Scientiae deadline coming up!

If you are interested in writing about your favorite gizmos and gadgets as a scientist, please contribute to Scientiae Carnival! I am hosting for September, and you can find the original call for posts here.  Anyone is welcome to contribute a post (or a comment if you don’t have a blog of your own). To submit posts to the carnival, please email the permalink URL of your post to scientiaecarnival [a] gmail [dt] com.

The deadline is Monday, August 30, 11:59 pm. Keep 'em coming!

Here I go again

I think I'm incapable of buying my plane tickets more than 3 weeks in advance of my trip. But! I've got them now. I leave in less than 3 weeks. It feels like it gets easier each time to get ready to go, and each time I think there are fewer things that I need to buy. This time I might be bringing nearly as many things for other people as for myself! I just really hope I don't have to pay excess baggage fees this time (but if I do, I'll know to ask for  receipt at the counter!).

I haven't even really made a list of things that I need to accomplish before I leave. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

More than I needed to know about budgets

I just got out of a too-long meeting with someone from accounting because I was trying to figure out the best way to pay some research fees. The accountants went off on some waaaaaaaaaay looooooooong tangents, and as a result I know a LOT more about the financial woes of the world, country, state, university, college, and department. Yikes. Things are not looking good for grad students coming down the pipeline here at UBC. I'm very happy (and lucky) to have the security of a graduate research fellowship during this time.

However, I now have to pay taxes on more of my research money thanks to a minor language change. In a nutshell: Instead of getting reimbursed (which is not taxable), the money will go on my 1098-t, which, because my fellowship income is also reported on my 1098-t rather than a W-2, is mostly taxable income.

I also learned that it costs the department about $500,000 to hire a biology professor, and with the current distribution of overhead payments, it takes the university at least 10 years to recoup that startup from grant overhead. I had no idea. Talk about pressure to get big grants!

Hello, Goodbye

This is the theme song of the day. New students are arriving, two lab members are leaving. It's bittersweet.

I'm spending the afternoon editing down a communication of research findings that is supposed to go to a lay audience but was 1300 words (2.5 pages). Short and to the point is what every communication workshop I've been to emphasizes. I've got it below 500 now. Almost there.

Rejected and ready to be home

My manuscript was rejected last week. That's a bummer. I haven't read all of the reviewers' comments yet but Sam doesn't seem discouraged, so that's good at least.

We're finally home from vacation. I was gone for 15 days (straight from the conference to the beach). We have two house guests who are already here, and we're having a going away party for one of them tonight. My friend Mariyah finished her degree and is going back to her home country. I'm really going to miss her.

I should be returning to Ukenzagapia in less than a month now, and have a crapload of things to figure out before I go. That said, getting ready to go to the field seems to be less hectic each time, which is nice. Nearly all of my equipment is already there so there's not much to buy or bring this time. Perhaps I should be starting to worry? But then I remind myself that worrying about work doesn't get work done. I just need to stay focused and work hard every day. I can do that.

Paperclips to particle accelerators

I have the great pleasure of hosting the Scientiae blog carnival for the month of September. I have been mulling over this month’s theme for more than a year now. During my first field season of data collection in 2009, I spent a lot of time thinking about my research equipment (including what would happen if it failed me) and wondered what types of tools other people rely on for their research. This is the time of year when students and teachers in the northern hemisphere return to school after summer vacation, which often means buying new school supplies. Although I know this may not be the "school supply" buying season for many Scientiae bloggers, I am interested in hearing what supplies you use in your research, teaching, and outreach. What things do you love in the lab? What are you lost without in the field? What computer programs make your life easier every day? What tools are indispensable? What is tried and true?

Your list can be as conventional or unconventional as you see fit to share. So, without giving your whole research agenda away, what are your favorite school supplies?

Anyone is welcome to contribute a post (or a comment if you don’t have a blog of your own). To submit posts to the carnival, please email the permalink URL of your post to scientiaecarnival [a] gmail [dt] com by 11:59 pm on Monday, August 30, UTC-11 (that’s American Samoa time). I will try to have the carnival posted on Thursday, September 2.

ESA in photos

Here are a few photos from the Ecological Society of America annual meeting in Pittsburgh. The convention center was gorgeous!

Ecologists chillin' between sessions

Exhibit hall with poster presentations and vendors

Walkway between two halves of the convention center (that's water falling down the sides and along the pathway)

This is a vertical planting that grew to create an impressive billboard.

Home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. I haven't heard a bad thing yet about this stadium.

Hydroponics demonstration garden at the convention center. Big plants, no soil!

The roots just got bathed by dripping water and grew in the plastic housing.

Link love from ESA

Here are some cool projects I've learned about at ESA:

EREN: Ecological Research as Education Network- creating a structure for ecologists at primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs) to collaborate on larger-scale projects

EcoSynth- this might be the coolest thing I've seen at ESA. The web page doesn't do it justice right now! You can use a remote controlled airplane with a digital camera to construct a 3D image of an area.

