Friday's Female: Courage

"Are you sure you want to finish that bottle of red? You know what they say."

She finished pouring. She had gone out for dinner then drinks with seven other colleagues. Six of them were male. "What? That I will be gang raped?"

The liquor that had urged her colleague to make vague innuendos over her glass now stuttered to find a response to this less vague accusation.  "No! Of course not. I would never mean that." The flush on his face seemed not only to be from the alcohol.

"What do they say?"

"In the part of the world I come from, they say that any woman in a group who finishes a bottle of red will be the next to become pregnant."

"I see." That was a perfectly logical and apt subject to bring up at a social dinner at a conference. "Then tell me, why have you only ever let your wife finish one bottle of red wine?"

***

I do not know the woman in question. I know the man well. He works down the hall from my partner. His (only) son is in the same room at the university nursery as Epsilon. The above conversation is embellished by me from my partner's recollection of a night of tapas and wine where the group of eight had consumed a horrifying number of bottles of alcohol.

My respect for the unknown woman's quick wittedness is immense. In the time that has passed since I heard this story, my respect for my partner's colleague has plummeted. My opinion of him poisoned, I now see cracks in his persona that may be indications of deeper sexism. We keep our conversations about the kids.

Grad school moments

I'm trying to remember the last time I felt this good. Perhaps it was when I wrote this post.The fact that it may be this long between periods of feeling satisfied with life and work is scary.

Maybe it is because I had a good week at last week's conference. There was a good exchange of ideas with people working on similar problems from a very different point of view. I managed to work out a result in my spare time that bodes well for a prospective project. I found out that someone has just done much of the hard work for me for a project that's currently lying dormant. Most imporantly, I slept. I went a whole week without having to wake up before 4 am to get to Univerity F, or get back to His Town after midnight, to be woken by Epsilon at 6:30.

Maybe it is because time with Epsilon this weekend was filled with the magical time with kids that parents tell non-parents about (fun time at a park, a good family dinner, reading stories out loud in the living room), and had very little of the time that parents don't tell non-parents about (the late evening tantrums because he's refused to nap, wakeup at 5:30 am because he's overflowed his diaper, but can't get back to sleep after).

Maybe it is because I've spent much of the day working in a coffee shop watching the rain outside, with a warm pot of tea next to me. Maybe it is because I'm taking a break from my commute this week, so my partner and I somehow found the time to talk about life and friends and things last night, instead of dealing with the necessities of getting the house ready for another week of single parenting.

Whatever the reason, it is on some level disturbing to me that I associate this peace of mind and calm with my grad school days. That is a period that few people look back fondly on (I think?). I think it is a definite sign of a need for a drastic reform in my life.

Social interactions with colleagues

I'm still trying to decide which interaction is more awkward:

A group swimming trip among colleagues: The act of stepping out of one's clothes to reveal a swimming suit to people who may be writing me letter in a year or less is always fraught for me. Its not that I am uncomfortable with my body. I have happily gone swimming in the buff with a female colleague I felt comfortable with. It is not a male female thing. I have gone as a support person with male colleagues to the university pool when he has wanted to learn to swim. It's a power thing. Something deep in my second X chromosome cringes at the act of undressing, or exposing myself in any way, to someone who has some control over my future.

Gossip about an ex-mentor's interactions with important people in my field who I may or may not still be on good terms with.

When your talk time is cut in half

Several fellow speakers found out a couple weeks before the conference that our time had been shortened from 1 hour to 30 minutes. Some have been able to adjust admirably. Some, not so well. Here are a few lessons learned from both groups. First, what not to do:

• Fail to rewrite your talk and decide to speak twice as twice as fast. 
• Skip over examples and definitions to save time.
• When asked a question, say "No, that's not what I'm saying!" while pointing your forefinger at the questioner.
• Ignore the moderator when he/she tells your that your time is up, so you can get to the interesting results
• Stop abruptly at the end of a slide because the moderator tells you your time is up.
• Get frazzled by the lack of time, and fail attribute results properly (either to yourself or to other parts of the literature).
• Answer a question during your talk as "That's not pertinent to the main subject of my talk." If you are short on time, non-pertinent details should not appear.

