Article for JLK to pick apart

A recent blog post in the NYT talks about a lot of the stuff JLK and DuWayne are super into. I read it with interest.

Apparently, these days a boy being called a "fag" or "gay" in school is the ultimate kiss of death in terms of coolness, to the point that some kids are being driven to kill themselves once they've been pegged with these epithets. And that all that it takes to be called one of those terms is to care about school, your clothes, or have an ounce of effeminate characteristics.

While I am all for "girls can be anything they want," I've been a bit disturbed by the lack of progress in acceptable boy behavior as a society. They really do seemed to be trapped in a really monosyllabic note in terms of what's ok, and that sucks.

I read in "The Feminine Mystique" by Betty Friedan that American suffragette Lucy Stone's mother cried upon learning the sex of her latest child, "Oh dear, I am so sorry it's a girl. A woman's life is so hard." I wholeheartedly believe that was true before, but I think it is definitely less so now.

These days, I just think it's hard to be a kid. Every time I see a kid, and I think about having one of my own (thoughts about that here), I get paralyzed with fear that my kid will be teased mercilessly for one reason or another. It's a miracle I got through my childhood pretty unscathed, but I think that was a combination of 1) my personality, 2) my parents, 3) my community, 4) my particular school, 5) my particular combination of classmates, 6) sheer luck.

How can I make sure that same tenuous balance happens for my kid? I think it's really important to live somewhere that's diverse and urban, so that a lot more behavior is acceptable for both boys and girls, and there is a lot of shit to do besides gossip about someone.

My high school was over 3000 people. No one could ruin your life because at any given moment only 500 people even knew who you were, the other 2500 didn't know or care about you. You could only become a pariah in a small distinct group and it wasn't too hard to just...move to another. On top of that, there were so many people that in general, you could ALWAYS find 4 other people who were as unusual as you and be friends. Groups of dudes who played D&D and Magic all through lunch? Yeah - about 10 of them. Kids who cared about school and took lots of AP classes? About 60-100 of them. Cheerleaders? I didn't know who they were, and I didnt' care. Football players? Pretty much the same. Kids trash-canned and thrown into lockers? Never happened. A guy my year even catapulted to popularity for getting a leading role in a play with the Drama Club. Band kids weren't even considered lame. They were a good band.

Can I find a school like that for my kid and make sure it's a pretty healthy, functional place? Why do I wonder this even if I am sooooo ambivalent about whether I even want one, ever?

Because I overthink things and am crazy :).

JLK and the Phizzle

Through fortuitous circumstances, JLK and I met up for margaritas and Mexican food this evening.

In some ways, I approached the evening almost like a first date from an online dating service. You have a sense of a person that is entirely electronic, and you know they have a sense of you, and you're unsure of how you'll come across IRL, even if you're sure it will turn out fine.

As I got ready to leave the house, I had ridiculous thoughts like, "I've blogged so much about my hair. Does my hair look bad? I hope it doesn't look bad." Or, "I've blogged about how smokin' hot I think I am. What if she thinks I'm on crack?" It was actually quite funny, in hindsight. I think this results from the fact that I have never actually dated anyone from an online dating service, and I've been with Mr. PhizzleDizzle so long that the anticipation of meeting someone new (even under totally platonic terms) has a really foreign feel for me.

Anyway, so I'm about 5 min. late, which I feel bad about. I hate being late. But sometimes I am, and I should stop doing that, especially when I'm meeting someone for the first time. At any rate, Miss JLK was lovely and hawtt. We had a most excellent meal in which we discussed many interesting topics at length, and I find her just as flippin' awesome IRL as online. Smokin' hot, articulate, and fun, with a nice laugh :). We had a great time. You know you're jealous. :)

Thanks JLK!!

Ok, Ok, Ok

So, I took this test yesterday. And despite declaring that I would get shittons done today, I guess I will jump on the bandwagon since my blog BFFs AA and JLK have posted their results. I'll even give you my thoughts about each of my scores! (whoop-di-do).

