Most Wonderful Time of the Year August 31, 2010
Posted by rocketscientista in Academia, Education, Miscellaneous, Science.2 comments
It’s that time of year again. The halls are loud with excited chatter, I hear marching bands playing in the (not-far-enough) distance, and everywhere I go, I am surrounded by college students and their not-yet-ready-to-let-go parents. Ahhhhhh. Oh how I miss summer already.
But really- one good thing all the hub-bub brings is a renewed sense of purpose, an artificial rejuvenation, and a second “new year” to start some new beginnings, to start from scratch. I am definitely one of those people that pull a lot of motivation from the start of the school year. I love using it as an excuse to get re-organized, to buy ridiculous and unnecessary supplies, to get back into seminars and homework and a frantic schedule. And Karina, the aspiring ecologist, our host for Scientiae this month, asks us all to reflect on the supplies we use in our scientific lives, the tools that are indispensable in our work.
I play a variety of scientific roles– I am a PhD student, I am a researcher, and I am an educator. Each of these roles requires a different toolbox. I could get all philosophical about needing good collaborators, or the need to try new ideas, or something else a little corny, but instead, I’m going to geek out about actual, physical supplies. Glorious supplies.
I’m a bit OCD, so when it comes to what I need as a student, I need MANY organizational supplies. I have folders for the work I do with student organizations, or for special events I organize. I have binders with separators (those big 3″ white binders, to be precise), for all my class notes, organized by semester. I take notes on college-ruled notebook paper, and those notes come in an array of colors– I need at least 3 different colors to be happy with how my notes are organized. I have stacks and stacks of pens for this (all ballpoint, clicky pens with rubber grips) , and mechanical pencils for when I do problem sets. Only mechanical pencils. I have stacks of notecards for studying, my trusty TI-89, and awesome binder clips to hold anything else I need. I LOVE the staples ads for back to school- in September, Staples is HEAVEN. There are so many novel school supplies that can brighten up an otherwise crappy day (really, I’ve got the sweetest binder clips). And no matter which courses I’m taking, I always need Big Chunky/B.O.B. (Big Orange Book), the astrophysicists’ not-so-pocket guide. I keep it close for anytime I need to remember a formula.
As a researcher, I need some “school supply” type things, too. I recently went on quest for the BEST LAB NOTEBOOK EVER. I’m super picky about notebooks- I always have been. I was even picky about what kind of journal I wrote in as an angsty pre-teen. So, not just any ole lab notebook will do. I needed hardbound, ruled, with some graph paper (though not all). I like the more divided graph-paper, I like pages that are the right thickness, I need space at the top for a title or a date, or something. I like hardcover. In the end, I found this: the best lab notebook around. Now, I don’t get paid for this, I just LOVE these. Blue ruled on the right page, green quad or plain on the left side, 200 pages of white paper, no carbon. It’s brilliant. And reasonably priced. I bought a few.
Now, I also need a pretty reasonable computer, on which to do data analysis or look for other supplies. I need lovely lab supplies. The things we go through that we need to buy more of? Cable ties, duct tape, wire spindles, clean room gear (yay gloves, masks, hoods, boots!). I need vacuum equipment and mirrors- my big huge awesome mirrors. I need things I cannot mention (yay, ITAR!). I need detectors and sources, I need electronics components and test equipment, I need liquid nitrogen. For work & play, that stuff never gets old.
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And as I am no longer a TA, no longer a HS or college tutor, my only educator role left is the one I play at the museum. I get to teach kids about science!! There, my supplies are the best. I use magazines and toilet paper tubes, pop bottles and pipe cleaners. I need Popsicle sticks, balloons, string, markers, straws, and tape. Oh my do I use a lot of tape. I need construction paper and film canisters (which are harder to find!), I need aluminum foil and fossils and clay, and best of all? OWL PELLETS.
Oooh, owl pellets.
So my “back to school” shopping list includes lots of paper, tape, and writing utensils, but also Big Chunky, liquid nitrogen, and owl pellets. If anyone ever asks you what these have in common? Now you know. And armed with these things (and many many more), I’m ready to conquer a new semester in learning, researching, and teaching. What are your favorite supplies that you can’t live without?
So How’s Your Project Going? August 30, 2010
Posted by rocketscientista in Academia, Hurdles, Insanity, Science, Venting.3 comments
Lately I’ve been struggling. There’s a lot to be done, and a lot that should have already been done. There’s a lot of re-doing, a lot of re-inventing, and a lot of jogging in place (or worse, backwards!). I’ve mentioned getting frustrated here- I feel like I’m stuck, that I’ve lost time, and that measuring progress is difficult. There have been highs and ridiculous lows- late nights when I come home crying, days when I skip out of the office elated with progress, weeks that disappear in a sea of dead-ends. It’s been mentally and emotionally trying. I don’t think I’ve ever been this exhausted in my life, and that’s saying a lot as someone who has always loved to burn the candle along the length of the stick (not just the ends). It’s hard. And sometimes, it feels impossible.
And something that’s been making all this more difficult are the people I love. Yes, I’m looking at you mom, husband, friends outside academic science. I love you all. You’re great. And I know you’re actually interested and well-intentioned when you ask me, “So how’s your research project going? When are you launching? When will you graduate?” It’s out of concern and love, I’m sure. But really? It drives me bonkers.
