Nonsensicle

So CF and I want to fly from city A to city B to visit his family in June. The lowest price I have found has been ~$1300 per ticket. I am keeping my eyes out for any change in price.

The airline the I have flown with the most just sent me an email, so I figured I would check it out.

The airline had no flights from A to B, so I widened my search to within 100 miles of A.

Up comes flights from C, D, or E. I start clicking to see how the stopovers are.

The cheapest is from city E, the longest drive from our point of origin, to city B. Only our one stopover is CITY A?

How does this make sense?

Soul searching

Life: I have been thinking a lot about what I want to do when I grow up...or at least for the next part of my professional career. Some of this stems from a whole host of post-doc bloggers I have happened upon recently, but we will get to the blog-soul searching first.

I am on a training grant that has a pay-back agreement. This means that I agree to work in my research/teaching field for a year to repay the investment in my training. But if I get an individual training grant, that would mean two years to repay. If I do not work in this area, I would then owe the NIH ~$70,000. So I need to stay in the field for up to 4 more years at least, but what do I want my life to really look like? My post-doc time is going rather well on a non-work level. I have worked only a few weekend days in the three months I have been in lab, I have some data, my advisor seems to think I am doing adequate work, and I am not working ridiculous hours in general. Ideally, and this comes up a lot in the science blogging world, if I made $15000 more a year right now, I would be happy. Yeah, yeah, yeah - if any one made $15000 more a year they would be more happy, right? Well, not exactly. I heard a story on the radio or from a friend or maybe it just came up in a conversation once (like my form of citing sources?) that the lower your income the more happiness additional income can bring you. Money cannot buy happiness directly (unless it buys you a trip to Disney World one could argue), but it releases you from financial stress. Eventually, though, I need to publish a paper or two, apply for a grant, get my butt in gear on new and exciting experiments-to-be-designed, start paying my student loans, and get a different job. So all of this blabber about soul searching in life is really me trying to figure out what to do with my PhD and training grant that will make me happy and truly allow me to do things I want to do (like travel to visit CFs family) without relying on credit cards. I would love a forever job in which I worked 40 to 50 hours a week (on average) ONLY and made $60000+ per year. Simple. :-)

Blog: As I mentioned, I have read and occasionally commented on a bunch of blogs by scientists recently. I think I keep reading them to connect to other PhDs who are at the same stage in their career as I am, as I am the only post-doc in my lab. My blog is not terribly anonymous, nor is my real-life identity a piece of cake to figure out (I think). I have told friends and family about the blog, but do not know if other people I know would happen upon it (or tell me if they did, hint, hint, if you are out there). I never really thought of my blog as a science blog, but do find myself reflecting on my post-doc and documenting observations and experiences in my career development...in addition to some recipes and randomness.

So what to do about what I blog? One thing I have considered is taking down everything related to grad school because it was so angsty and anxiety ridden and leave up the happier post-doc experiences. But putting reflections out there about colleagues is not a good habit to get into. Also, as I struggle to figure out what I want from life, maybe having those debates online is not the best option if it would be fairly feasible for someone to happen upon my blog? So if I recently started visiting your science-life themed blog, I have probably signed my comments in some combination of my web address/blogger name/'post-doc'/anonymous because I do not know how I feel about connecting the life and science I write about to a specifically science blog community.

To highlight what I mean: I recently made my blog indexible to see what would happen to the traffic coming through. First, I notice a lot of visitors linking to a post about lab notebooks from a science-oriented blog. Then I noticed that someone who used the internet to look up the meaning of 'queer bait' visited.

I have no way to wrap up this whole post, except that if you have any particular insight or suggestions, I would love to hear them. :-)

What a day

A good-regular-life-kinda-day.

It started off with my first ever facial. My friend gave me an amazing gift card for a local spa. I only used part of the gift card so I can go back again! Who knew they could spend 60 minutes doing relaxing cleansing aromatherapy things to your face? You can make 90 minute appointments too! I bought 5 for $10 raffle tickets, the prize of which is $400 of products and a day at the spa, plus all the money goes to some Great Lakes fund.

I drove the long way home.

