skookumchick

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March 30, 2009
Ever since Erin and Hig walked through the village near our summer cabin in British Columbia, I've been reading their blog about walking from Seattle to the Aleutian Islands. Once they made it to their destination, over a year from when they started, they set up a yurt and started writing up a…
March 29, 2009
For this month's Scientiae, Candid Engineer has asked for stories about overcoming challenges. ScienceWoman has already contributed an awesome story to the Diversity in Science carnival, but I think it does for Scientiae, too. What about my own story? Prior to my current job, my biggest soul-…
March 28, 2009
ScienceWoman has been a rockstar carrying the blogging load this week, and I'll have to crave her (and your) indulgence a little bit longer. Apart from discovering that both my university president and my university provost read our blog (hi again!), I had a site visit on Friday, attended a poster…
March 23, 2009
Happiness is boots that makes one feel strengthened and tough when one wears them. Even better is wearing boots called "engineer boots" when one is an engineer. And perhaps even better again is that one buys such boots from here but significantly on sale, and for one's birthday, no less. A photo…
March 21, 2009
Happiness is time to plant bulbs, even if you plant them indoors, and even if they were already sprouting in their paper bags in the fridge...
March 20, 2009
Happiness is vegetable seeds arriving, and 70 degree days that remind you you can plant soon. Click to embiggen. Even better is when those seeds are given to you by a farmer friend, so you have way cooler varieties than you would when you just bought them through the seed catalogue. Now, when is…
March 19, 2009
Dr. Isis has decided to donate the funds from her blog traffic to fund a scholarship for undergraduate research, and has gotten the American Physiological Society to match her donation up to $500. And all you have to do is click on her site - no $$ donations required. So cool! Go visit her…
March 19, 2009
I know this clip is a few days old, but that's how far behind I am in watching the Daily Show (does Tucker Carlson really call Jon Stewart "Jon Daily?"). Hat tip to my colleague who sent me the link. */ The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c Stem Sell Daily Show Full…
March 19, 2009
Okay, so what on earth *have* I been up to, if not blogging? I'm catching you up (rather like the recitative bits in opera - dry, dull, but advancing the action, rather than arias which are beautiful but don't get you anywhere much) with some RBOCs... As previously mentioned, I had a trip to…
March 18, 2009
So the readers have spoken: one more vote for hearing about my PI experience than the weird convo with the deans. However, I was working on the draft, and then some more work stuff got dumped on me, then SW had her popular deconstruction of one of Greg Laden's posts and I didn't want to interrupt…
March 12, 2009
Just super busy in the 3D world, as Janet calls it. Burning the candle at both ends. But I have a little time carved out tomorrow morning and I hope to get a blog post written then. And next week is spring break for us, so I hope to have more time then. In the meantime, let me offer a choice of…
March 3, 2009
So I got back Sunday night from a workshop at Arizona State University on Engineering and Science Ethics Education. The goal of the workshop was to explore the possibilities for blending microethics and macroethics in graduate engineering and science education; we spent 2 days talking about the…
March 3, 2009
I'm excited that Kim Hannula, a geologist from Colorado who guest blogged for us in January and who used to blog at All of My Faults are Stress Related has moved over to Scienceblogs! Welcome Kim, to the Madhouse. :-) In other news, as ScienceWoman has mentioned, Liberal Arts Lady has crafted a…
March 3, 2009
It's that time of the year again when folks may be thinking about graduate school opportunities, and what with the current economic climate, maybe more than possible. If you'd be interested in finding more out about what a PhD in engineering education might entail, my school is having an open…
February 27, 2009
Haaaappy birrrrthdaaaay tooo yoooooou, Haaaaappy birrrrthdaaaay toooo yooooou, Haaaappy birrrrrrrthdaaaaay, deeeeear Sciiiiience Womaaaaan, Haaaaaappy birrrrthdaaaaaay toooo yoooooooou! (Aaaand many moooooooore!)
