And A Happy New Year To YOU, Too

We are returned from the Land of Giant SUVs and Morbidly Obese People. Yaaaargh. Inspired by Nicole's highly amusing Christmas letter, I present to you: The New Year's letter.

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Dear In-Laws,

Thank you for all the lovely Christmas cards. The picture of us at Lawyer Cousin's wedding was also nice. The letter exhorting me to accept the healing power of Jesus? Not so much. Let me remind you once again: I am a practicing Jew. NEVER. Thank you.

As you have all heard, Dr. S finished his PhD. No, he is not now getting a 'real job.' He has HAD one for the last six years, and now he has another one. I am not 'still in school' as you conceive of it: I work in a lab all day. No, we have not had 'classes.' For years and years. I will do physical violence to the next person who utters a phrase involving 'real job'. We work twice as many hours as you and think at least ten times as much. We work. All day. In labs. Are those words small enough for you?

Surprisingly enough, Dr. S actually wants to stick around here in SnootyTown until I finish. Fancy that: a wife who works. I know it's a novelty to you, but try to wrap your little minds around it.

You will be shocked- shocked!- to hear that I am NOT PREGNANT. I will NOT be pregnant soon, this spring, or even this summer. When we finally decide to breed, it will be unrelated to your archaic notions of a woman's place. And while we're at it, I'm not 'really a Scientist now! Part of the family!' just because I changed my name. Y'all will always be no relation of mine.

Although I forget from year to year, it's always lovely to be reminded how some of you think your narrow, circumscribed experiences are comprehensive. It's thrilling to know that

1. living in small town Ohio
2. going to college in small-town West Virginia . . . . and then
   
3. living in small town Ohio

has given you a complete understanding of academia and of scientists! All the same, working at an R1 is not 'just the same' as teaching high school in rural Ohio. In fact, people are not 'exactly the same everywhere' either. Multi-million dollar grants involve more work and politics than your requisition for more chalk. But it's nice to be reminded that I know nothing about my experiences, which you've never had. You and your B.A.

I try not to mention it during the holidays, but you are all fat. Very fat. While some people are genetically inclined to be larger than others, the fact that Aunt K. lost 40 pounds when she started eating a vegetable every now and then seems to indicate that it's not 'in your DNA.' Eat a fricking vegetable. And Dr. S is not starving to death, he's simply not FAT. Also please stop trying to feed me animals. Meals for which nothing died are still tasty and nutritious.

Yours until next year, when I am leaving BEFORE the yearly on-a-Saturday family reunion full of ham and rabid hypocritical Republicans, so help me,

Jenny F. Scientist

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Dear Family and Friends,

I'm sad we're moving so far away from all of you. But I promise the long-term plan is to live closer. Thank you for never urging me to reproduce, as you're sure I'll do it when I'm damn well ready. I appreciate this more with every year. Also thank you for the vegetables and random hand-sewed objects. One can never have too many aprons. Or acorn squash.

Mom, don't work too hard, and Prudence, finish your scholarship application already! Other sister, you might consider consulting reality seeing as your husband just lost his sixth job. Can I send him to join the Republicans? They'd get along much better. Besides, he and they know everything about everything. What a match!

Family and friends, except the crazy sister, I like you. Visiting you is nice. Dr. S likes you. There is no ham or Republicans. We miss you. Do I have to go see the in-laws next year? Is two days enough?

Maybe three.

Love, J

That'll Learn Me Good

Another issue of Life Lessons in Lab:

Don't collect 450 data points. Especially not ones you then have to measure. Just don't.

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Happy holiday whatever to all. Although Christmas is not my holiday; I used to go out for Chinese with friends, but now we are obligated to trek to the Land of Corn and Soybeans, where I get to write a thesis chapter and put together three figures! The joy of the season is overwhelming.

Drowning in Data

I need either:

1. A clone of myself
2. A well-trained tech -or-
3. A very clever monkey.

Let me explain: I have a long list of success-guaranteed experiments to do. This is better than the alternative, but if only there were two of me! I generate heaps of unanalyzed data, but I want MORE, MORE, FEED ME NOW.* And at some point- say, late at night, or possibly in my sleep, or something- the pictures must become numbers. I have no time for this. I have experiments to do.

I thought of asking for a rotation student, but I don't want one. I want someone with skills. I want a trained monkey. Where's my monkey?!?!? I want it faster! Faster! Must! Leave! Town!

Also, my eyes are blurry from moving clear liquids around all day.


*Okay, not that I'm really complaining. The memory of the Sit Alone In The Dark Crying Project is never far from my mind. This is better. Really.

Oh, the Things Administrators Say

We've recently been informed of our "amazing multifarious heterogeneity of human potential."

P.S.