Then I did laundry, picked up, and figured out my estimated tax payments for the year, given that they are due in two weeks. Tell me if this makes sense: my salary is coming from a federally funded training grant. I have to figure out how much to give back to the government in tax form. Why can't they just reduce my salary by that much and then not expect me to pay taxes? Sadly, the government does not have any great drawings or prizes if you pay your taxes on time.

I also spent an inordinate amount of time looking for laptop batteries. Apparently mine is no longer able to able to charge even though my computer thinks it is 100% charged. So if you unplug my computer, it shuts off. Isn't the purpose of a laptop to be mobile? Now I am stuck to the wall.

Then I made pizza crust and put just the right amount of sauce, spinach, sausage, onion, mushroom, peppers, and cheese on top. It was D-lish.Then I made ginger pumpkin muffins.Now I am filling out surveys from the bottom of receipts (my new thing) and watching Parenthood. I figure I have to win one of these gift certificates they are offering, and I like the cast.

Are you having a great, good-average, average, less-than-average weekend, or something in between there?

[See comments for recipes]

The Flats

Any of you out there ever had a visit from Flat Stanley? The book was published in 1964, but not until 1995 did a school teacher from Ontario use this book for education purposes. The short explanation is that Stanley is a flat boy who can be put in an envelop and mailed. School kids mail Flat Stanley to someone they know; that someone takes Stanley around and mails him back; the kid talks to his or her class about Stanley's adventures. One of my friends got to take Flat Stanley around New York City. I mean that is pretty exciting!

My nephew sent me Flat Stanley. My nephew's little imagination also created Flat Isabella. On the envelop they came in, it said "her name is flat isabella can you pleas Take care of her Bcuse She is preshis." Adorable. Mostly I just took the Flats to visit where I work and where CF works. I could not think of anything particularly "Midwest" to do. I suppose I could have lied and said Stanley came to a country music concert or the country bar with me, but those are less appropriate for the second grad classroom. ;-) What is more Midwest than these photos?

At night, the Flats would chill on the couch with the cat.

The end.

Myth busted! (sort of)

Americans are known as workaholics. In other countries, people might get 4 weeks vacation from the start of a job and use it. In academia, professors notoriously work long hours hunched over their desks doing something mysterious with only a dim desk light by which to see their work. You have research, analysis, papers to write, review papers to write, a million grants to apply for a year, committee meetings within the department and university, teaching prep/teaching/grading, students and/or post-docs to manage, department and university politics to navigate, job searches and student admissions to keep up with, etc. You may even have a life outside of work you want to visit once in a while.

So is it true academics work long hours? I have a few experiences.

When I was a research tech, the PIs had established careers. One of them seemed as though science was the only thing she could talk about; the other would randomly ask for movie recommendations or discuss travel and didn't really care if we talked about science. They would take their sabbaticals in France where they kept an apartment, so even with their work "trips", life couldn't have been too bad. When they were in town, they would probably be at their desks from about 10 to 6-ish. They would take trips for grant reviews or to give talks and when I was there, had quite a busy lab to try to keep up with.

My PhD advisor was a night person. The only time she regularly was in before 10:00 a.m. was if she was teaching or had a meeting. By then, my friend and I had sometimes been working for two hours already. At the end of the day she would stay "late". Although I think if she thought we had left for the day, she would leave. On several occasions I would pop back in to lab within 5 minutes of leaving, or would be staying later than usual, and she would be out the door already. In the office from 10 to 6 on average is not too bad.

My Post-doc advisor is a morning person. I have run into my advisor getting in a couple of times now around 8:30, so I know she does not get in SUPER early. I really have no idea what time she leaves or how much work she does before she comes in the morning, but I will say that woman is WORKING the entire time she is on campus.

It takes me about 45 minutes from door to door to get to work now (if the commute goes well), so I am usually in around 8:30 a.m., but my commute definitely has made me be in lab shorter hours (8:30 ~ 5:15 usually). Yesterday I had a long work day because of an experiment. I had to do something for half an hour in the morning, then take time points after that half hour at 1, 4, 8, and 12 hours. Because of the 12 hour time point, I was in lab for almost 14 hours. Now I am pointing this out only because when you are in a building that long, you see how many people are around. I would hazard to guess the building is largely unoccupied before 9:00 and after 6:00.

