Back to Reality

I fully intended to blog about my vacation with my mom, but a lack of reliable internet sort of put a damper on that plan. It is also completely non-academic, and although I have posted about things other than graduate school on this blog, I don't want to make that too much of a habit.

I will say though, vacations are important for maintaining the sanity of a graduate student. We all need breaks, and anyone who tells you any different is a dirty filthy liar. Our trip to Arizona was one of the better vacations I've taken in a long time, and it was nice to finally see the Grand Canyon. It wouldn't be the kind of thing I'd want to do every year; but, sometimes just staring over something so vast and outside of yourself is what you need to bring everything else in reality back into perspective. It's the main reason I miss being close to an ocean, and why I want to see the Pacific some day.

Hance Rapids. Taken with my mobile, so forgive the lousy quality.

But now I'm back to reality. First, I'm going to do the cliche thing and comment on how I can't believe that it is June already. I'm completely unapologetic about this. Summer intercession is almost over, and come Monday there will once again be college students wandering about. This won't change my working environment much, though. Working in my office over the past few weeks has been incredibly boring. No one is around, and by that I mean I sit in my office for 8 hours by myself, only seeing other human beings when I leave to go to the bathroom or get food/coffee. The PiBBS space is a different world when classes aren't in session. Furthermore, I think a lot of other people are traveling, so it is extra dead.

Another dose of reality came recently when I finally got my rejection letter for a big grant I had applied for back in the fall. The big yellow envelope of depression showed up right before I was going to Arizona, so I put off reading its contents until I got back. I finally went over the reviewer comments the other day. I had myself mentally prepared to get ripped to shreds, but it actually wasn't that bad. I agreed with pretty much everything the reviewers had to say, and they will help me write a stronger proposal for the next go around. Three years of support is just too good to not try again. I didn't really expect to get it this time around, they only funded something like 80 proposals with this particular award.

The reviews I got were also mixed. One reviewer rated my entire application as "fair" and provided the most detailed comments and criticisms. The other two rated it as "good" and "excellent". Even I know that my application wasn't "excellent", so I'm going to just go ahead and average everything out and say that I did "good" on my first attempt. Which isn't too shabby. All three reviewers commented that the whole proposal was really well written. The primary complaints were that I didn't elaborate more on my methods and statistics and that I was vague about the broader impacts. It was only a 5 page proposal, so I'm going to have to really try to fit some of these details in and trim up other areas. I'll also have some publications by the time I try again, so that will also boost my application.

The complaints about my broader impacts section kind of threw me, however. Almost all funding agencies now require applicants to explain how they are going to make the world a better place with their research. Kind of like a Miss America pageant for scientists. I thought I had included enough in this section, but clearly not. Apparently they wanted to know how the specific project I was proposing would be relevant to my community (aka NM). I was more broad about how my activities as a scientist were beneficial to my community. Wrong! Looking back on it, I can easily make my project applicable to NM because it is on the role of large carnivores in communities. NM has a lot of issues with wolf populations and managing their larger carnivores, so this should have been a no brainer. But I wasn't sure what they wanted from me and I gave them the "wrong" thing. Next time I'll know better. These sections are becoming more important and less of a kiss-off, and now I know to put more into it.

The next month is going to be all about me tying up loose ends with projects, and thinking about my comprehensive exams. I'm thinking those will happen in the fall, but I'm kind of on the fence about it. We'll see.

First Publication

I got an email today from the editor of my book chapter, forwarded from Felisa (even though I'm first author), indicating that the electronic version of the book we contributed to is available online.

Paleoecology in an Era of Climate Change: How the Past Can Provide Insights Into the Future

Abstract:

Anthropogenic climate change is the most prominent conservation issue of our time. Expectations are that the Earth’s climate will warm ~2.5–6.5° within the next century. The accompanying biological consequences will no doubt be huge. How will the diversity of life on our planet respond to rapid climate change? The best way to predict the future may be to examine the past as biota have experienced numerous episodes of climate fluctuation throughout geologic time. Some of these climatic fluctuations, particularly those of the late Quaternary, have been as rapid as those anticipated by climate warming scenarios. Analysis of the paleontological record can yield valuable information on how past climate change has shaped biodiversity in the past, and provide clues for what we may expect in the future. 

