A new job and other changes on the horizon

I've signed a contract—I'm starting a new job in September! I haven't given notice yet officially so please don't say anything publicly if you know me in real life, but my boss and close colleagues know I'm leaving. I have mixed feelings about it for a variety of reasons, but I think it's the right thing for me to do at this point in my career. 

We're also very excited that Adele will begin Montessori school in the fall and even more excited that it's going to be less expensive than daycare! She's so ready. 

Jon's programming course wrapped up well and he's been applying for jobs. Really hoping he finds a good one! 

As expected, spring was hectic. We had a lot of help from my mother-in-law with daycare pickups and some overnight stays for Adele during the end of Jon's course and my crazy time at work. We went on a great vacation with my parents and then I traveled for work. My garden and houseplants need some attention! Thankfully, we don't have much planned for July and August and my work is settling down. I'm trying not to say yes to too many things.

I thought this would be a good time halfway through the year to check in on my goals for 2016. How am I doing? 

Personal
Read at least 4 books
I finished one back in January but nothing since then. I'm behind! Time to get reading.

Make our backyard more playable.
Done! We fenced it and immediately started spending more time out there. Definitely the right decision. Still plenty of yard projects to do, but we cleared the biggest hurdle.

Make peace with having one child.
I'm working on it.

Career

Get another job offer.
Yes! One I accepted! See above.

Fix up my website
No, I managed to get a new job with only minimal changes to my website. Still needs an overhaul!

Money

Get more life insurance
No progress on this front.

Move retirement investments & Jon's HSA to accounts with lower fees
No real progress on this one either, but I may spend some time on it this weekend.

Refinance or at least change the repayment term on my student loans
Jon's course really changed the calculus on this one. I wasn't expecting we'd take on a lot more debt this year. For the time being, it makes sense for us to continue making the same payments on my student loans until we pay off Jon's course. 

Gendered perspectives on the same book

One of my favorite books is A Primate's Memoir by Robert Sapolsky. It's especially great Africa/field biologist reading since it's about Sapolsky's field work in Kenya and other adventures in the late 70s and early 80s. I've recommended it to many people, and people rarely seem disappointed. Therefore, I was a bit surprised at Cam's reaction when I asked him what he thought of A Primate's Memoir. He said, "It was ok... I liked it, but I spent most of the time comparing myself to him and feeling like I'm not having nearly enough adventures." This was a reaction I'd never heard before, and certainly not a reaction I had myself for one simple reason: Even though it's been 30 years since Sapolsky was hitchhiking around East Africa, I still don't think a woman by herself could do many of the things he did. I read his adventures and think, "My gosh! Even today I couldn't hitchhike by myself to Sudan with some Somali truck drivers!"

Cam, like Sapolsky 30 years ago, is a single man in his 20s doing field work for his advanced degree in Africa. I guess the comparison is easy. 

I suppose I can relate, as when I read Jane Goodall's books I can't help but compare myself to her, delight in the similarities, and then marvel in amazement at everything she did before age 30, not to mention everything she has done since. 

My relationship with books

For many academic books that I have recently acquired, my relationship goes something like this:

1. Check book out from the university library. Renew one or more times.

2. Purchase book for myself when I find a good deal.

3. Bring book to Ukenzagapia.

4. Leave it there because I don't want to carry it back and forth.

5. Check it out from the library again so I can read it when I'm not in Ukenzagapia.

6. Return library books before I leave for Ukenzagapia.

7. Read books again in Ukenzagapia.

8. Repeat steps 5-7 as necessary.

Science communication and policy

Kent from Uncommon Ground just wrote a great post about the importance of science communication and the role of science in policy. He has been writing for months now about the distinction between science informing policy and science dictating policy. I think he's right on.

He's been reading and writing about Don't Be Such A Scientist by Randy Olson. I've really got to read that book.

Going home

I'm spent my last two days in Ukenzagapia with an American family, and I think it will make the transition back home a little easier. Like I mentioned before, I've gotten used to life here, for better or for worse. I wonder if I'll experience return shock in Big City. Tonight I'll get on a plane and within 24 hours I'll be back with Jon. We live in an amazing world.

I've got my ipod charged and two books to read (In Defense of Food and A Primate's Memoir). My path home is far, far less arduous than last year, and I'm optimistic that my luggage will arrive with me (unlike last year) since I only have one connection. I'm also leaving a huge amount of stuff in Ukenzagapia at the University or my friend's house, including several books that I just don't want to keep hauling back and forth.

I think I did what could be done in my first field season and I'm looking forward to going back. But most immediately, I'm looking forward to going home :-)

Bookmooching

Logo artwork courtesy of Bookmooch.com

Today Anne-Marie at Pondering Pikaia wrote a post about two interesting scientist instruction books she just read, which reminded me that I have been meaning to blog about Bookmooch.

Bookmooch is an online tool for connecting people who want books with the people who have them- worldwide! You pay for shipping to send you unwanted books to people who want them, and other people send books that you want to you! It's based on a point system. You get points for sending and listing books, and you use your points to get books from others. Everyone should check it out now and sign up.

I love books, and I don't usually part with them, but this site gave me a great excuse to go through my shelves and think about books that I didn't really need anymore. Books from classes I took (or even dropped) in college but kept the books because I thought I might want to read/reread them someday, but I actually haven't even thought about them in 6 years. Cookbooks I never used. Gift books that I've never read that can't fetch more than $2 on half.com. This is the way to make sure they go to people who really want to read them! I think I've sent about 10 books out on bookmooch, and I've received 3.

