On the issue of the progress of women in science...

This article really got me thinking. It makes some great points about how girls respond differently to challenges than boys while growing up, and how this may influence the success of women in the future.

First off, I want to establish that while societal (and certainly physiological) differences exist between men and women, there are of course exceptions to any generalizations one might make. But a lot of the things the author said in this article really spoke to me.

While I always got...
Okay. I was just about to type the word "stellar." And then I thought, "No, that would be too much. Say something like, 'high.'" It's even happening now, a good twenty years later.
Anyway, while I always got high grades in school, I always tried to distract from that by having a sense of humor, and trying to be extra nice to people. I didn't want anyone to think that I thought I was above them. Because really, I don't think that any human being is better or worse than any other human being. I wanted to be humble.

One time in 7th grade we were asked to write a poem using words to describe ourselves. One of the words I used was "intelligent." An adult who I trust and respect said that sounded egotistical. I changed it.

The fact is, being humble while numbers, evaluations and awards tell you that you are exceptional, can be very confusing. It can cause one to go too far into the self-effacing direction.

I think that while girls may not necessarily be directly discouraged from excelling at subjects like science and math (these days), their subconscious minds may tell them that showing weakness, in other words backing down from challenges, may be, ultimately, a positive course of action.

Eventually, the tendency to keep one's mouth shut and do as one's told (both positive attributes for girls in our society) can lead to huge confidence issues. I think the thing that scares me the most about trying to become a professor is convincing people that my ideas are worthwhile and smart. That, and having worthwhile and smart ideas in the first place. Actually, it's more the second thing.

Putting yourself in a position to be repeatedly shot down by grant organizations requires a staggering amount of a) self-confidence or, in my case, b) blind optimism due to the fact that things have pretty much gone my way as long as I've put in the effort. I really think that a lack of self-confidence is the real driving force behind the lack of progression of women from Ph.D. to full professor. Family planning undoubtedly plays a role, and the U.S. definitely needs to re-think its role on providing things like maternity/paternity leave and aid for child care, but I don't think that is the main problem.

So what can we do about it? Turn all our girls into egomaniacs? Certainly some exist already; I'm not saying they don't. But there must be some kind of training that can be put into place at an early age (and not necessarily just for girls) to make students more aware of things like self-confidence. Maybe we should focus on the topic of the article: how to face challenges. I'll have to leave this part to the educators and sociologists.

January

For some reason, time has been passing very strangely for me in the past few weeks. Christmas came and went, we moved to our new apartment, and now I am "adjusting" to life back in the city (almost) where I did my undergrad.

My new job is okay so far. I really like my boss and my coworkers, but it's hard to move from a place and a position where everyone knows you (and you know what you're doing) to something that's quite the opposite. There are only a few things I can do in the lab right now, and I have to ask for help to do a lot of them, mostly because they haven't processed my appointment yet and so I can't even log onto any of the computers.

We share lab space with a few other groups, and they are all filled with people who know each other. A few people have introduced themselves and been generally nice, but still, I am spending all my time with RNA.

I started taking the bus to and from work rather than riding my bike, since I decided that the money saved by riding probably wouldn't be worth the risk of getting hit by a car (which was pretty high considering the way people drive and the nature of the roads out here). I don't mind taking the bus, but I don't like waiting for it in the cold. I do like winter (walking around campus after the snowstorm was really lovely) but I'll be very happy when things start to warm up.

My new boots hurt my feet, but they are getting better. Maybe I should use that as a metaphor. I just need to break my new life in.

I don't miss Boulder the city, but I do miss the friends I made there.

J has been working to unpack and organize the apartment, and has been doing a good job, but there is still a lot of work to do and it's very disorienting to live in a place full of boxes.

I'll feel better once I get paid. We have a lot of bills now that we didn't have to worry about before, so I need to figure out how much money we *actually* have so I can maybe go out and enjoy the city.

Return of the blog...

...At least temporarily. A lot of things have happened:

I have a Ph.D. now.
I got a job at Harvard.

Well, I guess those are the biggest things.

How do I feel about leaving Boulder? Well, not that bad. It's not a bad place to spend five and a half years. But it always felt like a temporary stop for me.

I'm going to miss the friends that I made there. I'm sad that I won't get to see them graduate. But I hope that I'll see them again soon.

