A Cat Nap

I came across these through a commenter, Emily, on the May Scientiae Carnival. Emily’s book, Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory: Women Scientists Speak Out, came out recently. She’s set up a blog where she hopes to encourage discussion about how we combine motherhood and science. I haven’t read the book yet myself, but once things settle down and we have some meager amounts of cash, I’ll probably go right out and get it!

Through Emily’s blog I also found out about this book: Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life. It will be released later this year and looks like a promising collection of essays about combining motherhood and academia. This book also has an accompanying blog at MamaPhD.com.

So I’m finally doing the lists of 8 meme that EcoGeoFemme over at The Happy Scientist tagged me for, a bit of a while back. Except I think I might split it into pieces, because I like to add comments…

8 passions

1. Loving, giving, and taking care of people
2. Babies
3. Cats
4. Figure skating
5. New York City (and cities in general)
6. Learning, reading, doing experiments!
7. Crafts - sewing, knitting, soon to be quilting!
8. Baking! I love to decorate cakes, make cookies and pies, and even make candy!

8 things I often say

1. I love you. Mostly to Husband, but in recent years I’ve added it in to occasional conversations with other close friends and family.
2. You have to take turns. I’m always saying this, or some variation on it, to the toddlers I take care of.
3. Bye girls. Be good! I say this to my two kitty cats when I leave them in the morning. They usually are in the entry way watching me go.
4. I just want to stay home all day. Ok, I don’t know exactly what counts as “often” but this is a sentiment I feel all the time.
5. Do you want your juice? Again, to the toddlers.
6. I’ll have a large tea with skim milk and sugar. My order at Dunkin Donuts, the local delis, or the carts on the side of the street. Sometimes I swap “tea” for “Earl Gray.” Mmmm, Earl Gray.
7. Look how cute [Fluffy/Feisty] is right now! (Fluffy and Feisty are the pseudonyms for our cats.)
8. I’m sleepy.

8 books I recently read
If you’re interested in what I’ve been reading, you can always check out my readings page where I list books I’ve read and sometimes comments or links to posts about them.

1. His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass), by Philip Pullman (OK, not that recent…but within the last 6 months)
2. The Family Track: Keeping Your Faculties while You Mentor, Nurture, Teach, and Serve, by Constance Coiner and Diana Hume George
3. The Ivy Chronicles, by Karen Quinn
4. The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien
5. Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities, by Alexandra Robbins
6. Complete Book of Quilting, by Maggi McCormick Gordon
7. Mothers on the Fast Track: How a New Generation Can Balance Family and Careers, by Mary Ann Mason
8. Who’s Afraid of Marie Curie?: The Challenges Facing Women in Science and Technology, by Linley Erin Hall (currently reading this one)

8 songs that mean something to me
Just 8? I love music too much, picking only eight is hard. This is in no way a comprehensive list.

1. If I Aint Got You, by Alicia Keys - This song makes me think of my Husband. In particular because we’re both so non-materialistic.
2. Imperfectly, by Ani DiFranco - This is just the most genius of a song. To me, it’s really empowering.
   

   We get a little further from perfection
   each year on the road
   I guess that’s what they call character
   I guess that’s just the way it goes
   better to be dusty than polished
   like some store window mannequin
   why don’t you touch me where I’m rusty
   let me stain your hands

3. Icarus, by Ani DiFranco - This one captures my outlook on the world so well.
   

   bad dreams like this roll in like a cold front
   thunderous thunder and lightning in tow
   and your tiny little life gets even smaller
   as you heed the heavens’ mighty show
   i don’t mean heaven like godlike
   cuz the animal i am knows very well
   that nature is our teacher and our mother
   and god is just another
   story that we tell

4. Acoustic #3, by the Goo Goo Dolls - This one reminds me of my parents’ relationship - or it did, before my mom finally moved out about two years ago. The whole song speaks loads about how I felt growing up as a teenager.
   

   Your voice is small and fading
   And you’re hiding here alone
   And your mother loves your father
   Cuz she’s got nowhere to go
   And she wonders where these dreams go
   Cuz the world got in her way
   What’s the point in ever trying?
   Nothing’s changing anyway

5. The Times They Are A Changin’, by Bob Dylan
6. Let’s Stay Together, by Al Green - This is what Husband and I used for our first dance at the wedding. We really got into it and he pretended to sing to me and it was fun!
7. Galapagos, by The Smashing Pumpkins
   

   And rescue me from me and all that I believe
   I won’t deny the pain, I won’t deny the change
   And should I fall from grace here with you
   Will you leave me too?