Because it really sucks to have to say aloud:
“It’s…. going. I think there’s some possible progress. I’m waiting to hear back from people. I’m trying some new things… Oh? That thing I was working on for the last year? Yeah, that’s not gonna work…. I’m going to launch when this is all put together… When is that? I don’t know. Could be five months from now, could be five years from now….No, that’s not a joke. Will I be home for Christmas? Or that holiday or event? I don’t know. I could be launching then, or teaching, or needing to be in lab everyday. No, I don’t have actual vacation days or days off. Sure, my advisor lets me go home and doesn’t work me crazy, but sometimes I need to be here. And things need to move forward. So I don’t know when I’ll get to visit next…Yeah, I don’t have any idea when I’ll graduate… I’m hoping two, or maybe three, but hopefully not four more years…”
It’s hard enough being in the middle of it. It’s not easy to push ahead, slowly, trying to make progress only to have plans change a month down the road. It’s not easy to have an uncertain future. It’s not easy to look at peers with “real jobs” and posessions and paychecks and real health insurance and wonder why I feel like such a failure sometimes. But in the end, I do know it’s worth it. In the end, I do love it. And in the end, I will make headway. I will find out something new, I will do something worthwhile. And so I keep at it. I tell myself everyone feels like this sometime during the PhD. Everyone loses time.
And it turns out, I’m right. I just read a great little post by David Ng over at boing boing asking, “How long would your Ph.D. have taken if everything worked?“
He estimates, including 3 months for the actual writing of the thesis, that if everything had gone perfectly the first time through, his PhD would have taken……. 6 months. 6 months. Ok, so maybe I’m not the only one. I feel like I’ve made less than a net month’s worth of total headway. Sure, the PhD is about the process- about the things learned along the way, about the mistakes made (so you hopefully don’t make them again), about how science is done. But those things are hard to quantify to anyone. I can’t say I’ve completed x months, or y% of learning how the field works. I can’t say I’m 3/4s of the way through making enough mistakes. So it’s nice to see a re-calibrating of work in a way people might understand.
So I’m asking all of you– if everything– every experiment, every analysis, every calibration had gone correctly from the get-go, how long would your PhD take? How much work do you think you’ve done already? I’m curious how it works across various scientific, but still lab-based, disciplines. And maybe this will help those I love understand that maybe they should drop the questions…
Relationship Issues August 11, 2010
Posted by rocketscientista in Music, Science, Venting.2 comments
I’ve got a battle to fight with some science tonight. I’ve geared up, opened the shiny new lab notebook I bought, and I’ve got the beginnings. There’s likely a few more hours of work tonight, to get done what I want to get done before I leave this weekend for an epic physicistic wedding (yes, I spelled that right- my undergrad physics friends and I referred to ourselves as physicistics- inside joke).
Lately, I’ve been feeling like I’m in a bad relationship. Not with my husband, no. We just celebrated our one year anniversary with quite the weekend and *the* perfect gifts for each other. No, I like him. He’s awesome. Nope, it’s work. It’s research.
Research and I
Whenever I put my ipod on shuffle and a break-up type song comes on, I feel like I should be singing it to my screen, to my project. I’ve hit a spot that I find particularly difficult to deal with, and I feel like I’m banging my head against a wall. I feel like my research and I aren’t understanding each other well. It’s not getting me, I’m not getting it- we’re being bad communicators. There’s just something standing in my way to having a beautiful, blossoming relationship with my project. I just don’t know exactly what it is, or how to move it. So I keep wanting to SCREAM at my computer, or at my paper. It’s just not working. And I know it can. And I know it should.
But I’m stuck. It’s like being in a relationship where both parties really do care, but neither can quite put their thoughts eloquently enough to just understand each other and work it out. This is killing me.
So I’ll put some time in tonight, trying to talk it out. I’ll write down everything I know, everything I’m having questions about, and I’ll look a few things up. And tomorrow, I’ll go to my advisor with specific questions. And I’ll work all day. And I WILL work this out. And if I don’t, we’re gonna take a break. I’ll go off for a few days- to visit friends and family, to celebrate a lovely wedding, and then, maybe then, we can work it out.
These fights have been coming more often lately- it’s been draining. Frustration after frustration, dead end after dead end, it’s getting tough. I’m caught in the middle– I’m entering my fifth *gasp* year of graduate school, with a few more ahead of me. The easy, formulaic years of coursework are done. The straightforward ideas in research have been tried. Things have not worked out for a variety of reasons. And now we’re here. There isn’t an end date in sight, and it seems like forever since I started. On the transatlantic voyage that is the PhD, I’m smack in the middle of the ocean, with no land on the horizon to guide me.
But I imagine this is how it is for everyone- at some point, it stops being easy. It stops being obvious. Research isn’t about doing what’s been done, it’s about poking through those boundaries of human knowledge and finding something new. It isn’t supposed to be pretty, and it’s turning out to be pretty painful.
Owwwwww!
And I know it will be ok. I know we can make it through this. Like any big fight, there will inevitably be some shouting and drinking and crying involved, but it’ll be ok. I’ll listen to some sad bastard music, I’ll have a beer and complain to those who will hear me (thanks, by the way), and I will slog through. In the end, I will be stronger for this, the science will be better, and we’ll all come out ahead.
Everything will be alright. Right?
*Edited to add awesome illustrated PhD picture which is perfect.
Not That Dumb August 4, 2010
Posted by rocketscientista in Food, Science.2 comments
The last day or two have been a huge roller coaster ride. I got peeved at science. I got angry at science. I was pissed at myself. But now that hope has been found, I have decided not to break up with science, yet. We’ve had some great times together, and it’s just been pushing my buttons lately. But we’ve found some good ground to try to build up from.
So for now, I will leave you with someone else’s failed attempt at something awesome: Bacon Rockets. At least I’m not that dumb.