Neuroticism

Neuroticism (sometimes also called Emotional Instability) is the tendency to experience negative emotions such as sadness or anxiety. People who score high on neuroticism are vulnerable to stress and tend to experience negative feelings more often. People who score low in neuroticism tend to be less susceptible to stress, and experience negative feelings relatively infrequently.

You scored 14 out of 50. This score is higher than 4.3% of people who have taken this test.

Ok, so I totally agree with this one. I've always know that I'm very....un-neurotic. This is probably why most of my girlfriends come to me for the most logical, rational advice they can get. I am generally easygoing and hard to really stress out. When I am stressed, I rarely get OVERWHELMED by stress. Something in me, which I think stems from childhood and a long-reaching personal time horizon, always is able to get over the "now" in favor of "the future" and know that, well geez, everything is going to be all right. I suppose this means I am the anti-drama queen, which can be good or bad, depending on whether you like drama or not.

Extraversion

Extraversion (or Extroversion) is the tendency to experience positive emotions and seek out stimulating situations. People who score high on extraversion tend to be active, energetic, and enjoy being around other people. In contrast, people who score low on extraversion, known as introverts, tend to be quiet, low-key, and are typically less involved in the social world.

You scored 33 out of 50. This score is higher than 43.4% of people who have taken this test.

This one is also pretty spot on. I'm not especially shy, nor especially outgoing. I don't feed off the energy of other people to juice myself, nor can I stand to be totally alone for long periods of time and I do require social interaction. So, pretty boring and in the middle.

Openness to experience

Openness to experience is a general tendency to appreciate emotion, adventure, and unusual ideas or experiences. People who are open to experience are intellectually curious, appreciative of art, and sensitive to beauty. People with low scores on openness tend to have more conventional, traditional interests.

You scored 37 out of 50. This score is higher than 28.4% of people who have taken this test.

This is also pretty accurate, I think. I'm not totally risk averse (i.e. I have no problem picking up and moving to another part of the country, by myself), but I like to establish routines and patterns in my life. But I'm not a slave to them. However, I am definitely not as spontaneous as very spontaneous people, and I think they caught on that I don't really like art that much. Modern art especially. I appreciate beauty, but in my mind....real beauty, not deep non-sensical beauty like splashing paint on a canvas randomly. I think the flaw in this part of the study is the correlation between appreciating art and appreciating beauty. I remember thinking to myself, well, I'm really not all that into visual art, but sometimes a piano piece, well played, can reduce me to tears, as can the violin. So...anyway, my perception is that this part of the study was a bit too blunt.

Conscientiousness

Conscientiousness is the tendency to show self-discipline and persistence. People who score high on conscientiousness tend to be persistent, responsible, and duty-driven, but are sometimes perceived as being overly perfectionistic and concerned with order. Individuals low on conscientiousness tend to show less persistence and may have trouble seeing things through.

You scored 33 out of 50. This score is higher than 40.9% of people who have taken this test.

This is interesting to me. I am average here, really in the middle. And it makes sense, because I am not the most disciplined person, I don't think. But, this is really self-reported, and not observed. Part of me is aware that, by virtue of the fact that I have slogged my way through most of a PhD, I cannot possibly be a very undisciplined and unpersistent person. And yet, I really think that I am. Actually, that's not exactly true. I don't think of myself as UNdisciplined, I just do not think of myself as disciplined. This part of the study is difficult because of the self-reporting nature, for me. I find it hard to assess myself along this axis.

Agreeableness

Agreeableness is the tendency to be sympathetic and cooperative towards others. People who score high on agreeableness strive for social harmony and value getting along with others. Disagreeable people tend to be more suspicious and hostile towards others.

You scored 41 out of 50. This score is higher than 76.7% of people who have taken this test.