February 26, 2009
So here I am in sunny and unsustainable Tempe, enjoying the warm weather and empty morning (the workshop I'm here to attend doesn't start until 1:30 local time). I spent this morning sleeping in (gasp!), chatting to my mom on iChat, calling a friend whose birthday it is (Hi, Sarah!), and -- even…
February 25, 2009
Sorry for my blog silence -- I've been swamped in work, and then to top it off, I got sick yesterday and missed a day of work (!). I'm heading to Arizona State University today to go to a workshop on engineering ethics, and to visit my sister-in-law and her family, so the blogging silence is…
February 19, 2009
Call for Manuscripts: Special issue of Engineering Studies: Journal of the International Network for Engineering Studies on "Engineering and Social Justice" Editors, Engineering Studies: Gary Downey (Virginia Tech, USA) and Juan Lucena (Colorado School of Mines, USA) Special Issue Editor: Jen…
February 17, 2009
A colleague of mine sent around this link to the Chronicle (behind firewall, boo!) for some advice on how to stay healthy, even perhaps happy, while working on your dissertation. See the ideas after the fold. By author Piper Fogg: Learn to recognize the signs of depression and anxiety and don't be…
February 16, 2009
As I sit here, sending comments to a colleague on his slides, trying to figure out what we're teaching for class on Wednesday, uploading TA slides to Blackboard (BBTBOME=BlackBoard, The Bane Of My Existence), with 16 flagged emails in my "highest priority" smart mailbox, 50 pages yet to read in…
February 16, 2009
One of our research projects for ADVANCE involves doing a survey of people at Purdue asking them about their experience of Purdue's "climate." We're working on developing the survey, but one of the things we're finding interesting is that people's definitions of climate vary significantly, and…
February 14, 2009
Happy Valentine's Day! Voila a Facebook crossover, inspired by a friend of mine who is on the faculty at Wake Forest University. See my responses below, and consider yourself tagged if you like: 1. YOUR REAL NAME: Alice Pawley 2.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME:(mother and fathers middle names) Jane…
February 13, 2009
A good friend and colleague of mine, Alisha Wallers recently sent me an email about a new company she has founded. She used to be a mainstay of the feminist engineering education group until she "retired" to spend more time focusing on the education of her kids. Since then, she started "Learning…
February 11, 2009
A good colleague of mine sent this video around a couple of days ago, with the disclaimer that sometimes he saw himself as the engineer, and sometimes (increasingly) like the "management dude," a fact he found alarming. I for sure feel that one of the reasons that we see so little change in…
February 10, 2009
I recently got an email from a colleague, Rebecca Hartman-Baker, who works at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the National Center for Computational Sciences, and who would like some thoughts from you all on the following questions and context:A colleague and I are holding a Birds of a Feather…
February 9, 2009
It was one February ago, as in one year ago in February, that I abandoned my old pseudonymous blogging pad, and threw my lot in with the formidable Science Woman as a new coblogger. We were both working our ways through our first year of tenure-track, and I think each struggling a bit with keeping…
February 6, 2009
DLee has started a new carnival to highlight the contributions of awesome scientists and engineers, with the first one being focused on the contributions of African-American scientists and engineers (it being Black History Month and all). (By the way, does anyone else think it is supercool to have…
February 4, 2009
... is to avoid vampire meetings. Which are any meetings which suck out your soul. And perhaps damn it to eternity. Post your horror stories here if you think it will help exorcise the effects. Hat tip to 43folders.com.
February 4, 2009
Acmegirl and DLee facilitated a ScienceOnline2009 session about race and science, stemming from what happened last year where the session on gender and race really focused on gender and not race. I've finally written up my notes, and what follows is a rough summary of the conversation. For those…
January 31, 2009
I'm cleaning house, and trying to write half an exam, and making a dessert to take to a friend's house tonight, and trying to reset myself. So, while I am not blogging, here is a distracting video to amuse you. Carry on. Hat tip to one of my husband's former students, who posted it on her blog.