WTF?

A postdoc (PD) in our lab was using another lab to do a particular technique that we're not well-equipped for. Such lab-sharing is not uncommon. PD asked a postdoc (SH) in the other lab to point out the location of the hazardous waste container. SH asked if s/he would be made co-author on the paper if s/he did so. PD stared at SH, turned around and returned to our lab.

I had worked briefly with SH in a lab some years ago, so PD asked me if SH is a very funny person. The answer was no, SH definitely did not strike me as funny. PD told me what had happened and asked again, if this was simply a display of dry humor. I again told her I didn't think so.

PD went to the SH's boss to ask the same questions. The boss apologized for SH's behavior. Apparently SH is been having some trouble getting data published lately. I understand that SH is desperate, but authorship to point out the waste container? That's got to be some kind of record.

Conversations in the lab

One of the post-docs in our lab says to our boss:

"I'm going to be in this other lab around the corner. I'm going to fix my tissue"

The boss (never missing a beat): "Why? Is it broken?"

Gotta brag

Did I mention I *heart* my boss? He went to TAM8 this past weekend and brought me back a present. I'll be up all night reading. Are you jealous yet?

Panic mode!

Hi, I'm back! Remember how I didn't post much because I didn't have anything to complain about? Ok, here's a post. Well, not really a complaint, but I'm officially in panic mode, and it's my own fault.

I love, love, love my postdoc job. And I love, love, love my boss. In a he's the smartest-most-dedicated-best boss in the world kind of way. Of all the things I like about him, I think his best feature is that he very quickly realizes your strengths in the lab, and he tailors (as much as possible) your project to match with your talents. This results in a happy cycle of liking-what-you-do -> doing-it-well -> liking-what-you-do. I've always told him that the one thing that's missing from my job is a teaching component. Add that in, and I'll be in science heaven.

Be careful what you wish for, eh?

My boss is leaving for a few days, and has asked me to teach his classes while he's gone. Of course, I immediately said "yes!" Thinking: woohoo! Then it occurred to me to ask what he was teaching. "Piece of cake" he says. "Topic A, really basic stuff, and topic P, kind of related to topic A, and then a third topic, I don't really remember what it is. But you'll be great!" Sigh... I wish I had his confidence in me. I haven't really kept up with topics A and P over the last, uhm, 7 years. And I dread to think what the third topic might be.

Anyway, so I took a deep breath. How bad can it be? So I said (hoping that I sounded calm and collected): "Oh, ok, sounds good. These are undergrads, right?" My boss, casually: "No, this is the graduate class." Do you think he could see my heart sinking? Because I could feel it beating in my feet. I answered: "Oh, ok. No problem."

Excuse me for a sec.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh".
Now there, that's much better.

I had a wee bit of imposter-syndrome when I graduated. But having to teach graduate-level classes on topics A, P, and who-the-hells-knows-what-else is bringing that to new heights. What if there are 5 students from professor So-and-so in that class? You see, that lab works on this topic, and they'll know far more than I do, and will be more up-to-date.

I have no one to blame for this but myself. I got *exactly* what I asked for. Part of me is also a bit excited. I have a book on topic A. It's 16 years old, but it covers the basics. I dug it up, and since I'm home with a sick little F1-2 today, I've been reading a bit, and trying to refresh my memory. There is not better way to learn something than having to teach it. I like learning, I want to learn about these topics. I just wish the students were a little less advanced, and I was a little more advanced. That'd be nice. I would feel a little more confident.

My boss has very graciously offered me his class notes, and will go over them with me this week. I have time to prepare. And I have time to get over this nervousness. I sure hope I do, otherwise my stuttering may not get me past the first 2 sentences.

Normally, I perform well under performance pressure, and hopefully that'll proof to be the case here too. Just having written this post makes me feel better. That's what blogging's all about for me. I'll let you know how it turned out. Or not. In which case I probably dug a hole for myself in the backyard, crawled in it, and closed it up above me.

Job offer

Did I mention that I love, love, love my job? If I didn't, I should have. I can hardly wait to get to work in the morning, and if it wasn't for the family, I'd have to be chased out at the end of the day.