DataONE- an online repository for data and metadata.

eBird- enormous citizen science project in which anyone in the world can participate! They have thousands of people contributing every day! Wanna join?

Not a link, but I witnessed something that deserves a shout out. I saw a grad student give a talk with no slides and no notes with a 20-minute can-you-do-this-if-your-advisor-doesn't-show-up warning. The penalty for a no-show talk or poster is nothing to scoff at, but if someone else gives your talk you're off the hook. This woman gave her advisor's talk with basically no warning, and did a hell of a good job.

**Added August 7, 2010**
Gigapan- seriously awesome and interactive photography. Thanks for reminding me, Eugenie!

Have I mentioned I love conferences?

I'm having a great time at ESA meeting in Pittsburgh- me and 3,800 of my best friends!

The pros:
-The David Lawrence Convention Center is a great space. It's big enough that nearly all of the workshops and sessions (about 20 talks are going on simultaneously at any given time) are in the same building and it's relatively easy to navigate.
-I've seen folks from ecomath camp, the field station where I used to work, a guy from a summer internship I did ages ago, and even an ex-boyfriend from college.
-The dorm (=cheap accommodation) is an easy walk from the conference center.
-There are so many awesome talks and posters. Conferences get me excited about science, outreach, and education! I'm a session-hopper so I don't stay in one place for long.

The cons:
-I really should have done a poster or presentation. Next year I think I'll have enough for 3, but I can only do one. I should've gotten my act together!
-No internet or AC in the dorm where I'm staying. Also, our window only opens 4 inches and our door doesn't lock. It would have been helpful if they told us to bring an ethernet cable. It's not like I don't have one sitting at home doing nothing, but I certainly don't just carry one around with me! If I had that, I could be accessing the internet in my hot and humid dorm room instead of sitting here next to the window in the lobby budgeting out the free 2 hours of WiFiPittsburgh that I am allotted. No university wireless access for us :-(
-I ended up volunteering as a projectionist for a session that didn't have nearly as many interesting talks as I'd hoped, and I was useless as a volunteer because the session presider had it all under control so I just sat there. On the other hand, I will get my conference registration fee reimbursed, which is definitely awesome.

Hopefully some pics and more thoughtful posts will follow soon.

More than I can chew?

Yesterday I had a crazy busy day in which I met with Sam for several hours, submitted a huge final report for my interdisciplinary project, and didn't eat lunch until 5 pm. Then I talked to Leo at happy hour, went straight to dancing, and then proceeded to play office chair games in a gym and drop an egg off of a building until 3 am. Anyways, while talking to Sam yesterday, it dawned on me that I might end up with two Ph.D.'s worth of data, or at least it feels like that right now.

I've got my main project with the critter study system. I collect some data that I'm not so enthusiastic about, but I also set up an experiment that could be really cool. I'm going to do some other experiments on my next trip. I wrote my big proposal that got rejected for this system, but I'm not going to pursue that part of the project anymore. I should still get 2+ dissertation chapters out of this.

I've still got that review paper from forever ago that has hardly budged an inch in more than a year, but will likely be my introductory chapter. Then there's the database project. That's what I was working on with Sam yesterday. It's going slowly but will be cool and powerful. That should be fodder for a chapter in my dissertation.

Now I'm working on a proposal for a slightly different study system. It's super exciting and is likely to lead to management recommendations (read: totally applicable to a real-world problem). The more I think about it, the more excited I get about it, but it's also daunting. It occurred to me while discussing experimental design possibilities with Sam that this project alone could be the bulk of a dissertation. I think that (if it works) this project will provide the most important chapter(s) in my dissertation, which is something I could not have anticipated even just a year ago when I first had the idea.

I'm excited about all of these projects, though admittedly least excited about the review paper and some of my critter system data. I just hope I'm not biting off more than I can chew.

Mid-year assessment

Alyssa from Apple Pie and the Universe has invited us to reflect on the past year for August's Scientiae blog carnival. This is a fantastic opportunity for me to revisit the goals I set for myself in January. I find goal-setting to be extremely helpful-- as long as I actually do revisit them!

Academic
Publication- I'd like to get at least one thing published this year, and maybe one or two more submitted. (I submitted something and it hasn't been rejected yet, so that's a good sign! I'm not sure if it can be published this year or if I'll get anything else submitted.)

Presentation- I would like to present something at a conference, maybe just a small one. (I don't think this is going to happen this year.)

Field work- I should have two trips to Ukenzagapia this year, and I'm determined to be more confident in my field work. (So far so good! One trip down, one to go! I'm in a MUCH better place with my field work than I was a year ago. This song helps.)
 
Outreach- [I want to develop some kind of outreach plan] (I haven't made much progress here. This is why it is good for me to revisit these goals!)