Talks I've heard go successfully in this timing change share some of the following characteristics:

• Overview talks that don't focus on the details of a project, but give a general overview of a research program, along with key results.
• Lots of pictures/graphs of key information.
• Presentations stopped at the end of an interesting result, even if there were more results originally planned in the talk.

What I hate about conferences

I hate being a woman at a conference.

I hate being a woman at a conference who is outspoken about the problems women face in my field.

I hate being a woman at a conference who other women seek out for advice, or a shoulder to vent at.

I hate being a woman at a conference who feels obligated to follow another woman, who I've only met twice before, to her room, after she leaves near tears from breakfast in the hotel lobby because a male colleague has been riding her ass academically for the last two days about her scientific techniques.

I hate being asked "what would you do if you had to choose between your family or your job?" I have no FUCKING CLUE. The question SCARES ME SHITLESS. I hate not being able to say that publicly, quite in those terms.

I hate watching aforementioned male colleague be polite to all the people more senior to him, and rude to female post docs and graduate students of both genders. I hate choosing my seat at meals so that this colleague cannot sit next to or across from me. I hate having aforementioned female colleague follow me into the ladies room so she can avoid sitting next to him as well.

I hate using sarcasm, always with a smile on my face, never in anger, to shock someone into stopping inappropriate behavior, even for a few minutes. I hate that because I was composed enough to smile through breakfast,  while someone else was not, she is now perceived as being short tempered, while the male colleague is merely has a hot headed-type. I, on the other hand, am not threatening ... still.

I hate feeling like a hunted deer whenever someone comments that I am an aggressive woman, whether or not they mean it in jest, whether or not they mean it as a bad thing.

I hate the being on the winning side of a stylistic argument with aforementioned male colleague, but not feeling up to the task of discussing it with him again, after making this discovery, perhaps even offering some friendly advice, because I don't have the energy to handle the strong possibility that the discussion may turn ugly. I hate realizing that we are actually working in closely related fields, and that a collaboration may be good for both of us, if only I could stomach talking to him.

But enough of that. What I love about conferences, what I live for in conferences, are the conversations between colleagues working on the same problem from different approaches, realizing that the approaches are not only not incompatible, but that there is a lot of overlap, perhaps even room for collaboration. I love pitching a talk at a few people in the room, and having them walk away excited about the research, and eager to work with me. This is why I'm in this field. The rest of the day can go to hell.

A recent toast

I was at a relatively female heavy conference recently. The modal conference I attend has about a 1:10 F:M ratio. This one was about 1:4. This fact was toasted several times, by men and women alike, at the conference dinner. One gentleman (he is of the age and class where the word gentleman is still appropriate) stood up, and after declaiming the history of the building we were dining in, told us how grateful he was that we are no longer living in a world where we would not be returning to our respective monasteries after the conclusion of this conference; that the current situation allowed him to interact with his "monastic sisters"; that he is happy to see this change occur in his field over his lifetime.

Some of us rolled our eyes at each other at the slightly patronizing tone of his comment, and were immediately, simultaneously, aware of how lucky we were to be in a room with enough women to be able to roll our eyes, and also aware that his age and experience perhaps allows for some condescension to what must seem a supremely young crowd gathered at his knees.

Here's to old men who get it in their own ways and really care.

Internetless for 3.5 weeks

Well, I'm back. I think this time for good. Chez Barefoot has just completed 8 weeks of travel through 3 continents, and are about to have a house again. Exciting times!

To recap: We left our old house on June 12 to go to Conference City 1. We had a lovely hotel room with 2 balconies, one of which looked over a tram line. Every morning, Epsilon would wake up and go sit on the balcony waiting for the trams to run under his window. After the conference, we took a few days to sight see around the area, and introduce Epsilon to the ocean and the magic of tide pools.

It rained in Conference City 2. This was a much larger city than CC1, and we were put up in a soulless large brand name hotel in a major tourist center. The advantage of this is that Epsilon got to take lots of tour buses and boats. There were views of trams and excavators from our hotel window here as well, but it was not nearly as exciting. CC2 is a somewhat near University F. The rain and the cold in the city did not do much to make my look forward to my move there.