Granted, academia brings ups and downs - when you have a grant due, you are going to be working a lot longer hours; when you are lucky to have a couple of "regular" weeks, you will probably be able to take a day or two on the weekends without doing much work. Even though my post-doc advisor might not be on campus for 12 hours a day, I know she does work at home. So sometimes when you work it can be in the comfort of your own home and at least be around your partner and family. I think that makes long hours more palatable and maybe seem a little less long.

Writing

A lot of people say that people who are trained scientists, or I suppose more importantly how to write scientifically, do well in law. Science writing is a bit habitual for me know, although I certainly still need to work on aspects such as organization of the content. However, I think this science writing versus legal writing stems from the idea that both are supposed to be clear and concise. That is not to say that someone writing a thesis or dissertation in the humanities cannot write clearly, it is just that they use a lot more words than a scientist would. In fact, when I was a writing tutor in grad school, I worked with an English grad student and half of our sessions resulted in her shortening whatever she had written.

My PhD advisor was not known for being concise. I frequently cut a lot out of what she wrote. Still, after trying to make my last paper shorter, in the end I cut another FIVE pages out of the original twenty-ish before it was accepted. That is a lot of ideas or connections I tried to make in the original manuscript just gone! But the feedback I got from reviewers will be really helpful as I continue on in this crazy career and try to approach my writing objectively to avoid redundancy. (And of course getting those ideas out on paper helps you think about your work and generates other avenues to explore.)

In the legal field, from what I can tell, you write a lot of briefs. I think the name is self-explanatory. I also feel like politics and the law are related. The government writes the laws; many politicians are trained in the legal field; the judicial branch of the government is crucial to maintain our domestic safety and rights. By extrapolation, one might assume that government writing is therefore legal writing is therefore clear and concise. [insert laugh track]

So what is big in politics right now? Healthcare. I am sick of hearing politicians just throwing out random crap about what is or is not in the bill. Rather than prefacing my opinion with "I have not looked this up, but I think that...", I figured I would go back to the documents that were just released and are supposed to be voted on tomorrow. (Do reps get any extra pay for voting on a Sunday?) I thought I could figure out answers to questions about whether abortion would be funded by federal dollars, whether this would suck tax dollars to pay for health care for the poor, and whether the federal government is trying to take over the health care system in this country.

I started with the letter from the Congressional Budget Office because, well, it is 1/5 the length of the other document. My conclusion:

Government policy, although you may think it is related to the legal field and in theory legal and science writing are similar, is not comprehensible to the general public.

It started off great - three bulletted points about the figures and financial analysis to come. As far as I can tell, the next couple of pages repeat this in more detail. Pages 6 through 25 have the data. I will have to look at that later.

The other file is essentially edits of the health care bill the Senate passed, I believe. Does the government not have 'track changes'? Is producing a 153-page document with detailed modifications of a bill really the most efficient way to proceed with policy? Also, when I say it is 153 pages, it is important to note that this is a large font double spaced with margins a couple inches wide. These guys and gals pull out all the tricks you ever tried to meed a page requirement. Only they do not have page requirements and when you hear there are 153 pages of changes, you think OH MY GOD why didn't they just do it right the first time. I suspect the 153 pages is more like 50 of what you would expect.

Anyway. CNN has this breakdown of what the bill means to your average person and highlights of the bill. That seems like a good place to start for people. Congressmen may "work for us" and "vote according to their constituents' opinions", but when there are big controversial issues like this, they just seem to throw the rhetoric around that will make them look good, making the two main parties seem like they have different goals that we are supposed to think converge on doing what is best for the country. They also seem to do and say what will get them re-elected and get the party opposite them not reelected. That is what bothers me the most. That politics are political and a lot of congressmen act as though they are not working towards a common good. Listening to it makes me change the radio station.

Back to the document...If you know what this means, do let me know:

in clause (i), by striking ‘‘with respect
11 to any taxpayer’’ and all that follows up to the
12 end period and inserting ‘‘for any taxable year
13 shall be the percentage such that the applicable
14 percentage for any taxpayer whose household
15 income is within an income tier specified in the
16 following table shall increase, on a sliding scale
17 in a linear manner, from the initial premium
18 percentage to the final premium percentage
19 specified in such table for such income tier:

In the future, congress should release a document with all changes accepted for the general public to be able to read through. When this is all over, I also want to know if there will be any Medicare or Social Security when I am old. We are all putting money into those public programs, after all....

