Quick update

Since I have had 2 replies on my posts (and there aren't that many posts), I think I should continue this.

But I am just swamped.

I am also frustrated.

Dear wonderful tenured professors who hired me. I talked to each and every one of you. To each and every one of you I said -- I know some math, I know some physics, I know some programming. But I have never taken a course in X subfield of physics. And I am not an expert in Y language, although I have used and modified codes in that language. In other worlds, I think the project is really cool and I would still love to do it, but I will need the help at the beginning.

I know I am a postdoc and therefore should be able to do a lot of things on my own. But you do have to realize things would actually work a lot better if you spend some time with me at the beginning. Which didn't happen. Well not on time. It happened 6 months later.

So now mere weeks before these results are due, you could try to help me out by telling me how scaled parameter P relates to its real life value. Or tell me how to figure it out. I looked at the code. I looked at the governing paper. You agreed that there is quite a jump from the paper to the code, but still I looked. P isn't defined in the paper. And its values is being read in as a non-dimensional parameter. Now I can explore the behaviour for some made up values of P. But I cannot interpret the results. So what am I supposed to do -- a computational exercise or some science? Or I can try to figure out the normalization. But did I mention I have mere weeks? So please help.

I am also wondering if I destroyed my career by taking on this chance...

Laugh or cry?

http://www.scribd.com/doc/18773744/How-to-Publish-a-Scientific-Comment-in-1-2-3-Easy-Steps

the pursuit of happiness

I am fighting depression today.

During my doctorate, I was invited to spend a month in Extremely Famous University and possibly give a talk. Alas said EFU was in another country. If I left the US, I will have to detour through my country to apply for another US entry visa, which could be denied just because with no recourse on my side. (the denial rate in my country is high, and to complicate things, I haven't been in my home country for a really long time due to financial reasons and have little to no ties there which is a red flag) The international student office were no help. To be honest they were the opposite of helpful since their job, as they told me, was to make sure I was in compliance with SEVIS and not to figure out if there are SEVIS rules that allow me to do what I wanted.

Fast forward a few years. I am about to graduate and looking for a job. My ideas have more traction in Europe, and there are postdoc openings that sound like they would be perfect. I cannot, however, fly out to the interviews without having the same problem. And I couldn't quite risk not being able to return to defend my dissertation. And I was weary of taking a job in a new country sight unseen, especially since I do not speak the primary language there.

Fast forward a few years, I have graduated and moved into my postdoc. It became clear that there is this wonderful opportunity in another country, which will fill up some gaps in the funding, would be a great extension to some current work, and will lead into publications, as well as proposal to similar stuff in the US. It seems at this moment though that I will need to spend a couple of months per year in that country. My postodoc adviser is ok with that, and is even applying for the H1-B visa for me. And from what I have read so far, I may not be able to take this opportunity either.

So am I too risk averse?

And is this fair?

As it is any employer has to show that he didn't find an American who could do my job. But in academia, there are many people who can do an academic job even if it is not exactly the same job. And to show that I am better, talks and contacts and international prestige seem to be important. So I am feeling screwed...

Of course I will pay for a consultation with a laywer. Because you know there just maybe a way. But it seems unfair that I have to add that extra expense.

Why are my career opportunities defined by where I was born? Why am I good enough to work in the US, but if my work takes me outside and my employer is ok with that, I still have to go through the risk, the headache and the expense to be allowed back in?

Why is there an entry visa which is different than the visa that allows me to stay? Why does my pursuit of happiness come at a higher cost due to... where my parents chose to live?

I keep hearing complaints about how immigrants come in and steal the opportunities. And yet, I feel, no!, I know, that anyone has my opportunities at a lower risk and cost.

Health Care Reform

I have spent the last few days (procrastinating by) reading articles and commentaries on the health care reform. Most of the debate seems to be based on polemics with little understanding of the bill. To be honest, I haven't read the bill(s) floated around, so I cannot comment on its(their) substance. But what I find troubling is some of the attitudes:

"Why is maternity care required to be covered? More than half of the population has no need for maternity care, either because they're male, not hit puberty, or in menopause."

