A Lady Scientist- Blog

It is no secret that I am not a morning person. According to my parents I have never been a morning person. From a wee babe I stayed up late and then would not wake up in the morning (however, apparently, I would awake prior to then demanding food, a diaper change, or attention– and sometimes all three at once. This information comes from my mother, though, and her hours in labor extend from somewhere between 10 and 72; so, she is perhaps not the most reliable of sources.). So, why would I decide to upset this streak of late risings? I’ll tell you why, for the love of a man. Or at least his parking decal.

See, here at Public U. a parking decal isn’t so much a license to park on campus as it is a license to hunt (for a parking space). This is why I was riding my bike to work. Notice the key word: was. Dr. Man, as a resident, has a kick-ass parking decal. It is the holy grail of parking decals. Angels descended from the heavens and a chorus sang the Hallelujah Chorus when he purchased it. It’s all rainbows and sunshine and it’s a ten minute walk to my lab. Ergo, I ride in with Dr. Man. This is a problem, though, because he, unlike me, has an actual schedule. He has appointments with patients who won’t accept the “Eh, I don’t feel like getting out of bed so do you think we can reschedule this for later?” excuse. He, also, gets paid a real salary. And the Powers That Be expect him to meet with his first patient at 8:00 AM. As in Ante Meridiem.

So, now I wake up at 6:30 AM (again with that stuff) and roll out of bed. And proceed directly to the coffee machine where freshly brewed coffee is waiting for me (God Bless Cuisinart Automatic Grind and Brew). About 20 minutes later I’ve woken up enough to realize that I need to move on to showering/dressing/etc. Somewhere in there I ingest breakfast and pour myself a travel cup of coffee.

After doing this for a few weeks I have found the main advantage of arriving to the lab early: no one else is there. This means that I am free to use any piece of equipment I want and there are no distractions. I have been oh-so-productive prior to noon so far. Then, about noon everyone else trickles in and my day is shot. Well, not shot exactly, but slowed down.

I have also found the main con of this schedule: I could fall asleep by 10 pm most nights.

I have a good few minutes between incubations, so I’m updating. I’m sure the most pressing question on everyone’s mind is: What did I wear to the conference? Well, I traded in my usual uniform of a solid color T-shirt and jeans for a solid color T-shirt and a pair of khaki, black, or grey pants. That seemed to work out pretty well. I was dressed up more than some people there (a notable example of this is Cool But Important Scientist who wore a faded black T-shirt, orange pants, and a black blazer to give his talk) and less than others (One person presented with a tie on– as well as the usual complement of clothing). I think I managed to look professional, but not trying too hard (however, when Advisor first saw me he said, “You do have other clothes!” I was flattered that he noticed, but I think he was just relieved that I wasn’t wearing the paint covered pair of khakis he last saw me in.).

As for the actual conference itself, well, I thought it was pretty good. Most of the science was really well done with a few notable exceptions (which I won’t go into except to say: on a ten hour day, please do not waste my time by presenting 30 year old data– that I’ve read). My poster was up and I got a few questions about the techniques I’m using (I’m not sure why, though, it’s not exactly ground-breaking at this time). I didn’t get much input, though. I was hoping that I would, but maybe yeast people are too shy?

However, I had forgotten how exhausting it was to be at a conference all day! Plenary lectures in the morning, followed by lunch, then poster presentations, and finally symposiums. I suppose that I tried to do too much. It’s my over-active guilt complex, I think. If Advisor is paying all this money for me to be able to go to this conference, then I should get the most out of it that I possibly can. So, I try to go to all sorts of interesting-sounding lectures. If nothing else, I learned a good bit about research that’s going on outside of my area of interest, which was difficult. I don’t have an in-depth background on lots of areas outside of Interesting Enzyme, so the symposiums were difficult for me to understand. I’d end up reading the abstracts during the first few minutes the presenter was talking in order to understand what they were doing. Before each symposium I’d promise myself to read the abstracts of the upcoming presenters during the coffee break, but I’d end up meeting people instead. So, I continued to sit in the back and be rude.

In between lectures, symposiums, etc. Advisor did a good job of introducing Labmate and me to various people in our field. I got my biggest thrill when one person I met at Small New England Conference two years ago remembered me and what I was working on! (I was just finishing my first year in the lab and had a poster presentation on my rotation project.) I don’t think I did the greatest job at networking, but I tried a bit. I’m just not naturally a social person and it’s rather difficult for me to talk with people I don’t know very well. (I could have used The Alternative Scientist’s Guide To Networking, but, alas, it was mostly posted while I was away.) I did manage to have some science-related discussions with Important Scientists and other graduate students (there were precious few of us there). The evening before the end of the conference a group of graduate students got together for a social event and I joined in. Good times were had and I think the amount of drunkeness was kept to a minimum by all.

Overall, I had a good time there and it (almost) got me fired back up to do Experiments for Damned Yeast Project. I’ll post pictures whenever I remember to download them to my computer. And there’s the timer! Off I go.

I promise that I’ll eventually post about my conference and vacation. However, I found out that in the next month I have to present at Journal Club (this is the kind where you research and present the paper– not lead a discussion), give a lecture in Advisor’s class (I actually volunteered for this– it makes sense, I promise), and have a Committee Meeting. Plus, I got some rather unsettling news at Major European Conference that’s requiring me to work extra hard.

So, I’ll post when breathing gets easier.

I’ve finally made it home and google reader is filled to bursting! I’m rather impressed, but with 500 posts to read, I’m going to be a while getting back to everyone. And I’m a bit jet-lagged, so I’ll post a real post later this week, hopefully!

I’m leaving for the Emerald Isle tomorrow for Major European Conference. After much deliberation, I decided to leave my computer at home. I figured that week one would consist of lots of science exposure and that week two would be a vacation without computers. So, blogging will be a bit sporadic. However, I’ll probably check-in with the internet a lot (as that’s how I’ll primarily communicating with Dr. Man– he couldn’t get the time off and I had to make the plane reservations before he could even apply for the time… sigh).

I think I have everything packed and ready to go. I’m sure I’ve forgotten something, but I’m sure I’ll be able to pick whatever it is up there. I mean, the Emerald Isle isn’t some horrible wasteland, after all. In fact, I’ve heard the opposite so there may be pictures when I get back!