It's 7am and I am going to bed

The couch, rather...I don't feel like disturbing the husband or getting into pajamas.

And I'm still not sure if this is going to work out. Sigh.

Tit for Tat

As discussed previously, Mr. PhizzleDizzle has been taking excellent care of a frazzled PhizzleDizzle lately.

At the moment, he is cooking Indian food (he marinated chicken yesterday) and making hummus. Comrade PhysioProf is not the only dude on the block who can cook! I am sitting on the couch working (blogging?), and thinking about tit-for-tat.

One of the reasons why I feel so blessed to have Mr. PhizzleDizzle is that an entire aspect of life, the search for a partner, has been taken care of. I am not sure how life would be right now if I were not only trying to finish a PhD but ALSO trying to meet someone that I enjoyed being with. Or trying to deal with someone I was with that I didn't like so much. Instead, that aspect of my psyche can be devoted to my work.

With him taking such good care of me lately, I wonder about whether I would do the same for him. I almost feel like the husband lately. I hardly do any dishes, I don't pick up after myself, today I changed my underwear for the first time in 3 days (laundry day is approaching and I need to make it to the finish first), and I have generally lapsed in personal hygiene. When he is working this hard, will I do the same for him? Is that the hallmark of a good relationship? Do men ever think this way about returning favors/TLC? Does Mr. PhizzleDizzle feel underappreciated? I have been telling him thank you and that I love him so much every few hours or so. I am worried eventually he will get tire of this and resent me.

Also, am I fundamentally selfish? I am not sure if the time came I would be so gracious as Mr. PhizzleDizzle. I think I would still expect him to do a few dishes, or put some of his clothes away. Does this make me a bad wife? I don't know.

How do you handle times when you are stressed and busy as hell? Does your spouse take care of you? Do you do the same when they are stressed? What happens when you are BOTH stressed at the same time?

Physical manifestations of stress

Today, I realized that I have given myself a fever blister. Normally, I only get them very rarely, if I have been in the sun too long without sunblock on my lips, or if I actually have a fever.

Well, not anymore. Today one just popped up to say hello, probably to be like, "yes, this is how your life could be worse."

I have let myself seriously go the last few weeks. I haven't exercised, put on much makeup, or given a general rat's ass about my appearance. It occurred to me today that when I have a real job, this will not be acceptable, as doing all the above when working on my couch at home is ok but probably not in a workplace.

Anyway. Abreva better work. The last thing I want is to show up for Thanksgiving with the in-laws with a honkin' blister on my lip.

Email

I have just added an email contact to my profile.

Can you believe, phizzledizzle@gmail is TAKEN???? The nerve!!! ;) I almost want to email and just see who they are.

Instead, I had to settle for something else. Oh well.

No vegetables and PhD Success Mantras

The only problem with Mr. PhizzleDizzle doing all the cooking is that I don't think I've had a real serving of any green vegetables for at least a week.

Tomatoes, potatoes, and onions, that's it. Pretty pathetic.

On another note, I was thinking about something today. My moods have swung from wildly high to wildly low recently based on my research day - good results, bad results, roadblocks to go around, etc. All of which have required me to just suck it up and keep going.

It made me think, that's really all a PhD is. Once you get past a basic level of curiosity and competence, it's really about persistence. Yesterday, I had a not so good day. It was such that, at the end of the night I was sitting on the couch and I said to husband, "I want to die." Then I quickly took that back, that is a horrible thing to say when I am so lucky and healthy. But I was internally shaking with stress and worry and my career going down the tubes.

PhD Success Mantra #1:

When you are stressed out - stay calm, hold it together, and keep working.

But there was something in the back of my head that said, "HOLD IT TOGETHER." And I did, and I kept coding, and this morning the thing I needed to support my experiments came together and worked. This would NOT have happened if I had given up last night (which I thought about doing) or crying (which I nearly did).

PhD Success Mantra #2:

Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, that's the only way you'll get stuff done.

It happened to be that Mr. PhizzleDizzle was watching "The Unit" on TV, some show about Army special forces or something. I was sitting on the couch, working, and not really tuned in. Then suddenly, I heard a character say "Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Just keep going. That's the only way we get things done in this world."

I know it may sound stupid, but I felt like that was a sign, and it came just in time - it totally bolstered my self control to just keep going. It was so funny, it was the first time I really had a "devil/angel" conversation with myself. I knew if I let myself go to pieces, it was all over, but that's what I so wanted to do. It's weird, but I am really proud of the way I told myself to "suck it up buttercup" and how spectacularly successful I was at doing so.

PhD Success Mantra #3:

What would you do if you knew you wouldn't fail?

I was speaking to a friend the other day, who said she came across this quote. I thought about it for a moment, and it REALLY resonated with me. Why did I feel like giving up yesterday? Because I felt like I could fail, so I might as well stop before I put in the work and waste my own time. I realized I totally would do a lot of things differently if I KNEW I wouldn't fail. And that's sad.

So last night, I told myself that if I assumed I could do what I needed to do, then it was only a matter of getting it done. So then, I did just that. Isn't that amazing? So much of success really is in attitude.

It just so happened that all these mantras came together and helped me last night in my dark moments of distress. They are all really variations of the same thing, but they are each helpful in their own way. And today I feel much better. So I felt like I should share.

The fun of deadlines

When it rains, it pours.

I am working MADLY on a deadline. Ack. I have been goign to bed at least 2:30am every day, some days even 4am. The other day, I was so wired and stressed I couldn't sleep until ~4. For me, that's insane because usually I'm asleep within 2 minutes.

I want to graduate soon and it's becoming rapidly apparent that I have got to keep this pace up for the next few months in order to do so and be satisfied with my work.

I just found out I need to give a talk in a few months and I need to get stuff done for that too. I suppose this is making up for some of the time that I putzed around during early grad school.

At the same time, it feels good to be productive. I haven't always had this feeling. If only it would be...less FRENETIC.

Fortunately, my hubby takes very good care of me. Each evening, as I sit on the couch frowning at my computer and typing furiously, he brings me food and asks me, "Do you need anything honey?" every 45 minutes or so. He's sooooo lovely. And I'm so "on" I realize later that I don't necessarily even acknowledge him enough. Last night he asked if I wanted the last cookie out of a batch he baked, and I didn't even look up and just shook my head. Remind me to kiss him when I see him later at home. He is making this crazy time so much easier for me.

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.