With Expert Timing

Earlier this week, one of my mentors forwarded me an article he'd recently read, and asked if I had already seen it.  And surprisingly, I had.

Today, another one of them mentioned an expert in the field who was his own mentor years back, and for once, I recognized the name from the literature. 

It's almost as if I'm slowly getting the hang of this small piece of research I'm trying to stake a claim on.  And it feels pretty good. 

(Smells Like) Thanksgiving Spirit

This is the season to count grateful blah blahs.  Here's mine for today: In exchange for living in the Midwest, I get to have not one, not two, but a panel of (read: 4) dedicated mentors who tell me how to do my job.  This aspect of work is tied with occasional free pizza Wednesdays and having a steady paycheck as my favorites; everything else is terrible.  Today, I had a meeting with one mentor; he told me about his upcoming 50th college reunion and what it was like to be on campus during the Vietnam War era.

Moi: Vietnam.  Sometimes I forget that you are older. 

Doc Interruptus: What's that?

Moi: Sometimes I forget how old you are.

Doc Interruptus: I once had a woman come up to me at [a conference], she said, "It's such an honor to meet you.  I've been citing your work for years.  In fact, I thought you were dead."

And this is why I'm thankful: I work in a field in which I'm never the most awkward person or the person with the most poorly worded sentiments.  There is always another nerdlinger to make me look near normal in comparison.  

Almost Like Winning

"I am happy, very happy, to accept this compromise that I feel makes neither of us completely satisfied and so therefore defines an excellent course of action."   -- Mentor Boss

Microsoft tells me that Mentor Boss, Mentor Sass, and I engaged in 18 email messages about the title of a commentary before we hit on one that no one had particularly strong opinions about.  Because we are people who don't know how to hold them, and certainly don't know how to fold them.  

Finders' Keeper

Today, an innocuous question about floppy disks led Mentor Boss to show me all the wonderfully outdated pieces of once-cutting-edge technology in his office, like an early Palm Pilot and brick-sized cellphone (it was weighty, flipped out, and looked just like a prop).  At first, he described them as a collection, but as our conversation went on, I realized that he had used all of these things when they were new.  He was that nerdy resident carrying around a giant phone so he could take patient calls wherever he was. 

Moi: Is it really a collection if you just never threw these things away?

Mentor Boss: What is the difference?  I don't understand the question.

In that case, I am a collector of empty calories and back issues of The New Yorker. 

Elevator Speech

For the first time in my professional life, I am at a place where there are people whose job it is to facilitate my work.  It's a weird place to be- that after a decade of being in research support positions, of knowing what fonts Doc Whitecastle likes and how to work Doc Who's schedule, and managing research assistants, the roles have flipped.  There are people who help me now.  Even though this job has been a decade in the making (Lord, that's a long time), I still feel like it has caught me off guard.  And nearly a year into this position, I still feel like I'm merely playing grown up and that everyone knows it.

Especially when there are moments like Friday, when I'm having several conversations with colleagues about life and research throughout the day, in offices, hallways, and by elevators, and it starts to feel like we are true equals having serious exchanges of ideas and cordiality, and all that is disrupted by a question by Doc Bear,

Doc Bear:  Are you waiting for the elevator?  Because you need to push a button for it to go down.

So that's how things work in Indy.  It does explain why it took the elevator so long to arrive.

Ugly Duckling

Starting a new position is humbling in many ways-- I am the youngest and least experienced faculty member, so everyone has had more everything than I have.  But one perk of being the youngest is that no matter how ancient I feel with each passing day, no matter how many blank stares I get from my summer student because I referenced a show "before her time," I will always be young compared to other faculty members.

(Discussing the eclipse to come in a meeting)

Moi: But these eclipses happen not infrequently, right?  They've happened before and will happen again?

Mentor Boss: Yes.  The last one was in 1979.

Moi: (somewhat facetiously)  That's before I was born.

Doctor Angel (to Doctor Bear): Aw.  Joy is still a puppy!

Should Old Acquaintance

This weekend is a special weekend because I get to have not one, but three, throwback visitors from Baltimore staying at my place.  Jesse is here for Gen-Con, a large gathering of board game nerds from all over the nation, while Jamie and Greg are here because they are good friends who like to humor Jesse (and visit me!).

Though I haven't seen these guys in months-- in fact, it's been almost a year since I've seen Jamie, we soon fell into old patterns and habits.  And some patterns and habits are best left in the past and out of my one-bedroom apartment. 

Jesse: [burps loudly in succession]

Moi: Um.  Remember how I'm a woman?  And you want to pretend to be polite in front of me?

Jesse: We are too far gone.  It's too late for such things.

Pizza Party

For the last two months, summer interns have been swarming around the office.  I even got to have one of my own.  It made me feel very grown up.  Though I suppose grown ups are not supposed to feel as utterly unprepared and clueless as I felt "supervising" my student.  To thank her for all her efforts, I took her out to a light dinner on Thursday along with a couple of tremendous research coordinators we have.

I thought that was pretty good as far as nice supervisors go.  But Paige took it to another level.  First she designed a birthday scavenger hunt for her student.  And yesterday, her student got a sendoff pizza party that exposed certain deficiencies in our staff knowledge:

[Kathleen, on her upcoming second wedding anniversary]

Kathleen: My anniversary is either the 24th or 25th... I don't remember.

Nina: This is understandable because you've been married so long.

Kathleen: For some reason, dates above 10, I just can't remember.  I told my husband that when we were picking a date.

Moi: Wait.  Do you know when Christmas is?

Paige: I can never figure it out!  Is it 24th, 25th, or 26th?

Kathleen: I know Christmas is the 25th.

Paige: Oh good.  It was the middle one.

Everyone else: [Stunned hysterics]

I don't mind being upstaged on being nice to my summer student in a setting like this.  Junk food and inane logic is the exact kind of place where I thrive.

We Were on a Break

Today, after some light research chat with Dr. Dave.

Moi: I think this is the first time I've seen you without caffeine in hand.

Dr. Dave: Really?

Moi: Yeah, especially in the afternoon.

Dr. Dave: Actually, I was going to get something in about an hour.

They say that creeping on colleagues is the first step toward becoming good collaborators.  They do say that, right?

New Mom and New Dad

It's been too long since I've written a blog post.  With the way the interweb is evolving, Facebook now gets the bulk of my workplace humiliations and silly thoughts of the day.  There was a moment at dinner last night, however, that felt it was ripe for a blog post.  

I live in a new land now, in the Midwest.  And after years of addressing mentors by the moniker Prof, I am now one myself.  Albeit an assistant prof.  And one without any students.  Being still fairly new to the area, I do not have many friends of my own (I can still count them on one hand), but I have many colleagues.  I invited a small blend of friends, colleagues, mentors, and spouses over for dinner last night because it was the Lunar New Year.  And one cannot celebrate the new year without dumplings.  

At one point in the night, with a vegetarian and vegan in the house (Lisa: Vegan?  This friendship will not last.), the subject of seitan came up while I was sitting in between New Mentor Boss and Mrs. New Mentor Boss.  

Sunshine: My kids like the seitan that I make.  

Mentor Boss: I don't think I've had seitan.

Mrs. Mentor Boss: I've made it before.  

Mentor Boss: Oh right, I didn't like it.  I didn't like the taste.

Sunshine: Well, the taste is however you flavor it, just like tofu.

Mentor Boss: ... 

Moi: I'm not sure I should still sit between you two.  This is getting uncomfortable.