Happy spring!

Tulips are totally a spring thing, so I got myself some.And this is the setup on my table right now.

Amateur birder

I am not a "birder", nor do I ever anticipate being one. However, I did grow up in (basically) Small Town, U.S.A., appreciate the outdoors, and know a fair amount of bird species. I loved living in a city, don't get me wrong, but I also stopped taking advantage of the fact that I lived in a city. So I have rather enjoyed the quiet of the Midwest. Although I work in a (small) city, I live a half hour drive out of the city (going 70+ mph so you do the math), and it is quiet. CF gave me a bird feeder for Christmas. The ground thawed, the feeder is up, and the birds have found it. I will have to resort to cheap birdseed at the rate they are eating it.

A mere 11 days ago, when there was still snow on the ground, I could have sworn the same four birds stopped by every morning. Maybe a week ago, I started seeing a mourning dove come around. Now we have all SORTS of birds. So thanks to my country upbringing, I have been able to tell what they are. I missed photographing the four red-winged blackbirds that were on the feeder earlier. I have seen red-bellied woodpeckers, blue jays, wrens,a female cardinal,a male cardinal (who showed up after the female tipped him off surely) who was joined by a house finch and wren,Ooooo...then the amazing set of pictures that I linked to throughout this post taught me that this is a dark-eyed junco. I tried to figure it out one day to no avail. I can sleep easy tonight now.Also, the squirrels around here are not normal. There are fox squirrels and black squirrels. What ever happened to red squirrels? I liked those more than gray ones even. There are probably hybrids too.

While I am on a wildlife kick, I should also mention the road kill around here. I mean, if I was into road kill stew or something, this would be heaven - deer galore, raccoons, beaver, a coyote once, possums, skunks, a weasely shaped thing that may have been an American marten, and other small unidentifiable rodents (well, at least when you are speeding down the highway).

Okay. I'm done now.

Everybody's Irish

I was incredibly impressed with the green showing on campus today! I literally did some spot counts and at LEAST half the students were wearing green. It was one of the warmest days yet so they were also out playing beer pong, and some of the girls were wearing less green than they maybe should have been to stay adequately warm.

It did remind me that the large university where I work now is totally different from those where I have been before. First, sports. I guess it is cool to go to college games and see people play who will be famous someday, but I was raised mostly a pro-sports fan. I went to a handful of sporting events in college. A crew or cross-country race here or there is not the same a tailgating at a college football game though. Second, well, sports is the big one. I did laugh in the winter (to myself, of course) seeing the beer pong tables out covered in snow though. The college towns I have lived in did not have such blatant signs of college life.

Anyway - Happy St. Patrick's Day! Today, I feel more than the 1/16th Irish I am. (My grandmother is 1/4 Irish, so I think the math is correct.) I had a Guinness and a Smithwicks and now am ready for some sleep!

Censed

I FINALLY got my census form. I mean the commercials on the radio and TV and the letter telling me the census was coming nearly made me want to not fill it out. But, hey, 10 questions in 10 minutes, I can do that for my community. Also, that is a bit of a lie. It is 10 questions for Person One, and more questions for each subsequent person. Luckily my cat does not count, and I successfully filled it out in less than 10 minutes.

The ethnicity/race questions did remind me of a conversation. One of my friends was talking about how "white" and "black" are not races, but skin colors. (Pardon the tongue in cheek questions...If these are, in fact, races, shouldn't everyone describe their race with a color? And if we did, we would change races throughout the day: something bad happens, so you are blue, etc.) Anyway, she said she does not like to associate with "white" and filling this out I sorta have the same sense. I almost checked "Other" and filled in "American". My Mom likes "M" for "mongrel". And really, although I can trace back when and where most of my family came from, I am American.