Of, course, when you're not looking for it, you get all these job offers. I already declined a rather attractive job offer. It wasn't an easy decision. The week after I declined that offer, I received another one. The principal investigator (PI) who made the offer is relatively new to the department, and wanted a presence in the lab, to make sure the lab space wasn't lost because of lack of use. The research subject wasn't quite my thing, and I didn't think it fair to accept the job for three reasons:

1. Being a new faculty member, the PI really needed a post-doc who could get results soon. Since it wasn't my exact field of expertise, I would face too steep a learning curve to satisfy those requirements.
2. I can't guarantee being in the lab early in the morning to late afternoon. With 3 kids, at some frequency I'm going to be called out for picking up children that are ill, and I'll have to stay home with them until they get better. I wasn't about to make promises I knew for a fact I couldn't keep.
3. Points 1 and 2 would end up disappointing the PI who I like and respect.

So,I declined. Again, it wasn't easy. After benefits, the job would have paid $11,000 more than what I currently make. That's not insignificant, and I've wondered whether I made the right decision ever since.

Meanwhile the PI hired someone else, and has been wondering the same thing, whether the right decision was made. I suppose I'm a known evil, compared to the unknown evil of the incoming post-doc. Now the PI seems determined to hire me one way or the other. E-mailing other researchers to try to come up with joint research proposals that would fund my position, and even asking me if we should maybe write a proposal together.

I must say, I'm flattered. In my dreams, I had always imagined a position that would allow me to visit home once a year or so. The most recent ideas would involve me being *required* to go home for work at least once a year. I can live with that.

Really, I love, love, love my job. But as I've discovered, there are limits to my loyalty. $11k wasn't enough. But $11k with mandatory trips back home, might be impossible to resist.

Permission to make a mess

This evening's conversation at the time that F1-3 announces she's done in the bathtub.

Makita: Oh! Look at the mess you made. There is water all over the floor and a huge pile of toys. Why did you do that?

F1-3. I was doing science and that why it's a mess. I was doing science. This is how you do science.

Makita: Oh. Okay.

Decision

As some of you may remember, I had to decide whether to change labs and projects at this point. I wrote about that before. I got to read the project proposal and went back and forth a number of times over the weeks. Sometimes closer to staying, other times closer to leaving. If I decided to leave and join the other lab, I had to make myself available for an all-day meeting tomorrow.

For the past 2 weeks I've also been embroiled in legal battles more disgusting than you can imagine. It's not over yet, so I can't go into it, but it's not pretty. So this morning I made my choice: I'm staying.

Ultimately, the working conditions in this lab are so good, that it's hard to leave, even if it means turning down health benefits. Also, my current adviser has many different projects, each with a different funding source. If need be, I can be shifted around from one project to the other. As a post-doc I don't care particularly which actual project I'm on.

Now that I've made my decision, and I've notified both PI's involved, I feel much, much better. I think my potential employer was quite disappointed. I wish I could take both jobs, but I can't. And I haven't been this happy in a long time. I'm sticking around.

Appropriate for Mother's Day

This link seemed appropriate for Mother's Day.

In recent paper in the journal "Science," a study claimed that there was gender-based differences in standard testing, in layman's terms: boys did better then girls. It's probably better not to get me started on the topic. My rant would last forever. I'm going to let the Feminist Chemists do the talking for me, they are much more articulate than me. They wrote a letter to the editor, which Science decided not to publish. I must say, I'm very disappointed in Science, I've always considered they wouldn't shy away from controversy. If they were bold enough to publish such a study, they should be bold enough to publish the response. I'd be interested to see the reviewer's comments too. I wonder if they sent it to a bunch a males for review.

Now the Feminist Chemists have published the letter themselves, and it can be found here (in case you missed out on the first link).

Added later:
I honor of Mother's Day, this story might seem relevant. I seem to remember when I was young that my mother didn't consider herself to be exactly a math genius. Although she always encouraged me, she probably was a result of an era in which girls just didn't do math. When she returned to college later in life, I had the opportunity to tutor her in math. Let it be known that my mother aced it! Easily. Way to go ma! Girls can do math just fine.