I definitely do consider myself quite agreeable here - part of me sometimes thinks that I am part Empath (e.g. Deanna Troi) because I generally can sense when other people are uncomfortable, and if I know them well enough (or care), figure out how to alleviate that discomfort. So it's not so much that I am agreeable, but I do think I have a tendency to be sympathetic and strive for social harmony. One of my best friends thanked me after her wedding because of a few specific little things I did to alleviate tension in a situation that were fairly subtle, and that's the sort of thing I think I am good at. So yeah. Now I feel like I have been bragging about myself, that's not my intent at all. Anyway, my point is that I feel like this study captured my tendencies along this axis reasonably well.

Ok, so even though this isn't actually a meme, I tagged it as a meme because it's so meme-like. Someone else do it now! :)

The Rise of the Meritocracy and Lani Guinier

I was inspired to make this post by some interesting stuff going on Blue Lab Coats as a response to some postings over at Young Female Scientist. The basic gist of the discussion is about whether the hiring practices of academic departments is subjective/objective, systematic/arbitrary, and whether that is good/bad.

Several years ago at my Grad Institution I went to a talk by Lani Guinier. If you don't know who she is, you might remember that she was nominated by Bill Clinton to be the civil rights chief for the Justice Department (and the first African American one at that). There was a media firestorm over some of her stances on affirmative action and he withdrew her nomination not long afterwards. Either way, she is a professor of law at Harvard Law School and has some controversial but provocatively interesting views on power, equality, and "the majority."

Anyway, so I went to her talk, and she talked about how her son had his 7th birthday party and there were both boys and girls at the party. At some point all the children played some sort of game, boys against girls, and the girls won, hands down. She then wondered, "who made up this game?" And the answer was....the girls. I forget exactly the rules of the game but it required both patience and coordination - something 7-year old boys just generally don't have as much of as 7-year old girls. And so the girls won.

She used this as the basis of her talk - that we as a society have all these metrics to measure the "quality" of people, but that honestly, you have to look at what the metrics are actually measuring, who designed the metrics, and whether they actually line up with desired characteristics to see if the metrics are remotely worthwhile. For example, she says in law school, the superstar students are the ones who raise their hands early and often and wax ad nauseum about whatever. The measurement for being a standout law student is basically to be a pompous ass who likes to hear themselves speak. She said that she's noticed, though, that what tends to happen is many competent and thoughtful future lawyers are sitting and composing their thoughts into a response before they raise their hands to speak, but by the time they are done, Loquacious Ass has gone on so many tangents that the subject has changed and the moment has passed, and they put their hands down. She asked, is this really what we want? We can measure this way but does this line up with what we hope to get out of our lawyers? If not, we better line up the rewards/merit system more with what we desire out of future lawyers.

She then brought up The Rise of the Meritocracy, a book written by Michael Young in 1958. The book is a dystopian satire about a future society based solely on "merit", a function of IQ and effort. The fundamental point of the book is that a society based on merit is kidding themselves - the people in charge tend to make things that only the elite can access keys to obtaining merit. The word "meritocracy" is meant to be a pejorative joke, like saying, "I'm not racist, but I only like white people," or "I'm an equal opportunity employer, but I only hire exceptional talent...people who speak Latin, can quote Shakespeare, and know how to properly eat an artichoke." I mean seriously, meritocracies make us feel better but let's be honest, there is no such thing as a totally unbiased evaluative metric because the metric is always in the eye of of the evaluator, which obviously is not totally objective.

So this gets to what brought on this post, a discussion of academic hiring practices. There are people out there who argue against hiring preferences for women because then "more qualified" people are left in the dust. But what does more qualified REALLY mean? I mean, obviously, plucking someone off the street - they would be unqualified. But do you really know if a guy has one more High Impact Paper then he is definitely "more qualified"? Qualified to do what? Contribute to the diversity of the department? Get funding? Teach undergrads? Mentor graduate students? If a department is committed to diversifying its faculty perhaps in approach, thought process, gender, whatever, then ABSOLUTELY hiring a someone whose cardinal publication number is less than someone else's is NOT a sacrifice in quality because you are hiring someone to do exactly what your objective is.

