National "Ignore A Female Scientist" Week

This on Jane's post just today. Combining her post with my own week makes me think it's National "Ignore A Female Scientist" week.

Like Jane, I work with someone who consistently:

- Interrupts me,
- Disregards my ideas with no rationale,
- Tells me my ideas are wrong, only to repeat them back to me as his own,
- Ignores my intellectual presence.

I've taken all measures I think I possibly can. I've tried to be very direct with this person. I've spoken to my own advisor about it, and was told to cooperate. I've spoken to the Assistant Dean of Engineering, to the Graduate Advisor, to other faculty in the department. I've tried all their advice. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong, but even with all their advice, I've not been able to get this man to treat me with any kind of common courtesy.

It would be one thing if he were just a jerk. Unfortunately, I'm starting to see how his behavior is becoming an obstacle to my own intellectual development, academic success, and general happiness. The work I do for him is simply implementing his ideas, many of which are very mediocre.

What's ultimately frustrating to me is that the only next step I can see to correcting his behavior would be to file a formal complaint with the student grievance committee at the University of GradShitTownVille. I have no information about the formal grievance process, and I'm very hesistant to make a formal complaint as a result. Moreover, graduate students are not generally told that this process exists, and I had to make an inquiry just to find out that there is a process.

If I still worked in Industry, there would be more avenues through which I could resolve this problem. For example:

In Industry, I could quit my job, and find a healthier company. I cannot quit a school and go to another school so easily, though more and more I'm thinking of quitting altogether.

In Industry, I could discuss the issue with human resources, and the issue would come up in his annual review with his own boss. At the University of GradShitTownVille, there are no annual reviews that take student input into consideration.

In Industry, there are other safeties which would not require any action of my own. At IBM Research for example, minorities are tracked according to managers. If a given manager has a history of losing minorities to other managers and other groups, a flag is raised.

Oil Addict

"I love my country, too. The people with the yellow 'Support Our Troops' magnets on their SUVs, they're the ones that really need to stop and think," White says. "They need to follow the path back to where we are now. Every drop of blood that's spilled over there comes back to them."

--

Taken from "My Name Is Randy, And I'm Addicted To Oil."

Iraqi Free Dumb

An American soldier, born in Sweet Home, OR, publishes his journal about his experiences in Iraq.

May 30

It may just be my newfound cynicism, but I believe these journals to be more comical than historical. These people really have no control over anything going on here.

I've concluded that my time here will not be a total loss: Although I won't get to fight for democracy against the "Axis of Evil," I will save money and get into better shape. It's kind of like a workout program that pays you, a yearlong health spa. That is what it is, Club Iraqi Free Dumb. It has to be that, because it can't be a real war. If you don't believe me, look in the PX [commissary]. They sell a wide selection of incredibly corny T-shirts like, 'Who's your Baghdaddy?' These are such moronic attempts to capitalize on my violent health spa, but these things are selling like hotcakes. Do you think they sold D-Day T-shirts? Who's your D-Day Daddy? How about the invasion of Normandy?

The full text is here.

What am I, a chicken?

Recently took a trip to Texas to attend a conference. Met a guy from New York during my "student volunteer work" (translation: mundane tasks which eat up a lot of good conference going time, but let me attend for free since I didn't get any funding to go). We were just chatting about graduate school. He was complaining about his advisor, and I said, "At least your advisor isn't as bad as that Hwang guy, making his students donate their eggs for research." And then I made some joke about how maybe I should donate some of my eggs to get money to go to conferences. The look on his face was disturbing. I paused. He asked,

"What do you mean 'egg-s?'"

My head was racing. I couldn't figure out if he was asking me how to donate eggs, the actual surgical technique involved in obtaining the eggs, how I could donate multiple eggs at once, or how I could make the choice to donate my eggs. After some further questioning, he finally asked,

"How do you donate a bunch of eggs? Women just make one egg every month, right?"

And I was immediately reminded of this post in which I complain that there just isn't enough sex education in America.

