Summertime

This month's Scientiae Carnival is "Summer days, driftin' away..."

Consider how you balance the demands and pleasures of this season. Have you found ways to make progress on your must-dos while also taking time for your family, friends - and yourself - and being in the moment of this time of year? Or are July and August just another month for you?

And just for some added synchronicity, here's a recent PhD Comic:

The first thing that went through my head when I read August's Scientiae Call was, "Holy ****, it's already August, where has my summer gone??" Summer, for most academics, is a break from classes, and a terrific time for getting lots of research done. As a postdoc, however, there's less of a definite shift, although it's nice being able to drive around campus without accidentally running over a hapless undergraduate.

Still, part of me still thinks that summer ought to be a time of huge productivity, but it always seems to fly by before I manage to get a whole lot done. (And why haven't I been better about keeping up this blog while I'm at it?) But then I realize that I've done a bunch of traveling, and actually, there's nothing wrong with that. My travel includes a week at a conference, a week of visiting family, and a week of honest-to-goodness vacation.

Conferences are great. There's the opportunity to meet and talk with people and develop collaborations, of course. I also find that conferences are a good way of taking a step back and looking at how my research fits into the big picture. I often get so caught up in the details that I forget how interesting my work is until I talk about it to someone, and they say, "wow, that's really cool!" This excitement is offset by the physical and mental toll that travel takes on me. I often feel like when I travel, I leave bits of my brain behind, and it takes a while before all the pieces make it back home again. This is especially true for the more stimulating conferences, precisely because you're thinking so intensely about work for so much of the time that it quickly becomes exhausting.

Traveling to visit family does not count as vacation in my book. I'm with Tajel's advisor on this one: "you spent the whole time thinking and obsessing about your research project." Perhaps this is because I often get the feeling of "I'm taking time away from my research to do WHAT?!?" I love my parents, but they do drive me crazy.

Now, an honest-to-goodness vacation is well worth it. The trick is to give yourself permission to relax and not fret about your research. This is harder than it sounds. But if you spare yourself the mental anguish about taking time off from work, you do yourself and your mental health a big favor. My vacation included camping, ravaging hordes of mosquitos, a rather nasty sunburn, catching up with old friends, long hours in the car, trips to the beach, and a nerd camp reunion. I loved it.

Now that summer is beginning to wind down, things seem to be suddenly starting to pile up. All those tasks that I thought I had plenty of time to accomplish before September are looming before me. Still, I think there's time to squeeze in another baseball game or a peach-picking trip or a dip in the pool. At least, I hope so.

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Rising to the Challenge

The theme for April's Scientiae Carnival is Rising to the Challenge:

Tell us about that most firey fire through which you have had to walk in your scientific career. How did you overcome the challenge? Did you have help along the way, or was it a solo effort? And what did you learn? Why are you a better scientist given the difficulties that you have encountered?

I almost didn't blog this story, because it's intensely personal. But then I thought, what's the point of separating my personal experiences from my scientific ones? After all, trying to pretend that astronomers don't have personal lives is a complete fallacy. Sometimes our personal lives spill over into our scientific lives, and that's just part of being a whole human being.

So, my story of rising to the challenge is about the year of 2004. My younger child was born in late February that year, and my defense was in mid-May. I've blocked out most of that time period, except for a vivid recollection of attempting to work from home one day while taking care of the baby and breaking down in tears and asking my husband to come home from work to help me out.

On top of that, I was preparing to move my family to another state to take up my post-doc position in the fall. So immediately after my defense, we put our house up for sale and began flying down every other weekend to another city to go house-hunting.

Now, all this time, I was dealing with post-partum bleeding. I only mention this because around about mid-June, I was diagnosed with choriocarcinoma, a type of pregnancy-related cancer.

It's funny how serious health problems can really make you re-evaluate your priorities in life.

It turned out that treatment was pretty easy. I did not require major surgery or radiation therapy, and did not suffer hair loss or much discomfort beyond minor bouts of nausea from the chemotherapy, which itself consisted only of shots every other day rather than lengthy IV drips. By fall, I was declared cured. In fact, I find it difficult to think of myself as a cancer survivor, because I didn't really suffer much at all. Still, "cancer" is a scary word, no matter what form it comes in.

I was glad simply to get through 2004 with my health, sanity, and family whole and intact. Did that year make me a better scientist? Arguably, no. While I managed to publish the papers from my thesis within a year from my graduation, I still have a significant gap in my publication record, which has probably hurt me in job searches. Do have a clear idea of what my priorities in life are? Yes. I value my career in science, but not to the exclusion of all else. This may come across as a lack of dedication to some, but their lives don't count upon my well-being.

Am I some kind of Superwoman for having gotten through all this? No. It was an extremely hard year for me, but my life was never in any real jeopardy, and my marriage and kids remained healthy and whole. Not everyone gets off that easy. We all have our battles to face, and we face them with the resources we can muster. My internal resources consist mostly of sheer stubbornness, but I am also lucky to have good friends, supportive family, and the best husband a woman can have.

And now you all know why I think work-life balance is so important.

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My Role Model: Vera Rubin

The theme of this month's Scientiae Carnival is Role Models.

Ever since grad school, I've named my computers after pioneering women in astronomy: Maria (Mitchell), Caroline (Herschel), Cecilia (Payne-Gaposchkin), Henrietta (Swan Leavitt), Annie (Jump Cannon). (Some of these women were real life human computers.)

So perhaps it's no surprise that my role model is yet another pioneering woman in astronomy: Vera Rubin. She became an astronomer in an era when few women were even working out of the home. She discovered dark matter. She has four children, all of whom are now scientists themselves and raising their own families.

I had the good fortune to spend my first postdoc at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, where Vera still comes in almost daily, despite being retired. My first week there, she strolled into my office and introduced herself in a very friendly way, saying she "liked to meet all the new postdocs." Meanwhile, my mind was gibbering, "it's Vera Rubin! It's Vera Rubin!!" In my time at Carnegie, we ate many meals together at Lunch Club, shared many stories about raising children, talked about the obstacles that women in astronomy have faced over the years and still face today, and even talked about science once in a while. I learned that while Vera is a kind and gentle soul, she is tough as steel under her grandmotherly exterior and will fight tooth and nail against any perceived injustices.

I admire Vera for many things: for doing ground-breaking science, for raising a wonderful and loving family, for having the chutzpah stand up to nay-sayers, and for just being a nice person.

Someday, I will probably name a computer after Vera, but given my criteria for naming computers, I hope it won't be for a long long time.

Who is your role model?

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Carnival!

I am dimly aware that there may have been some kind of carnival in Rio a couple of days ago, but that's not what my title is referring to. Rather, I want to bring your attention to the brand-new Diversity in Science Carnival! There's lots of good reading over there about role models, particularly in light of February being Black History Month.

I missed the deadline to submit anything to that Carnival, but I do intend to contribute to the upcoming Scientiae Carnival, which will be hosted by Liberal Arts Lady. This month's call is about Role Models also, but this time in the context of March being Women's History Month. The submission deadline is February 28, so act fast!

Nothing like a good submission deadline to get those writing juices flowing.