Back to work overshare

Aaahhh. Back to work. I have been putting off doing some challenging revisions, so I have not been looking forward to going back to the lab. However, it felt great to take care of all of the loose ends that have been nagging at me. After a day of lab minutia and revisions, I feel much better.
Also, I have almost lost the weight that I gained from all of the delicious food in Baltimore and New York. (The fact that I have a cold and everything tastes like snot is a big help, I would guess.)

Also, every single morning of my vacation at home my shower was disturbed by someone or another coming into the bathroom to drop a deuce. One day I will have two bathrooms! Now that everyone is on weekday schedules, this elimination problem has been eliminated.

Also, we had a light snow last night which gave everything a beautiful dusting of white. Except for the black splotch of ice that was revealed when I slipped and smashed my knee on the way to work. On the way home from work I noticed that there were two more assprints in the same spot, so I guess that I wasn't the only unlucky one.

Alyn, I saw this cartoon and thought of you. Maybe the muttsies aren't just begging for food and attention?

Ice day

The crickets have taken me hostage again. I am determined to finish this experiment before I leave for Baltimore, but it has been an incredible hassle. I have been working long hours all week in preparation for the main event, which was scheduled to take place today. And what else was scheduled for today? A massive ice storm, of course. One bizarre aspect to living in the flyover region is that weather forecasts are dead-on accurate. An ice storm was predicted for 8 pm last night, and darned if it didn't start raining at exactly 8:00.

School was called off for both kids. We had 1.5 inches of ice accumulate in the night, and I was awakened at 6am by the sound of a massive tree limb rolling down the roof and crushing our fence. Surprisingly, the electric fence wiring that we had woven through the chain link was intact, so Argos can still go out without escaping.

In the morning I strapped on my crampons and hiked to work. And bizarrely enough, the place was hopping. I usually get to work @ 8:30 and I see no one. However, today there were tons of people around, each vying for the "Look at Me--I Risked My Life to Get Here and I Am a Martyr for Science" award. Eventually ISU issued a statement saying that only "essential employees" should come to work today, so perhaps we all harbor feelings of self-importance.

The experiment went reasonably well, but now I am stuck here waiting for the last few stragglers to do their thing...

Sledding on Jersey Hill before the ice storm

Potlatch

When I was an anthropology major in college, we learned about an indigenous North American ritual called the potlatch. In the potlatch, families vied to bring the biggest and most elaborate gifts and foods to a communal feast. Even when people were scraping by to get enough to eat, they would bring something flashy to the potlatch because a poor showing would disgrace the status of the family. (Actually, this was the reason why the potlatch was banned in the US and Canada). When I was in college, I was very PC but also earthy-crunchy (not-shavey), so I recall appreciating this odd cultural tradition and being offended by the waste at the same time.

Now that I am back in the midwest, I am seeing the modern equivalent of the potlatch all over the place. Joseph's school relies on outside donations in order to keep going. But the enthusiasm for donation is baffling. Although it is a great school, and we do donate time and money, it seems like my donation money is better contributed to sources that less directly benefit me and relatively affluent private school families. But at these fundraisers, parents compete with one another to donate more and more money--literally $1000s of dollars at a time! I have to conclude that the public donation serves as an indicator of affluence and status (yes Biology fans, the handicap principle--only rich people can afford to waste loads of $$$, so wasting $$$ is an honest indicator of wealth). Tomorrow, Danny and I are going to the Mulberry school Gala, in which families vie to outbid one another for various prizes. We are only able to go because someone bought extra tickets and going to these things on our budget is rather like going to Vegas without any gambling money. So we may be in for a dull time.

Also, this afternoon, one of the faculty members at ISU Biological Sciences suggested that faculty contribute to the local public radio station so that the department could sponsor Darwin day. A great idea, for sure! But immediately, my inbox was filled with faculty attempting to outdo one another by contributing more and more $$$. When I offered to chip in $15, I was told that they wouldn't accept my money because postdocs don't have enough cash to spend it on donations. I pointed out that I had to renew my public radio membership anyway, so the radio station was going to get my money one way or another, but no dice.

Not mad

Last Wednesday, I saw South Park before I went to sleep. In that episode, Cartman goads Wendy until she beats the crap out of him. The next day I woke up and I was finally not mad at my lazy co-worker anymore. (Of course, I still do not trust him!) So now he and I can finish up the remainder of our collaborative teaching and research without me getting an ulcer or killing him.

MAD MADDER MADDEST

I am decently happy most of the time, but today I was ALL-THE-WAY MAD for most of the day.

