize your first slide- if you can get through it unjangled, you can get on a roll. And it's true. I settled in to my slides, I was quite pleased with how it all came together. The audience seemed receptive. I took a few pauses to highlight some things I was really excited about, and I saw smiles, I even got a few laughs. At then end, there were lots of thoughtful questions, and I tried to answer them as thoughtfully as possible, which lead to other good questions. In my mind, the mark of a good seminar is the quality of questions asked.

But this wasn't really what I was nervous about. I have spoken about things I know much less about in front of more people. The seminar needed to go well- making me seem smart, experienced and talented- because immediately following was my committee meeting. My committee is made of some really great scientists, and though I chose them because they like me and think I'm smart, the nature of the process is still very subjective. Very.

Fortunately, Dr. Boss totally stepped up as my advocate. He said "Sandlin has done a lot of work, and is on track to publish 2 papers in the next year." Everyone agreed that this sounded reasonable, and had no major objections to the track, and then.... this is the best part... they signed my forms for Admission to Candidacy. This is one of the major hurdles that can potentially set back graduation by a long bit- if the papers hadn't been signed today, it might have languished another YEAR. What it really means is that we have all agreed that I will be done before the summer of 2011- which is on track to move on to a new position in the Fall of 2011, as I had hoped and dreamed. This also means I've picked a title, and I know that my committee is pretty impressed with my work- which makes the next step less daunting.

You have good ideas, I have good ideas

I am giving a seminar at the end of this week. This whole process involved writing a 20 page paper about everything I've done in the last year or two, which I submitted to my committee yesterday. It took about 3 (snow) days to put together, before I submitted it to Dr. Boss- who dealt it a near lethal blow with the red pen. This was surprising, since this is mostly a document he's read before (as a draft of a manuscript)- apparently not as carefully though! This put me in the mindset of his comments though- it's not like he disagrees with me (although when your rough draft bleeds out, it is hard not to feel that way), he wants me to convince everyone else. In the past I've felt like we weren't in agreement, or that he didn't understand the work I have done. Turning this corner is a MAJOR breakthrough.

Now I have to put together the presentation- and since I have done more then was included in the manuscript- it isn't so obvious how to summarize all that effort on 3 veins of research. We'd both bandied back and forth on this last week (because what else would we talk about while coffee is brewing?).

Today I met with him to show him how I was thinking about it- good timing. The presentation is only just arriving in the shape I am thinking about, and I haven' committed so much time to make me defensive- in fact there are some elements I devoutly disliked. So we flipped through it, and had one of the best chats we've ever had. He made some suggestions I already incorporated (Dr. B:yes, this is good- your next slide should be ____. Me: *click* Yes? Dr. B: ooo, that's eerie. You are starting to think like me. That means it's time to graduate), he made some suggestions that make the presentation WAY better, and he was pleased with the way I had dealt with some of the data. He thinks I am bright, I think he's got a lot of good ideas, and together we are hoping to impress my committee. That's exactly how I wanted this to go, and I am feeling much more at peace with the process.

Tomorrow-much restructuring, practice talk Thursday, seminar and committee meeting Friday. Please hope for me that the committee is impressed, and I'll have more good news soon.

Does this change things?

It's recruiting season at school! Tomorrow starts the first interview weekend, everyone is always excited to meet the recruits, reminisce about their own interview experiences, and most importantly soak up some of the free food that is foisted on recruits. Their schedule is always the same for all three weekends- breakfast with the chair of the department, interview with faculty, student seminar over lunch, more faculty then happy hour, dinner and drinks (except at our school drinks = chocolate fondue at the Melting Pot). Most grad students get called in to help with at least one of these weekends in some way or another. This weekend I am a student liaison, which hypothetically means reaching out to the student to answer any questions before, during or after their visit, but practically means giving them one face to look for in the fuss and making sure they get places by the buddy system.

And I just found out today that I'll be called to service again in two weeks- I'll be giving the student seminar. It's not like the interviews were planned based on the seminar schedule, but I am flattered that they'll be seeing me talk regardless. And a little terrified, how do I explain my work in a way that would inspire someone else to join our department? I am not sure this is any different then giving the same seminar I would normally give- I've done a lot of work, some of it worked, I had a lot of help from a lot of people. What would make the school seem more appealing anyway?

This is just the current thing I am sinking time into that isn't "doing science." I stuck in some kind of interminal rut- and there is no way I am still huffing over not getting the AAAS fellowship. The whole nature of the fellowship is that is gives me a reason to leave and a focus for my aspirations, so the idea of not being eligible doesn't seem acceptable. After I wrote that blog post, I stole my courage and my info and went to talk to Dr. Boss. Tuesday I told him that this fellowship would move up my graduation schedule, and is it possible for me to graduate before Dec 15 2010? (but stay in the lab until the program starts in Fall 2011) He seemed a bit taken aback, no, 10 months is too soon (which I expected but was disappointing to hear anyway).

I should pause here to say that I didn't sleep more then 2 hours the night before, I was so sick nervous about having this conversation. It also took me all day to decide what I would say, and even then, I wanted to bring a puke bucket. See, I don't get a lot of direct or general feedback from my boss. It's possible he thinks I need 4 more years and remedial school before graduation, and that asking him about graduating might be the catalyst for him to detail all my failings. I really have no idea how he feels about my work.

