A couple months ago, I had an inspiration. 'I am short on time,' I thought, 'and I am never going to finish.'
You may remember that I work on bricks. I have, let's say, a particular blend of clay that changes bricks' resilience. However, I don't know what it does to the structure, and I am very slow at examining structural details.
But! There is a grad student in my lab who is very good with structural examination. I've done a few, but he's done hundreds. Hence the bright idea. 'He could do it!' I thought. 'That would be faster.' So I went to him and said, if you do these five experiments, you're second author. (It's pretty good, in biology, to get a second-author paper after 3 years in grad school.) Everybody wins!
Last week I handed him a diagram of Figure 2. 'You're it,' I said.
Collaboration. It's wonderful.
(P.S. Still pregnant; 6 weeks. Still really dizzy. Doctor's appointment in 2 weeks; 'Call us if you feel really dizzy or really nauseous,' they said. Um... like ALL THE TIME? Right. Aargh.)
(P.P.S. Yes, I know their stupid little list is trying to convey, if you have ruptured-ectopic symptoms, call us right away, but seriously. How useless can you get?)