8. Einstein on the Beach, by Counting Crows

8 qualities I look for in a friend

1. Compassionate
2. Intellectual
3. Fun
4. Accepting/Nonjudgmental (not only of me but also of people who look/think/act differently, etc.)
5. Independent
6. Creative
7. Understanding
8. Liberal

8 people who’s blogs I enjoy and who may consider themselves tagged if they wish

1. Rebecca at Adventures in Applied Math
2. Jenny F. Scientist at A Natural Scientist
3. Sciencewoman
4. Jane at See Jane Compute
5. Watershed
6. ScienceMama at Mother of all Scientists
7. Zoe at A Family Affair
8. Nicole at Just Crazy Enough to Try

This is a long post but if anyone has time to read the whole thing and leave me some words of encouragement about the class failing part, I’d greatly appreciate it. I could really use it right now.

Yeah, so I’m still here. I had a crazy weekend, mentally, in which my mind thought all sorts of crazy things that I knew at heart were untrue but couldn’t help worrying might really be true. Like that Husband doesn’t really love me. How silly is that?

Well, actually, the culmination of things that I experienced and read on Friday and Saturday, combined with some major hormonal unbalance, made this episode of absurdness understandable. On Friday and Saturday I went to a conference on careers in science and technology. I haven’t felt too strongly that I’d like to go into industry, but I went to two panels on industry. While the work sounded interesting, I really got the impression that all of the people in the type of research jobs that I’d be interested in weren’t balancing their jobs with an outside life. The one panel that was most interesting had 5 people, 4 older males and a young Asian woman. The men all had wedding rings and the woman did not. The moderator was a married woman, so I talked to her after the panel. I also spoke to some of the panelists after as well, and I still left feeling like industry, in my field at least, wouldn’t be that different as far as flexibility goes. Still, it might be easier to get back in after part-time than in academia - I don’t know.

Saturday I got to meet Jenny F. Scientist. She was nice, and it was my very first time meeting a blogger friend in real life, so that was cool! Then I went to a panel on academia, and I did learn some interesting stuff there, mainly because they had a panelist from a small liberal arts college who had been in a major R1 university for her PhD, so I was quite interested in hearing her story.

Additionally, I read a book over the weekend: Mothers on the Fast Track: How a New Generation Can Balance Family and Careers, by Mary Ann Mason. It’s a recent book by the author of the Do Babies Matter? project, and this one looks at women combining parenting and careers in academia, journalism, law, and medicine. It was definitely a good read, and it certainly had stories of women who were happy with the choices they made, but still, it disappointed me to read that the odds are still against getting back on the full-time track you want to be on after having taken part-time or time off to raise your children. Also, those women who had kids and had been successful in their careers all emphasized how important their husband’s support and help had been, and how they couldn’t have done it without them. Although expected, as a feminist it disappointed me to read that as well, because historically so many capable women find themselves with less than supportive men.

Somehow the overwhelming amount of information that seemed to me to be saying I couldn’t really do what I wanted, that sacrifices made in career would be more permanent than I had hoped, was very disappointing. It’s been a stressful semester anyhow, and somehow on Saturday night I was getting to that completely stressed stage where I just had all these crazy thoughts that were completely untrue. I went to sleep and woke up on Sunday and felt a little better, a little more sure that those were untrue, but still very unsure as well. At this point, I really felt like a crazy person - like one part of me was able to tell myself “no, flicka mawa, that’s ridiculous and completely untrue” and the other part of me was just so effective at beating me down, making me believe in the crazy thoughts, that I felt sad and worried and scared all day. Since Sunday, the ratio of reasonable thoughts to crazy ones has steadily increased, until I felt back to normal again yesterday. And believe me, it was such a relief to have my normal thoughts back! To again feel confident that I am in an amazing marriage and that Husband loves me and that no matter what else, I’ll always have him and my marriage to help me through.

Well, I’ve officially lost 3 lbs on the “We’re f*cking broke” diet. You might think that doesn’t sound so great, but I’m pretty happy about it - it’s helping me to get used to only eating until full, or sometimes being a bit hungry, and I think helping me to get back on to a healthier schedule. We’ll have some money again this Friday, and then the broke part will go away (we’ll switch broke out for poor), and then I’ll get to eat healthier, more balanced foods. But hopefully I can stay on track as far as overeating and exercise - sometimes losing just a few pounds is enough to get me more motivated again.