But thanks to this WISC stuff we've talked about, I felt organized and I knew what I needed to get out of this conversation, besides rejection. I pressed him a little further- it is feasible for me to be looking for fellowships that start in Fall 2011? Will I be graduated before then? Well, yes actually. A few more months is a lot once you've been in the lab that long so that seems very do-able and right on schedule. *celebratory moonwalk* So chances are my undergrad will still graduate before me, but at least I won't have to carry on long without him.

Cooks Illustrated = Date Night

Seems like I've been spending a lot of time away from home these days. We have a standing Tuesday date with our most favorite friends, Wednesday I've been going to "Study Hall" (aka waffle/ice cream shop) to spend a couple hours working on writing, and this Thursday was WISC. Fridays I often get swept into an after work Happy Hour/ Dinner, so it can seem like ages go past before I get to hang out with just Matt. Which seems weird, since he is my favorite. For some reason this week felt especially busy- or maybe just bouncing back from being sick still- and I didn't feel like going out for a big to do, which suited Matt just fine.

Since I spent most of Saturday catching up on the latest Cooks Illustrated, we decided a good way to share the evening would be to make Cacio e Pepe and Brownie Sundaes. We've got access to things like imported cheese, and indulged in trying to find the Cooks Recommended brands for everything. Even though we had what amounts to cheese on noodles, Matt declared it the best meal we've made it ages, and I'll tend to agree. And it made us feel like real wizards too.
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Another project that has come together recently is a new scratching post for Raoul. It's time to give him a more serious option then the cardboard scratcher- and rather then shell out the Petco prices, Matt hypothesized (correctly) that he could make something just as good for cheaper. What he has now is a 6 foot tall post, with two shelves and sisal wrapping, hooks to hang dangly ribbons and carpet up to the top. It gives Raoul a new vantage on the kitchen, a new window and is the new highest place in the apartment, so you can imagine he is quite fond of it. So, yes, the cat is certainly spoiled. It is a bit of a monstrosity, but it's not as if our apartment is crowded- and frankly he spends the most time here. I am hoping this will lead to a ceasefire with the furniture, or at least lay the groundwork for those negotiations.

And Matt enjoyed designing and building it. I helped a very little with the whole process. Seems I don't have much patience for this sort of thing, and my slipshod attitude was designing an eyesore. So, extra kudos to Mom and Dad for sticking to their bathroom project for significantly more then the 12 hours it took this to come together- the proof is surely in the pudding.

Other news, most recent WISC was a great success, we talked about management- with two main outcomes for me. One, I am trying to be a more empathetic manager to my undergrad (whose foot is in a boot to protect a broken toe, and decided to use this week to work on summer fellowships- since I got to surprise him with another application last week), and two, I am trying to see myself as the manager for my project. Next up, we are going to try negotiation. I may end up hosting this one... I also taught again, for the last time, last week. This week I am going to let these students assess the content, and me, and the course, and get some good feedback from them. I am spending a lot of time pondering how to elicit this.

Which is silly, because I should be spending a lot of time pondering my annual seminar! And my thesis committee meeting! But I am feeling so jaded since before Christmas, I can't really connect "working really hard" with "impressing my committee so they want me to graduate." And it's hard to talk to Dr. Boss for more then 5 minutes at a time these days and.... I just don't want to keep working for more years.... ugh. Winter is a hard enough time, without trying to muster up enthusiasm for something like one's thesis. Actually, I think I am in mourning, I can't seem to find a solution where I graduate in time to get to the 2011 AAAS Policy Fellowship. Sigh. The seminar is the 19th, so think of me fondly then.

A shift of perspective

Here is another science post- skip to the micro-news at the bottom if you don't want to slog through my professional drama.

In the last few months, I have been eyeing the finish line for a story, partly because I think what I do next will be more interesting, partly because I don't really think the current story is going anywhere. I've had some setbacks in getting the 'last' experiments done, but while Dr. Boss was out of town, I started thinking we might be able to publish without them. Now that he is back, I have been hinting, suggesting and nagging him to look at the data. Finally we sat down to pour over the data, and it was a really tough meeting. At first, I thought it was tough because maybe the science isn't as good as I thought- but I had answers for all his concerns. He just really doesn't understand what I do. I am not completely confident that this work can be published yet, but now I am starting to doubt whether that will be my biggest hurdle.

We agreed that I could give him a draft of the manuscript I've been working on since October to look at (finally) next week. Now I realize that this manuscript has to be great- I have to explain my research, my results, my logic to my boss so that he will start thinking I am a brilliant independent scientist. I am frustrated and confused, because if I have to tell him that- what does he think of me now?

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Micro news! Last WISC discussion for the year was a success- 5 of us had a nice talk about mentoring. You should have them- or at least recognize them. It has suddenly gotten quite cold here, I guess that means it is winter. Tragically, this means the worm bin froze solid. I think this will be a project to restart in the spring...Matt and I have decided making Irish cream is going to be our new 'thing,' so add that to the list of holiday traditions. We also finished the majority of our holiday shopping. And Happy Hanukkah!