What is a department's objective? Think of it this way, let's say this year the department would like to hire someone in Subfield A, though applicants from other subfields may apply. Let's say Applicant X has N publications in Subfield A and is a good candidate, while applicant Y has N+2 publications in Subfield B and is also a good candidate, maybe even a little bit better. But the department really wants to expand Subfield A, and so they go with Candidate X. Does that mean they have "sacrificed quality", by not hiring the guy with more papers? I don't think so - they have merely gone with the decision that better satisfies their stated objectives.

So if a department values diversity and wants to diversify, and actively seeks out a qualified woman, I don't think that's in any way bad. It's not like they're going to hire a dumbass off the street just because she possesses two X chromosomes.

On the other hand, there are also women (like YFS) who complain about the lack of systematic evaluations because it goes against women (as opposed to people described above who complain about the lack of systematic evaluations so that a hiring decision can favor a woman). How can a woman prove she's qualified and/or better than a man if there's not objective measuring stick? I'm not sure about this one - my gut tells me that if there is an Old Boys Network in place at an institution, there's no getting around it - Grumpy Old Professor is going to hire Future Grumpy Old Professor.

At the same time, I believe in a bit of wiggle room in order to hire people who "fit" and/or that you like. There is the innocuous version of this wiggle room, wherein you keep out the scary, socially inept, crazy incommunicado types. There is also the more sinister type, wherein you keep out the women/minorities because they "just don't fit." There are always two sides to the same coin.

As of now, I think I fall into the "I like wiggle room" camp because I believe, particularly at institutions that value both quality and diversity, I can ALSO win in the likeability/fit category. And I would hate to be at a place where everyone was just an automaton and there was no departmental community.

Maybe this will come back to bite me in the ass someday when I actually try to find a job, but for now, that's how I feel. Meritocracies are often a joke and wiggle room is good.

ok, what the heck peeps?

recently when i was not so busy and eagerly checking google reader every day for posts from science chicks, there was nothing....

now, i am so busy i am not really checking google reader, but today i looked and i have 45 unread posts. 45!!!!!! seriously, i am not in sync with the blogosphere.

A fellow chick computer scientist!

Here is one of the lady computer scientists I found when I searched via google reader. Her latest post is a great one about why CS is such an interesting field. The scope is just so big! Check her out. I'm excited to have a new addition to my blogroll.

Women and Computer Science

Yesterday, with sadness, I read this article in the New York Times which wondered, where are all the women in computer science?

I must say, it made me both sad and confused. Apparently, while women have largely achieved parity (in terms of undergraduate degrees) when you take science and engineering as a whole, women in computer science has been dropping steadily. In fact, latest estimates for the most recent classes of undergraduates place women as numbering less than 10%. For undergrad. If you continue to lose with each higher degree, which is the norm for women, you wonder if I am one of the last of my kind. I mean, shit.

10....measly....percent. Why is this? I cannot figure it out, exactly, because figuring it out would require that I determine what it is that makes me extremely unusual. I know I'm unusual, I'm ok with that, but I have a hard time thinking that I am *extremely* unusual because I view the world as a big bell curve for everything and just by principle I am unlikely to lie at the extreme end of any of them. But apparently I do.

It has been wonderful for me to find this community of lady science bloggers online, but at the same time I feel like I don't totally belong in this group, because I have never worked with proteins, used a pipette, or worked with anything remotely alive or cellular in my work. All the hot, sexy science discussions are outside of the reaches of my comprehension. I can take a big picture idea, but that's IT.

In somewhat loneliness the other day, I actually went into google reader, which has a nice search function to find blogs that interest you, and typed in "female computer science."

Guess how many bona fide blogs came up? TWO. I subscribed to them both.

