Alice shares...

ScienceWoman mused about the completion of her first year here, and I had hoped I would develop similar observations and reflections while on Isle Royale. Truth be told, rather than taking the hiking time to think, uninterrupted, about the last year, I did anything but. Think, that is. Instead, I turned the intellectual brain off, and instead looked for orchids and wolf tracks and birds, and engaged in random brain static conversation with my husband about our house and his developing job. It was like a brain vacation. However, on the 600 mile drive back, I did have chance to think a bit…
I'm taking a vacation next week. For real. Miles from anywhere. We're headed to the isolated Isle Royale National Park, which is the island in Lake Superior that is the eye of the wolf, as it were. We take a boat there Monday, and come back on the next boat, which runs on Friday. Guess what else? There will be no Internets. I wanted to write a similar post to ScienceWoman on my reflections on my first year, but I feel I need a little space to be able to do this first. My head is so full of static - what to read next, should I really read that next, shouldn't I work on the revisions for…
My small friend Anni, on the left wearing the crown in this Christmas photo (with her sister Frankie) is 7. She is waiting for her third liver transplant. Last week, she was taken from our town to Chicago in an ambulance because of a particularly heavy bleed, and although the bleeding has now slowed, her hepatic artery is narrowed, and her doctors think she might have Graft Versus Host Disease. I don't know what all this means except it's bad. Her mom Moreena blogs about Anni and Frankie here and sounds petrified. Moreena's previous post was about the neighbor girl down the block who…
Hahahah, I foolishly thought that, when summer officially started, my life would settle down. Hohoho, so why don't I try to complicate things by, oh, I don't know, how about moving, and putting our house on the market? So here are some updates that give a somewhat authentic snapshot of what I'm doing right now, a perfect example of how work and "the rest of life" cannot be separated. As I glibly mentioned a few weeks ago, my husband has decided to go on academic leave. I wasn't sure how to blog about this as he had not yet made his decision public to the world (he had told his department…
Okay, so I've been keeping this under my hat for the last six-eight months, scared of jinxing things, but it's becoming arduous to keep hiding, so I'm sharing. Purdue submitted a proposal in December for an NSF-ADVANCE institutional transformation grant - the purpose of these grants are to improve the lot for and of women in science and engineering academia, particularly faculty positions. I'm listed as a co-PI on Purdue's grant. NSF hasn't awarded anything yet, so we are in official limbo, waiting for word. However, the waiting game has now bumped into the annual ADVANCE PI meeting,…
I got back into town at about 1:00 pm on Monday from a weekend at my other house. I ate lunch from leftovers in the fridge from at least 1.5 weeks ago (ack), and proceeded to waste much of the rest of the afternoon. While I did call some landscapers for help with our blank-slate back yard, and go to the grocery store, and make risotto and sauteed cauliflower for dinner (with leftovers!) and eat it outside, I did no *real* work - ie, work for which I am being paid. And while I should indeed have time without work in order to recharge for the next day, I don't yet feel enough on top of work…
Right, so I now live (most of the time) in Indiana. We're up next, along with North Carolina, in the presidential primary spotlight. I've been getting multiple mailings every day, we've got ads on TV, the cities are being visited by major players; while I'm new to Indiana and am coming from the battleground state of Wisconsin, this is apparently a new experience for most Hoosiers. So, as we progress through the last weekend before the primary on Tuesday, how am I thinking about who to vote for? Let me first make a disclaimer which otherwise should be obvious: I'm a Democrat. How do I…
No, really! My first meeting of the Three Days of Meetings that I thought started at 8 am, does in fact start at 8 am, but I don't have to be in it! So I get an hour back! Just thought I'd share. :-) I take the good things where I can get them, even if they're little.
