In a Second Life

Reader Miss Outlier recently asked the following:

I'd like to know what you would choose as a second career. Say you suddenly have twice as many hours in a day. What would Candid v2.0 look like?

I ask myself this very same question at least once a month. You see, my interests are just too damn diverse to be holed up in any one job. I think I've wound up in science because it offers mental stimulation that I wouldn't get in any of my other possible career choices. I have to wonder if my brain would atrophy if I chose an alternative career in photography (my #2 choice) or opening a bakery (my #3 choice).

But my top choice for Candid v2.0? I would be a florist. I would surround myself in the scents and sounds of products that are never anything but beautiful. Flowers make people happy. They really make me happy.

I 'hone' my skills with flower purchases at the supermarket or farmer's market and torture my husband by carving up my purchases in our sink. He'll prick himself with stray thorns days afterward. One of the joys of being my husband!

The ultimate flower-arranging occasion, however, was my wedding. I had a relatively small wedding, and insisted on doing the flowers myself. I ordered flowers direct from an awesome company in California, and went to town. Did the whole wedding (bouquets, corsages, boutonnieres, table centerpieces, etc) for $400. I was beyond pleased with myself! I was really excited by how they turned out. So with that, I offer you gratuitous wedding flower pictures:

Figure 1: Bouquets, obviously. Assorted colors of roses, spray roses, carnations (wouldn't do those again), and misty limonium as the filler.

Figure 2: I was surprised that it isn't too hard to make corsages. Getting them pinned to the recipient however... not so easy. Sorry, candid mother-in-law.

Figure 3: Candid Engineer hides her manicured fingers in her bouquet. Why? Because her manicurist trimmed her cuticles so fiercely that they bled extensively and then formed large, brown scars which, really, are rather unbecoming on a bride.

Figure 4: Table centerpieces. Yes, I named my tables after mixed drinks. My favorite people got to sit at 'Irish Car Bomb', of course.

So that has been my only real experience with being a florist. I imagine it's a lot easier when you are not also the bride, so I'm feeling good about future endeavors. My sister was impressed enough that she's allowing me to run wild with the flowers in her upcoming wedding, ha! We'll see if that move pays off for her.

For now, though, it's probably best that I stick with my day, uh, science job.

Living Proof

I was browsing my blogroll this evening, and came across yet another post discussing the issue of gender discrimination in science. I scrolled through the comments and inhaled. I feel so sorry, so sick, and yet somehow so indifferent when I read these posts. I so rarely have something to contribute to the conversation.

I am fortunate, I am privileged. I am a woman in science, I am an engineer with all of the appropriate female bits, and no one in my life really seems to care. No one EVER seems to have cared. So while the war rages on in other parts of the blogosphere where people bicker and argue about all of things women deserve and don't deserve, I feel like I'm over here in this corner of the internet living someone else's dream.

I need you to know that my life as a woman in science has been unremarkable. I have not suffered from discrimination. I have not been brought down by sexism. It has been little more than a blip on my radar screen as I have moved through my professional career. And therein lies my mixed feelings.

I feel badly, I feel guilty- first, because why am I the one who doesn't have to deal with sexism? Why can't that privilege go to someone else, maybe someone who needs it more than I do? Second, because I cannot empathize. I am a woman in science, yet I cannot experience what these other women are experiencing. I cannot assist in working towards a solution because, in my life, the problem does not exist.

Although I feeling excluded from the conversation, I try to take heart. I'd like to tell all of you that if I am living and working this way, free from the confines of my gender, then change for the rest of you cannot be far off. Because the change has already happened in some places. My life, my career, my success, and I are living proof.

Snobby-Nosed Nonsense

My graduate degree is from a top-10 university in my field that does not bear a hoity-toity name. This university is generally not well-known for its excellence, primarily because it only has a couple of excellent programs. But the department I attended was outstanding, the program was outstanding, and the students and faculty in the department were outstanding. I liked going to a non-hoity place, primarily because I felt like I was contributing to the up-and-coming reputation of a worthy department, and I also felt good knowing that any recognition and awards I received were going to be based on merit, and not on perceived snobby-nosed nonsense*.

So the other day, I was using an instrument in a part of the lab that I don't regularly habitate. Over the whir of my malfunctioning device, I heard the name of my grad university spoken. My ears perked up, because really, the mention of my grad university's name is not common. As I listened further, I realized that someone had applied to my grad department for graduate school, but they were badmouthing the department because it wasn't sporting a name like Princeton or Stanford.