I have divulged extremely little information on this blog (I think) regarding what I do specifically, because I fear that just that little information could make it pretty easy to pick me out. How sad is that? I know people in biomedical or medical research, and the labs are FILLED with women. I know that doesn't make it easy, it's still a patriarchal sausagefest at the top, but like...I went through all of graduate school being the only girl in journal club. The first time I went, I was late, and I felt soooooo self conscious when I walked into the room with 30 men, late. I wanted to crawl under a table and die. I just felt so out of place. Also, I go to conferences, and when there are 20 women there out of 300, people say, "wow, there are a lot of women here." Can you believe that?

One of my advisors (not the one I discussed the other day - I am co-advised), has been a full professor for many years, we're talking he achieved full professorship sometime when I was in elementary school. He's no spring chicken. And he has NEVER graduated a female PhD student. Ever. I will be the first. Can you imagine?

I desperately, desperately want to know why this is.

I have a few theories but that will be another post. Back to work.

Post-Docing in Computer Science

Ambivalent Academic asked about what Post-docing in my field is like, how people are viewed if they do or do not do a post-doc (talk about an awkward sentence!). This is my personal theory.

In my area (computer science) there is a very very strong industrial presence, obviously. All of Silicon Valley, and the tech sector are all ready and willing to suck talent out of the PhD pool. And pay them well. Regardless of whether they have done a post-doc or not. In fact, Bill Gates doesn't even have a Bachelor's, as everyone well knows, and the founders of Google left their PhD programs to start the company. And obviously, no one cares. So basically, if they want you, these companies will hire you regardless of whether you have certain letters after your names.

For this reason, I believe post-docs are really not required or done in my field because it's hard for people to resist the paycheck that could come from industry. If a company is willing to offer you over $100K out of your PhD, then why in the world would you go get a post-doc? Thus, academic departments would be hard pressed to require people to get post-docs in order to hire them, otherwise everyone would just go to industry. It's bad enough that academics get paid much less than their industrial counterparts, if you forced them to take 2-3 more years of getting paid very little, you'd have a mutiny and suddenly there would be no computer science professors.

At the same time, there is a lot less "methodological" training required in computer science. I don't know if that's why post-docs are important for other fields, I'm not really sure why you need to have them except maybe to get exposure to another lab/sub-field? I don't know, since I don't know anyone who has done one. But I imagine that part of the reason is to get broader methodological training. Which isn't required in computer science. Basically, you can code or you can't code. There are no "techniques" or "equipment" that you couldn't figure out quickly anyway. Yes, there might be some slightly different software tools, or maybe these machines are Suns and these are Opterons and those are Xeons, but really, it doesn't matter. So to spend 2 more years training would be pretty pointless.

So yes, some people do post-docs but for entirely person reasons - in my field no one would bat an eyelash if you didn't do one and became a professor. In fact, they might bat an eyelash and ask "why?" if you did do one.

Thus, since I thinking about the possibility of one, for personal reasons, I have to go through "connection" channels rather than advertisements, because no one advertises. We'll see how it goes.

@Renee

I will reprise my comment @Renee on Dr. Isis's blog here. Thanks to ScientistMother who alerted me to this travesty. (Synopsis - some people say it is bad to project femininity when you are a scientist because this causes people to take you less seriously. Renee comes in to say she doesn't like black people because she doesn't like hip hop, and she doesn't like women because she doesn't like shopping.) To that I say:

@Renee - how's this? I don't like people who dislike people for reasons that make no sense.

What you seem to not understand is that most people aren't caricatures and members of only one "culture" as you call it. I find it hard to imagine that you can do good science when something as complex as human beings are broken down into simple one-faceted elements.

Love,
Hip Hop Loving, Classical Music Loving, Dancing Loving, *nix Loving, Mac Loving, Nerdy Boy Loving, Ender Loving, Python (the language) Loving, Shoe Loving, Food Loving, Project Runway Loving, Slashdot Loving, Yellow-Assed PhizzleDizzle

Fin.

