Ten Top Trivia Tips about Ambivalent Academic!

1. Ambivalent Academic can eat up to four kilograms of insects in a single night. (Yum! She likes the crunchy ones best...especially when they have gooey centers like jelly donuts.)
   
2. Ambivalent Academic has little need for water and is capable of going for months without drinking at all! (She comes from a long line of camels.)
   
3. Neil Armstrong first stepped on Ambivalent Academic with his left foot. (She then bit him in the ankle.)
   
4. You should always store Ambivalent Academic in an airtight container in the fridge. (Otherwise, she will go off.)
   
5. The only planet that rotates on its side is Ambivalent Academic! (Little known fact: she was once a break-dancing champion.)
   
6. It takes forty minutes to hard-boil Ambivalent Academic. (She can take the heat, folks.)
   
7. Pound for pound, hamburgers cost more than Ambivalent Academic. (At her current salary, this is not a hyperbole. She's done the math.)
   
8. Peanuts and Ambivalent Academic are beans. (AA also works for beans...you'd think she had enough. And actually they mean legumes. Peanuts are legumes. Beans are legumes. Lentils are legumes. Peas are legumes. But peanuts are not beans. AA is also a bean, and therefore a legume by definition.)
   
9. Long ago, the people of Nicaragua believed that if they threw Ambivalent Academic into a volcano it would stop erupting! (Then they discovered that virgins work better.)
   
10. In Eastern Africa you can buy beer brewed from Ambivalent Academic. (It is the shit.)
    

Four kilos of insects in a single night! That's right. It's so awesome it's worth saying again. To find out more about AA (or anyone else of your choosing) go here. (h/t Acadamnit)

Just thought I'd lighten the mood a bit. I'm getting really fucking sick of swine flu. (That's sick of swine flu, not sick from it.)

Veni, vidi, vici

Yes, OK, I'm back! (And I'm excited so commas will be abused in this post and I don't even care.)

The conference was awesome and my talk was a smashing success if I do say so myself. I thought that my voice was shaking the entire time, but BH said he only heard it once. I got lots of great questions (and some helpful suggestions) during the Q&A period, and had several RockStar PIs approach me during the breaks to discuss my findings. They were all very complementary and encouraging and genuinely excited about my work. Not only that, but they were asking me what I thought about their questions and results in light of my findings - as if I were a colleague. Hot damn! It was really nice to discover that (most) people actually can interact with me as if I actually know something about what I'm doing - what a surprise to discover that most people don't think I'm a tool. I mean, deep down I know this, but around here most of the feedback I get is criticism. Constructive criticism usually - which is helpful, but rarely, "you're doing a great job". I hadn't realized just how much energy I invest in telling myself everyday that I'm doing good, important work...until I heard it from all these other people and could stop stoking those fires myself for a moment. It is so nice to have that externally validated, and by the experts in my field no less.

Even GrAdvisor had nice things to say. He actually stopped me during a social session, introduced me to the other RockStar he was talking to, then said "your talk went really well". Holy fucknoly!! Usually I have to ask for feedback, and what I get in return is an uninterpretable head nod/shake. This was a) unambiguously positive, b) in front of someone else whom he respects, and c) he used an adjective to modify his positive descriptor! AA scores a Hat Trick!

Even more exciting to me was that one of the RockStars was so pleased with my talk that he grabbed my elbow as I was leaving the session to tell me that he thought my work was really elegant and systematic and impressive. (Oh RockStar I think I love you...I never dared to aspire to "elegance" before now.) He actually told me that he thinks that this paper, once published, will become one of the classically cited papers by everyone in the field. Zoiks! Now, the guy's pretty ebullient so I'll take that with a grain of salt (or a tablespoon) but still, a nice ego boost. We ended up chatting a bit later and I mentioned to him my concern that we would have difficulty publishing in Top-Notch Journal of my choice because the techniques are classical and un-sexy, and one of the conclusions is likely to get the "yeah, but we always thought that was true anyway" brush-off. (Of course, no one's actually done the experiment until now, so we didn't actually know.) Anyway, he mentioned that he had a paper rejected from TNJ because the techniques weren't sexy enough, but his opinion was that it is worthy of a good journal and that all it needs is a reviewer who recognizes the importance of the work. He said that we were welcome to request him as a reviewer and that he would be thrilled to see it go to TNJ. Sweet!

I also got a chance to speak with the PI on whose work I have been basing the hypothesis of my second manuscript. We were able to hash out some details and she shared with me her unpublished results for the experiments that I was planning to try...so now I don't have to waste my time trying to find stuff that isn't there - she's already done that. Hooray for people who are generous with their findings. This sends my hypothesis in a different and potentially more interesting direction. Coupled with my "elegant" studies this new direction might even increase the sexy factor and get it into TNJ without too much of a fight. We'll see.

Peace out peeps!