Dilemma

Ok, the dilemma has arrived. Now that it has, I realize that I was hoping the decision would be made for me by default. But it wasn't meant to be. Help!!

A position that I had applied for in another lab has become available. My current position is listed is technically as an hourly-wage position, even though I get paid for 40 hours a week no matter how much time I put in. It doesn't have health benefits though and that is a wee bit of a problem. The pay isn't fabulous, but it's average.

The position that has become available would be a regular post-doc position with health benefits. So even if the base pay is the same I get now, it would in real terms be better-paying. It involves research on a topic I worked on a few years ago, so presumably the learning curve is minimal. My current job is (at least on paper) not quite in line with the work I did for my PhD, but that hasn't stopped me from producing good-quality work. For immigration purposes it might be a good idea to take on the new position, because that one is more in line of what I studied for. It'll be easier to make the argument that I'm this indispensable scientist int he field.

The big thing is I absolutely *love* my current job. The lab I work in is large compared to the lab where I'm offered a job now. I don't think I can stress enough how incredibly happy I am here. It is so much fun to be in a large lab, with lots of great people, a fantastic PI. I get up in the morning eager to rush into the lab to get to hang out with cool people, and do cool research. I've had to learn some new things in the past 3 months, and I think I've gotten quite good at it. My boss told me the other day he has another small project using the same principles in another crop that he got funding for. I could polish that off in no time.

This is really hard. I'll be putting up a pros and cons list in the next day or so, and everyone can help me decide. I had sort of hoped that the other position would wither away, maybe not be available anymore, or whatever. At the same time it would be a good opportunity to get back into the work that I did in the past. I would actually be very good at it. Would that be satisfying in and of itself? You help me decide!

Candy corn in space

Here is a really cool video of how an astronaut used candycorn coated with oil on one end and stuck the other end in a floating ball of water. He found the candycorn ball mushy and squishy, until the waterball surface was full at which point it turned solid.

Celebration!

Tonight I'm in such a good mood! For all intents and purposes I've finished my first project in my new lab as a post-doc. I've never actually had a project that was just finished. There was always something else that had to be done, a slew of experiments that could/should be done. None of that. A few minor holes to be plugged, and I've already done those experiments and sent them off, just waiting for results. There is nothing left to do but write the paper.

Did I mention how much I like my boss? He's *the* best. Really. He gave me an easy project and nothing but great feedback. He is always encouraging to everyone in the lab. He's wonderful!

I'm so happy and relaxed right now. A couple of glasses of red wine certainly didn't hurt, but I was already feeling like this on my way home from work. Did I mention that I absolutely loooove being a post-doc? If I had known how much fun it would be, I would have graduated ages ago.

I wish I had a babysitter, so I could grab P-1 and go have fun somewhere downtown. And get him drunk, take him home and ..... you don't want to know the rest. I haven't felt this good in a long time. Just wanted to share.

Science project

I only had a little input in F1-1's choice for a science project this year. He is going to do a project on photomorphogenesis. Because I have very little to do with the actual performing of the experiments, you probably shouldn't expect too much advanced biology here, but it's the principle of the matter that counts. He will take some boxes and grown plants with different colors of lights and assess their effect on plant development. It should at the very least result in some pretty cool pictures. Although I doubt he will end up in plant sciences, a solid founding in experimental design and the scientific approach will do him some good. As it would any other kid.

Science Friday

Ok, I know I'm a week behind on this one. Nothing unusual, if you've read my posts from earlier today. Life is crazy. But apparently, science is crazier. From last week's ScienceFriday on NPR. How cool is this?

Planting Science

The first was sent to us by our lab manager. It's a video. The first part demonstrates how we do science in our lab. Not!

The second is called plantingscience.org, and it allows graduate students, post-doc, professor, and other plant scientists to help kids from Kindergarten to high school with science projects involving plants. If you are involved in plant science consider signing up as a mentor and/or joining the Master Plant Science Team. It is a great way to help kids get excited about science, and improve science education in general.

