Small City Life

Today I went to the gym to swim. As I was in the locker room getting dressed after, a woman I'd never seen in my life said," Hi! How are you?" in a very familiar tone. Maybe she mixed me up with someone. Maybe she was weird.

I replied with some general chit-chat that cost me nothing- waiting for her to realize that I wasn't the friend she was thinking of, but nothing changed as we went on chit-chatting. She asked me how my Thanksgiving was, and I replied. Again, it cost me nothing to talk to her, I wasn't revealing any personal traceable details, but I was telling her the truth and the conversation was more in depth than the usual stranger talk. She asked me if I had any kids, and that's when I realized that she wasn't mixing me up with anyone. As she talked, she seemed perfectly normal, just very friendly. Apparently, she just didn't like being in close proximity (and naked) with a stranger and intentionally ignoring each other.

It was nice, actually. I'm an extrovert, so I am more uncomfortable being in someones presence for extended periods and avoiding eye contact than to at LEAST acknowledge the other human being with a smile or nod. On the other hand, I have lived in bigger cities enough to be uncomfortable with starting up a conversation about personal stuff with a stranger. During my postdoc overseas, silence in each others presence (and no eye contact) was the norm, even with people you worked with. Frankly, it was terribly cold socially and lonely, but I did adjust to it. Looks like I need to re-adjust to life here in "strangerless" land.

Thankful

I have so much to be Thankful for.
I have a little Boy who gives me joy almost every waking moment. I never imagined how happy he would make us.
I have a husband who loves me, is a great companion, and who absolutely worships our son.
I have never been more happy professionally.
We have a great community of interesting and solid people who take care of us when we are in need.
We have enough financial and material resources to live a good but not lavish life.
and we have health insurance.

And that's only the beginning. Happy Thanksgiving all.

Social Pet Peeve

I hate it when people confidently predict a happy outcome for others, when they really don't know. It seems cowardly and shallow to me. Case in point: My cousin just gave birth to 1 pound twins at 24 weeks. I'm not their Dr., but I've been around enough to know that that's a pretty iffy situation. It chaps my hide all these syrupy congratulations "We just KNOW that they'll be coming home with you really soon" Uh, no, not real soon even in the best circumstances. And no, you don't know. How will your words stand if they lose these babies?

Besides, what do you say in these situations? It's a birth, so congratulations are in order, but its also a serious situation that may not just end happily with them going home. Those babies may have untold problems in the future. Is that still congratulations? I just said simply, "We are praying for you" (which is the truth) and nothing more. Is that insensitive or pessimistic? Hmmmph.

The talk at MRU part 2

I forgot to mention last post that in the conversion between my prepping the talk on my PC and showing it on the hubby's Mac, that a few symbols got messed up, and they were discovered too late to fix. I made a joke about us being a "house divided" which garnered some chuckles.

After the talk, the students were left to have pizza, and I went to lunch with the Big Boss and Questioner #1. On the way there, I ran into Questioner #2 (the one I had been warned about) and this person said, "So what this really means is (bigger implication that I hadn't said). Very interesting." And then they said "Oh, and another thing you said that made me happy was about (specific way to look at second half of the talk). I just taught that concept in my graduate school blahdy-blahdy-science course. I hope my students were all there."

Now this person used a phrase I had never really heard in all of my talk giving, and not from a super-serious scientist: "That made me happy". Well, that felt great and and made ME happy for a nice long time. Moreover, they said "You've done a LOT with undergrads". That was the clincher.

At lunch I asked Questioner #1 directly "Did I answer all of your questions to your satisfaction?" "Oh, yes" they said, and explained their last question, saying that they were really concerned in general about people who don't present controls. I explained that his question wasn't really a control question in my case, but an avenue for further study. If it could happen in my data, it could very well happen to other situations (that they thought were controls for my stuff).

I felt like I had done a good job of communicating scientifically, and received validation that the volume and quality of my current undergrad-driven work is good. Moreover, I didn't embarrass my husband in front of his colleagues (not a driving fear, but nonetheless present). Before you give me a feminist-ic rough time, I would feel that way if I was in the same situation with ANYONE I cared about.

The students, however, were relatively quiet and didn't interact too much with their hosts, even though they reported that they loved it. I asked the students what they had thought of my talk. One student said that I had done it all wrong, that I read too much from my slides. Granted I did read from my slides a bit, but I was really asking about the science in the talk. I think that student had really missed the point. Oh, well...