By that logic I wonder why anything should be covered: after all at any given point in time a certain malady afflicts only a few people at a time.

More importantly, pregnancy is not a disease, and should not be treated as such. Since cloning of humans doesn't seem to be anywhere close to hapening, each and every one of us came as a result of a pregnancy. If there were any complications,-- even trivial things like improper diet leading to insufficient nutrients, let alone the more complicated effects such as a wrongly turned fetus(baby), could have resulted in severe health and metal problems to death. So why doesn't self interest tell us that we should provide maternity care?

It seems to me, albeit anecdotally, that the people who make the above claims are also pro-life. If the fetus is alive and worth fighting for while in the mother's belly, why is it not worth fighting for its health care?

Maybe it is the cynic in me, but if men were all of a sudden to become the ones who can get pregnant, I expect that they will be on maternity(paternity) leave the moment a test says they are pregnant, they will have extended stay in the hospital after giving birth, as well as a physical therapy program to get them back into shape and a few more years of paid work to recuperate. In addition, the baby gap in their CV will be yet another "gold star," which we women will lack.

But lets get back to actual diseases that afflict a small portion of the population. Prostate cancer afflicts only men, and predominantly in their late age -- diagnosis before 45 is rare and the average age of diagnosis is 70. Breast cancer strikes women, but unlike prostate cancer it can strike very young women, although of course the risk increases with age. Most men live with prostate cancer and die of other causes, while about 1 in 35 women die from breast cancer. Now the NIH does spend more on breast cancer ($744M) compared to prostate cancer ($299M) or a factor of almost 2.5 according to http://report.nih.gov/rcdc/categories/ the risk of death is nowhere near this 2.5 factor.

I also find it amusing that, at least as far as the wiki page is concerned, there are several new tools for early detection of prostate cancer vs 0 for breast cancer. In general, the wiki page is more/better developed, including 3 times more references and quite a few more meaningful links. This of course maybe just a reflection of who bothers to update the wiki and how, but at best reflects disparity in attitude of the writers and at worst reflects disparity in the available information, which may or may not reflect on the amount of serious effort put into the problem. Or maybe we women just fail to communicate what is important?

UPDATE: Ok so the Mankiw blog is odd. I find his writing seductive, but I often don't quite agree with the message. Anyways, he was also discussing the health care reform and something stuck out in the post for his long term plan to fix the balance sheets (see here linked from here):

The government budget is on an unsustainable path. Americans are living longer and having fewer children.

Well Mr. Mankiw, last I checked women are supposedly interested in having children. Last I checked (and while I myself have no children, my officemate is very pregnant and this here Large University has better than average healthcare and other benefits) maternity care is hell...

Citizenship economics

(Magic?) kingdom for sale

I wonder if a scientist-in-training (grad student or post-doc) would be able to borrow for it?

One of ... things

One of the weird things about being a foreign scientist is that people assume you can always go back and teach what you learned in your own country. However, I did my bachelors and subsequent degrees in the United States, so I stumble for the right terminology every time someone asks me for a modicum of detail on my research...

One of the frustrating things about being a foreign scientist is that people are too nice to correct my pronunciation when it is wrong. Now, I do have an accent and there is not much I can do about it. I don't even hear the accent (but others do) so it is very difficult to correct it. This means of course that I must impose on other people to try to understand it. But when I grossly mispronounce words due to wrong stress or other chance such as having the wrong vowel, and it is a casual conversation setting, why won't people do the "by the way it is pronounced this way". The politeness doesn't help -- instead, I think I am pronouncing the word correctly and reinforce the bad habit...

One of the annoying things about being a foreign scientist is the comment "it was in good enough English seeing how you are foreign" followed by no suggestion for improvement on the language. I'd like my papers, talks, etc. to be clear, understandable and good, not just good enough...

