Critters

Some of my family was visiting recently, and my Mom stayed with me for the weekend while the boys did the big college football thing. We came home one night, I went to put my key in the door and there was a cute tree frog sitting on the handle! My Mom put it in the bushes, but it took some coaxing.

A few days later, I found a big toad that had burrowed into the softer dirt in my garden. It was there for a few days.

There are a few holes in the garden too that I believe belong to the moles (?) that have done a number on the lawn.

There is a cricket in the hallway, but I cannot find it. It stops making noise when I open my apartment door.

Today, I went back out to my car to bring more stuff in. This was on the window! The one critter I have a picture of. Unfortunately I could not get my camera to focus on the body of the moth. It would be well camouflaged in a pile of fall leaves, huh?

This is how it works

After walking 50k for a fund and awareness raiser with my sister, this was a lovely site to see!

It is unusual for she and I to spend one-on-one time together because there is usually other family around. So we got to chat a lot! I was telling her stories about CF. One story in particular clearly left her baffled, and she wondered out loud how it is that opposites attract. Here is the story.

CF and I visited his American home over Labor Day weekend. At 12:30 p.m. on Monday, we were heading for a fourth day in a row at the fair before driving six hours home. We split the driving so the other can sleep; I was working on Tuesday morning. On the way to the fair, I asked when he wanted to leave to make sure he had thought about that and to tell him I just wanted to know ahead of time because I was working Tuesday. He did a little figuring with some wiggle room and said we would be on the road by 4. I could deal with that because it meant I would be in bed by 11, and the wiggle room gave about an hour of unexpected conversations at the fair with people we had not run int yet. (I like the fair too, so I was not just being pushed around. Don't worry.)

Fast forward to 3:30. We were still at the fair, but grabbing a loaded baked potato on our way out. We happened to run into people (figures), and chatted while we ate, thus using up the wiggle room in the schedule. We finally got in the car around 4:15 -  not too bad.

But wait...after spending 3.5 days in town and now running late on our way home, CF decides he needs to stop at a store in town to look for clothing with his favorite football team's logo. He already has logo clothes at home. In case it is not clear, we had also been there THREE DAYS ALREADY. I asked him if he seriously needed to stop. And when he asked, yes I was mad. I informed him I was also going to go to sleep as soon as we got on the road so I did not have to talk to him and that he could not do stuff like this with children. Of course, with traffic, the drive took longer, and I got to go to bed at 1 a.m. only to get up at 5:30 to go to work. Sweet.

But we do work somehow. We sit on the couch with our computers together. We like to watch sports and romantic comedies (shhh...don't tell himI told you about the movies!). We like to be outdoors. I like to travel; his family lives in Germany. We cook for each other. We like to sleep in (although my sleeping in is earlier than his sleeping in). We spoon well. We have been together and helped each other through tough stuff (that's what happens after almost  two years together). I need to remind myself to continue sharing the good stories and not just his ridiculousness. (I am sure I am never ridiculous.)

You know what else makes it work though? After walking all weekend and my sleep schedule being all random for over a week, I got home at 1 in the morning to these:

...and CF asleep on the couch with my cat...and dinner on the stove.

I figured it out!

I have been reading Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin. CF talks about her a lot because she has had a positive impact on the animal agricultural industry - specifically she has changed how animals are handled and treated to minimize fear and pain. It is a really interesting "read" (I admit, I am listening to it in the car). If you have not heard of Temple Grandin before, she is a woman with a PhD in Animal Science and autism. She relates her experiences with autism to animals and their perceptions and reactions to the world. This particular book seems like a great commentary on science for a general audience. I would highly recommend it to people who themselves have autism or whose family members do. It is amazing what this woman has accomplished.

She also explained why my cat does things like stare at the wall in the morning. After I get ready for work and are getting ready to head out, the cat is frequently sitting in my bedroom door staring at the wall. I wondered if there were bugs or animals she could hear in there. Temple Grandin writes about how animals' visual system makes them drawn to contrasts in color and/or light. So one morning I discovered that the sun comes up and shines right in the window and the window screen makes a moving pattern in the light. I realized the cat expects this bright strip on the wall every morning. She must sit and wait for it because it is so fascinating to her!

Apparently there is also a recent movie about her that was well received. I will probably end up seeing it at some point.

Awkward

In graduate school, we had a student invited speaker from whom I had taken an animal behavior course as a college junior 10 years earlier. I got all excited at lunch when it was my turn to introduce myself, and said I had taken his class, the year, and that I had done my undergrad thesis with his close colleague/friend. I clearly did not do a good job introducing myself, given his response. He was totally taken aback and did not know what to say. He clearly did not remember me, and I guess did not know how to diplomatically continue the conversation. Was I too excited?

This past spring, I re-met a PI who had given a talk at my grad department. She was also the undergrad advisor and technician PI after graduation to a good friend from grad school. As a matter of fact, he was supposed to go to her lab this summer to do some work, which would have been nice because it's close to my current lab, but I digress. I introduced myself to her grad student, then later to her when she came to my poster and I noticed her name tag. Actually, when I think about this situation, I think she was just kinda quiet because she is shy. It was still awkward though because I had not thought out what to do after sharing my big revelation that her former advisee is my good friend!

