On being one with the tumble weed

Posts on Academic Jungle, Alethiography, and Academic-Garden have very different thoughts on the omni-present issue of moving cities as one changes universities and gains seniority as an academic. It got me thinking.

In college, a friend of mine told me that he measured his happiness by how few keys he had on his key ring. Each key represented responsibility, and he wanted the freedom to pick up an leave and see a different part of the world whenever he wanted. I wanted to embrace that outlook, but the first time I found myself key less, I felt stranded, rootless, homeless. I am not good at being one with the tumbleweed. But as scary as it was, at one point in my life, I liked to think of myself as an explorer, armed with my courage (and of course the financial means to travel) setting out to learn what I could of the world. Ah, the heady days of I-just-graduated-college naiveté.

I'm currently living in my sixth metro area, the fifth of my adult life. I used to embrace each move as an opportunity to seek out a new city, discover new things about the world. Learn to live as the locals do of each country and city I've made my temporary new home, and suck it dry, like I was scouting it out as a potential permanent home. It was a grand adventure, I learned more about myself, my heritage, this great country I am a citizen of with each move. The heartbreak of losing touch with friends scattered over the globe is real, but worth the excitement of a new experience.

But this last move to my post-doc has been incredibly hard. It's been nearly two years, and I haven't adjusted. I haven't been able to do make the friends and find that local haunts and search for the heartbeat of my new home in the same way I dove into my last several. My current exploration of cities seems limited to finding which parks are best for which age of infant.

My brother had a different experience. He went to college in the same metro area we grew up in. Instead of traveling and working after college, he went straight to graduate school after college to the second metro area of his life. Recently, he's had to weigh the options of moving away to a different city for a post-doc versus staying in the area to resolve his own budding two-body problem. While I find myself craving the constancy of a permanent position so that I can again find the rhythm of a community, not with the rush and fervor of my past, but with, and on the time frame of my toddler weekend planner, my brother is full of what ifs and regrets about the lost opportunities (the undiscovered coffee shops, the unexplored used record stores)
of not building a home in a new city. What we wouldn't do to change places.

Mother's Day

My mother was a #scimom, back when there weren't a lot of them in the US, forget where she grew up.
But her father, my grandfather, believed in educating women, and in the sanctity of knowledge. She grew up in a household where both the acquisition and the sharing of knowledge were all important, even when other needs went unmet. She has stories of my grandfather insisting on tutoring for free even when he didn't have another job, because he thought it immoral to charge for something as basic to survival as an education. This is something I feel guilty about sometimes when I get my paycheck stub, at least partially, for teaching a few classes.

She's carried on my grandfather's legacy. She convinced my father to stay in academia and not go into industry. Only one other mother of any of my friends growing up had a) a degree more advanced than a bachelors, and b) continued working in her field of training after having children. I remember learning math from her that not only does she not remember teaching me, but she doesn't remember ever knowing. When she went back to get further training in her chosen field when I was in college, and there was a coincidence of topics we both needed to learn. I remember coming home on break that year and each trying to read the other's text books for a few days.

Somewhere in the struggle for what religion, if any, was passed onto the kids, the importance of an education became the prevailing belief system in our household. Of course this has its own set of problems. My brother and were pushed too hard, praised to little, belittled every time we lost faith in our ability to succeed in college, or complete (or start) a PhD. But those rants and scars are everyday. I know I wouldn't be here without her as a role model. Good an bad combined. In a time when I am constantly looking for role models in how to balance kid, job and a partner in a different city, I should remember to turn my glance closer to home.

Today is Mother's Day. Does anyone else have thoughts on their mothers? Or on their children?

Parenting by Skype

When Epsilon was not yet mobile, and my partner was traveling, I would call my mother on skype, and put the computer down next to Epsilon while he played on his blanket with his toys. This let my mother talk to her grandson, kept Epsilon vaguely interested in the funny faces and sounds she was making in his direction, and left me free to clean the kitchen, knowing that my mother would call me if Epsilon needed my attention. It was a kind of remote babysitting. Kind of. But it was a win for all involved.

Now that Epsilon is a toddler, my partner Skypes me from two time zones away when I'm done teaching, and it's time for their dinner. And we have a "family" dinner. I recite Epsilon's favorite stories to him, with or without the relevant book in his hand. He tells me in no uncertain terms that Mama's not there. Or his father maneuvers the computer around the apartment as he shows me his toys.

I had a colleague visiting my university last year for a month, when he had a child about Epsilon's age. I would catch him finishing up a Skype session with his wife and child as I stopped by his office to meet for lunch. He would tell me stories of his son trying to share with him the biscuits he was having for breakfast. Sweet yes, but...

Parenting by Skype isn't really parenting. It doesn't actually provide any relief for the parent on the other end doing all the work. I'm not even sure if the benefits of seeing the rest of my family outweighs the heartbreak at the end of each phone call.

The aforementioned colleague will be visiting again for a few weeks soon. I suspect there will be some quality time spent over good alcohol.

Percunctor Primoris Potissimus

There's a certain species of seminar attendant that is a very effective hunter. It is rare for members of this species to hunt in packs, though not unheard of. If you are speaking at a department with a pack of these creatures, be very certain of every word of your talk.