My reason for wanting to spread the word about Bookmooch is partly selfish, since I really want more people to sign up and list the books on my wishlist (eg. 1491; Guns, Germs, & Steel; Jane Goodall: The woman who redefined man; Omnivore's Dilemma; Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers...). Bookmooch emails you when books on your wishlist become available so that you can request it to be sent to you, but some books are so wishlisted (300+ people want it) that you've got to act quickly.

What are you waiting for? You must have at least a few books that could use a new home. Join now and start mooching!

A Primate's Memoir

I recently had the pleasure of hearing Robert Sapolsky, author of A Primate's Memoir, speak in Big City. Sapolsky is a Neurobiologist at Stanford and author of several books. I absolutely love A Primate's Memoir. It is hands-down one of my favorite books. It makes me laugh and makes me cry like no other book has. I love reading field biologist memoirs and this is one of the best.

I was SO excited when I heard Sapolsky was coming to speak. Most of his research has to do with stress and his lecture was about stress-related diseases which isn't a particular interest of mine but I knew that if his lectures were half as entertaining as his writing that it would be worthwhile. I wasn't disappointed. I brought my dog-eared copy of A Primate's Memoir for him to sign after the talk. Several people were standing around him afterwards but I managed to get him to sign my book before he had to leave. I think I rambled a little bit too much and was probably came off as a slightly over enthusiastic fan but he was very polite and took my gushing compliments of his book very humbly. Also, he still has big curly hair like the picture of him on the back cover (in case you have the book). Read his book and don't pass up a chance to see him speak.

It feels like progress

This week has been really busy for me. I felt like crap and had a headache all day yesterday. On Monday I was working and thinking like mad about my research proposal but I also had to finish an annotated bibliography that was due on Tuesday. I had some fruitful dialog over email with Leo about my project, and then finally today I was able to talk to Herb about my research. We didn't have a very long conversation, but it put me at ease about my preparation for the lab meeting this week where everyone will be commenting on my NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Proposal from last year and my new one for this year. I don't have a new research proposal yet but Herb didn't seem to think that was a problem. Whew.

Herb does think that my goal to be primarily a teaching professor is a strike against me for NSF fellowships. I disagree. They put a lot of emphasis on addressing the "Broader Impacts"
of your research and career goals throughout the application. Herb says that that's relatively new for NSF and that old habits die hard. I think that is more likely to be true for NSF grants in general but I don't think this is the case for the GRFP. Certainly the research proposed has to be well thought out and compelling (which mine wasn't last year), but they really want to know what you're going to do with your research to benefit society and engage under represented groups in science. Even though we apparently disagree about how NSF reviewers will weight my career goals, Herb has a lot of experience finding the right way to frame things so they will be most attractive to reviewers so I know his feedback is going to be a boon to my application this year.

I got my hands on a couple of relatively obscure books via interlibrary loan that contain about 75% of what's known about the critters I want to study. I wish I'd gotten these a long time ago! It has been really exciting to read about them. One book also has awesome pencil drawings that inspire me to do more drawing. These books have been on my Amazon.com wishlist for months but I just haven't been able to justify buying them because they're relatively expensive. At least I have them now for a few months. I love books :-)

So, now that I've gotten my NSF drafts to everyone in Herb's lab, made some mental progress on my research ideas, and finished teaching for the week I feel some relief. I think there's some West Wing to be watched tonight...

Plans for the semester: be organized and get funded

Classes start tomorrow but I don't have any until Tuesday. Still, I want to make a good impression so I'm going to spend most of tomorrow in my office. There are plenty of miscellaneous things to do like give the place a decent cleaning and figure out how to connect my laptop to the internet. I also need to find the locations of all of my classrooms on campus.

This afternoon I was reading Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide to Earning a Master's or Ph.D. It said that having a good calendar system for keeping track of deadlines, especially long-term ones, is critical to a grad student's success. Then it spends several pages discussing the different merits of computer calendar programs from 10 years ago that I've never even heard of, so I skipped that section and started one on Google Calendar. Then I spent a few hours this evening looking for grants and fellowships and inserting the appropriate deadlines into my Google Calendar.

Applying for grants and fellowships is going to be my main research focus this semester (unless my advisor tells me otherwise). Writing the applications will require extensive literature review and intellectual acuity so it will help me develop and hone my research interests (on paper, at least). I'm definitely planning to apply for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, EPA STAR fellowship, and maybe Sigma Xi. I've bookmarked several others to apply for later in my graduate career because I'm currently ineligible. People I talked to this summer told me to apply for as many grants as possible to increase my odds of getting something since getting funded requires an element of luck as well as talent.

Meanwhile, Jon is still trying to find a job. So far he's been interviewed for a very low-paying part-time bookstore job and has qualified as a participant in a research study. While I'm planning my own course of research, I think we'll both be supplementing our income as participants in other people's studies.

Harry Potter and the Decreasing Productivity of Ecologists

In the last week few mealtimes have passed without some discussion of Harry Potter. Almost everyone from this math/ecology program saw the new movie on the release date (some even saw it twice). People are scheduling Harry Potter reading into their days and squeezing it into breaks. Several of us are going to the midnight release party at the local bookstore. I personally am not planning anything else for Saturday, July 21 because I want to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows before someone else spoils it for me.

This is an exciting time and place to be a book lover. Like I said, this is nerd camp for adults. We can all speculate about the fate of Hogwarts, Snape, Harry & Ginny's relationship, Voldemort, Dumbledore, and the rest of the wizarding world over dinner. In a week, we'll know (most of us) and then life will go back to normal (until the next movie comes out) and we'll continue studying ecology.