Dueling Red Pens

Symbolic as a read pen is to editing I actually haven't seen much red ink over the last two years. That's not to say that my drafts don't get marked up like the tattooed man, but typically I see ink in shades of blue and black or occasionally graphite. But referring to contradicting editors notes as "dueling number 2's" or "dueling bic's with chewed ends" doesn't bring to mind the same picture of a well marked manuscript as does the assumption that all edits as made in red.

It's interesting what editing trends can say about your editors. What I find really fascinating is that two committee members with polar opposite personalities also consistently make contradicting editorial notes. While my advisor tends towards removing commas and adding modal verbs such as: may, could, can, and might another committee member takes the opposite approach, peppering pages with replacement commas and striking out verbs to strengthen statements. I could make illuminating statements about how this reflects each persons unique take on presenting research, but instead I find it interesting that I'm somewhere in between. I like my manuscripts to be thoroughly comma-ed and well doused with modal verbs that leave my concluding statements with a clear exit strategy. Does this reflex a certain amount of weakness, or wishy-washiness on my part? I guess in some cases it may be possible that it might, or perhaps it might not.......

So, now that I've Mastered science, what's next?

Boy that's a question you never stop getting asked, is it? "What do you want to be when you grow up?" With grad school wrapping up I've been applying for, what feels like, every job that comes along that I even barely qualify for. And I'm starting to get called in for interviews. So, just pretending that I'm not going to jump on any decent job that gets offered to me without exception, just pretending that I'll have multiple options for employment.

How do you evaluate a job offer?

I mean there's the obvious issues; salary, benefits, opportunity for advancement, yadda yadda.

But how do you determine if you'll enjoy the work environment?

How do you determine if your future supervisor is the type of person that takes their frustrations out on employees?

How do you evaluate if the ethics of the organization is aligned with your personal values? (if you have some.)

And how do you compare the opportunity to work for a private company to a public organization?

And the most difficult of all; are you supposed to negotiate your starting salary and benefits?

In the past I've read that the main reason for the gap between men's and women's salaries in the professional world is that women start out jobs at lower pay because we don't like to negotiate. But how can I justify negotiating when I feel like I'm not starting from a strong position?

One thing I know for sure, science is much easier that all this life stuff. Being a grownup kinda sucks.

Why a PhD isn't for me

Well, it's the eve of my masters thesis defense and for my last pre-masters blog post I've settled on a somewhat topical topic (can topics be topical? or is that ridiculously redundant). I've been asked a lot over the last few months about continuing school and getting a PhD. I've had a wide variety of inquires about this possible future (some inquires more coercive than others) from professors, classmates, family and friends and there is always a necessity to explain yourself. And the explanations seem to need to be better than "While that PhD assistantship in a remote corner of Idaho studying the viscosity of mud on a rainy day is hard to pass up, I value my sanity and would like to be able to afford to buy a new pair of socks in the next 10 years." So, aside from issues of money, connivence, and sanity I give you my top three reasons (well maybe not the TOP three, but three good ones anyway) why a PhD is not for me:

1. I want to live where I'll be happy, near home. I want to have mountains and ocean and sun and rain and snow and feel like I have the conveniences of civilization without living anywhere near a mega-city. Professors that are just starting out need to be free to move to the best job, not the best location, and PhD positions with private industry invariably put you in mega-cities.
2. I have no desire to be a book-keeper or accountant, especially one with no training. It's amazing that without financial training professors are expected to juggle budgets, manage grant money, and find ways to magically make money appear and disappear in different places so that labs can have a functioning staff and equipment.
3. I want to be happy. It's sad and hard to admit but I don't think many professors I know are very happy. I know a lot of it is connected to current budget crises and the added stress of pay cuts and a uncertain future for the University. I think they are frustrated and unhappy, and kind of stuck because of the massive investment they've made too their programs. It's a lot like the stress of being a small business owner without having much control over improving the situation.

So for now this is it, no Phd for me, just a lowly Masters of Science and a plan to be happy.

I think my dentist called me boss-eyed!?