My team-teaching colleague is doing a crappy job. He needs to be reminded multiple times to do what he is supposed to do and creates stress by missing every TA meeting and deadline. And tomorrow he is going out of town for a vacation. I just realized that he was on the schedule to supervise lab next week and he is leaving without making any arrangements for his absence. Our TA is very anxious about this, and I don't want her to suffer, but I am infuriated that I will likely have to cover for him against my will.

My TA and I had little enough confidence that he would show up for lab today that I reassured her that I would help her out if he didn't show up. I had a dentist appointment for my cracked filling, and I actually had to put off having it repaired to be back in time for lab. My colleague showed up at the last minute for lab, acting as if everything was fabulous, and now I am stuck with a cracked filling until Tuesday.
He also finally brought in the data that he said that he would do. He is two weeks late on this data set, as well as two weeks late on the previous one, so I have processed all of the remaining data while waiting for him to finish. He (perhaps intentionally) takes so long to do anything that I am forced to do his work to stay on schedule.

So today he swans in and drops off the data, expecting that he will get a hero's welcome for his effort. But at this point, it is just too little too late. And then he starts making helpful suggestions/criticisms about the data processing--WHICH I HAVE ALREADY FINISHED minus the small set of data that he has finally returned to me. He professes interest in dividing up the effort on getting the papers written, which is when I went from being somewhat irritable to ALL-THE-WAY MAD. He and I have already been two cycles of this crap. First, he is enthusiastic about the project and we make plans, dividing up the work, etc. Then, he disappears, and I am stuck--unable to finish the work without knowing what he has done or will do. Somehow, when I am so pissed off that I am about to take desperate measures, he returns, full of enthusiasm and promises. This has already happened two times, and I am not going to participate in a third round.

So, all day I was just beside myself trying to deal with the ALL-THE-WAY MAD thing. I was so mad that I was making stupid distracted mistakes at work. So, I swam laps (I went so fast that I finished 5 min early). I commiserated with someone. I listened to attitude-adjusting music. I worked on fun busywork. I went for a run. But clearly, I am still mad, sitting here with the metallic taste of my broken filling.


Update 9/26: I felt more calm in the morning, but new developments have gotten me maximally MAD again. Re my colleague skipping town without finding a teaching lab replacement: I found out that my TA (probably under duress) told my colleague that I had offered to help her out with the lab. Thus, although my colleague never spoke to me, offered to trade labs or compensate me in any way, he can feel free to not show up knowing that the lab is covered.
Re my research project: I was processing his belated files and realized that he actually did all of the data processing yesterday and the day before. So, on Friday when he said that the left the data at home, he was lying. And on Monday when he gave me his thumb drive and told me that the data was on it, he was also lying!

Lab fairy tale #2

Once upon a time, there was a researcher who was collaborating with another young investigator on a project.
She asked, "Who will help me implant these crickets with monofilament?" and he said "Not I. I forgot."
Then she asked, "Who will help me collect hemolymph from these crickets?" and he said "Not I. I forgot again, but it is really your fault because you need to remind me."
Next she asked "Who will help me dissect these crickets?" and he said "Not I. am too busy." (Although a grad student agreed to help--Yay!)
Then she asked "Who will help me sort the samples, program the spectrophotometer and run lytic assays on the hemolymph?" and he said "Not I. I am too tired."
Finally she asked: "Who will be first author on the paper?" To be continued...

Lab fairy tale #1

One upon a time, there was a curly-haired researcher who wanted to use serial dilutions to discover the dose of infectious bacteria that was not too strong and not too weak to kill 50% of affected crickets. She tried the strongest solution, but it was too strong, and killed all of the crickets. She tried the medium solution, but it was also too strong and killed almost all of the crickets. So she tried the weak solution, which was too weak and killed none of the crickets. Sadly, she did not find a dose that was just right.
The next week, she repeated this experiment using two medium-weak solutions. The first solution was too strong, and killed all of the crickets, the second solution was just right for females, yet killed all of the males.
The researcher was was all out of crickets, and after swearing and drinking some beer decided that she would have to repeat the experiment with only males and an even weaker series of solutions.

Thawing doubt

What am I doing? Watching crickets mate. Are I happy about it? No, I think not. This current experiment has clearly not worked, and I am just accumulating data points to round out my sample size.

Also, the sub-80 freezer broke overnight, and although I spent a good deal of time making arrangements to get it fixed this morning, I have the vague feeling that my labmates are grousing about it on the other side of my closed office door. Perhaps if I cared more about pleasing people than getting my work done, I would have dropped everything to notify each of the 5 labs with samples in the freezer, find an alternative -80 freezer, evacuate their samples, and then stand in front of the freezer, wringing my hands until the service guy showed up and fixed it?