Rainy day

Even though it had been cloudy for a couple days, today it actually rained a bit. This has been a huge relief for my eye. As an aside, I thought about just writing a public service announcement about how you should avoid corneal ulcers at all cost, but figured that is probably common sense. Also, I have no idea how I did this to my eye. Anyway, I slept in today and then had breakfast and a rest with my eyes shut on the couch. Then my eye was feeling better, and I got somewhat productive. I swept, vacuumed, have corned beef and cabbage on the stove for dinner (leftovers will be hash for breakfast!), and I finally printed out a few pictures: The top is full color, the middle has just the green in color and the bottom basically just the red in color. I also thought about doing a similar thing with my apple picture and hanging them all next to each other, but did not get that far.

Two more

This used to be the car I would get, but I guess they do not make it anymore.
I kinda like the Fusion hybrid now.

Take two

CF's Grampa passed away two nights ago. This is particularly sad because it was unexpected, I would have met him this summer, and his Gramma just passed away in August.

Last night was the second week in a row CF invited me to play poker. Last week I did alright. Last night though? I won!

Today was the second day in a row that I wore two pairs of sunglasses to drive to work. Even then, I frequently covered one of my two eyes because the light HURT.

I had my first of two doctors appointments during which I found out I either have a corneal abrasion or a corneal ulcer. I am going with the former but the opthamologist should be able to tell me tomorrow.

On my bus ride back, a guy asked if he could use my phone to make a call to get a ride. This sounds like a recipe for disaster, but I like to be helpful. I dialed and confirmed who and why he was calling and it was fine. When said man was using a second person's phone (he seemed to sorta know this guy), he started telling the person on the other end of the phone that he just got out of county jail! Glad I could help out a con.

Tomorrow is supposed to be cloudy, so hopefully I can just go ahead and wear one pair of sunglasses...or maybe my prescription glasses so I can see better.

On a happy note though, my second academic advisor (i.e. my post-doc advisor, I'm just trying to stick to the two theme) is great. More to come on my slow return to academic science happiness later.

In between weather

It has been between 40 and 50 degrees here during the day and then between 15 and 20 degrees at night. You know what that means? Maple syrup season. And so, with local maple syrup, I made these maple oatmeal cookies.

Live entertainment

The ground is still frozen and snow covered, so I have not been able to put up the bird feeder CF gave me. So, I shovel off the back patio area and throw some seed out there so the cat has some entertainment. One morning, a woodpecker landed and must have scared her because she jumped down and hid where she could not even see the bird.We have had more visitors since then though. There is no snow to cover up the seed during the day; the weather is getting warmer; the males are practicing their songs; and they have figured out where some extra food is. I think the same four birds stop by every morning too.
There has been a blue jay too. I think the cat is used to the birds being so close now, because if she is not crouched facing out the window, she faces me and meows incessantly.
I do not know what she would do if she was out there. The amount she meows at me though suggests that watching these birds is like when you watch 24 and you just want to jump into the TV with Jack Bauer...or something.

Tolerance

Excerpt from Dictionary dot com:

• a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward some thing; a liberal, undogmatic viewpoint; freedom from bigotry
  

• the act or capacity of enduring

I was reflecting on what many would consider derogatory words that were said last night when I was playing poker. I was also the only woman, so I also wonder if some of it was toned down too. These are things that I do not normally hear in the groups of friends I have. I am not going to put them in writing, but any comment you may imagine between a group of people that have grown up in a very homogeneous environment might said to each other in a joking banter while drinking beer during a poker game would likely fit the bill here.

During my commute this morning, I started thinking about tolerance, assumptions, perceptions, intentions, and learning, to name a few.

When I say I tolerate something, I would usually mean it in the sense of suffering it while it passes. When 'tolerate' is used in society, it is meant in the undogmatic, bigotry-free sense. When people teach tolerance, they would presumably also mean this "liberal", objective attitude. So are there people out there who also "tolerate" people of races, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicities, etc. that are different from there own in the sense of suffering those peoples' existences? Probably.

We will stick with that happy, accepting definition though.

How does someone who has grown up in a homogeneous environment learn that using certain words in a joking manner is actually hurtful and mean? I distinctly remember calling other children "queer-bait" when I was little (younger than third grade). At some point I stopped using this word, but it was not until I was older and understood the modern usage of "queer" meaning homosexual and "bait" to draw someone in that I understood what I was really calling other children. I suppose you could say that I was also using the definition of "odd" for queer, but really, as I child, I knew none of this. I just knew that calling someone a "queer-bait" meant that they were being stupid...or something.