Clearing up the air...

In case it didn't come out ... I do like my postdoc adviser so far. I also wish he were less busy.

Here is the thing .. I really don't know these fields I am supposed to be learning about. He is busy with a billion projects and I understand that. He also hasn't pressed me on my productivity so far. Is that because he doesn't know about it or because it is OK since I am still spending time reading random stuffs? Or is it because half of this project is new to him too and naturally it is easier to work on the other problems first?

Now this may come of as major insecurity. But consider this: I had a fairly dysfunctional relationship with my PhD adviser, where we didn't speak for months. In retrospect, the majority of my thesis could have been finished in 2/3 of the time it took. So was the 1/3 left out necessary time to gel ideas? Or just the cost of doing business since I was not about to switch labs (again).

So of course I looked for feedback elsewhere. And here is the thing -- people came to my department talks, and liked my ideas. I always had questions and they were not of the kind "so why should anyone care? so what is your conclusion? or so what did you do in this project?" When it came down to discussing my thesis, which was more of a negotiation between my adviser and I than anything, I turned to one of those people I had talked about. On my concern of whether I have a thesis, he said I had tons of stuff at those department presentations that were new, interesting and significant. But they have yet to turn into papers. So did I leave based on ideas ? Or did I just have too many projects started that I get to finish now?

In short ... I need a mentor.

RANT: Let me do my work please...

... and don't treat me with kiddie gloves.

(1) Yes I switched from subfield A to subfield B. So I have had to learn a whole new subbranch of This Science Field. And I probably don't know it all that well yet, let alone have a proper intuition about it. However, don't congratulate me for compiling a behemoth of a program in under a week. You did all the work when you wrote it including the makefiles which were not makefiles for make but really a line by line executables that compiled the stuff. I just troubleshot the compiler options. And installed a library. And it took me one day. So when you waited a week to give me test files, you didn't do me any favour w.r.t. to the code. Yes, I had more time to read random stuff in subfield B. No, I do not think that is bad, but it is way better if you have reasonable expectation and simply give me more time later on when I ask for it so I can read about stuff with a purpose. Yes, I did get into science and particularly This Science Field, because I like to learn and figure out a whole slew of stuff. But I am a postdoc. And for better or for worse I have to worry about my publication count. So lets work on a project that can get published soon -- or offer me a permanent job.

Consider also that you are not my postdoc supervisor, so decisions about my work flow should at least be discussed with him and I know the have not.

(2) Dear sys admin, why isn't there a do and don'ts for your computer system? Like can I try setting up SVN here? Or should I hope the SVN run by the other post doc on outdated machine (so outdated that SVN cannot be upgraded). To be fair, you have been really kind to me every time I have asked for your help. But I have no idea whether I am annoying you with my many questions and should risk annoying my officemate, who has been here longer, with these questions first? I do wonder what I was supposed to do with the Windows computer presented?There is 0 software on it, which I have rectified with firefox and Open Office. But really would it be sooo expensive for Large Research State University (LRSU) to outfit us with MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint so I can work on papers/trivial calculations/presentations? I am not even holding out for Adobe software. I know all this is available in the media lab but what is the point of an office if I have to be in the media lab for all of that? And if I need to be in the media lab for that, why can't I just install intel solaris or linux on this PC, so I can seamlessly work on the unix/linux machines I need? And why can't I connect my laptop to the network? I understand security is an issue. So make me jump through hoops to prove that I am capable of keeping my laptop virus free. Instead, I can bring my laptop, connect it to the power and exchange files with my external hard drive/flash drive. But any virus can copy itself onto those, and I take my laptop and connect it to the network at home. From where I stand, the system is not any more secure this way. It is just aggravating.

Finally, can my next password be: passwords_I_cannot_change_fails?