When I was a grad student, I would totally be standing there in the hallway. However, as a postdoc, I don't have relationships with the various people inconvenienced by the breakdown, and I don't want to become the "go-to" person for problems like this. Was I a "nicer" person as a grad student? Maybe. But my extended time as a grad student taught me that although everyone pressures you to "take one for the team," grad students who refuse to do all this crap succeed. Grad students who are competent at organizing and fixing things are thought of as a future lab tech for someone else, while grad students who do their research but are incapable of handling any practical issues are chucklingly considered future absent-minded professors. What the hell?

My head is exploding

It is Spring Break at ISU. All of the twittering flocks of undergrads have migrated south. We are having some lovely spring-like weather. Around ISU, the people remaining on campus drift dreamily across the quad. But not me. It is crazytown around the lab. The grad students have a break from teaching and classes, and with end-of-the semester deadlines looming, all of their neglected research has become an urgent priority. Because I am helping two grad students get their experiments up and running, I have been swamped all day every day with a thousand details of experimental design. (To clock reverse or not clock reverse, if so, which incubator and when? How to set up the video camera to record automatically? Continuous or scan sampling? Should experimental animals be allowed to mate before the experiment and with whom? How long should the implants be left in? How to use the spectrophotometry software? What to do when the door to the lab with the spectrophotometry plates is locked? ANOVA or ANCOVA? etc etc etc etc etc etc etc...)
The crickets are kicking my ass again.
So very tired...

Also, I don't know who the hell this woman is, but I hate her.

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.

Inbred

My current research project is getting me down. For the last month, I have been doing experiments involving artificially perfuming crickets with each others' cuticular hydrocarbons. It is a simple experimental design, and all the crickets have to do to make this experiment work is mate normally. However, the crickets are from inbred lines, and they seem to be having trouble remembering how to mate.
Consequently, I have had inbreeding on my mind lately. I love horror movies, but movies about inbreeding creep me out. I taught Human Genetics for several years, and I always found the parts about disorders in inbred human populations to be morbidly fascinating. And I can't be alone in this interest--there is a whole genre of horror that draws from our revulsion for inbreeding.

The classic 1970 film, El Topo includes an subterranean community of inbred wretches.

The only episode of the X-Files that I can't watch is "Home" about the family of deformed inbreeding pig farmers. Apparently, this was the only episode of the series to warrant a parental advisory.

The recently remade "The Hills and Eyes," 1 and 2 are about being captured by inbred mutants.


Various other horror movies about the consequences of inbreeding:


Why all these movies about inbreeding? My guess is that on some level we all know that we have those four recessive lethal alleles just waiting to be expressed, so we have reasonable anxiety about genetic abnormality. However, to put a positive spin on it, inbreeding makes horror attainable for anyone. You don't have to be a mad scientist, alien abductee, or possessed by the devil--all you need is a little inbreeding to make your own homemade monsters. Also, from the viewpoint of Hollywood, a supposedly real person with a cyclops eye is way scarier and much cheaper than a convincing cyclops alien monster.

Distinguished

My PI was awarded a ISU Distinguished Professorship. It was a lovely ceremony with lots of nostalgia and cricket sex. Perhaps he should wear the giant medal everywhere to protect him from vampires, stray bullets and administrators. Here's the link to the student newspaper. Note the use of "Evolutionay"--it occurs to me that more biological discourse should be done in the traditional scientific language of pig latin--Iologybay Ulesray!

incriminating picture of Saki as a grad student

K-Fed

Ken Fedorka came to give a seminar at ISU. He gave a good talk about sexual conflict. I ate a lot of excellent free meals and drank WAY too much. It was really great to have someone to hang out with. Now he's gone. (Sigh.)
Apparently, now that Ken is faculty with grad students of his own, he has developed a sense of dignity, and removed from the web his high school prom pictures. (Picture if you will: powder blue tux and mullet.) So, in order to keep him humble, I will post these pictures from Evolution in Ft. Collins.

Help--I'm being held hostage by crickets

Somehow I decided to do this experiment that is 8 hours long, with scan samples every 5 minutes. Basically, I sit here in the dark quietly waiting for crickets to mate, and if they do, I have to quickly snatch up the spermatophore before the female eats it, and weigh it. This is day 2 of a possible 4-5 days. I feel like Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron who had headphones that played an earsplitting noise every 5 minutes to prevent him from having any meaningful thoughts. I think that my brain is actually shrinking. (Maybe more like Flowers for Algernon?)
On the plus side, I am listening to a decent Spoon concert on npr and someone must be cooking breakfast in the lab, because it smells like whole grain toast in here. I am also teaching myself the code to do repeated measures on SPSS, but that all is going rather slowly, what with the damn crickets and all.