Personal
Dancing- Go dancing at least 12 times this year. (I've gone dancing 9 times this year and I'm going tomorrow too! I'm on track for meeting this goal :-)

Counseling- I plan to keep going to a therapist whenever I'm in Big City, as long as I feel like its helpful. My current therapist will leave at the end of the school year, but hopefully I'll be able to find a new one who is a good match. (I meant to blog about this but never did. I saw my therapist for the last time in the first week of May. She was leaving (she was an intern) and it turns out that I was one appointment away from expiring my allotted visits to counseling services. I don't want to try to find someone else because I feel like I got through the hardest stuff with her and I don't feel the need like I did a year ago. I was sad about leaving her because she was great, but I'm ok with not going to counseling anymore.)

Reading- I would like to read more books in 2010... As much as I do love reading all of these aforementioned blogs (and then some), but I need to read more books.  I'm starting with a biography of Jane Goodall. (I'm really sucking at this one, considering that I haven't finished that biography of Jane Goodall. In fact, I left it here when I went to the field, and haven't opened it since. I did put a huge dent in a different thick book, but I haven't finished a book in ages. Maybe at the beach?)

Climate action- I want to offset my greenhouse gas emissions for my travel...I've got to start somewhere, so 2010 it is. (I put this one off for a long time but finally did it. I offset my travel to and from my field site, my other travel, and our utilities for 2010 to date with Native Energy. Finally!)

What else has been going on around here recently? Probably not enough progress in my work. I had much grander goals for my data analysis this summer. Eek. I'm giving my balcony garden (and my partner) lots of love. We're savoring the last few weeks with the cats before they go back to their real owners. We've had tons of family visit and I'm starting to think about my next trip to the field in September. I'm hoping to send off a big grant proposal before the year is out, something that wasn't on my radar in January (but it probably should have been). All in all I'd say I'm in a pretty good place, and I'll hopefully be similarly zen about my life in December when I revisit these goals again!

P.S. I'm hosting Scientiae in September- stay tuned!

Conference session scheduling tool

Big conferences have so many sessions running at the same time that it can be overwhelming to try and plan which ones to attend (especially before you have the program in hand). I just discovered a cool little tool that lets you mark which sessions you are planning to attend, skip, or read.  I know at least 3 of my readers are going to the Ecological Society of America conference next week, so I thought I'd post the link in case you haven't found it already. Check it out!

Anyone know of any blogger meetups happening at ESA this year?

Summer blues

This is past the point in my summer when I start to panic about everything that I haven't done yet that I need to accomplish. July feels like my last whole month of summer (work). August will be half filled by the ESA conference and a week at the beach. There's still so much data to analyze... and so little time.

On the bright side, the end of my interdisciplinary project is in sight. I've been having weekly skype meetings with my #1 collaborator on the project, and we've successfully divided and conquered the data analysis and we're finishing the writeup in the next week. We're submitting it as a report to our higher-ups, not a journal, so it won't go through an insane number of revisions. If we decide (much later) to publish it, we'll have something to start from. We had a whole-group skype meeting today and decided that we will consider our project "finished" in mid-August when we complete one final report as a group. Beyond that, we can each take pieces further to publication as it suits our goals (or not).

I've also decided that I need to be focusing strongly on submitting another big grant to fund my final two field seasons in 2011. I need to prioritize the analysis that will be included in that proposal, and worry less about the other analyses. My oh my, I have a lot to think about.

Practice parenthood

Last week we had two 9 year olds stay with us- my cousin and Jon's niece. Every morning they went with me to the museum for day camp and then in the evenings we hung out in our neighborhood or played games. They were so agreeable and responsible! Most mornings they were up, dressed, and eating breakfast before we were out of bed! This is the first time we've been responsible for kids like that in our own home for more than just a night. I think it was good practice for being parents... but what will we do with them for the first 8 years?

I love third, fourth, and fifth graders because they can understand quite a lot but are also still excited about learning (it's not "uncool" yet). If this whole professional science career thing didn't work out, I'd love to teach one of those grades. I think I'd make a great middle-elementary school teacher, albeit one that could never find a job because I'd have a Ph.D. but no experience.

This week we still have Jon's niece here but this time his sister, brother-in-law, and nephew are here too, plus an 80 pound dog. I won't even go into the explanation of who and how the other 6 people passed through in the past 2 days. Last night we slept 7 extra people in our apartment.

I really need to get a LOT of work done this week. Only two weeks before ESA and then my summer is basically over...

That wasn't so bad

So, I sent that painful email and received some useful responses. All three of them had ideas and I just sent off a couple of emails to straight up ask organizations for money. I also- independently- got a fantastic tip from a friend on how I might be able to raise money. Unfortunately, if I told you [the internetz] I'd have to kill you. Or something.

Now back to the mad money chase.