I'm moving into the last week of the semester, and I have been having blog posts swirl around in my head for weeks now, haven't found the perseverance to sit down and write about them yet. But after this weekend, a few things have settled down. In particular, my husband has officially decided to go on leave next year (a few blog posts in itself), and his last week of classes was last week so there was considerable doubt and worry also swirling around. We're still trying to line up a job for him in the fall, if that's what he wants - although he also seems terribly burnt out and could also…
I am tired. Dog tired. We're nearing the end of the semester, but not so near that I can see the light at the end of my tunnel of meetings. I've been traveling every weekend for the last month, the house needs to be cleaned, the laundry done, the fridge stocked, and the email responded to. And instead I have nothing but meetings all day. Job candidates, seminar candidates, prospective student meetings, end of year committee meetings, advisory board meetings and dinners, graduate recruiting meetings, task force meetings... I also have two papers that I need to get out. How to schedule in…
I woke up at 5:30ish realizing the room was moving. Irrationally I thought it might be because of the geothermal installation - maybe the foundations had been disturbed and the house was going to fall down! Or maybe there were burglars, as I heard a crash downstairs. As my brain kicked into gear, I realized it must be an earthquake, leapt (I got air, I tell you) out of bed, and stood in a door, but it was pretty much over by then. I came down stairs anyway to see if it was burglars. It wasn't. Nothing was damaged, so far as I can see. My first thought was to call my husband but I didn't…
... as I'm sick. And swamped. And sick. And traveling again both this weekend, and next weekend. And last weekend. Did I mention I'm sick? In better news, the bobcat guy flattened our backyard, so it's flat now from the geothermal installation, and looks like it has potential for gardening. A cheering thought. My good friend and colleague Donna Riley is visiting Purdue today (and giving this seminar), and dinner with her and a group of other folks is promised on another colleague's porch (it's going to be 70ºF!). So that counterbalances a bit the sickness and swampedness. A little…
For the first weekend for quite a number of weeks, I've gotten to be at home. The other home, yes, but at least one of them. So it's been a weekend of odds and sods of various flavours: We are avid NPR listeners and heard about this interesting story about fortnightly clubs, clubs that women joined in the 19th century (and still until today, apparently) to keep their intellect exercised. *Gasp*: they do research, for fun! How shocking. I got to catch up (although only a little) on my Google Reader blogs, and got to hear the newest installment from Erin and Hig as they walk from Seattle to…
I'm heading out tomorrow to the Engineering, Social Justice and Peace Conference being held at Smith College this weekend, and then two days in the area to try to meet with students and talk about our graduate program in engineering education. Anyone going to be in the area and up for a meet-up? I'll try to post on the conference while I'm away, pending internet connections.
Oh lord, what fools these mortals be. Especially that one down there named Alice. I've had two particular moments of foolishness in the last few days that have smacked me upside the head. And because the Scientiae theme for April (shockingly) is "fools and foolishness," I feel compelled to share them with you. There will be drama, politics, famous names, remorse, public humiliation... I tell you, it's worth looking below the fold. Yesterday, the president of our university came to visit our new building. She spoke with all kinds of people throughout the college from NAE members to recent…
I've survived my spring break; now I have my first week back, while my husband tries to survive his. Week of March 17-23Monday we moved the appliances and all the kitchen stuff back into the kitchen, packed up all my stuff from the previous week, all my husband's stuff for the forthcoming week (his spring break), all my parents' stuff for their trip to visit my sister, and a bunch of extra boxes to move to our other house. We packed up the fridge so we'd have something to eat when we got back to Indiana, and put it all into 3 cars. We put one more poly coat on the floor, cleaned, and made it…
*Whew.* I have been slammed down by work and life, absolutely no room for blogging. Today I get a breather, and so you get an update. Week of March 10-19 My spring break started out pretty well. Monday I had a phone conference with people I am co-authoring a paper with for the Frontiers in Education conference - the paper was due on March 24. I had lunch with my husband. I caught up on email and, because it was spring break and other people were actually taking time off (a good thing) most of the email questions didn't come back. I bought my plane ticket to the Engineering, Social…
Not only has it been INSANE in my job this week, my computer has been in the shop since yesterday morning, and won't be back in my hands until Monday morning. If then. Of course, part of the recent insanity has perhaps been BECAUSE my computer has been in the shop. And they've been installing the geothermal system - my backyard looks like a bomb hit. And upgrading the power to the house to 200A. And now I have to go cook for 11 people. As well as drop by the computer fixit place to get some files (like my annual report, due in an hour and 15 minutes) to work on over the weekend. And…
In an attempt to do my part to displace whiteness from "normal" in terms of thinking about diversity and science, I'm telling my ethnic story. This is part II; part I is here. More below the fold... The story of my mom's side of the family is quite different from my dad's. My mom's parents both grew up in the North of England, with my grandmother's family being coalminers. My grandmother went to school until the equivalent of 8th grade, and then she came home and helped look after her 9 siblings. I'm not sure where my grandparents met, or how they came to live in London. That's where…
Some events combined last week to make me feel like ScienceBlogs needs to have a serious discussion about race and science. Here's a place to start - how do white people tell their own racial or ethnic stories? More below the fold... So last week, Monday afternoon through Wednesday afternoon, I was at my university's Multicultural Forum. While it is required for some of us to go, and while it looked like a lot of the material was going to be familiar to me already, I decided to use the 2.5 days as a time to gauge this new city I'm living in - as staff, faculty and alums attend this forum, I…