Well, committee meeting done. Phew! Their feedback consisted of suggestions on how to tidy things up with the last of the experiments that are going in this godforsaken manuscript and then they said they'd be happy to give me permission to write once it's submitted - I didn't even ask! Sweet! GrAdvisor lobbied for an earlier defense date and that I don't have to be really finished with the second project to get the hell out of here. Today, GrAdvisor, I really like you.

Off to drop DangerDog at the kennel, dash back to the lab to take a few more pictures so I don't have to use the fuglies in my talk (I am such a data junkie), pack my bags and I'm off. See you all on the flip side.

Wasted weekend

I have spent countless hours this weekend trying to get my in-need-of-coddling experiment to yield some pretty data for my committee meeting today and my impending conference talk. Of course it didn't work*. Experiments never work when you're right up against a deadline. This is a universal truth. And I know this. Yet, I always feel compelled to give it that one last try because if I didn't I'd be kicking myself for not at least attempting it. So I've had a grand total of about 12 hours of sleep in the last 72, and I'm going to present similar data that are not as pretty as I would like, but which will have to suffice. I'm not pleased about that but there's not much else to be done. Fuck it. I will present this at my Committee Meeting in the best possible light and hopefully they will be pleased. Then I will give a talk at the conference including the not-quite-so-pretty data (or not, we'll see what the Committee says about it), and enjoy a desperately needed break.

*Actually, I'm not certain that it failed. Another alternative is that someone has completely fucked with the configurations on the equipment...it's hard for me to tell what's going on so Brilliant Core Facility Dude is going to take a look at it. If it is true that someone has fucked with the configuration, that person should be thanking FSM that I will be on a plane in 24 hours. Homicide won't fit into my schedule between now and then.

Ethanol-induced efficiency

I was really not looking forward to coming into the lab today. For those of you keeping track I did not get my in-need-of-coddling experiments started yesterday because I was here dealing with the bleeding transgene until stupid o'clock. So I'm doing the delicate experiments now. Results to be had tomorrow, which means I won't have time to fix it if it doesn't work. This is OK because if I had stayed to do it last night this morning I would have screwed it up for sure.

My nerves are a little fried. So when I went home for lunch I did a little work in my garden...nothing like working up a sweat moving a lot of dirt around to take the edge off. That plus a gin & tonic are having a rather calming effect. Hey, if you can't come to work tipsy on Saturday then when can you?

T-2 days

Ugh. Success is nice but jeeeebus, the cost!

I am exhausted and still a bit stressed as I have several more hours to go before the transgenic construct is ready to inject tomorrow. Thankfully, Ass-Saving Student is doing the injections for me (as if there were another option - I can't be in 8 places at once!). He's totally getting a contributing authorship on the paper that comes out of those mice.

Since all the cloning of said construct was being such a bitch, the two last tidying up experiments that I really need/want for my Committee Meeting/International Meeting/manuscript aren't quite finished. They should have and could have been done two weeks ago if the cloning hadn't started sucking up all my time. I am trying very hard to focus and think good thoughts at them and coddle them through so that I can finish up with decent results tomorrow. Even so, I won't have a complete analysis done for Committee Meeting, but can finish that up on the plane so I can be utterly confident in my conclusions for the conference talk. That leaves Sunday to go through all my figures to make sure everything is in order, fix what isn't, pull together my presentation for the committee meeting and make some changes to my conference talk so I can give another practice talk before I go. Oh yeah, and maybe find some summer clothes (this may require some actual purchases), and pack, and take the dog to the kennel, get my tomato seedlings in the ground, file my taxes (still waiting on forms from my bank!) and, and, and....

It can be done. The next couple of days are going to suck. It is what it is. But a few days of suckitude will be rewarded by some relaxing and a really fun conference.

OK, back to work.

The Gods Are Dead

Cloning Gods - Vanquished!
Sequencing Gods - Defeated!
Thesis Gods - Prepare for battle!

Authorship

This is my 101st post. And as of today I can find myself on PubMed. Sweet.

To all you doubting Thomasinas out there...

I submit to you: success!!

The Cloning Gods were aptly told off and were so taken aback by this unexpected assertion of my will that they didn't know what to do. So they just buggered off with their tails between their legs and left me to my own devices. And lo and behold, what have we here? Clean minipreps? Proper inserts? Egads! Who knew!?!?

The Cloning Gods are a bunch of poseurs. Like the neo-cons, they have been feeding our fears with lies and deceitful allusions to their power in order to make us complacent in the face of their fickle desires. No more! It is a new day (or at least it will be in a few hours) - no longer must we live in fear of their spite. No longer must we sacrifice our unborn children to their hungry maws. They have been vanquished by nothing more than a good scolding. Wusses.

Tomorrow the Sequencing Gods will either bestow favorable results upon me or meet the same fate.

MUUUAAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!!!

An Open Letter....

Dear Cloning Gods,

Now listen up motherfuckers, and listen good. I have had it up to here with your shenanigans and I'm done indulging your whims. I hopped on one foot and spun around three times and wiggled my nose to get through the tricky parts. This seemed to appease you at the time. Now we're on the home stretch. The construct is finished. Thanks for your cooperation on that. But I still have to screen colonies, sequence, prep, and inject this bitch before I leave next week. And you? You're trying to thwart me (again!) by degrading my motherfucking minipreps (minipreps!?!? dudes, that's really low). I won't have it. I am here setting up new cultures at midnight because I will not be foiled by you again. Not now. We are too close. I'm putting my foot down; drawing a line in the sand. I have already promised you my soul and that of my first-born child. I have nothing left with which to bargain. And I really shouldn't have to bargain over a goddamned miniprep. So I'm telling you we're through. I'll take it from here. I've no more use for your fickle wiles. So go fuck yourselves. You're dead to me.

So long and thanks for all the fish,
AA

Top Ten Things I Do NOT Want To Find In The Lab

Dr. Isis has a funny list of things she does not want to find in the lab...or in a potential love interest's apartment. I am amused by this, so I have composed my own. Enjoy.

1. Drops of mercury anywhere but the mercury disposal container. I can't tell you how often this happens, nor can I tell you why.
2. Random non-biohazard shit in the biohazard bins. Biohazard cleanup is my lab duty, so when the bins are filling up with other crap it's more unnecessary work for me.
3. Mouse carcasses anywhere but the carcass freezer. Gross. Just gross. Usually they're left on the dissection bench between dissection and clean-up (fair enough) but sometimes that period stretches out for the better part of a day. Gross.
4. Over-shared stories about you and your significant other's sexual exploits. It's great that you have a satisfying sex life but that's between you and your partner. It really has nothing to do with me and I'd like to keep it that way. Let's try for some modicum of professional demeanor here folks.
5. Random puddles of unidentified liquids anywhere. Especially the floor.
   
6. Pants with holes in unfortunate places. Why? Keep your underwear to yourself please. And have you considered the safety hazard? I mean holes in the knees are one thing but the implications of dropping something caustic on your barely covered crotch don't bear thinking about.
   
7. Agar plates growing FSM-knows-what left in the incubator for weeks. Do people really forget that they put plates in there?
8. Cardboard freezer boxes covered in several centimeters of hairy multi-colored mold which renders the label on said box unreadable and the contents of said box likely contaminated. (Our fridges aren't very good at humidity control.)
9. Razor blades or disposable scalpels in the sink (or anywhere but the sharps containers really).
10. Capes. On anyone.
    

A little lighter

Things have been stressful lately. They likely will continue to be for the next 10 days or so.

However, I feel a bit as if a weight has been lifted.

Awesome Technician gave me my (finally interpretable) results from hated data set yesterday - they are SWEET! The conclusions are just as I expected. Today I am working them up into a pretty figure to send off to GrAdvisor, wherever he is at Mystery Meeting. This makes my manuscript SOOOO much easier to finish. One more experiment to put the finishing touches on this week before presenting my (very very nearly complete) story on this project at International Conference on Tropical Island (departure in t-10 days). Also discovered that I do finally have colonies from my spiteful cloning project. Prep! Sequence! Inject! Hopefully before committee meeting in t-9 days.

It can be done. I am confident.

So confident in fact that I figured I could spare an hour and went to get my hair cut. It has been so long since my last haircut that my favorite cutter-of-hair almost didn't recognize me. It has been so long that my hair was so long that the amount she cut off was enough to donate to Wigs for Kids. So I did. When she finished the blow-dry and style and turned me around to have a look she asked, "How's that for starting your day a little lighter?"

A little lighter indeed.

InsideHigherEd reports shrinkage of PhD Admisssions

Well now this is interesting.

Not sure if this will help to balance the terribly skewed ratio of Ph.D.s awarded to academic jobs available, but perhaps it is a step in the right direction?

If we could simultaneously generate the funding and resources necessary for more faculty research positions that might go a long way further.

The article makes the point that Ph.D. degrees are subject to a different economic metric than most higher education since we tend to be supported by tuition waivers and fellowships rather than paying tuition into the degree-granting institution (bunch of fucking leeches!) so it makes a certain amount of economic sense in this climate. On the other hand, this seems in opposition to Obama's push for more higher education to be available for everyone (an idea that I also think is a GoodThing)....hmmmm.

Also, if this were to reuslt in a widespread net decrease in the number of Ph.D. students who will be at the bench doing all the research funded by those challenge grants??????? ( I jest a little here since the timing of a net decrease in Ph.D. students is unlikely to coincide with challenge grant dispersals, but you get the point.)

What do you think intertubes? Is this a GoodThing or not?