We had a week before conference 3, so we spent it with a my partner's colleague in Friend's City 1. I've been to FC before, 10 years ago with my partner and his sister. I'd hoped to revisit some of the places I'd loved before, but travelling as a group of 20 somethings is very different than travelling with a kid. Still, FC is as beautiful as I remembered it being. We were able to take Epsilon swimming in the ocean again. I taught him to ride the waves "like a roller coaster."

I didn't really get to see much of Conference City 3. The conference hotel was far from the conference location, so we were away for 11 hours of the day. It was an amazing conference, so I wouldn't have minded at all if not for the fact that I never made it back for the little guy's bed time. Epsilon went to see a lot of old churches and palaces with his father.

The transition to Friend's City 2 was difficult, in so much as going in a large hotel near the center of town in a rich country to a two room apartment shared by 4 adults and 2 kids in a poor country needs a large emotional gear shift. Once I'd put my guilt at being born well off aside, the visit there was as lovely as it always is. The friend we stayed with for 3 weeks has a daughter a year older than Epsilon. I'd say they got along famously, if not for the fact that I try not make this blog a fiction. They had enough fun together that I hope they grow into each other as the years go by. My partner and I have been visiting FC2 every couple years for more than 10 years now.  That's enough time to look back an see the progress the city has made. Perhaps not as much as other cities in developing countries, but progress nonetheless. Which brings me to my internet silence for the duration of my visit. It used to be that most people in FC2 did not have computers at home, so it was easy to find an internet cafe in any part of town. Now, as highspeed connections have become available all over the city, these cafes can only be found in the tourist and poorer parts of town (and in the latter case, open only in the evenings after work.) My friend, of course, does not have a computer at home.

Our travels are now over. We are staying in a hotel in University E's city, waiting to have a house to live in.

Lessons from conference organizing

If one is organizing a session for postdocs and grad students to talk speak, one should

• Be aware that 9 half hour talks in a day is very intense.
• Never hold up the session for the benefit for one or two people, no matter how "importnat" they may appear to be. It turns out that this is just disrespectful of everyone else's time
• Try to arrange it in a community of supportive, inquisitive, engaged scientists who promote the culture of asking speakers questions in general. (This was awesome). 
• Be careful in how the allocation of who speakes in which session, and who gets promoted out of the youg people's session to teh adult scientist session to avoid feelings of being ghettoized.
• Wine and cheese afterwards never hurts.

I think on the whole, it went fairly well.

Conference High

Looking back at the last several posts, I'm realizing that I've been rather negative recently. Some of that is because I found out 3 weeks ago that I'm giving a 25 minute talk on Wednessday, and then 12 days ago that, no, I'm giving an hour long talk today instead. The list of attendees included 3 Very Important People. Needless to say, I've been a bit busy and nervous preparing my talk.

It's over now. Two of the people I was afraid of didn't show up for the morning session, and the remaining was very nice in asking the occasional clarifying question that more felt like gentle prompts to explain things a bit better. On the whole, it was well received. I got a random compliment on it from someone I don't know, and spent lunch talking to two people who had ideas for future work. Whether or not these actually turn into something (lets be honest, most lunch discussions don't) I have a better sense of where this project could go than I did going into the talk.

I made a mistake with this project. I started working on it as a side project in a different direction than I normally work in. And then, instead of reaching out to lots of people who know more about this area, I only really talked to one. As a result, my views on the prospects for this project were primarily shaped by him, and due to various factors, rather negative. Relying on only one other person is truly not a good idea, a lesson I should have learned after working on my thesis. This is my second time learning this the hard way. Maybe it'll stick this time.

At any rate, between the class that kicked my butt last term, the sessions of last conference and the discussions from this one, I am hoping to put a new spin on this project and breathe new life into it. Good times.

Conferencing with kids

Epsilon has accompanied me to 4 conferences so far, and I must say, switching between Mother and Academic is even harder at conferences than at home. But, as I've had more experience, and Epsilon is getting older, things are getting better.