I felt my blood pressure rise a little, and I decided to intervene, even though I have never before met any of the people in the conversation.

I said, "Oh, I couldn't help but overhearing what you were saying about Grad University. I actually got my Ph.D. there." The dude in question looked incredulous, and asked if I had liked it. I told him that I had loved it, and that it was a wonderful place filled with intelligent people, and that it didn't really matter where you go in the top 10, because it's all about the same. The young twerp informed me that his parents and friends (and I believe himself, also) would never stand to have him go to a school with such an unrecognizable name and lackluster reputation. I suggested to him that maybe he shouldn't have ever applied in the first place.

This conversation made me angry. I am tempted to email the head of graduate affairs committee to tell him to treat this douche-bag extra poorly on the visit, because he has no intention of attending. This is far and away my least favorite kind of academic. The kind that cannot get over themselves, the kind that cannot see past the end of their nose to find the real truth in these things. Snobs, oh how I hate thee.

*The fact that I have taken the opposite approach for my post-doc is a topic for another day.

A Candid Line of Questioning

It was a breezy day in February that Candid Engineer sat down with me for an early morning (10 am) interview. She motored through the door five minutes late and appeared a bit high-strung, which subsided as she gulped down a liter of medium-roasted coffee with 10 splenda and a splash of cream. She appeared fashionable by academic standards, sporting a brightly colored top and brown corduroys that looked a little tight in the thighs. Because she seemed to be a woman who doesn't like to mess around, I skipped the pleasantries and launched right into my line of questioning:

Candid Engineer, your fans want to know why you are an engineer, and not a candid biochemist, microbiologist, geologist, or podiatrist.

Well, you know, Chuck, it just came down to my love for math. It was always my passion in high school, and it just made sense to make engineering part of who I was bound to become. I never had a lot of biology in high school, so I had no idea that I'd actually be interested in biomedical-type applications. Thus, being a pure scientist was kind of out of the question. I was fortunate to discover that the engineering background I acquired as an undergraduate afforded me the opportunity to study the human body in a mathematical way. And if I had to do it again, I'd do it the same way, because math is powerful and my training as an engineer gives me unique perspective when tackling biomedical problems.

Okay, Candid Engineer, but that was kind of a boring answer. Maybe you could put a little more effort into answering the next question. The taxpayers of this great nation want to know why they should continue funding your research. How is it that your laboratory pursuits are going to change the world?

Taxpayers don't have to worry about funding my research. My experimental cash comes from covert sources. But seriously, if the taxpayers had a chance, they would probably fall all over themselves to fund my research. This is because I work in a cutting-edge area of biomedical science that will likely offer a cure to various major diseases in another 10-30 years. My work is (a small part) of the future of our health care. I truly believe that my laboratory efforts will make a difference in the lives of real people. Maybe even you, Chuck, because honestly, you're looking a little tubby these days.

Candid Engineer, when you are so terribly candid about my weight, it really hurts my feelings.

Chuck, you're a twit. Act like a man and let's get on with it.

Alright, as a man, I am interested in the support you receive as a scientist. That is, can you please tell us about the bestest, prettiest bra you have ever owned?

Oh Chuck, you perv. Let's be clear on one thing- there is an enormous difference between 'best' and 'prettiest'. The prettiest bra I have have ever owned is the Forget-Me-Not bra from Victoria Secret, circa 2001- a delicate black number with large pink flowers on the cups. However, it is completely impractical. The frilliness shows under smooth shirts, and it itches like a mo-fo. I wear it maybe twice a year.

As for the best bra, I highly recommend Maidenform Smooth Bra Demi, which offers excellent support, a smooth and uplifted appearance under close-fitting tops, and a scalloped, no-seam edging which wards off the ubiquitous back fat issues. I would marry this bra if I could.

And to wrap up today's session, as I can tell that you are getting cranky, your readers would like to know what hair color you'd like to try out if there were no social prejudices against any given color.

My favorite color is green (look around you, people), but I don't think that would be a particularly becoming hair color on me. It is difficult to answer without social prejudice. Ideally, I'd like to be a blond, at least for a little while. I very seriously considered dying my hair blond when I moved across the country to begin my position at Brilliant University. I figured this would be the opportune time, since no one would know what my normal hair color was anyway, and no one would comment on it, or really think anything of it at all. What stopped me is the goddamn maintenance. And the fact that you've literally stripped the moisture from your hair. And let's be honest- I'm already part of an unrequited relationship with conditioner, it doesn't need to get any worse.

