Friday, June 17, 2011
Research Success
I have two otherwise- unemployed students in my lab for the summer. One is a good solid student who has been trained by me before. The other is absolutely brilliant- need to show her 0.75 times before she gets how to do something. Wahoo! This is the IDEAL situation. Now I have to make sure I still do my 1. tenure dossier, 2. manuscript, 3. prep courses for fall, and other summer work. Even though I want to be in the lab all day every day with them. What a total reversal from last semester.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Charity case = technique-based research?
There's a pharma concern here in town. They plow through materials like any Pharma/Biotech/R01, and they have a policy that the moment that said materials expire, they must be immediately removed from the premises. Lucky (?) for us, someone there calls the universities in the area to see if they want the stuff, and being the poorest of the bunch, we top the charity list. Today we received cases and cases of water filters and isolator plates. Thanks. I think that we got hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of stuff. I think (?!?) our Micro teacher or our water-sampling chemist can use it.(Can you tell I have hoarding tendencies?)
In any case, what this leads to is the designing of labs / research projects around the materials we have instead or designing labs de novo to fit the course exactly. Is that SO bad? The other option is to say no, or keep the stuff until we realize we can't use it- and end up wasting our time (scarce) and storage (plentiful) on the stuff until we throw it away ourselves.
When I was being trained as a scientist (both PhD and post-doc), I was always taught that we do HYPOTHESIS-driven research, and that technique-based research was always uninteresting and for the dull of mind. But what if your resources are scarce such that you can't set up an entire new lab "set-up" each time you get a new idea?
My analogy:
You can pick a recipe out of a book and go shopping for each of its ingredients- to hell with whether they had to be flown in from Peru for you. Strawberries in Feb? That's what the recipe calls for!
Now, more and more people are buying CSA boxes, and learning to design a meal around what is in season. The produce is extremely fresh, and the cook is stretched and must be creative in preparing a meal from the produce in the box.
Why is this such a no-no in science?
I bought more equipment in my 3 year post-doc (that isn't being used anymore) than I will buy here until I retire.Yes, the fact is that I am running a research lab in which all the students I ever have will learn two major techniques. I'll never get the equivalent of my start-up again to retool. We will march through all the simple things to be found from doing exactly what I do. So I must be creative in finding interesting questions to ask with the set-up I do have.
In any case, what this leads to is the designing of labs / research projects around the materials we have instead or designing labs de novo to fit the course exactly. Is that SO bad? The other option is to say no, or keep the stuff until we realize we can't use it- and end up wasting our time (scarce) and storage (plentiful) on the stuff until we throw it away ourselves.
When I was being trained as a scientist (both PhD and post-doc), I was always taught that we do HYPOTHESIS-driven research, and that technique-based research was always uninteresting and for the dull of mind. But what if your resources are scarce such that you can't set up an entire new lab "set-up" each time you get a new idea?
My analogy:
You can pick a recipe out of a book and go shopping for each of its ingredients- to hell with whether they had to be flown in from Peru for you. Strawberries in Feb? That's what the recipe calls for!
Now, more and more people are buying CSA boxes, and learning to design a meal around what is in season. The produce is extremely fresh, and the cook is stretched and must be creative in preparing a meal from the produce in the box.
Why is this such a no-no in science?
I bought more equipment in my 3 year post-doc (that isn't being used anymore) than I will buy here until I retire.Yes, the fact is that I am running a research lab in which all the students I ever have will learn two major techniques. I'll never get the equivalent of my start-up again to retool. We will march through all the simple things to be found from doing exactly what I do. So I must be creative in finding interesting questions to ask with the set-up I do have.
Why lessons for a two year old?