The lab in Blighted City has rejected Dr. S because 'although your work and your seminar were outstanding, I feel that your research interests overlap too closely with my lab's current projects.' Er, what??? This is why people apply for postdocs: INTERESTED IN THE WORK. I think she had an episode of Crazy, myself. Or she's blowing him off. Whatever.

In any case, we are headed for Cold But Utopian City as soon as I finish. Aiming for September. Goals! Destinations! The excitement is unspeakable.

Also, I think I need a hat like this.

This Is Where Memes Go To Die; On Thinking; etc.

I know that many of you kind readers have tagged me for memes. I assure you that there is only forgetfulness and no malice whatsoever in my utter failure to do any of them. I can barely keep track of what day it is, at this point; anything else is a lost cause. Apologies. Maybe one day I'll catch up. (Ha ha ha.)
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Yesterday I, quite literally, spent five hours doing heavy manual labor, ate lunch at 2:30, and went to lab where I worked my fingers to the bone for another five hours. Then I went home, cooked part of dinner, helped fold six (6!) loads of laundry, made a pancake because I was finally hungry instead of nauseous from fatigue, and went to bed. This is what I'm doing instead of blogging.
***

I was all set spend all of Sunday on a boring set of experiments, whose answer I expect to be, roughly, 2+2=4.

As I was planning the week, I sat down and tried to figure out how my competitor had made the almost-impossible-to-make brick cited in his abstract. It's quite elegant really: he took several bricks out of sample walls, then made random foam replicates to replace them. If the wall didn't fall down, right size brick. Instant selection.*

So I thought about it for an hour, and came up with a simple, elegant, and definitive way to test my new brick models. It requires another month of prep, but then I make bricks out Sculpey clay to make them less brittle, do the experiment three times and am done- done!- forever.

Thinking it through is not encouraged in my lab- at least, not explicitly. We are pressured to produce RESULTS- pretty pictures every week, or else- that if you instead work out a complicated problem, in Advisor's book, that's a week where you did nothing. So although I do spend a lot of time thinking about my experiments, I don't always spend enough. In retrospect (like every other terminal grad student**), if I'd known five years ago exactly how important it is, I'd already be out.

As a famous scientist once said to me, 'Three weeks in lab will save you a day in the library.' Or in your brain. In the end, it's more efficient to do it right the first time: why is there so little emphasis on efficiency?

On a larger scale, I believe this is part of the problem with grant agencies. They want the pretty pictures in your grant, not for it to be really interesting and/or exquisitelywell-reasoned. If you want to throw things at a wall to see what happens, well, as long as there's a picture of something , you can get a grant. (Or as long as you already have a grant, in which case, instant 2x advantage.) The NIH goes on about how it wants to promote transformative research, and then funds 24 'New Innovator' grants. They don't fund great ideas; they fund preliminary data.

And don't even get me started on the waste and inefficiency in my lab alone. Let's just say, that time I found $5000 of custom-made grout in the back of the freezer? Not an isolated incident.

*Of course, the reason he didn't waste six months doing it the obvious ways is that I told him they wouldn't work. Wasn't that nice of me? That'll teach me.

**I often wonder, terminal in what way.

Conference Highlights

Least welcome revelation: Someone I used to work with is trying to stab me in the back. And I shared unpublished data with him, the jerk.

Minor consolation: I told everyone at the meeting so.

Second-least welcome revelation: That my ex (with whom I still work), as recently as two years ago, still professed deep feelings for me. Yo, I'm married.

Best part: Staying with B and M! Whose cats have become normal, sit-and-purr-while-petted cats.

Second-best part: Going out to this fine establishment with a former postdoc to have a pint and a nice gossip.

Most amusing encounter: Meeting the former advisor of one of my readers, and discovering that he looks like a dwarf. A ruddy, irritable, rude dwarf.

Ratio of (Number of people who came to my poster)/(Number I thought would come): ~20

Number of sessions I skipped to go shopping: 4

Excuse Me, My Brain Is Full

Er... I have nothing coherent to say. I have been conferenced. There were lots of people. Lots. And lots. The company reps gave me a dizzying assortment of stuff, including several demo bricks and a stylish messenger bag (I might buy some expensive special copper wiring from that company, so they were nice to me).

Since I don't intend to stay in research, this conference is a peculiar experience. I'm there to talk to people, hear about jobs, and talk to more people. Oh, and hang out with my friends who are putting me up. I might go see some gardens and visit a particularly good bakery.

There was only one presentation I really wanted to see: the title indicated that they may have done the work I'm about to do, and, er, I'm a little NERVOUS! Alas, neither the author nor the poster showed. So I'll wait in agony until I can set the advisor on him, and go take more chocolate from the copper-wiring booth. Sigh.