The talk at MRU part 1

I haven't worked in such a focused manner in a long time. There was a month of dissertation writing where I was like a laser, and this was the same but only for 2 1/2 days. As I was prepping for the talk, I always felt like I was in triage mode. As a matter of fact there were a few stray lines on my PowerPoints, but I made sure not to point them out to anyone. No one mentioned it either.

The evening before the talk I e-mailed my presentation to myself and the Hub. Then I put it on a thumb drive. I called it finished and hit a "peace" because I knew that even though it wasn't 100% perfect (what I expect of myself in a job talk), it was 92%. The remaining 8% I let go of emotionally because 1. the effort to complete the rest was not worth the rewards 2. I just didn't have the time, anyway.

I did spend my last evening working on a convincing slide for the question I KNEW was coming: But is it relevant???? That was time well spent.

The trip worked perfectly (thanks Lord, for answered prayers). Students were on time, car was easily obtained from the pool, no traffic. Arrived early enough for a doughnut stop (student's ideas).

As the talk time approached, I grew a bit nervous, but put on my game face. Then the room filled and the intro began. The talk consisted of half of what I did in my post-doc (complex, innovative), and half of what I'm doing with my undergrads (thorough, but not innovative).

As I started my first paragraphs, I could hear my voice quaver from nervousness, and it took less than 2 minutes before a hand shot up from the back of the room. The question was in a curious tone, but worded as a challenge: "Wait that shows the OPPOSITE of what you are claiming" I panicked, took a sip of my water, and realized what he was saying. "No, no, look at it this way...." He: "Oh, ok, I see". About 1 minute later another hand, from the woman I had been warned about, was also challenging me. My chest tightened. She asked her question, and I couldn't understand it. It was posed clearly, and voiced loudly, but it was the temporary oatmeal between my ears and understanding that forced me to ask her to repeat the question. I sipped again, until the oatmeal cleared. This answer was more pragmatic... "This component of the system we assume to be functioning normally. We aren't tracking it, but we do see activation of the other component, its partner, the one we are interested in. Let me show you my data... " And then I did.

On thing I really appreciate about being a teaching scientist is that it is very important to me that all understand. I was sensitive to furrowed brows and lost looks. The data and systems were rather complex, but I was pleased with my ability to explain them thoroughly. I started to relax as I got non-verbal feedback such as nods. Then I started to sound more like myself.

When I reached the end of the complex stuff, I feel like I had the audience with me. Even the challengers. I even asked at the end of the first part: OK?

Then I began on my current stuff. I had pictures of all the students and in a brief sentence explained where they are now (med school, finishing up, etc). I did this due to PLS's suggestion to emphasize that it was undergrad research, and the pictures were funny. I could see that I was losing their interest. It dawned on me that they were really interested in the first half because at least for one group it was directly applicable to their less-reductionistic system. But as I moved down on the reductionism scale I lost their interest. I realized this as I was talking and ended up presenting 2 slides with a sentence or two fewer than I had rehearsed.

The questions were peppered throughout, and all good ones. There was one question where I could not come up with a very common word, and talked around it. That was a bit embarrassing, but I think it didn't detract too much. The one I was expecting came in the middle of this second section in two forms: One guy asked "is this relevant in people?" And I was ready with that 16-hour-old slide, which was quite convincing. Then the question "how well does your reductionistic system apply in animals?" By now I had my full teacher confidence and answered, "Good question HerName, because there are several instances when that is a particular concern (and named one that tied in). But my work, especially the first part was intended to be reductionistic to confirm what had been found in a less-reductionistic manner (something I had pointed out in a intro slide). Ah, yes, she nods. Every one seemed satisfied.

Feedback on my talk at MRU

First, I have to get this out, then later I'll write about my subjective experience.
From a colleague of the Hub to the Hub:
__________
By the way, I thought your wife did an excellent job today and I really
enjoyed her talk. I was able to follow almost all of it (and I can't always
say that, being new to these fields). I also thought she handled all of the
questions really well in front of what is a tough crowd (as you well know).
__________

(see, I told you they were sharks) :)

Why having nice colleagues isn't always good.

I love my colleagues. They are truly nice people who are quirky enough to be interesting, but normal enough to be easy to be around. I respect (for the vast majority) their status as scientists and their teaching acumen. So, I begged my colleagues to listen to me give a practice talk for the big presentation at MRU tomorrow AM. I wanted them to find the flaws and tear the presentation apart.

I guess its a lot to ask from people not in my subfield who also have scant time to read literature, produce data, write, and fight with reviewers. They gave me some helpful hints of clarity. They were far too nice to me. Boo!