Happy

At the end of my first week in my new lab, I must say... I'm ecstatic. I love it! After having done much more applied than molecular work over the past few years for my PhD, I'm back to more molecular work. And I can't believe how much I've missed it. I've been home from work for about 3 hours now, and I can hardly wait to get back!

I still have to finish a couple of papers from my PhD work. I'd better get on those out quickly, before I get completely buried in this work.

The lab is fair-sized, roughly 15 people. That includes the principal investigator, undergraduate and graduate students, post-docs, and technicians. All sorts of backgrounds, nationalities, and personalities, but all very, very nice. I think I fit right in, although a week of work may not be enough to come to that conclusion.

I've made a fair bit of progress, and hope to get a paper out of this work in the next month or so. It's supposed to be pretty straightforward. I guess I'll find out for sure when I get a better handle on the data analysis. Right now, I'm filling in the gaps, figuring out what those who came before me have done, and analyzing some data. I'm almost sad it's Friday, I'll be up at the crack of dawn on Monday to get back into it.

Update

Has it really been 3 weeks since I last posted? I thought it was a couple of days ago. I guess I'd better get everyone caught up.

I've taken a nice break. From (almost) everything. The holidays were relaxed, although it was a bit challenging to entertain 3 kids with ages varying from 3 t0 13. I've had to take care of my plants for the experiment I'm trying to wrap up for publication purposes, and I did finish writing a paper by mid-December. I did a lot of little projects around the house that had been accumulating for more than a year. It's been nice to go from room to room through the house and do some of that.

I searched for a job by (literally) going from door to door (but being selective when it came to choosing specific doors) offering my services. On the first day I scored two maybe's not bad.

Job 1 is related to the research I did for my MS. I suppose the learning curve is somewhat smaller. But the funding isn't certain for several more weeks, and I couldn't afford to wait, largely because of immigration issues.

Job 2 is with a really high-energy professor in a neighboring department. It's less than ideal in that it's not a full post-doc with (health) benefits. However, the PI has agreed that if I make some decent progress on the two projects I'm assigned I can leave to pursue other options (presumably Job 1). Fair enough.

The really good news was that I could start today at Job 2, which I did. So technically I was unemployed for 20 days. Not bad, eh?

I got so caught up in science that I totally forgot to feed the parking meter all day. Luckily the parking police didn't stop by, and I got away with it. I'd better not try that again.

I really, really like the lab. There are 14 or 15 very friendly people in the lab, the PI works at the bench regularly, they have regular lab meetings (lacking in the previous lab I was in, which I didn't like at all), and one of the projects is in such an advanced state, I ought to be able to get a paper out of it in a couple of months. It might be hard to leave the lab for another job (with a higher salary and/or benefits). I was never in this for the money anyway. But the benefits account for a lot. I need health benefits badly, and cannot justify turning down a job with health benefits simply because I'm having so much fun.

Anyway, now everyone is back up-to-date. Dr Makita is employed!

Post-doc for hire

Aahhhhh!
The break is over. For the first time since, well...., since eh, forever, did I have a real break. No deadlines, nothing to do that would make or break my life. Just getting reacquainted with the husband and the kids. It was good.

It was also challenging to keep the kids happy and occupied throughout their vacation. Every day we had to figure out something to do to get the kids out of the house and active. We made lots of trip to the many parks this town has. We even took them to the mall one afternoon, the museum, walks around the neighborhoods, you name it.

So, now they're all back in school and daycare, and the race is back on. I must say I was happy to get back to the lab, take care of some cultures. And now....


The Job Hunt

Yuck! Not going so well. A job that I had high hopes for received funding, but the budget was cut so much, that the principal investigator cannot hire a post-doc and has to get a graduate student instead. I do have another job offer, but it's 4 hours away, and because it's not really practical for me to move far away from here, I had to decline. Sadly.

No jobs are posted within driving distance from here. Now, I'm literally going door-to-door talking to people trying to find something to do. I would hate to become a stay-at-home mom. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids. I just think it's better for them and me if I work. Really.