So why blond? Why not red? Or green? The answer is precisely societal prejudice. Sometimes I get tired of being the boring, serious one, the child that my father calls "very reserved", HA. Sometimes, I just want to have fun. Be lively. Turn some heads. You know, look like I live in Cabo. And our culture says blond = fun. But really, I don't need it. Even without the blond hair, I'm hard to miss.

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That's it for today. You can wait with anticipation for more scintillating answers in subsequent posts.

Thoughts from the Bathtub

This evening, as I lay in my big-ass bathtub pondering the greater meaning of life, I started thinking about the interview meme that's been going around the scientific blogosphere. And then I started thinking about the random stories I've been reading about how Joaquin Phoenix has gone shit-nuts and is giving some of the strangest interviews of all time as he promotes his latest movie. And then I started wondering how retardedly I would perform as an interviewee. Would I be completely uncooperative? Would I have stunningly witty answers to all of the questions? Would the interviewer describe in his article how unbearably tight the thighs of my jeans are?

Anyhow, I had the bright idea to conduct my own version of the interview meme. I'd like to open the floor to you, my readers, to see if you have any interesting and/or completely uninteresting questions that you'd like to ask me. I will hand select a few questions to answer, or maybe I'll even conduct a poll to see which question I should answer. Who knows, people, this is a work in progress.

Part of me fears that my readers will have nothing to ask me. It would be like the dreaded seminar scenario where there are no questions at the end. One of those seminars that is so boring and the audience so disengaged that the moderator is forced to stammer out some kind of question as to not make the speaker feel like a total buffoon. But I am going to put aside this fear in deference to public relations and good will. And I can promise you honest answers, if nothing else. Oh, and maybe a little jackassery.

Some Kind of Recognition

Just to follow up on my discussion earlier in the week... I was surprised at group meeting this week to have the speaking graduate student acknowledge that "Dr. Candid Engineer has achieved Exciting Honor A". It was nice to be recognized (as I mentioned, I certainly wasn't telling people myself), and also nice to be called doctor (I know, I'm extremely vain). And although there has been noticeable growling by some of my labmates, I've also received quite a bit of congratulations, and one labmate yesterday told me that "everyone is talking about it". Hmm....

An amusing follow-up to this story involves my labmate's freshman undergraduate who happened to be attending said group meeting. The following day, she saw me in the lab and exclaimed, "You're the doctor!!!" My feelings were largely ones of confusion because A) no one is ever excited about me having a doctorate and B) there are many, many other 'doctors' working in our same lab, including her supervisor, my labmate.

It turns out that she had really hung on to the "Dr. Candid Engineer" part of the annoucement at group meeting, and felt like emphasizing that. But I do think it's pretty funny that how oblivious some undergraduates are about the whole Ph.D. thing/differentiating between graduate students and postdocs/etc. It's not that I expect them to know better, and I am not so high on my horse as to feel like I've got to educate them about titles and degrees. However, I do love how arbitrary they can be. I like best the ones that email me and just call me "Yo!"

Happy Friday, everyone.

The Slide of Tears

I attended a seminar the other day given by one of my colleagues who was describing his graduate work. After giving an introduction and discussing some of the basic experimental considerations of his thesis project, my colleague brought up a slide entitled "The Slide of Tears".

At first I thought, what the fuck is this guy talking about.

But I was too quick to judge, and I couldn't help but smile as my colleague launched into a story about all of his failed attempts at method development during the first half of his Ph.D. In his own words, he said, "These three pictures represent the first, second, and third year of my thesis work." And I knew all too well what he was saying.

The month was November, the year 2005. I was a few months into the fourth year of my Ph.D. program. I was watching as my labmates who were a year ahead of me get publications in Nature Biotech, PNAS, and other high-impact journals. I watched as they began their faculty application processes. Meanwhile, I was wallowing in self-pity, knowing that I, just a year behind them, had only recently gotten my experiments to start working. And they were mild successes at best. I just felt like I had put so much time into my Ph.D. by that point, and I had gotten so little out. In the depths of my heart, I knew that I was a talentless imposter who was going nowhere.