Paleontology in Ecology and Conservation

Springer Earth System Sciences, 2012, 93-116, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-25038-5_6

This is very exciting, and it gave me a boost this morning. I was kind of dragging when I got in to work today. Good news is always nice, and I'm going to try to ride the momentum through the day.

The End?

I had a surreal moment yesterday afternoon. I suddenly became aware that the semester was ending, and I was caught off guard. It sounds dumb, but it hadn't actually registered in my head that the reason my big-ass class project was due this week was because we only have a week left of class, and then finals week is after, and then nothing. I recall a couple weeks ago being kind of annoyed because it felt like it was due "too soon" in the semester. No. It is due exactly when it should be.

I don't know if it's because I don't really have exams anymore, or I'm not teaching, but at the end of both this past fall and this spring I have had almost zero concept of time and the calendar. A week goes by, a month goes by, and it's all the same to me. I recall I was having anxiety over something back in February, and I felt like I been dealing with it for several weeks. Turns out I was way off, it had only been one week.

Maybe I'm impatient, and that is screwing with my concept of time. I'm simultaneously tired of waiting for certain things, and other things can take their sweet time for all I care. I've also been very distracted lately, which means I'm not really paying attention to many things around me, like time.

This hasn't had any permanent or detrimental consequences, yet, so I'm not worried.
I'm living in the moment, for now.

Peer Review Take Three: Done!

So it was down to the due date, but I managed to submit my review to the editor before 10pm tonight. Comments to the editor: check. Comments to the author: check. Annotated PDF: check. I feel relatively good about this, seeing as how this was my first time. I probably spent more time on this than I should have, but from what I hear that is typical. I probably missed some details on some things and didn't give enough feed back on another thing. But it is done and off my desk.

At the very least I can hope that one of the other reviewers was more experienced than me and will pick up on stuff I missed. I was reviewer #2, so I know that at the very least one other person besides me and the editor looked at this thing.

The one thing I really appreciated about the manuscript was that it was really well written, despite any complaints I did end up making about clarity. I've read published papers before where I have absolutely no idea what is going on. At the very least that didn't happen this time around.

I get to add this to my CV right? This was a submission for a pretty big journal. I feel like I should be able to brag about it.

Peer Review Take Two and Spring Fever

I've been staring at my screen all afternoon, knowing full well that I'm not getting anything done, and that the review for this paper is due. Tomorrow.

I remember times when I was productive. Like a couple weeks ago, I was sitting at home feeling blue so I went to my friend Natalie's apartment and magically spat out my presentation for lab group in no time. Or last semester, when I worked furiously for two weeks on a grant submission for the EPA. Or back when I was an undergrad and I would get my second wind at around 11pm, and then spend 3+ hours in the computer lab working on my senior thesis.

No such luck this week.

It's not that I don't want to do this peer review. I do. I believe strongly in the peer review process, and it is actually a really interesting paper I'm going over. Its just been an emotionally exhausting couple of months, and I never really fully checked back in (mentally) after winter break. You read that correctly... winter break... as in January. It's April. And I have a million other things on my mind other than school/work.

I have a really hard time working when my mind is other places. My brain doesn't shut off, and I am one of those people that will ruminate over the same thing over and over and over again until it is resolved either in reality or in my head. I've never been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder, but lately I sure have been feeling like I'm afflicted.

At any rate, I've read the paper that I'm reviewing in excruciating detail, and I've made lots of annotations to the PDF directly. Now it's a matter of writing out my comments for the editor and the author. That is going to be the thing that will require a lot of activation energy on my part. The Word document is open on my desktop. The major bullet points for the things I want to address are typed. I just need to do it.