Overall, I just want to be healthier. Right now, I’m overweight - at a BMI of 30.4, I’m technically considered obese, but I don’t think you’d call me obese by my appearance - I have really strong leg muscles from my days as an athlete, and I wear a size 14 largely because of my chest (a large chest runs in my family). I have high cholesterol, but much more good cholesterol (HDL - high density lipids) than bad (LDL - low density lipids), and my blood pressure is always in the completely normal range. Here’s a picture of what I look like today:

As far as exercise, on a weekly basis I walk everywhere (to get around the city) and I run around with the kids. I go to the gym to bike, use the elliptical, or take a yoga class, but that varies a lot more. I also continue to practice a sport I was competitive in as a kid - but usually only once every few weeks (it’s been even less frequent lately) - as it’s tough to get to the training center for that.

Why do I want to be healthier? Well, it has little to do with my appearance. Unlike when I suffered from bulimia, I now am much more ok with my body. My husband finds me sexy and I’ve learned to buy clothes that fit my body type. As many of my readers know, however, I hope to have children in the future, and we’re not really talking that far off. Right now we’re thinking we might start trying to get pregnant in the Spring of 2009, which is about a year and a half away. And I want to be healthier for my future pregnancy, and for my future children, and yes, for myself. There are a lot of pregnancy complications that are more likely when one is overweight, and I think since I have lots of time to plan, I should do whatever I can to put myself in the healthiest place I can be before I decide to rent out my womb to a tiny little being. One of the largest factors of that will be losing weight. Another will be to exercise regularly, some of which should be in activities that can continue throughout pregnancy, so that I can exercise during pregnancy as well.

Getting healthy, for me, is part of pre-conception planning, a practice that has become more common in the past few years. I really found the book, Before Your Pregnancy: A 90 Day Guide for Couples on How to Prepare for a Healthy Conception, to be helpful. It includes a section on diet and exercise, with recommendations for a diet and activities that focus on the nutrients and muscles that are needed for a healthy pregnancy.

I just watched this movie today, which stars Julianne Moore as a 1950’s housewife who raises 10 children with an alcoholic husband who has abusive tendencies. She manages to keep the family going by continually entering, and winning, many contests to write advertising slogans for various products. I really loved the movie, and I think it will touch a lot of people; I want to share it with my mom, and my aunt, and my grandma. From what I’ve heard, it sounds like there are a good amount of similarities between the lives of the family portrayed in this movie (which is based on the memoir of Terry Ryan, one of the 10 children) and the lives of my mom and her siblings and my grandma and grandpa. It portrays very realistically the pressures that the 1950s consumer society, where people had many pressures to fill specific gender roles, put on both women and men. Although for time and generation this movie is much closer to my mom and grandma, I also saw bits of myself in the character of Tuff, the daughter who wrote the memoir (The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less) that the movie was based on. I recommend checking out the movie, and I myself intend to read the book as soon as I can!

Does anyone know of any similarly themed movies or books, preferably memoirs or movies based on true stories, that they could recommend?

So I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows yesterday afternoon. I read all of book 6 on Sunday while Husband finished book 7 and then I started book 7 on Sunday night. I thought the story was wonderful, touching, and even poetic. I feel a little lonely without another Harry Potter book to keep me company on the subway rides, since I’ve been reading nothing but Harry Potter books for about two weeks now. Anyhow, I loved it!

So, like so many people, I have been consumed with reading this weekend. I am not, however, reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) just yet. We picked up the book on Friday night at the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble, which turned out to be a fun experience but not the raucous party that it sounds like they had over at the Columbus Circle Borders, where there was a “Grand Hallows Ball.”

As I had not read a Harry Potter book since Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) came out two summers ago, I had been meaning to reread the books before reading the seventh. My husband had not read 5 or 6 until a few months ago, and he read them all so fast that he finished two months before the new book was coming out.  So I decided to wait until a little bit closer to start reading them, anticipating that I would read them quickly.  But the summer wore on and time snuck up on me, and before I knew it was two weeks until the book release and I hadn’t started.  So I began, a little under two weeks ago, to reread them beginning with the first.  I managed to read 1, 2, and 3 in their entirety, and then for book 4 I skimmed it and read completely the beginning and especially the end.  Then I read book 5 in its entirety, which I just finished last night - I was reading book 5 while we waited in the line to purchase book 7 at midnight.  Now I am on book 6, and my husband is about halfway through book 7.  I’m trying to finish book 6 just after he finishes the last one so that I can pick it up right away to read it.  The suspense is difficult as we are both so excited and he wants to talk about the story with me, but my memory of book 6 is only vague and buying two copies just so we could read it at the same time seemed silly considering we are rather low on money right now.  I am sure I will have finished book 7 by the end of this week, and I can’t wait!