The two rotating grad students in the lab right now are great. I asked the new rotator what year she graduated, because I have a friend who went to the same small college and studied biology. It potentially could have been awkward because new rotator and I had not talked much previously and I just sorta asked her randomly this morning. With she and "my" rotating grad student, it has never been awkward. We are all science-y people in that we like doing research and talking about science. Even though I would go out on a limb and say that scientists as a whole have their own way of interacting (or not) with people, my lab seems largely made up of people who are comfortable talking in general. That certainly helps prevent awkward moments!

I started thinking about these a couple of weeks ago as I tried to compose an introductory email to someone at my university who I had never met. She is the head of a big center on campus; we will call her Head of Big Center (HBC). HBC formally worked for a female alumna of my graduate department. The alumna mentioned HBC when I saw her at graduation (she was being honored as a female alumna of the sciences), and that I should contact HBC. HBC sent a very nice and enthusiastic email back, and we are meeting for lunch next week. I need to think ahead of time things I would like to know about HBC's Center and how I can be involved to avoid an awkward lunch with someone of influence.

In the abstract

I am giving out lab's presentation at the department retreat and submitting two meeting abstracts in September. [Abstract = summary of your presentation-to-be at the meeting.] So when a big international meeting announcement went out for a city nearby, I did not really think to submit an abstract. Three presentation, two students, and my own research seems like enough to juggle this fall...I want to break into this junior faculty thing slowly.

This big meeting is the type with physicians, politicians, biomedical researchers, basic science researchers, and who knows who else. It is the type of meeting I have not yet experienced, and my training grant will cover it, so I figured I would just attend. I am all for the assertion that if you are attending a meeting you should present, but even my PI was wishy-washy about this meeting while pointing out it would be a good experience. Apparently "my" grad student supervisee wants to present! He sent us an abstract draft from his visit home to TX three days before the deadline, only the mutant we use is from another lab and that PI should go on the abstract so we need her approval but then we got a vacation notice when she sent the abstract for approval and AHHHHH!!!!

Anyway. The abstract got submitted, but not before my PI and I discussed at length how much data to put in the abstract. We ultimately settled on combining the grad student and my research for a fuller picture, but minimal data in the abstract beyond what people could figure out on their own if they are so inclined to scientifically stalk the lab. This is because, as open and friendly as science is supposed to be, sometimes people maliciously scoop you. [Maliciously scoop = repeat your experiments/idea and publish the results before you in an intentional malicious manner.]

I did not worry about being maliciously scooped in grad school, mostly because my advisor was not known in the field in which I was doing my research so it was unlikely for someone to intentionally scoop her. My current PI is known in the field and has many close and, well, less close colleagues. I have told my grad student that if a scientist maliciously scoops me down the road and it causes a serious road block in my career, I would likely quit. I do not mean this lightly, and it would need to be the right combination of factors, but quitting and teaching at a private high school would likely make me at least as much money as a professor at a small liberal arts school and truly get me the summers off.

While my post doc lab is proving to be a good experience in many ways, learning to include enough information in an abstract and navigate the politics and collaborations and competitors of science will likely be some of the more useful skills.

Off to put the finishing touches on that retreat presentation...

Discipline

I do not think I have enough discipline for a career...in anything...

That may a bit of an overstatement, but I do have a hard time sticking to a plan to work, and it is even worse if I do not think about my weekend ahead of time and when I will do my work that needs to get done and when I will do other chores or errands (or watch TV or read a novel).

Take this weekend as an example. This coming week is our department retreat; I am giving the lab's talk at the retreat. This is the first time I have presented this research area and my more recent data to anyone outside our lab group. (I completely changed fields when I started my post-doc, so the subject area was totally new to me nine months ago.)

Now. One might think I had my presentation drafted a week ago to give myself time to practice it and do some reading (particularly the four review articles my PI just emailed out last week), but noooooo....I am procrastinating by checking my email and facebook obsessively. I washed my feather comforter because I found that it was mildewy in its bag, and that takes some attention to keep fluffing it. The sad thing is, I have received maybe a few emails all weekend and FB is pretty quiet, but at least my feather comforter is not stinky anymore.

I was thinking about this when I took a walk today (5 or 6 miles and 92 degrees out...not the most brilliant thing I did this weekend). I have no idea why mentally I am not "in it" a good portion of the time. I am not historically a procrastinator, but have found in recent months that I do things at the deadline instead of ahead of time. But my PI is laid back about stuff like this and the grant person in the department thanked me for getting all my stuff to her so quickly (one day early), so I have to wonder if my tendency to do things so slow is apparent to others. Feeling like everyone else thinks I work hard all the time just exacerbates my behavior.

I think this feeling that I cannot focus and finish a task in a specific sitting makes me feel worse because I think of the other things I could do in the meantime. It also does not help that if CF and I are doing work on weekends, he goes about his work the same way and will say he does not have anything to show for his 7 hours of stats work.

The times I am most focused and productive on computer-based work is when I go to a coffee shop. The only thing I can do besides my work there is drink coffee! Maybe that will always be the best place for me to work? Maybe I will have an office/coffee shop in my home someday, complete with espresso machine and a barista uniform for CF? :-)

UPDATE: I managed to completely cut my power adapter cord for my computer by shutting it in a recliner when I was putting the foot down. Awesome. Guess I should make sure to email myself the file for when my computer dies. :-( Did you know power adapters are something RIDICULOUS like $60??