The first thing that makes a world of difference is being able to trust the person coming with me. This is more than just "don't drop the kid off with someone you wouldn't want to babysit." For instance, when I invited my mother to accompany me on an international conference, I neglected to take into account that she is not the best traveller. I ended up having to skip several sessions that time. Another time, because of visa troubles, a friend of mine local to the country of the conference stepped in at the last minute to watch Epsilon. However, she was not comfortable enough in a city as large as the conference venue to be able to entertain herself. So, instead of spending evenings with other academics or reading up on relevant literature, I showed her around town. Neither of these were disasters, and there were external reasons why bringing Epsilon along was the right thing to do, in spite of the added complications it would bring. My take home message from those two experiences is that 1) travelling is hard 2) travelling with a child is harder. Bring someone along who is a good enough traveller to be able to manage the extra difficulties of travelling with a kid.

This is not to say that the problems faced in previous conferences with Epsilon are all due to other people's weaknesses. I have a very hard time separating my roles as mother and academic. My usual solution to this is to separate them temporally. This trick doesn't work if the conference, meals and hotel rooms are located in the same venue. In other cases, it is "simply" a matter of my lack of discipline.*

At last week's conference, I was somewhat of an outsider. My interest and approach to the topic at hand, while not unknown to the other attendees, was not of primary interest to other attenders. As a result, my need or ability to network was diminished as compared to other meetings more germane to my area of research. As such, I felt like I was able to engage as fully as I wanted to, which was nice. This was of course helped by the fact that a trolley line runs in front of our hotel room, so Epsilon was actually excited to have me go off to work so he could ride the train with his father.

My next conference is more central to my work. We'll see how that goes.




*In much the same way that Special Relativity can be described as simply linear algebra.

More thoughts on Emmigration

Every summer it seems I have to board a plane for 10-15 hours to hit
my small conference circuit. Up until this year, every year, I have
grumbled about the hassle of getting on flights and traveling
alone. This year, we packed up our house, handed the keys to the
landlord, and got on the plane as a family. That seems to have made
all the difference.

It will be nice, starting September, to live in a part of the world
where the research I do is popular. It will be a lot easier to hop on
a plane for an hour or two, or a train for 3 or 4 to get to my
conferences, rather than have to sleep sitting up in economy, and fail
to sleep in my hotel room due to jet lag.

We have officially left the US, though we haven't settled in our new
homes yet. The dreaded emmigration has occurred. In the mean while,
First Conference City, is offering pleasant weather and a plethora of
good vegetarian options. The streets are filled wit bikers,
pedestrians and fresh vegetable stalls. I know this is a smaller city
than where I will be in September, but it is making me feel like I can
survive the upcoming year.

From the other side of the fence

"Collin came home yesterday, and I think I spent an hour talking to him about dog food and grocery store aisles. I open my mouth and these words come out, and I don't know who it is that is talking," Selene told me as Collin buckled their twins into the car after a play date with Epsilon. "I envy your travelling around for the summer. I wish I could put on my backpack again and hitch hike around Europe."

My protestations of rootlessness and loss of friends all seemed empty in the face of Selene's frustration at being bound to one place for so many years. In spite of the fact that we'll be making a significant move in June to start new positions in September, the fact of the matter is, three conferences relatively close to each other, with a week's down time between each means that our family will have a chance to travel significantly, with a sort of subsidy. The number of stamps in Epsilon's passport embarrasses me when talking to my friends, who, for one reason or another cannot travel so much.

In some cases, it's a class thing. In others it's a job thing. Travelling is one of the perks that keeps me in this line of work. Taking my mother abroad to stay at a fancy conference hotel (and watch Epsilon) where 20 years ago she would take me is a cherished pleasure. Each year, my flight to a different tourist city for a conference, is one more than I could make in a different line of work.

I hear the envy for this lifestyle in Selene's voice. I share her periodic feelings of restlessness and sense of being tied down by family. As the kids wave goodbye to each other, I know she mirrors my sadness in knowing that their remaining play dates are numbered. We both say our goodbyes, longing for the parts of the other's life that we don't have.

I am trying to convince myself that it is not just that the grass is greener on the other side. I am trying to remember why I chose this career.

Brainstorming conference sessions for young researchers

I've just been asked to help organize a "young researcher" section of a conference. This boils down to having some control over the formatting and content of 4-5 hours of talks given by current PhD students and post docs. I also have some leeway to organize other events (pending approval by the main organizers) that would be seen as beneficial to these young researchers.