Once again, I'm completely unprepared for Christmas. But this year I have an excuse, since I've spent the past few weeks finishing my work, attending graduation ceremonies, packing, and moving. Ugh.

Merry Christmas and all that.

Potential energy

I've been hesitant to write in here for a while, since what has been on my mind most lately has been the future. I have a number of potential job options for next year, but nothing has been decided yet (I still have a few interviews), and I don't want to talk about what I'm going to do until I know what it is I'm going to do.

So I guess you could say I'm in a position of high potential energy, and I'm just waiting for the opportunity to convert that into kinetic energy and move on with my life.

Which isn't to say that I haven't been doing anything. I've been working on my thesis since the beginning of summer, and am a little more than halfway done. I can't finish it until I do some more lab work, but I can't do that lab work until I hear back from some collaborators, so in the meantime, I'm trying to write as much as I can. One of my professors told me that your thesis work shouldn't depend on someone else's productivity, and I think he was right. I really don't like not having control of this situation.

I also don't have complete control over my second paper, since I am waiting for M and M to finish their part of the work. I'm sure that will get done, though, and it doesn't necessarily have to be finished before I defend my thesis. Come to think of it, neither does the other work, so I should probably just stop worrying. If these people don't deliver soon, I can probably just cut my losses and write up what I've done already.

I'm thinking about defending at the end of October. Halloween, maybe? People can wear costumes. Maybe I'll wear bunny ears or something.

So, lots of traveling next month. Even if I don't get the jobs, I'll have had free plane rides.

There are a few weddings coming up, too. So, good things. I should try to cheer up; I've been kind of bummed lately about writing this fellowship application (which is regarding a new project that I don't know much about, and therefore feel like an idiot) and the fact that I don't have control over my work. But overall my life is good, and I should be happy.

Not dead

No, I'm not dead. Nor is the blog completely dead. It was just in a period of stasis.

So, about the paper: it was actually kind of a big deal there for a few days after it came out. Thanks to a press release by the school (which included some generous comments from the institute which has funded us, as well as the chair of my department), the story showed up in a number of science blogs, etc. all over the Internet. Also, the school TV people came to my lab and talked to me, filmed me doing some science-y stuff, and put that on the local station. So all in all, it was a pretty exciting time. When I get bored, I still like to google myself and see if the story has shown up anywhere else. We also made it onto the Wikipedia definition of "ribozyme," which is pretty awesome.

But maybe you already knew some of this, since I was pretty shameless about posting all this stuff on Facebook.

In other news: Paper #2 is almost underway. And after Paper #2 goes out, I'll just have to try to crank out Paper #3 (of which most of the work has already been done), and then my committee will let me write my thesis. I need to get my butt moving. My graduation date is still tentative, but I am really really hoping it will be this year.

And in other news...there is no other news. I've been taking a couple dance classes here and there, and have an orchestra concert next week, but other than that, I haven't been doing much. I haven't really felt like socializing much lately. Maybe it's just a phase.

For real, this time

So, my paper was finally accepted. I should be bouncing off the walls, but really the whole thing was kind of anticlimactic.

Now I'm spending most of my time trying to move forward with the project and figure out when the heck I might graduate.

That's kind of the story of my life, isn't it? Even when I accomplish something, I'm already thinking of the next thing I need to do. I guess it sort of makes sense in this situation, though, since I'd like to graduate as soon as possible and move on to Phase 3(?) of life. Or maybe this will be Phase 4.

Sometimes (okay, usually) I feel like I am living in every possible time of my life except for the present. Maybe I should learn to meditate or something.

Happy New Year

I got the best Christmas present ever, which was comments back from the reviewers. It looks like we just have to make a few revisions, and then the paper will be accepted!

There really should be some more exclamation points there, but at this point I am just kind of tired and impatient about the whole thing.

My brother got me Guitar Hero for Christmas, and now that's all I want to do. I made a band with me, J, and two of my friends from back home and it is AWESOME. I'm really impressed by the way you can change the characters' appearances and also the way they synched up the character movements to every single song. Well done, Guitar Hero people.

I'm a little concerned that I may physically hurt myself by playing too much. It's probably a good thing that I'm leaving for a conference tomorrow.

I am, however, determined to make it through that Peter Frampton song where he makes the guitar talk before I leave.