Cats vs. Dogs

I like reading the science chick blogs. They're fun and interesting and it's rapidly become a part of my day that I look forward to, perusing the chick science blogs.

One thing that I have noticed is the propensity of the bloggers to be cat people, to the point that they blog about their cats quite a bit. FSP and Dr.A come to mind, and I know I've come across others.

I myself am a dog person. I am going for a totally super scientific poll on the right, check it out. I would like to find out if there is truly a correlation between female science blogger and cat lover, and if so, think about why from there, and then, think about why I am not a cat person, besides being a bit allergic. Even if I weren't allergic, I would totally like dogs better.

Euphemisms

I was over at Ambivalent Academic's blog post, who was inspired by Dr. Isis's blog post, and has now inspired this post. See, because of the cornucopia of lady-parts discussions in the blogosphere today, I realized that today, I have used the following words:

• cooter
• vajayjay
• hooha
• twigs and berries

Why do I do that? I'm not a prude like Elliot from that show Scrubs, who can't say anything that she wouldn't say in front of her mother. My personal favorite euphemism of hers is "bajingo," her word for exactly what you might expect. Somehow, it just sounds right.

Anyway, I am not a prude. IRL, I am happy to say any sorts of real words in place of euphemisms.

I suspect that it is because of Candid's recent post about the search terms people got to her site with. I don't want people coming around because they are looking for ways to feed their porn habit. So....I guess I will stick with the euphemisms for now.

Because in all reality, I really do like the word "bajingo." Has a nice ring to it. I happen to like mine, and will never stick thumbtacks into it :).

Tagged!?

It appears that ScientistMother has tagged me in a meme. I didn't even know what a meme was until they started showing up all over these blogs that I read! Ha. Yes, I'm green. Anyway, here goes:

The Rules

1. Link to the person who tagged you. -
   
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write 6 random things about yourself.
4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person you have tagged know by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry has posted.

1) I can say all 50 states in alphabetical order in less than 20 seconds.
2) I once went to an event/conference where I not only shook Colin Powell's hand but met Ian Wilmut (the man who cloned Dolly) and sat next to George Lucas at lunch.
3) I have really, really soft skin. Losing that a touch though - must be the age :P.
4) I had cranberry sauce and stuffing for the first time ever the Thanksgiving when I was 18 years old.
5) I do not get the Asian glow. I can drink a lot of alcohol and my skin does not flush at all. LUCKY ME!
6) I am 132 lbs. I couldn't think of anything else and decided to take a stand for the ladies of modern times and post my weight on the Internet. I think it's bizarre how asking how much someone weighs is more offensive than asking how much money they make. Geez, it's a number. We should stop caring so much. Caring is a noose that makes you fat! That's my humble opinion. I am 132 lbs, smokin' hot, and proud of it. Snap.

Ok, now I am supposed to tag people. Except that the bloggers I "know" are few and far between, plus they've mostly been tagged, so I'll just do a few. Forgive me.

I tag Eugenie, Juniper Shoemaker, and....umm....can I double tag Candid? She's been tagged already but we don't yet know 6 random things about her. :)

Camel Toe and Mr. PhizzleDizzle

So I'm reading Candid Engineer's hilarious post on camel toe, when Mr. PhizzleDizzle comes by and sees me reading it. Then my very sweet, sheltered, adorable (and born and bred in America) husband asked, "....what is camel toe? I'm a little afraid to type it into my search bar."

He is so funny.

Assumptions

I was thinking about the venerable FSP's Random Person encounter post and how screwed up it was.

What it seems to boil down to is that the person in question had certain assumptions about FSP and could not comprehend the fact that the assumptions were wrong. I described the post to Mr. PhizzleDizzle, who, bless his heart, could not comprehend what sort of idiot would act that way. Being a White Male, he is very supportive of me but doesn't always understand what kind of shit can happen to non-White Males.