So I was browsing the NOW store this morning, and I came across their selection of children’s books.  I’ve been sure to bookmark it for when I have children.  One book in particular stuck out to me:

History of Women in Science by Vivian Sheldon Epstein

Epstein introduces older children (ages 9-14) to the many women who have made strides for all of us in the fields of science and technology.

Sounds pretty cool to me!

One of the things I find most unpleasant about grad school is dealing with the older, bitter grad students. It is impossible to say if I will feel that way when I get there, but for some reason I just don’t have much patience for their attitudes. I know that grad school can suck, so I might be more empathetic, as I’m usually a very empathetic person. But some of these students, I read their attitudes as a result of their having expected more, and I find that foolish. Which may be totally irrational of me. But I’ve read a lot of stuff about grad school and academia life - the Chronicle career articles, books on parenting in academia, and an informative guide for PhD students.

Maybe, after gathering all of this information, I still have no idea what I’m in for. But I’m not sure. I kind of think I know what I’m in for, and I made a calculated decision to accept it. And given that, I’m determined to make the best of it that I can. I employ many of the strategies in the book for PhD students, and they help me to do what I can about some of the parts of grad school that can stink. I knew all about my advisor before I accepted to work with this person, and I consciously chose this person more because I get along and work similarly than because I was ecstatic about the research in the group. Instead, I found that my area of passion was close enough to what is being done in the group to create a niche for myself that crosses over between what I am most interested in and what the group was already involved in, and that has worked for me so far. Sometimes I’m involved in projects that only slightly overlap with my stronger passions, but I’m a good sport about it and find things to enjoy in all of the projects.

Admittedly, I failed the quals and that sucks. But I am only finishing my first year of grad school and I have a paper that’s been accepted with its revisions, so I will be a published first author before the end of the year. So it seems entirely possible that having failed the quals and having to take them again could be the worst part of my time in graduate school.

I learned early on that there are many, many unspoken rules and hidden pitfalls in academia, and that likely no one will tell you so you’d better just prepare yourself. And my philosophy regarding grad school sucking is that if you know what you’re getting into, you can plan for it and do your best to make it work ok for you. So I really seem to have no patience for the jaded and bitter grad students. I mean, what did they expect when they got here? Am I misunderstanding these students? Am I really in for some great awakening as to how much grad school sucks?

To my readers: were you a bitter grad student? Why?

So I just started reading Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion, and so far it’s really good. One thing that it’s helped me to realize the importance of is that Husband and I don’t tell our kids statements as facts, such as “god doesn’t exist,” but stick with “Your father and I believe god doesn’t exist,” because this will help us in teaching them to think critically for themselves. We intend to encourage them to come to their own beliefs and will support them in their beliefs as long as they have gotten there via rational, critical thinking. Also, because I myself grew up without religion and found it particularly perplexing when I arrived at college and had to understand classic art and literature, we will do our best to encourage their religious literacy. One of my most amusing college experiences was being in an art history course and being told that this painting depicts the Eucharist. The what? I had to ask what that was, and I had a hard time not laughing when I was told so. Husband, on the other hand, grew up in Catholic schools with a strong helping of religion classes, and knows the ins and outs of most of the bible stores. To help our children be religiously literate, I think the book has a great suggestion:

One of the most enlightening and gentle ways to help children accept myth for its insights into humanity while keeping it distinct from fact is to steadily trace the patterns of the complete human mythic tapestry. Buy a good volume of classical myths for kids and buy a good volume of bible stories for kids. To whet kids’ appetites and introduce the pantheon of gods, read a few of the basic myths - Cronos swallowing his children, Zeus defeating the Titans and dividing the tripartite world, ICarus, Phaeton, and so on. Then begin interweaving Christian and Jewish mythologies, matched if you can with their classical parallels. Read the story of Danae and Perseus, in which a god impregnates a woman, who gives birth to a great hero, then read the divine insemination of Mary and birth of Christ story. Read the story of the infant boy who is abandoned in the wilderness to spare him from death, only to be found by a servant of the king who brings him to the palace to be raised as the king’s child. It’s the story of Moses- and the story of Oedipus. No denigration of the Jewish or Christian stories is necessary; kids will simply see that myth is myth.

Many atheist parents aren’t comfortable with lying to their kids about Santa Claus and the Easter bunny, but at least one essay in the book from a person raised by freethinking parents admits that the game is fun even knowing that it’s all pretend from the start. So likely we’ll tell our kids that Santa Claus is just for pretend from the get-go, but we will delve into the pretend and imagination as deeply as anyone else.

I can hardly wait to read more!