But all I really want to do right now is go lay on some grass somewhere, watch clouds float by, and think about what I'm doing with my life.

Peer Review Process

I apologize for the hiatus, I've had some personal stuff going on and an existential crisis that is still looming over me. But I'll leave that for another post once I have time to process what I've been going through. For now I want to talk about my first experience as a reviewer.

Over spring break I received an email from a fairly big name journal in which I was asked to peer review a submission. How I came to get this email became clear once I saw the name of the editor that selected me as a reviewer: it was my adviser. Advisers often have their graduate students review papers they themselves are selected for, mostly to give the student experience doing something that is important to the scientific publication process, but also in part (I suspect) to clear things off their own desks. This request from Felisa was slightly different since I was directly asked as a primary reviewer.

The most amusing part of the email was that it was addressed to "Dr. Pardi". Cart before the horse.

For those who didn't know this already, the peer review process involves sending out manuscripts to other people in the scientific community for critique before publication. Reviewers identify weaknesses in the science or analyses of a paper, and the authors receive these comments. Reviewers can request that additional analyses be made, or if a paper is really bad they can indicate that they feel the paper shouldn't be published at all. In summary, it is quality control that the scientific community has embraced as a whole. It can, unfortunately, be a painful process for many involved.

I can't go into details about the paper I received, but I'm kind of nervous about being the person who is judging someone else's work. Almost everyone I know has gotten nasty reviews back on a grant or a paper before. Reviewers can be brutal, unnecessarily so. They can also give away their own ignorance by making irrelevant or stupid criticisms when they aren't necessarily an expert in the topic they are reviewing. I don't want to be either of these kinds of reviewers, and it is that second category that I am particularly wary of falling into.

Having said all this, I'm going to try to do this one on my own, at least initially. It turns out that I do know a bit about the subject matter, enough to refer Felisa to other people who would also make good reviewers if she needed anyone else. I have until April 10th the get this done, and my goal is to get it done early and do it right without being a jerk or sounding like a moron.

Don't Call A Woman A Slut

I'm going to digress for a bit from my usual banter about my life and school to bring you...

Rush Limbaugh

What he actually said:

“What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her?” Limbaugh said on his radio show on Wednesday. “It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.”

What he wants us to think he meant based on his "apology":

"I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress. I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit? In my monologue, I posited that it is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone's bedroom nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a Presidential level."

I'm not an English major, but these two statements have very little to do with each other. The first is a sad man's attempt to entertain or be humorous in a way that is crude, misogynistic, and inappropriate. The second statement could be a well articulated social commentary if you ignore the fact that it uses straw man arguments, logical fallacies, inaccurate information, and completely misses the subtle nuances of the debate. Never mind that he clearly has no idea how hormonal contraception works or what else it is used for. Limbaugh would have been better off using that second statement if his goal had, in fact, been to make a social commentary. But that wasn't his goal. His only goal is to maintain listeners who for some reason like to hear his big mouth flapping. And it's sad that in this day and age that sort of things sells. We really are that unsophisticated as a society.

This isn't about being or not being politically correct. This whole thing speaks to a deeper issue about how our collective perception of women is still in the dark ages. What Limbaugh said is appalling, but what might be even more disturbing is that some people actually came to his defense. You can't justify what he said without conceding that it's okay to be verbally abusive. He used this woman. He used her to boost ratings for his show. When you use someone, you dehumanize them. And when you dehumanize someone it makes it that much easier to keep abusing them. I suspect this is why he initially double down on his comments and didn't apologize until he started losing sponsors from his show.

Based on the content of his "apology" Limbaugh is giving the impression that he wants to talk about personal responsibility and accountability. If he wants to be responsible he can start by not promoting misogynistic hate speech. And if he keeps it up, he should be held accountable. Here is a reddit posting with his list of sponsors, you might not want to buy their stuff if they sponsor such trash in the media: http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/qg3tx/a_comprehensive_list_of_rush_limbaugh_ad_sponsors/