One day when I was feeling particularly miserable, I went in to see my advisor, whom I respected and was rather fond of. I shut myself into his office, sat in one of chairs to which I had grown entirely too accustomed, and I got a little weepy. I told him that I felt like a failure. I told him that I was comparing myself very unfavorably with my fellow labmates. I told him that I didn't know how to try any harder, and that I was at the end of my rope. I was asking him for help, but I didn't believe that there was any way for him to help me.

After pausing to think for a moment, my advisor quietly stood up from behind his desk and made his way over to the whiteboard, where he drew the following graph:


He pointed out that I was just entering the fourth year, and that my productivity level was still quite low. He insisted that it was unfair for me to be comparing myself to my labmates who were just past the five year mark. He encouraged me, emphasizing that I was at the turning point, and that substantial success was right around the corner.

Because I admired and trusted my advisor, I walked out of his office feeling a thousand times better. I went back to my bench, knowing that I was right on track, and I spent the next two years following the curve. At the end of the day, I didn't disappoint anyone, including myself.

Today, I interact with a lot of middle-year graduate students who are beside themselves with worry over all the things they haven't accomplished since they started their Ph.D. My advisor's advice is now the advice I pass along to these students. And most find it reassuring, particularly when I emphasize that I am not the only student to ever follow such a path. Indeed, most of us have our very own slide of tears. Although you will never get me to discuss mine in a seminar, as I loathe feeling like a big boob.

Jealousy and Good Will

I have recently received some very good professional news- some of my work has been honored in a very visible, completely humbling kind of way. It's the kind of thing that I've only dreamed of before, and it will do wonders for my CV. I wish I could share it with you, it is so exciting, but obviously that would give me away... and then I'd have to shut down my blog and refrain from bitching and moaning about the many fascinating intricacies of my pseudononymous life.

Anyhow, despite my massive excitement surrounding this honor, I have purposely not shared my success with anyone in the lab but a few of my very closest friends. I learned at an early age that no one is ever as excited about my successes as I am (or even excited at all), and I have always been thus inclined to keep my mouth shut* about such matters.

The only reprieve I've had from this strange and jealous behavior was my grad lab, where the culture was different. We made significant efforts there to foster an environment that was completely supportive and not at all competitive, and as such, we celebrated awards, big-journal articles, and job offers with lots of congratulations and big bottles of champagne.

But my post-doc lab... although I'm not positive, I would suspect this place is a different story. Postdocs have a tendency to be competitive, esp. in a lab like this, where everyone is hungry for big awards and big papers and lofty career aspirations that can hinder collegiality. I honestly haven't wanted to tell my peers about my good news for fear of the backlash.

A few people with whom I am not particularly close have found out accidentally, and the response is something on the order of blank stares and a few remarks about 'well, how did that happen' and 'I didn't know you were doing that'. No congratulations, and certainly no champagne.

One of my colleagues (whom I wasn't planning on telling) found out about my good news last week through other channels. He came to talk to me about it, and offered his fullest congratulations, telling me what a nice job I had done and how he didn't think he would have been up to the task. His excitement for me was so genuine, and I was so surprised yet touched. This is truly an uncommon reaction in my part of the world, but I am thankful that there are people in my lab who have good will for one another. It makes science so much nicer, because after all, everyone feels happier when they are part of a successful, well-oiled machine.

*Shocking, I know.

A Terribly Brilliant Year

A year ago today, I put on a brave face and embarked on a new adventure. Today is my one-year anniversary in my postdoc lab at Brilliant U. And my, my, how far I've come- last March I would have sworn that I'd be quitting by now. And now I could see myself here for another 2 years, easily.

For those of you who have nothing better to do today, I thought it would be loads of fun to recap what I've managed to accomplish in the past year:

I went from complaining about low-lying fruit, crying over the difficult transition, worrying about my husband's unemployment, lamenting the research strategies of my supervisor, having no friends, and dealing with horrible colleagues

...to...

happily honing my proposal writing skills, collaborating with my colleagues, succeeding in research while earning respect, writing a big-deal review article, learning chemistry (good God), feeling like part of a team, trying to effectively deal with failure, appreciating the opportunities I am given in this lab, ridding myself of anxiety, and learning how to handle my career.

And so what can we take away from all of this nonsense, dear readers? The major lesson, I think, is that even the most change-averse among us can flourish outside of our comfort zones. We are all little bundles of potential, some of us a little more viscous or a little more flammable than others- but we all can do more than we know, even if we have to grow while we are kicking and screaming.