- Just out of curiosity, what made swim lessons so much worse than piano lessons? (thanks)
- Anon Tues 3:26- Someone from church offers music lessons for littl'uns. We've always thought that we didn't want to be "those" overscheduling parents. However, hub and I are both musically stunted due to childhoods with no musical training. So we were probably overcompensating when we signed him up for music class. Well, the music class is masterfully run- a lot of activity, a lot of variety and fun music we can use at home "pick up toys, pick up toys, now's the time to pick up tooooys". Boy asks if it's Tuesday yet, Tuesday yet, Tuesday yet, because he LOVES music class. Its also paid off. Dude's got quite a rendition of "Take me out to the Ball Game" and "Home on the Range". He matches pitch very nicely. Swim lessons were instigated because last summer our normally fearless child seemed terrified of the water. The swim lessons were clearly designed for kids older than Boy, becuase they did not take his two-year-old millisecond attention span into mind. OK, now swim on your back- kicking- for another lap, another lap, another lap, another lap. He grew bored with it very easily, for the end goal was to get the kids to do a formal front crawl. Moreover, it was in a lap pool, which is pretty darn cold if you have the surface/ volume ratio of a 30-pound two-footer. He, of course, can't do a front crawl from those five lessons, but we did get want we wanted...he's not afraid of water. So now we have a kid fearless around water who can't swim. Anybody else see a problem with that?
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
A sugar pill works sometimes.
I am starting to feel much better. MUCH Better. See here, here and here for a history.
This is probably due to several factors:
1. I have learned a strategy to help the baby fall asleep and stay asleep. Hub and I went to the library and got several books on helping your baby sleep. The books range from the tough "cry it out" (Ferber) to the middle of the road (Weissbluth) to the gentle no-cry sleep solution (Pantley). Even though we could identify the symptoms described in the books, none of the solutions were exactly right for our lifestyle. For example, when single parenting, you can't put two babies down when they show signes of tiredness, not when they do so simultaneously. So its a matter of triage-- toddler down first, because he sleeps soundly once down and otherwise will interfere royally with the bedtime ritual for the baby, whereas the reverse is not true.
So even though the baby doesn't always go down and stay down, she does so more than before. The important thing here is my ILLUSION of control over the matter. That makes all the difference in the world.
2. I have crossed off some very major tasks, and the ILLUSION of my workload has decreased. May term- done. Prep for Summer Science camp -done enough. Heavy meeting schedule- over.
I still have straggler work to do, and then this summer's big tasks: Write a manuscript, Prep for Fall Classes, Prepare poster for Fall meeting, and OH, prepare my tenure dossier for October.
3. I am getting more regular exercise, the kind of exercise that is very powerful in decreasing stress. I do yoga at least twice a week now and an regularly getting my heart rate up through Zumba or whatever to release those happy hormones. I am very blessed to have a physiology that rewards me richly for exercise, because otherwise I wouldn't have the discipline to make myself do it.
4. Little things:
A. we have a new housekeeper and she is very, very good. I know this is a WhiteWhine, but our last one made a lot of extra work for me by putting stuff places we couldn't find it, etc.
B. the summer's fruits and vegetables here are just soooo delicious. I've been pigging out on healthy foods that give me great pleasure to eat.
C. not small: but my husband's unflagging support.
D. no more swim or music lesson obligations to get kids to. Yes, swim lessons (bad idea) and music lessons (great idea) for a 2 yo. They seemed like such a good idea during sign-up.
E. My term for certain committees is coming to an end. Simply having an obligation to them, whether we are meeting or not, gives me the ILLUSION of burden.
Some of the point here is that even if you KNOW that you are feeling better due to a placebo effect sometimes it does not rob you of the lovely effects of that sugar pill.
This is probably due to several factors:
1. I have learned a strategy to help the baby fall asleep and stay asleep. Hub and I went to the library and got several books on helping your baby sleep. The books range from the tough "cry it out" (Ferber) to the middle of the road (Weissbluth) to the gentle no-cry sleep solution (Pantley). Even though we could identify the symptoms described in the books, none of the solutions were exactly right for our lifestyle. For example, when single parenting, you can't put two babies down when they show signes of tiredness, not when they do so simultaneously. So its a matter of triage-- toddler down first, because he sleeps soundly once down and otherwise will interfere royally with the bedtime ritual for the baby, whereas the reverse is not true.
So even though the baby doesn't always go down and stay down, she does so more than before. The important thing here is my ILLUSION of control over the matter. That makes all the difference in the world.
2. I have crossed off some very major tasks, and the ILLUSION of my workload has decreased. May term- done. Prep for Summer Science camp -done enough. Heavy meeting schedule- over.
I still have straggler work to do, and then this summer's big tasks: Write a manuscript, Prep for Fall Classes, Prepare poster for Fall meeting, and OH, prepare my tenure dossier for October.
3. I am getting more regular exercise, the kind of exercise that is very powerful in decreasing stress. I do yoga at least twice a week now and an regularly getting my heart rate up through Zumba or whatever to release those happy hormones. I am very blessed to have a physiology that rewards me richly for exercise, because otherwise I wouldn't have the discipline to make myself do it.
4. Little things:
A. we have a new housekeeper and she is very, very good. I know this is a WhiteWhine, but our last one made a lot of extra work for me by putting stuff places we couldn't find it, etc.
B. the summer's fruits and vegetables here are just soooo delicious. I've been pigging out on healthy foods that give me great pleasure to eat.
C. not small: but my husband's unflagging support.
D. no more swim or music lesson obligations to get kids to. Yes, swim lessons (bad idea) and music lessons (great idea) for a 2 yo. They seemed like such a good idea during sign-up.
E. My term for certain committees is coming to an end. Simply having an obligation to them, whether we are meeting or not, gives me the ILLUSION of burden.
Some of the point here is that even if you KNOW that you are feeling better due to a placebo effect sometimes it does not rob you of the lovely effects of that sugar pill.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
A New Day is Dawning!
 |
| Girl slept through the night last night. Things may return to normal, or at least better, very soon. |
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
New Feminism on the ground
I appreciate the comments on the last post... but to highlight one: GMP said, "...hard to pull off".
Example 1: Mom really needs to get some high-intensity exercise to decrease her stress levels, but most of the classes at the gym (Zumba, Spinning) are scheduled in the morning before day care opens, or in the evening overlapping with dinner time or bed time.
Yes, I could do something independently in the middle of the day (if I don't have meetings). Yes, I could hire a babysitter to come and put the kids to bed while I go to the gym. But the evidence suggests that there is an energy barrier associated with those alternatives that is high enough to be prohibitive with my current capacity (which includes my energy). In other words, I feel too tired to do what it takes to get less tired.
So yes, sometimes hard to pull off the Makin' Momma Happy.
Example 1: Mom really needs to get some high-intensity exercise to decrease her stress levels, but most of the classes at the gym (Zumba, Spinning) are scheduled in the morning before day care opens, or in the evening overlapping with dinner time or bed time.
Yes, I could do something independently in the middle of the day (if I don't have meetings). Yes, I could hire a babysitter to come and put the kids to bed while I go to the gym. But the evidence suggests that there is an energy barrier associated with those alternatives that is high enough to be prohibitive with my current capacity (which includes my energy). In other words, I feel too tired to do what it takes to get less tired.
So yes, sometimes hard to pull off the Makin' Momma Happy.
Friday, June 3, 2011
The New Feminism
I went to the Women's clinic today for a special "celebration" of my children. My two children are special, unique and have my undivided love forever (I got a 10-year IUD). The Certified Nurse Midwife that placed the IUD was also the person who delivered my last baby, has been a guest lecturer in some of my classes, and is a Facebook friend.
She said "How ARE you?" as in, "I'm not chatting", to which I replied, "Fine. Well, no it's been a terrible semester. She doesn't sleep and I'm really suffering, and can't keep up at work." Then I said, "you know those cynical people who say you can't have it all? Well, they're right."
She said, "Yeah, that's the old-skool Feminism; get it all done at home and at work and still have a smile on your face. But here's the new Feminism: Take care of yourself. Because if Momma ain't happy, ain't NOBODY happy."
She said "How ARE you?" as in, "I'm not chatting", to which I replied, "Fine. Well, no it's been a terrible semester. She doesn't sleep and I'm really suffering, and can't keep up at work." Then I said, "you know those cynical people who say you can't have it all? Well, they're right."
She said, "Yeah, that's the old-skool Feminism; get it all done at home and at work and still have a smile on your face. But here's the new Feminism: Take care of yourself. Because if Momma ain't happy, ain't NOBODY happy."
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