The situation is rather desperate. If I don't find a job at the university in a couple of weeks, I'll have to pull F1-3 out of daycare. If I don't find a job within a couple of months, I'll lose immigration status. Consequently, I'll take anything. I'd rather be very excited, but I'm also very flexible. I can get excited about things I've never heard of before. In fact, following up on a distant possibility, I've downloaded some papers to read over tonight.

On the bright side, I should have more time for blogging for a while.

It's both scary and exciting to start up this new phase of my life.

Final

This is finally demoted from the top of the page. It may very well be the last one with the "dissertation" tag. I can always hope, right?

Oh no!

In my experiments I test whether an additive to the soil does good things to the plants. We'll call it RGS (Really Good Stuff) for now. When I add RGS, I also add (because it's part of the chemical) something we'll call ES (Extra Stuff). To verify that the observations are due to RGS and not ES, I have a control to which I add only ES. This is a negative control.

A while ago, I analyzed my plant material and noticed that the plants that had only gotten ES, tested positive for RGS. I had already seen that the observations weren't as expected. ES plants were behaving too much like RGS plants.

The next experiment had the same problem. As I was writing this up for the past few weeks, I had a real problem explaining my data, because the ES plants were doing weird things. I did some tests last night, and more detailed ones this morning. And the verdict is: someone must have mixed up the labels on the container and put a form of RGS in the container labeled ES. All the while I though I was putting in ES as a negative control, I was simply adding another RGS treatment.

When I started noticing these problems with my plants, I added another negative control to my experiments, to which I didn't add anything at all (no ES or RGS). Those experiments are still salvageable, because at least I have a negative control. The ones where ES was my only negative control are useless.

I now have to re-do the entire statistical analysis and go back over all my data, trying to figure out when exactly this problem occurred. On the bright side: my data makes much more sense now. ES plants were behaving like RGS plants, because that's exactly what they were. It's easier to explain, but I really didn't need to spend more time analyzing data, thank you.

I'll spend the rest of the day working on statistics, and making new graphs and tables for the chapter in question, and sadly, tossing out a bunch of experiments.

This is exactly what the negative control is supposed to do, though. Science did do it's job here, and let me know that something was up. At least I figured it out now, and not after the paper was published. I would have had a hard time explaining my data.

I also have to notify all the other people in the lab that might have used ES as a negative control. They're likely to run into problems too. If I ever get my hands on the person that mislabeled those containers....

Deadlines looming

I have been told that finishing your PhD is anti-climatic, because there is no single deadline. There are bunches of them. For example:

My first submission deadline is in 2 weeks. That means I have to submit the manuscript to the university for review of formatting issues and such. It will be incredibly difficult (if not impossible) for me to meet that deadline. There is no way I can put all my data in, and I don't have time to work on my data right now. All I can do is write. So I will hopefully submit the first draft to my adviser next week, so that he can sign off on that. This is necessary for me to do the first submission.

Once I've killed nearly myself meeting that deadline, I have to go back to the lab, gather more data, and revise the manuscript in about 2 weeks, so that I can submit the revised version to the rest of my committee too. More killing of myself to get it to them on time.

Time to sit back and relax? Hell, no! Of course, I will not manage to get all the data in on time, so there will be more crunching of data, statistics, quick repeats of experiments that need confirmation, and putting in the final data as I go along. Oh yeah, and prepare to defend. That would be the next deadline. In the third week of November I'm scheduled to defend my work. That means I have to convince a group of 5 or 6 faculty members that I am worthy of carrying the same degree they have. How am I going to fool these people into thinking that I am worthy?

Big sigh and a break after that? Hell, no! My committee members will give me a list of things to change in the final document, and I will work for a full week to implement those. There might even be some last minute data to be added. I would be surprised if there will not be any of that. The final submission deadline is in early December.

So you see, it's not one final burst of activity, culminating in this big sense of freedom. Right now, the road is blocked by 4 major hurdles, with hardly any time to breathe in between. Who ever thought this was a good idea?

Adding insult to injury, P1 is leaving for the weekend. As in: going out of town, and I'm stuck at home with a couple of little kids when I'm supposed to be working on this. Anybody want some kids for the weekend?