There are days when having a body is inconvenient.

Do you know that feeling one gets that is characteristic of “about to come down with something”, where you have an off taste in your mouth and your head feels fuzzy, and it seems like the very best thing you could possibly do is just lay your head on your desk for a few moments and close your eyes?
Yeah. I’ve had that feeling all day.
However, I have absolutely zero time to actually come down with something at this particular juncture. Therefore, I will be conducting a Mind Over Immune System experiment (not a very scientific one, I’ll admit) in which I see whether telling myself sternly not to get sick keeps me from actually getting sick.
Indeed, I feel extra-motivated not to succumb to whatever bug is trying to get the upper hand given that I learned from a reliable source this morning that it is possible to vomit through one’s nose (indeed, to be woken up by doing so in one’s sleep). That in itself sounds like a good reason never to get sick. Ever!

The Stemwedel Index of Luddite nature.

Over at The World’s Fair, David Ng dangles another meme before us:

… this meme asks that you come up with your own scientific eponym. What’s that exactly? Well, first read this excellent primer by Samuel Arbesman, which basically provides a step by step description of how to do this effectively. Then have a go at your own blog. If all goes well, I’d like to create a page at the Science Creative Quarterly, that collects (and links to) the good ones.

Since it is well known that I am a tremendous Luddite, it will come as no surprise that my scientific eponym is a measure of how tremendous a Luddite one is. I give you the Stemwedel Index of Luddite Nature:

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Quick thoughts on the Writers’ Guild of America strike.

If you’re a TV watcher in the U.S., you’re probably already aware that the Writers’ Guild of America is on strike, owing largely to inability to reach agreement with the studios about residuals from DVDs and from internet distribution of TV shows and movies.
While I am a member of a faculty union that was on the verge of a strike last spring, I am not now nor have I ever been a writer for the large or small screen. I don’t have a lot to say about the details of the contract negotiation in this particular case (Lindsay does). But, as Chris points out, as a blogger — indeed, a blogger who has “gone pro” — what I’m doing is connected in some interesting ways to what the WGA members are doing. Thus, I’ll give you my two cents as of this moment:

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InaDWriMo: help me get writing!


Via ScienceWoman, I learn that there’s a month for those of us who aren’t ready to write a novel, namely, International acaDemic Writing Month.
I am so there.
Back when I was disserting (the second time) a bunch of us who were at the stage of our studies where it felt like we ought to be getting serious writing done formed a kick-in-the-butt club. We met roughly twice a month (possibly weekly for certain stretches, if I’m remembering correctly), talked about what we had accomplished since the last meeting, brainstormed ways to face down writer’s block, and most importantly, we set goals for what piece of writing we would accomplish by the next time we met.
Making the goal public, at least within our group, meant that we had to do our best to actually meet them. (It also meant that our fellow dissertation-writers could talk us out of setting unreasonably ambitious goals and then beating ourselves up for not meeting them.)

Somehow, post-grad school, it’s been harder to find the same kind of motivation and support from fellow toilers. So I’m going to follow ScienceWoman’s lead and make some writing goals for November a matter of public record.
Which means I’m accountable to you all for making some progress with them.

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Dispatch from SERMACS: surreal moments.

As mentioned before, I’m currently at the Southeast Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society (or SERMACS if you’re in a hurry) in Greenville, South Carolina. I got in last night, just in time to catch the last 25 minutes or so of Dick Zare’s plenary address on “The Chemistry of Propulsion”.
Where I arrived was when he put up the slide that asked, “Is Global Warming Happening?”

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The “I rank number one on Google” meme (and dark mutterings about technology).

David Ng at The World’s Fair wants me to play along before I head to the airport. Here are the rules:

I’d like to suggest a meme, where the premise is that you will attempt to find 5 statements, which if you were to type into google (preferably google.com, but we’ll take the other country specific ones if need be), you’ll find that you are returned with your blog as the number one hit.
This takes a bit of effort since finding these statements takes a little trial and error, but I’m going to guess that this meme might yield some interesting insight on the blog in question.
To make it easier, we’ll let you use a search statement enclosed in quotations – this is just to increase your chances of turning up as number one, but if you happen to have a website with the awesome traffic to command the same statement without quotations, then flaunt it baby! Of course, once you find your 5 statements, pass the meme on to others.

Where I come out on top:

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