In sickness and in health

As I pop the first dose of the antibiotics I'm taking for a sinus infection, I wonder should I have called in sick? I am obviously not very productive, my sinus pain is killing me, and I can hardly focus. But at the same time it is not debilitating enough that I can't putter around the lab and get some things ordered or sorted out. It's not the flu, any of them, and I don't think I'm more contagious today than I have been all week. Should I have stayed home all week?

Given that I started my new job in April and I'm leaving on a pre-planned vacation this Sunday, I think my leave allotment is mostly spent. Not to mention the days I had to stay home with the kids when they caught this bug. How did you think I got it in the first place? Of course they didn't catch it together, one was out two days one week, the other a day a week later. And a week after that Mom started sniffling. My version didn't come with the fever they had (which is why they couldn't go to daycare) but it didn't leave after three days either.

I guess my own personal sick leave policy is the same as the kids' daycare: fever, vomit, diarrhea. If I'm feeling extra lousy I'll leave early and take a nap before the end-of-the-day family chaos begins. Most of the time I'll work through it, especially when I need to take healthy days off to take care of sick kids. Which is probably why my colds linger longer and this one got a bit nasty...

The mutual torture of weaning

By the beginning of April, nursing was limited to nights & weekends, and Baby was drinking well from the cup... bottles abandoned months ago. The freezer provisions allowed Mom to stop pumping at work. Even once a day was detracting from her productivity. Weekends were reduced to twice, then once during the day. All was going smoothly, we hit the one year mark formula-free. The transition to cow's milk was gradual: 20%, 50%, 100%... one week at a time. Now if we could only stop the waking up twice in the middle of the night...

The books & doctors say take out a feeding at a time, which worked well with Baby #1. However, this is a whole other person, with his own say in the matter. And he screams! The whole household is up through the night, exhaustion sets in. Instead of more sleep we are getting less. Tiredness will play tricks with your mind, the alarm clock displays random numbers. Mom gives in at the wrong time, the schedule is off. Dad, sleepwalking, will hand over Baby to a sleeping Mom, which she will notice attached to her breast hours later. Madness is looming in the horizon, so we return to the normal schedule before another attempt. Frustration is counter-productive...

Sleeping in for two days does wonders for your mind. Mom is sane again, regrouped, and ready for the next attempt. She tries the cup, with water or milk. She tries holding, cuddling, singing. She will not sleep through the night, but she will not give in... Then, out of the blue, Baby sleeps the whole night through. A blessing in disguise, engorgement sets in and the temptation to nurse in the morning is too enticing... resistance is futile. We try again the next night, the cup, the rocking... Two nights, three... not much sleep but the cup is now accepted. Baby gives in, resigned. A hug & a kiss, turn over and back to sleep...

Now we are down to the end-of-the-day feeding, but at least no nursing to sleep. The pleading eyes, the sad puppy expression... mercifully abandoned as pressure tactics. The screaming has mostly dwindled to Baby making sure his complaints are noted in the logs. Then he turns over and falls asleep...

Ready, set...up

It is amazing how one's view on life can change without notice. A year ago all I knew for sure was that the baby inside me had to come out. I was ending my postdoc contract and had 8 week of comp-time to pay back after my maternity leave, due to my pre-term labor mandatory bed rest. Stuck-Here Town seemed like a dead-end road and I was miserable.

By the time I was ready to get out of the house, I was contacted by my first postdoc adviser, who needed help getting his lab back in gear. The "dead-end" sign morphed into a "no outlet" one... six months was all he could offer me. Better than no job at all... I was in limbo but I had gained some time. I kept telling myself it was a step back before the two forward ones that were just around the corner. Believe it or not, I was right... Out of the blue came this unexpected grant, shining a light in the dark tunnel. Five years... I haven't planned this far ahead since I started graduate school! The cherry on top is not being associated with GradSchool-Postdoc-Postdoc University anymore... after 10 years there.

So here I am, embarking on this new adventure, or at least provisioning the boat. It is amazing how much work goes into setting up a lab from scratch. Compound on that the fact that you need to provide for experiments you (and everyone else on the project) have never done before... voila! my current life (minus the kids, untidy house & all the other stuff I escape from every weekday morning). When I was propositioned last year, all this seemed like a dream. Now that I started and the money is ready to be spent, it is more like a fairytale... shopping spree et al.

