The closest to Normal (Illinois) that I've ever been.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

What does Susan do all day?


It occurs to me that it's been a while since I discussed my secret other life as a biologist. From outward appearances, I am either sitting in my office with crickets in boxes and the light off, or sitting in my office doing something at my computer with the light on. So what am I up to?
1) getting my dissertation chapters published. So far, the first chapter has been published (Ethology), the second and third have been accepted and are in press (Evolutionary Ecology Research; Behavioral Ecology), the fourth has been submitted (Evolution), and the fifth is in prep. Every time that I think that one of these bastards is gone for good, I get another letter saying that my figures are either too low or high in resolution, or the publisher has lost the previous two copies of the publishing agreement that I faxed (yes, faxed).
2) writing up my first paper from my post-doc work. I think that it is pretty close to being ready for submission. It is about how males do not prefer novel partners. Woo-hoo!
3) doing experiments. I am currently working four experiments at the same time and I am about to start a fifth. I have one experiment each with three grad students, one with a postdoc and one random experiment on my own. Some of the experiments deal with how females are able to distinguish novel from familiar males, and some deal with immunity. One experiment uses sagebrush crickets, and the rest use outbred and inbred decorated crickets. For some experiments, I am doing the actual work. For other experiments, I am training the grad students and hopefully they will be able to take over soon. For each experiment, there is a cloud of minutiae to do like ordering equipment, taking care of hundreds of hungry little animals, washing dishes, etc.
4) random human interactions. You know: going to meetings about stuff and junk. I am also on master's student's committee, which is pretty exciting.

2 comments:

Beth said...

"cloud of minutiae" and "meetings about stuff and junk." Hilarious, I totally miss you.

Anonymous said...

What Beth said.

Susan, in case no one has told you lately, you are a genius.