I have friends and colleagues from all walks of life, races, religion, physical capacities, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientation, citizenships, education backgrounds, careers, socio-economic backgrounds, and whatever other measure of diversity you may use. I think I am a tolerant person. I use some obvious characteristics to describe my friends too. Is this appropriate? How do you describe someone without referring to these overt aspects of who they are? I have read and heard people stating that by pointing out someone's skin color you are not blind to that person's skin color. Well, honestly, how can you be blind to how someone appears?

So then it is how you behave towards someone, right? Only then some would argue that you are acting tolerant even though you have preconceived notions of what someone is like based on their perceived race. Well, geez. If a study shows that human participants tend to think someone is more likely to be a criminal because they are wearing stereotypically "black" clothing, does that mean I would think this? (And yes, people do studies like these.) Well, no. But how do I know that I do not make these assumptions? If I am discussing these issues and say that I am not racist by pointing out that I have black or Asian or Hispanic friends or that I am not homophobic by pointing out that I have gay friends, how is this interpreted? Does the person think that I am racist or homophobic because I felt the need to categorize my friends?

Of course, these are all highly charged and sensitive topics. I think about how college felt like a safe microcosm in which to explore these issues. I think many college campuses foster open discussions and personal growth around these topics. What about those who cannot or do not go to college? What about those who attend a college that puts forth very narrow viewpoints and these issues are not explored?

I think it is difficult to gauge an environment in which it is appropriate to broach these questions and ideas. It is difficult to be tolerant and want to correct a person's use of what can be a hurtful word. Last night at poker, after one of these comments was made, I did not turn to the guy next to me and said, "Oh, you're gay??? I know this great guy," but maybe I should have to correct the name caller in a light-hearted manner?

I have so many other thoughts about this and how to make people aware of what they say and what it could mean to someone else, in addition to my own mistakes and learning. Maybe I will follow up with assumptions, perceptions, intentions, and learning. For now, I will leave you with this quote from Sarcastic Mom's recent post:

And yes, I know that a “cock” is a rooster. I also know that “gay” means happy and a “fag” is a cigarette. And yet, I wouldn’t say that a happy farmer smoking a cigarette next to his rooster is a gay dude tokin’ a fag by his cock.

Notebook sharing

Scientific notebooks should be the property of the lab in which the research is done. In my last year or so of grad school, I became even MORE thorough in my note taking in the event that anything would be repeated or revisited after I left. Now, I am writing lots of details down because I have realized how valuable it is when you go back to check something you did, and down the road it will help people figure out what you did. Your notebook is a resource for your research group on results and techniques.

The grad student in the lab did A LOT of work to collect samples that I am now using. She has already published a wonderful paper using these samples, and we are following up on different aspects of the work. I am certainly not removed from the bench (yet), so I have been checking with her on a lot of aspects of the techniques I am using to ensure that I am doing it the same way she did in her publication, even though I am looking at different genes, because I would not want to waste these samples.

I have looked in her notebooks a couple of times when she has not been in lab, to some success. One morning, I was waiting for her to get in, but it was already 10:00, so I just started flipping through her notebook. Then she came in. I did not feel awkward because there is nothing truly personal about a lab notebook. She quickly found what I needed (sorta - she was sorta sure that what she told me was the case, but clearly had not written down enough information to be absolutely sure).

She has since provided the samples for me to start working with after I had done the preliminary checking to make sure the technique would work in my hands. She also broached the subject of authorship on any papers that come out of my work with her samples. I give her a lot of credit for bringing it up, as issues of authorship can be tricky. I assured her that I assumed she would be an author on the paper. It literally took her months to plan, optimize, and collect these samples. I MORE than respect that!

So I thought I had all the information I needed before she would be out this week. This morning I realized I need information on some of her results before I decide to keep going though. Unfortunately, her notebooks are no longer on her desk and her desk is locked. Ummmm...

I can figure out the information from the common computer that we use, except I was asked NOT to access previous experiments while it is running new experiments because "the program is not that robust." The computer has been in use allllll day since I used it this morning. I will need to get in early tomorrow morning to get the information before it is used so that I can plan my experiment for the afternoon when I am signed up on the computer again. Make sense to non-lab people?