And so, at the volunteer desk of a computer science conference, I'm explaining to a 28 year old graduate student about how human eggs are created during a female embryo's development in the womb, that women have all their eggs when they are born, that thousands of eggs are lost to apoptosis, and that only a few hundred will actually be viable. I told him about how an ovary is about the size of an almond and how the eggs are ejected from ovarian follicles that contain the eggs. I told him about how the ovaries aren't actually connected to the fallopian tubes, and that if one fallopian tube is broken or infected, the other will actually reach around to the opposite ovary to get the next egg. I told him that women who donate eggs inject themselves daily with a series of hormones that cause multiple eggs to be ejected during a single cycle. On the one hand, I couldn't believe that I was telling this to a grown adult, but on the other hand, I was proud of the guy for listening to all of it. At the end of the lesson he asked,

"How do you know all this stuff?"

I simply replied,

"I read books."

I'll admit, my sex education classes in middle school and high school were really boring. Only in the past few years have I learned all the cool stuff. In sex education, I was always shown this picture which looked more like a goat than a grouping of organs. I was given the run-down of the 28-day menstrual cycle. I wasn't told about all the really cool things that a woman's body could do. I also wasn't told other intriguing things like how medical and anthropological research only have THEORIES as to why women have breasts or why women menstruate, and that we actually don't know a lot about the human body. I think that sex education, even without mention of condoms (see other post), could really benefit from these additions. Plus gross pictures, are a lot more fun than this.

Mixed Messages

Since I'm attending a highly rated university, I should aim for a tenure track position. At least, that's what the talking heads say. But the message I get from looking at these graphs is rather different.

Monastic life

Taken from "A Day in the Life of a Catholic Monk"

For most people, the only monks they come across are in Brother Cadfael or The Name of the Rose. It often comes as a surprise to learn that they are also real people. There are still monasteries of monks and nuns in England, most of them belonging to the Roman Catholic Church, all of them witnessing to God by their life of prayer and by a rich variety of works including teaching, running parishes, giving retreats, creating beautiful objects like stained glass and ceramics, and inspiring others with uplifting music and worship. Unlike missionaries and friars, who travel about quite a lot in the course of their work, monks tend to stay put in one place, so that the monastery which they make their home becomes a focus for the prayer life of the local community and a stable point in a rapidly changing world.

During Mass, The whole community is gathered together for the celebration of the eucharist, in which we remember the saving sacrifice of Christ, and renew the offering of ourselves to God. Afterwards, the monks go about their different jobs, whether it be teaching in the school, looking after a local parish, or dealing with visitors. In the middle of our working day, we pause to remember that it is God who gives value to our work and sustains us in our labours. This is followed by lunch. We begin by singing grace together; then, as we eat in silence, one of the brethren reads to us an extract which the Abbot has chosen: it might be an academic article from a journal, or a sermon or lecture. At the end of the day is Compline. It is the last part of the Divine Office, which we sing by heart in the darkened Church. Afterwards, there is silence in the monastery until breakfast the next morning. Some monks will go to bed soon afterwards; for others there is still work to be done: the school will not quieten down until 11.30 p.m. I tend to get to bed around 10.00 p.m.

Hm. With just a little editing...

For most people, the only graduate students they come across are in The Paper Chase. It often comes as a surprise to learn that they are also real people. There are still graduate schools of monks and nuns in England, most of them belonging to the state, all of them witnessing to NSF by their life of research and by a rich variety of works including teaching, running demos, giving retreats, creating beautiful objects like posters, and boring others with boring papers. Unlike professors, who travel about quite a lot in the course of their work, graduate students tend to stay put in one place, so that the graduate school which they make their home becomes a focus for the academic life of the local community and a stable point in a rapidly changing world.

During the research group meeting, The whole group is gathered together for the celebration of the advisor, in which we remember the saving sacrifice of funding, and renew the offering of ourselves to our advisor. Afterwards, the graduate students go about their different jobs, whether it be teaching in the school, looking after an undergrad, or dealing with visitors. In the middle of our working day, we pause to remember that it is our advisor who gives value to our work and sustains us in our labours. This is followed by lunch. We begin by singing grace together; then, as we eat in silence, we read: one of the brethren reads to us an extract which the Abbot has chosen: it might be an academic article from a journal, or an e-mail. At the end of the day is finally getting to work on research. It is the last part of the Divine Office, which we sing by heart in the darkened Church. Afterwards, there is silence in the office until breakfast the next morning. Some graduate students will go to bed soon afterwards; for others there is still work to be done: the school will not quieten down until 4:00 a.m. I tend to get to bed around 1 a.m.

The lesson: Monks get more sleep than I do. Maybe I should be a monk.