I'm excited by this prospect. As a grad students, I would have loved to be to more conferences that broke from the 5-6 hour long talks a day, and did something really creative and different that helped students and post docs get more involved in research different from what they are currently working on. I've been to a few different formats that have attempted this:

1) There were Q&A sessions with experts that happened after the day's talks. This worked fairly well. Students who really wanted to engage a particular PI could do so in a classroom like setting, and there was a lot of open discussion between participants who wanted to attend a particular PI's Q&A session. However, after a full day of conference, a 2 hour Q&A session was just exhausting.

2) A round table discussion of open problems. I like this in theory, but the time I've attended something like this, the formatting of the session didn't leave time or the means for in depth discussion of proposed problems. The PIs spoke often spoke in broad sweeping terms. It is possible that others approached the PIs afterwards with good questions. The session did not inspire me with such questions so I do not know if it was effective for others.

3) Problem sessions for students. Like the Q&A sessions, but they involve speakers giving lectures, like one would in a classroom, often with homework problems. Again, a great idea to get someone who is missing a chunk of knowledge up to speed. The time I saw it implemented, the sessions were pitched at too slow a speed.


I'm wondering if anyone else has any other ideas for different formats to help young researchers enter or branch out into a field. What have you seen in conferences that have worked, or not worked. What have you always wanted to implement/see implemented if you had the chance?

Why can't more conferences do this?

My partner is participating as a "mentor" of a summer school. This means that he gives a series of lectures, and works intensively with a small group of students, as well as more generally with all the attendees. The school is designs to be a place where graduate students work intensively with each other and mentors on developing a small set of skills.

Somewhere along the line, the organizers decided that since this was an opportunity for up and coming academics to learn crucial skills that will help them succeed in their future careers, the issue of work/life balance needs to be addressed as well. My partner will be presenting his thoughts on striking this balance.

I've been to conferences where there have been panel discussions about open problems in the field, I've been to conferences where there have been discussions about going on the job market. But unless it is specifically a conference for women, I have not encountered a discussion about 2 body problems or kids.

I love, love, LOVE the fact that they have asked a male in a dual academic situation who is doing most of the parenting this year to talk about this. Although knowing the organizer, the thought process on "who to rope into this" probably was "Hey, you're a young academic, you have a family, go give this lecture," with little forethought about the implications of what his specific situation and/or gender may have on the lecture.

I've given him my thoughts about what points I would raise if I were doing this:

• Short term sacrifice solutions to 2 (+ epsilon)- body problems are not worth the career hit they are likely to cause.
• To the guys: If your female partner is also an academic, the traditional housework (and child rearing) workload sharing is not cool, unless you have discussed ahead of time that she doesn't want as glamorous a career as you do.
• Differences in how having a child has affected our academic social lives.

There are other issues that we would both like to raise about child rearing in general, but it is hard to decide what is useful advice for people who are generally career oriented, versus what is specifically important advice for academics. Also, we have no ideas on how to actually resolve a 2-body problem, otherwise, we'd discuss that.

We are talking suggestions. What do you wish someone had said to you in a conference like this? Or, if you've been lucky enough to be in a mixed gender room with this discussion, what was said that worked?

Good things about conferences

There have been some very good things about the first day of this conference. Here are some highlights in decreasing order of silliness:

1)

It's The Beagle that makes this worthwhile.

2) Unlike other male dominated situation's I've found myself in,



there isn't actually a line for the women's bathroom.

3) A more senior woman who I see every year or so showed up for just the day. Everyone who knows her swears by how nice and accomplished she is. Frankly, after a few comments she made on a thesis draft, I've spent a few years terrified of her. That's the time it took me to realize that her harshness was out of a desire to see that I advance. It was nice to be see her, to meet her current graduate students, to talk about work and life. Today I realized that she is the only person who I may ask for a letter of recommendation that not only knows my full situation of both my family life and work life, but that I'm really glad knows everything. As harsh as I've found her criticism to be, I think I know that she is not only in my corner, but is very happy for me to consult her on anything. Professional friendships like that are rare. Seeing her today was a good reminder of that.