(3) Dear well-meaning admins at college part of LRSU. When I showed up, you had kindly provided me with a checklist of things I should be trained on. And everyone duly signed it. You didn't collect it though. So you failed to realize that everyone who signed it said, just come back to us if you have any questions. So while I can always go and ask for help with stuff I think is reasonable, who knows what I am missing?

(4) Dear Dean of the college part of LRSU, why did you forbid me from writing proposals? LRSU allows it, but you do not. I get it that post-docs are supposed to be fully paid for with existing grants. So don't make it a requirement. But just think how much easier it would be for me if I get funded to find a future job, further increasing the prestige of your programme. And imagine that if say I didn't summarily leave my postdoc, due to say a spouse having a good job in the area, you get me as fairly cheap self supporting labour. And regardless of prestige, the freed up moneys can be spent on more grad students and/or postdocs, growing your program.

(5) Dear blogger -- please make autosave and spell check work. And explain to me what Error: your request cannot be processed means. I can only presume it was the autosave thing because I didn't make any request when that message showed up. I was just writing the above rant.

Accidental Friendships of Proximity

How does one make friends? It seems that so far most of my friends have started as accidental friendship of proximity. And while a few of them have flourished, the majority have dwindled.

In grad school, you have those introductory classes that at least brings the first year class together. You have large seminars, homework, shared offices and labs, etc. All of these leads to people being encouraged to talk to each other.

New faculty seem to get invited by other faculty. They also get new homes and can foster some friendship with neighbors.

So where do post-docs figure in all this. A friend of mine who graduated a year or two before me mentioned that post-doc years are the loneliest years. Why? Are we all supposed to have no life and work (or pretend to do so) 24/7?

So far I have made friends with my officemates. And I am on very friendly terms with the college admin. But I feel that these are going to start and end as accidental friendships of proximity, since we really don't have much in common...

Feel free to interrupt me ...

FSP has a cute discussion on how/when to interrupt your adviser/supervisor/colleague and lunchtime.

I find myself at odds. On one hand, I think that ever since I came to the US, I have gained quite a bit of weight. And while some of it is purely due to not walking, but driving, to places, some of it I think is due to eating at my desk, and some of it is due to eating cheap food, which in the US tends to be rather crappy. So as a new post doc -- with salary almost twice my grad stipend, and living outside of Large Metropolitan Area, i.e., in a place where I can afford to eat a bit better -- I thought I'd enjoy a leisurely 30 min lunch with colleagues. Alas, that has not been the case.

First off, this building has no lunch place. The next door (admin) building has one, but there are always large groups of people I do not know and I am a bit self conscious. It doesn't help that my undergrad degree is in math, not in This Science Field, and my Ph.D. is in specialty A which is only loosely in the same umbrella of my post doc, which is in specialty B, which is in group M, which in turn is rather loosely related to the college focus. The college itself has it's own (admittedly incredibly nice and helpful) administration, and hence feels rather isolating even though it is part of Big State University.

My lab on the other hand, is populated with people from close-enough countries that we share common culture, and a love for ... tea. So it is rather more enjoyable to bring my lunch from home, make a cup of tea, and sit at my desk. Alas, that doesn't translate into conversations unfortunately.

Secondly, noone seems to sit and socialize. Even in the neighboring lunch places, you can see only the occasional group sitting and talking. For a few weeks, I would make a giant pot of tea and offer it to my labmates. But that only rarely spurred conversations. And even if it had worked, how would it grow beyond the lab?

Now I realize that people are busy, have set routines, have families and what not. Yet, I wonder how many opportunities are lost to exchange ideas about This Science Field. After all, This Science Field is very interdisciplinary and it would be good to know what other people know/can do/ or are doing. If 30 min of lunchtime of free conversation is considered wasteful, a 30 min of lunchtime with This Science Field conversations could be fostered. After all, as one reviewer said -- it is impossible nowadays to publish new, revolutionizing ideas; instead, they must be presented in small steps as to keep up the idea that one has seen a little bit further only by standing on the shoulders of giants.

So I wonder ... do I need a post it note that says "please interrupt me"?