Basically what it comes down to is that I think she locked her notebooks in her desk. The notebooks with the information I need in order to make a decision about what to do next with the samples she worked months to get. I wanted to do these experiments this week because I am presenting my research to a group on Tuesday. I can get this information from a common computer in the department, but not for 24 hours after I realized I need this information. I was protective of my research in grad school, but recognize that there is nothing in a lab notebook that other lab members in particular should not be privy to.

I am torn about whether or not to bring it up with her. This is not the type of lab you hear about where people are out to get each other. I hope she does not feel like I am going to take advantage or use her. Maybe that is what I should make sure she knows. And maybe it was not something she even thought about when she locked her notebooks in her desk. Who knows.

Back to wasting time instead of getting the information I need to plan an experiment.

Buttermilk all around

I asked CF what his favorite food was, and one of the things he said his grandmother always used to make was buttermilk soup. Now, you may think it is dangerous to try to make something a guy says he loves and that his grandmother made. I figured, why not. ;-) CF's sister had given me a German cookbook, but he said the recipe in there wasn't what he remembered. I found this recipe online and went for it.It tastes good! I don't think I put the butter in - I did it from memory because I didn't turn my computer on. The buttermilk separated too. CF said it tasted like buttermilk soup though, so I suppose that is a good thing! Also I used green onions and leeks instead of chives.

With the leftover buttermilk, I made sweet potato biscuits again (and substituted wheat flour for about a third of the flour)......and used this recipe to make my own version of pancakes.
In the end, I used about a cup of oats, a couple tablespoons each of ground flax and wheat flour, and maybe a quarter cup of white flour, then a little over a cup of buttermilk. I also added raspberries.

These last two recipes do not have eggs, thus I think you could probably substitute soy milk or yogurt for the liquids if you were so inclined.

Multitasking and education

In the past month or so I have seen an article on multitasking and heard a discussion on the radio one morning. The discussions I have seen are usually framed in the context of education and young populations. My take-away message is that multitasking, and the extent to which students in particular think technology is acceptable in their learning environment, changes the memory where information is stored. People tend to overwork their short-term RAM, basically, and store less in long-term memory. In other words, all this electronic stuff causes people to store things in short-term memory.

I notice this when I am doing things on a daily basis. I avoid my cell phone when I am driving unless I am on the highway and the roads and traffic are not bad, because I have had plenty of those moments getting off the phone and not quite remembering which exits on the highway I have passed. When I am on the phone and clicking around playing a game, my attention to the conversation is definitely diminished; I can totally tell when my Mom is doing something else while talking to me as well. I would support laws that limit the use of cell phones while in the driver's seat (to a certain extent, and I still don't know how you enforce a secondary traffic violation well), and am always impressed when I see someone pull over to use their phone. As an aside, I do not think that emergency vehicle drivers should be allowed to use their cell phone while driving if your average citizen is not. What is the difference with regards to the safety of the situation? I also have a problem with police cars that do not come to complete stops at stop signs or that weave in and out of traffic when not in pursuit or who use their lights just to get you to get out of the way (this happened to me).

Anyway, back to multitasking. I think issues of multitasking (in the sense of doing what you are supposed to be doing while also, say, emailing a friend or chatting online) are likely common to the classroom and the workplace. One of the things I intend to do when I am a professor is to have a strict no-cell phone use rule. I guess the real way to enforce this is to learn all the students names and faces and dock points. When I was teaching in China I actually took away a student's cell phone (college freshman) for failure to follow the rules. The classrooms there are much more "old school" though, and here you would probably have parents calling the professor and/or dean and/or president of the University (seriously, this happens!!) if you took away a student's phone. I have also though about how to feel about laptops in the college classroom. I can type fast and can see how some students have bad handwriting or could get more down if they are typing. BUT, what about all the other things they could do during class on a laptop? Some may argue that it is their own problem if they waste classroom time. But that is a waste of the instructors time, and this is what I would resent.

Has your classroom or workplace set rules about personal time (aside from blogging networking or gaming sites)? How can you enforce rules like this? Do you try to limit your use of non-work related technology/resources while at work or school?