It's not even worth saying that you hate going to the dentist. It's just understood, right? Even if you're one of those lucky people who don't have to have their jaws dislocated and cranium rattled by drills at every visit (and by the way, bite me if you are one of those lucky people....) There is still the noise, the smell, the uncomfortable plastic chair, the lights that give you eye spots, that damn plastic thing they stick in you mouth for x-rays.... I digress. It is all-together an unpleasant interruption to your day. The strangest thing happened this morning during my dental exam, I swear my dentist called me boss-eyed! It was the damnedest thing, he's not even british. And I think someone would have mentioned it before now if I was....

A kind of final draft

Drafts are never really final are they? You just stop editing them at some point. I've been exchanging drafts of thesis chapters with my professor and there's alway something new to add, a way of re-phrasing a sentence. It's not at all bothersome. In fact it's a relief to be more than two weeks from that day circled on my calendar, "Draft to Committee!" and be in a kind of final draft. I think that final drafts are really just a myth. At some point we'll say "that's enough, lets move on." we'll have the "sufficient draft". Then the committee will spend their two weeks with it. We'll all gather for the day of torture (or the defense if you like) and then my professor and I will spend another 2 weeks exchanging drafts that incorporate a selection of committee comments and edits until we again decide enough is enough and then we have the "sufficiently final draft" which will be printed, bound and cataloged in both the university and departmental libraries to take up 1 inch of shelf space, gather dust, and be universally forgotten.

Somedays it helps to work at not thinking that far ahead....

Pursuing inspiration

Productivity has been lacking this week in the writing department. It's final draft time for my thesis and after getting a head of schedule last week progress came close to stand still this week. It didn't help that I spent the last two days many miles away from my computer. I stole the husbands day off and employed him as a "volunteer" field assistant at my research site one day, doing the needed fall (and final) maintenance around my study plots. Spend the next (and significantly longer) day at my professors field sites doing that end of season maintenance. I thought today would move me forward, but it seems to be a day of delay, followed by interruption, then a dash of distraction, and a lab-mates thesis defense to round out the afternoon. Not a bad day, but I haven't been able to retreat to that place in my head that makes slogging through another chapter of my thesis a desirable prospect. In pursuit of writing inspiration I cracked open my field notebook and found the passage I wrote so many months ago after long work days spend in only my own company. It's not too bad considering the funny mental state I always get in after that much exhaustion and isolation:

Machete Therapy - Mower broke after about an hour work, so I spent the next 5 or so swinging the machete. It reminds me of a hard up hill backpacking trip. After the first few minutes the pain and difficulty make you think the task is impossible. Then your body melts into the movement, and all is fluid and possible. There were uplifted moments when I thought the task seemed at hand and then....

It really is a vile plant, this weed of mine. Oh to live to see it's pestilent form wiped from the landscape. It makes me question all the truths I've learned in ecology. Surely there can be no balance with this plant, no divine purpose for its existence. There is no ecology I can imagine where its presence would be welcome. And yet I toil in its shadow like a slave to it's robust but chaste nature. A wasteful contradictory plant that makes slaves of man, strips utility from the soil, and defaces the landscape with it's domineering monoculture. What an evil, conniving plant, this weed of mine.

I suppose it's as close to a motivational speech as I'm gonna find this late on a friday afternoon.....

Cryptic clothing requirements

I have a scientific mind. I glory in recognizing interesting ecological phenomenon. I revel in the physics observable in daily life. I unfailingly point out the difference between correlation and causation. I believe in randomization and embrace entropy in all experiences. But I am utterly ignorant about being fashionable. For me the most difficult part of preparing for a presentation, conference, or business meeting is packing clothing.

It is so much simpler to choose clothes for field work. It's all about the utility of the clothes not how the clothes represent you. Dressing to prevent sweating during high physical activity in freezing weather, no problem. Need to dress to prevent heat strain and protect against insect bites while collecting data in a swamp, I know how to dress for that success! But what the bloody hell does "business casual attire" mean? or "dressy casual"? There should be an illustrated guide book for graduate students clothing that I can take with me to the store to help me choose clothes. I can never tell if the outfit I'm trying on is trendy and cute or absolutely ghastly. I think most fashion trends must teeter on the edge of ghastly. What I need is a store without fashion trends. Just very basic shapes and colors that an apparel guide book could catalog and direct the dumbfounded grad student through. And oh, don't get me started on picking out a hair cut....