This made me think of an encounter of my own this summer. It was not even in an academic setting. I had just finished doing a 100-mile bike ride and was at the post-ride food area standing in line waiting for some food. Despite having just biked 100 miles, I still looked like, well, not like a Computer Scientist. I am a chick, after all. Plus, I matched and am cute.

Anyway, I notice another guy in line, who did look like a computer scientist (he had long unkempt unruly hair and looked like a slob), and he was wearing a t-shirt that said, "ACM International Symposium on Computational Geometry". I first noticed the shirt's first part, the "ACM International Symposium on" part because I myself have been to many Symposia sponsored by ACM, however I stopped short when I saw the Comp. Geo. because that is not my field. So I went up one level of commonality, and said:

"Hey, I'm a member of the ACM too".

Do you know what this jackass said?

"OooooooOOOoooooh" (implication, do you think you're SPECIAL?)

Seriously, what the eff? I was so shocked I just looked at him, trying to comprehend what he meant. Then some distraction off in the distance happened that caused us all to look towards it, and then it was his turn for ice cream so he ordered, and then left. So I never got to respond.

There are a few things I wish I could have said, but I can't decide which is best.

1) "Wow....I'm guessing you've never been laid."
2) "Hey asshole, you realize I'm getting a PhizzleDizzle, yes? Put that in a pipe and smoke it, BITCH!"
3) "Hey dipshit, I know you think I'm some sort of script monkey for some massive software company that doesn't have a soul, but I'm actually ABD. Go fuck yourself."

It boils down to the fact that I'm sure he thought I was some sort of low level test engineer or something, and that I thought being in the ACM put us in the same boat, whereas he knows that in reality, he's a Computational Geometrist, i.e. he does math and theory and publishes, which makes him brilliant, particularly because of his long hair, which is always a sign of brilliance in my general field (unless you have two X chromosomes). I couldn't possibly even understand how much I'd insulted him because I don't even know what academia is.

I described this encounter to my husband, who was incredulous. It seems every time I tell him a ridiculous true story, he is incredulous. Bless his heart, it would never occur to him to be such a jackass. He even has a mentee (chick) who worships the ground he walks on because he's been such an effective teacher and mentor to her. He judges on merit. So to know that people judge based on something else blows his mind.

If people as sympathetic as my husband can't fathom how someone could be that much of a troll, how can people who are unsympathetic? The unsympathetics would probably just flat out not believe me. Sigh.

Taking the Next Step

I have a really hard time sometimes taking the next step with research. Once I get my claws into a process that will take time to complete, I can go at it like white on rice. But if I wind down a step, and then have to start something else, it can literally take me days to actually sink my teeth into it.

There are two next steps that I need to take now, and I am dragging my feet on both of them. One is, revamping my thesis proposal to become an actual THESIS. eek. Talk about intimidating. No wonder I am sucking at getting started. The other is revamping some experiments so that I can make them slightly more precise/tighter for inclusion into said thesis. Sigh. Someone kick me in the ass and get me going.

On a totally other note, today I was reading ScienceWomen, and I was pointed to a blog by a Dr. Isis, and I have decided I have a girl crush on Dr. Isis. Not only does she share my adoration of sexy shoes, particularly of the pointed variety, but she is funny. In the near future I would like to be the Dr. Isis of Computer Science. However, one way in which Dr. Isis and I differ is that I like to get my shoes from Zappos, which offers free shipping for purchases and returns. But she recommends shoes.com, which has the same delightful perks, which I will have to try.

P.S. In regards to my last post - I fixed the problem and my results look good now, like expected. Hooray for calmness in the face of calamity. I spoke to my advisor about my momentary panic because it could have meant the flushing of my entire PhD, and he said basically, "yeah, it would have." So it's extremely good that it was a configuratory (I like to make up words sometimes) mistake and not a fundamental flaw to the work. And thus, the winddown mentioned above, because this piece is kinda done.