They start circling their prey early, asking innocent enough questions about first principals. And like a great cat wearing down its prey in a chase, the questions never end. I have seen one of these creatures stall a speaker for nearly half an hour over the definition of velocity. Be even more afraid of these hunters if you do multi disciplinary work. They may want you to bring them up to speed on the entirety of the discipline they are not in before you reach slide 3 of your presentation. Beyond the scope! you cry to deaf ear. The hunter has caught its prey.

A key characteristic of these creatures is their ability not to care what the other seminar attendees think. Whether the other attendees are annoyed at the derailing questions, or whether they think the questioner is not up to speed on the literature and therefore they need to ask basic questions. The speakers that most effectively avoid being derailed seem not to be the best at answering the first principal questions, but the ones that are most able to give slippery answers that may or may not actually answer the question, but point the interrogator in the direction that the speaker wants to proceed in.

I do not think that the hour alloted for a speaker to present his/her research is the best place for acquiring in depth knowledge about their field of research that I lack. However, since I was embarking on a new project with a collaborator who knows the subject matter better than I do, I decided that I would try to pin down a few things that confuse me over the course of an afternoon. I had no intension of being the type of ass that the questioners above seem to be at times, but I had resolved to get answers to some questions, no matter how stupid I looked in asking them. The result of the exercise was a few answers (YAY!), exhaustion at having to constantly ask the same questions and get psuedo-answers to them (GRR!), while having the conversation redirected to the matters my collaborator wanted to talk about (admiration at the skill with which he changed the subject).

I've been told that I am more aggressive than other females in my manner of speech. However, I must be doing something wrong when I can't seem to get straight in depth answers from people when I speak to them (I do better over e-mail). I also seem to get eaten alive at presentation by first principal interrogators. Do other people have this problem? Have other people conquered this beast?

What have you done, Massachussetts

A post by FunkDoctorX the other day got me started thinking about some problems with academic jobs, something I've been thinking about a lot anyway. I just want to point out three states, and their bills:

Wisconsin: passed a bill eliminating collective bargaining rights for everything except salaries, and prohibits striking.
Ohio: Senate Bill 5 eliminating collective bargaining for benefits, and prohibits striking
Massachussetts: The state house of representatives passed a bill eliminating collective bargaining rights on health care.

Wait What? Massachussetts? That tiny state with gay marriage and state mandated health care? That great bastion of blue?

I got interested in this issue when I first heard coverage of the Wisconsin bill that mentioned that University of Wisconsin could no longer form unions.

Let me just present a case study as to why I think this is important, with the standard caveat that anecdote is not the singular of data.

I went to a non-unionized university. My partner's had a union.

I did not have dental insurance. My partner did.

I did not have the option of maternity leave. I could pay the school to take a term off. My partner had access to a full semester.

We considered it a victory when we were able to convince our department to stop using discriminatory pay scales for foreign students, or when they agreed to pay summer school TAs the amount they verbally told the students (no paper contract had been issued that year). My partner's school? They had lawyers to deal with this type of negotiation, so that untrained students who should really be focusing on their theses didn't have to figure out which dean would be most sympathetic.

At the risk of starting a flame war, where do people come down on the issue of unions (in general, or in your university)?

At the airport ...

... and this fits my mood re current affairs. There may be an actual post following, if time allows today.

Oxymorons

by William Matthews

Summer school, and jumbo shrimp, of course.
Friendly fire, famous poet, common sense,
and, until very recently, safe sex.
Blind date, sure thing, amicable divorce.

Also there's loyal opposition,
social security, deliberate speed.
How about dysfunctional family?
Eyes blackened, hearts crushed, the damn thing functions.

Some things we say should coat our tongues with ash.
Drug-Free School Zone? No way: it's our money
our children toke, snort and shoot up while we
vote against higher property taxes.

Want a one-word oxymoron? Prepay.
Money's—forgive me—rich in such mischief:
trust officer, debt service, common thief—
these phrases all want to have it both ways

and sag at the middle like decrepit beds.
Religious freedom—doesn't that sound good?
And some assisted living when we're old
and in our cryptic dreams the many dead

swirl like a fitful snow. We'll wake and not
think of our living wills or property.
We'll want some breakfast. Our memories
will be our real estate, all that we've got.

Eggmus

Eggmus is a term coined by Adequate Parent to describe our reactions (akin to love) to the incredibly cute things and often inscrutable things our children do. I hope this is the first in a series of these posts.

A few things you should know first:

1) Our current 2+ epsilon body problem involves a lot of single parenting. This makes going to the bathroom devilishly difficult sometimes.

2) My mother has taught Epsilon to throw things away in the garbage can. He thinks this is a game. This leads him to want to pick up bits of trash at the playground and find a bin to throw it away in.
2a) Great! A budding environmentalist!
2b) Shit! he's drinking out of the juicebox he just found on the beach.

Today's eggmus/instructions for parents of similarly minded toddlers:

Before going to the bathroom, gather a pile of old receipts, dust bunnies, pieces of broken toys you've been meaning to throw out.
When your toddler wants you to get off the toilet to play with him, hand him a piece of your collection. Tell him that it is trash. Watch him go off to the kitchen happily to throw away the scrap of whatever. Don't watch for too long, this is your chance for 30 seconds of peace.
When he comes back to ask you to play with him, give him another piece of trash. Repeat until you have finished your business.
Note: For best results, don't forget to unlock the cabinet that the trashcan lives in.

Enjoy!