When You Got It, Flaunt It

I have noticed that many scientists keep well defined boundaries between their personal and professional lives. Some are particular about not talking about their family, and one might not even know if they are married or whether they have kids. This might lead to a respectable professional facade, but might not be sending the right message to aspiring scientists. The image they are sending is that there is no success in science unless work is your life, which should not be the case. I fear that many aspiring scientists abandon their career choice because of the lack of role models that show them that it is possible, although not easy, to bake their cake and eat it too.

I have found many posts in the blog wide world of scientists blurring the line between career and family, and I believe it is the right message to send. A well rounded individual should not forfeit one aspect of their well being over others. Moreover, life is complicated and most of the time beyond one's control. It would be enlightening for students to see that even with a complicated life, their professors still manage to get the work done (and by the deadlines).

I never kept my personal life a secret, and maybe I have paid a high price for that sometimes. However, I hope that I'm setting a good example to the students in my building with the little merging of personal/professional things I do on a regular basis...

• I gave seminars & journal club while sporting very large pregnancy bellies. Work was a welcome distraction and I worked as long as I could health-wise. I even showed off my hard-to-find maternity labcoat. I attended seminars regularly, even the ones in nearby buildings. I cherished the smiles and chuckled with the "I thought you'd have popped by now" comments.
  
• I'm the one who brings her kids to lab & department social gatherings unless they explicitly say no children. We take our kids everywhere and that is why we hear so many people say they are well behaved. However, I once took a baby to a dinner with an invited speaker, which was a bit of a distraction when you are trying to talk science. (Somehow the fact that the baby is there makes people want to talk about family instead... all barriers break loose...)
  
• I'm the one pushing the stroller and totting an almost 3 year old into the department on a Saturday to do little things in lab that will make my week run smoother. If you ask me where their Dada is I'll tell you I'm giving him a 3 hour window to clean the house without distractions.
• I have walked around the department every day for almost a year with the black bag and a heavy duty, bright orange, 10 ft extension cord. If you ask me what I'm doing, I'll tell you it's my milk pump, that I am heading for the ladies room with the couch and that I need the cord because the outlet is at the other side of the room.

It's the little things that blur the line between the personal & professional, and sends the message that scientists are people too.

My Fair Labby [UPDATED]

Wouldn't It be Loverly?

It's rather fun right now, can't think about Paree.
Mmmmmm.
The PI will be startin' up
A project jamboree.
No chance I'll be allowed a break to go an' pee!

Mmmm, Mmmm, wouldn't it be loverly?

All I want is a bench somewhere,
Far away from the lab in there.
Don't even need a chair,
Aow, wouldn't it be loverly?
Lots of mutants for me to seq',
Lots of time on FPLC.
Me gels, me blots, me reads,
Aow, wouldn't it be loverly?

Aow, so loverly sittin' abso-fuckin'-lutely still.
I would never grudge if spring
Crept over me windowsill.
No one's 'ead peakin' o'er me,
Peace an' quiet as one can be.
'ho cares to go with me,
Aow, wouldn't it be loverly?

Loverly, loverly, loverly, loverly

UPDATE: After Professor Anonymous' wonderful version of Grease, I decided to add the video for sound effects:

This version has Julie Andrews' voice dubbing Audrey Hepburn, which I thought was a great addition...

BBC's book list meme

In April 2003 the BBC's Big Read began the search for the nation's best-loved novel, here are the top 100 nominated books. Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of them. I've read 24, not that bad... Which ones have you read?

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien x+
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen x+
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams x
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling x+
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne x
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis x+ (I read the whole Narnia series)
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens (started 3 times, can't remember if I finished it... partial credit?)
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott x
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres *
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling x+
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling x+
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling x+
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien x+
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll x
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett * (I've read World without end first)
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl x
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson x
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen x+ (My favorite Austin novel)
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen x
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery x+ (I've read the whole series)
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas * (I read the 3 musketeers)
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell x+
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett x
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden *
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding x
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho x
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer x+ (The prodigal daughter is great too)
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot x (I've actually read the whole series)
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie