Rescue: old school meme

Drugmonkey started it, Babyattachmode tagged me. So here I am. which top five movie or TV characters should come rescue you from a bad situation? My list is a mish mash of new shiny and old reruns in the morning to wake up. In no particular order:

1. Dean Winchester (although Crowley comes close)
2. Claire Underwood
3. Kara Thrice (Starbucks)
4. Tyrion Lannister with a side of old gran' Olenna Tyrell
5. Angel (although my feminist wants to say Buffy&Willow - but saved by the vampire works so many times...and the brooding)

Yep. There was a time when it would looked a little different, alas...  apparently I've gone for more brawl fighters and not as many brainiacs that I thought I craved/longed for. Maybe it says something on my frustrations in daily life?

Since I'm a day late with this, there's probably no one left to tag ;)

being just enough woman - IWD edition

There's a word in Swedish: lagom.

It can be translated to "just enough", "just right amount" or "average/run of the mill/middle ground". It's the answer of "how much food do you want", or explained on "how you should look to not cause a ruckus", or "how to answer all those questions when going on the first date not to overwhelm".

In short, it's used a lot for everyone - but as I think mostly, for women. Especially women. It's important to stay 'lagom' and not aspire for too much. It ties into the Scandinavian "Jantelagen" quite well. Although, for the sake of this post - let's not get bogged down into the Nordic "humblebragging" or "love of being middleground and neutral".

I could make it into a "class concept", which might be more appropriate considering the origin of this day March 8th. I mean, the International Women's Day does come from a socialistic idea originally and was called International Working Women's day.

But I'll try and stay focus and write about what has been floating around my head last couple of weeks in the context of women in science (read this article by Hope Jahren) or any other female blogger who writes about her experience in the work place, high school or at home in family.

It's like being in grad school and getting a lecture about career planning and the single biggest advice was "be careful when you chose your partner, they will be the most important factor on if you are to succeed in your career and do what you want". It could of course be said with more nuance, your professor, your mentor, your future network will be pivotal to get you where you want to go. However, if history and looking around myself will teach me anything I'd say that this is pretty spot on.

All the data point to the same thing. Women (taking the stand from the Western culture) have an opportunity to succeed as men, and do so quite similar until one big thing happens. Yes, you know this one. I'm not reinventing the wheel here. Until the children comes. Then, for some reason, their careers and life choices become more limited. Their focus turn towards the family unit, regardless if they want to increase the career - it starts to be more limited. It can be as easy as herself saying "I want to focus on family". It can be as easy as the boss saying "well, let's save her from the choice and take this man or woman-without-a-child and promote them instead". (They will be more focused on work anyway.)

And the lag phase isn't just those few years when the woman (and man imho) are focused on their small children. Nope. This is shown over and over again that you don't regain from this.

"Why am I writing about this though? I don't have any children, yet".

Well, it's because even if I don't have any children I get judged as if I "could" have children. It's a constant factor in when I apply for jobs (take my word for it here, I'm not just talking about me, it's pretty constant notion that comes from my female friends).

Leaving the children issue aside, there is one other thing I constantly think about. It could be class related since my grandmother taught me from an early age "a real lady knows her place and doesn't become vulgar". Of course, I was the overachiever in school. I got detention from speaking out too much in class. I got bullied for being loud and taking place. When starting to date you realize that most of the dating advice to women is "listen to him and let him talk, make him feel special". It's from those times at the pub when I don't care about it and talk and behave as I want to. And the inevitable comment later on "I think you should listen to me" or "when you talk that much no man will like you".

Newsflash, I'm ok with being a bitch like that. Maybe I wasn't interested in getting "all" the men to like me when I'm out having a beer and watching hockey? Maybe I wasn't there to entertain you and your ego?

However, getting back to the point. Every time of the year when this day comes around I wonder if men really understand how many limitations are put on women every single day? From the moment I wake up and think "what should I wear today", "how much makeup do I need", "what's for dinner today", "can I walk this way without any issues" to going eating lunch in the work cafeteria or walking in the grocery store, seeing magazines with all of their judging questions on bodies, faces and choices. Not to mention how lucky I am that I've lived to being this old AND gone to school and not being forced into marrying someone my family said so, or being captured or raped by soldiers. And that I can fall asleep at night without wondering if I'll wake up in the morning or someone entering my home during the night assaulting me.

In the light of women all over the world, I have a pretty sweet deal. Comparing to men in general though, I'm not sure I should be all that grateful. Life is still extremely unfair, class issues aside.

Time to go to work. Today I might skip the lagom and go all out woman. No excuses. After all, today is International Women's Day. Maybe one of these years in the future, it won't be needed as much? Here's to hope (and hard work)!

introvert working extroverty job

One of the biggest differences that my job have had on my life is that I'm nowadays not as much social on my personal time. I've always been an introvert at heart, my home is my castle. I like being with small groups of people, one-on-one talks or max of 4 people is when I feel the least stressed. However, I don't mind big parties and mingle around. Going to various venues and meeting new people. Conference parties and talking to lots and lots of people. It's just that I need some decompress time afterwards and be completely alone so I don't have to worry about how people perceive me, or take in all of the impressions and process them and be prepared for all the things. The introvert recharges alone.

When I was a post-doc I had a lot of things on the side of the job. I went to coffee with people, met up with friends outside of work, hung out in bars, went to social shindigs and art exhibits and roamed to a lot of other things. My work space was fairly limited with interactions, it was me and my mice/bacteria/cells. The cell hood was my second home and I chatted to them to make them feel good. The mice were my babies, I fretted over them, bred them and got so much good data from them. It wasn't about meetings or thinking about "what's the tactic" but rather "get data, move it forward".

My present job isn't like that. It's sharing two offices with 4 people and often not having alone time until they have left for the day and there is some quiet. It's meetings, interactions and "managing from below". It's about relationships and people's feelings. It's about making everyone feel like they are the most important and that their contribution is great and that makes the projects move forward. It's thanking people for their hard work and their contributions. It's sorting out what make them tick and get interested in the parts of the project that may or may not be _that_ interesting at first glance but it is pivotal to finish for the job to get done. It's people, data in projects and more people.

I love it. It's challenging and I think I'm pretty good at it. I get to do research and be connected with research without standing at the bench. And without being responsible for writing grants and getting the money. I need to be responsible for what happens with the money, and that's something I like.

However, the clearest thing that has happened (last couple of months in particular) is that I'm not at all social anymore. When I get home after work I'm longing for alone time. On the weekends I long to go out in the forest and be in nature. I run outside and love the sound of my breathing, the pounding of my feet on the ground. Listening to podcasts about what goes on in the world and triggering my thoughts about things I find interesting. Sitting outside with a book, leaving the phone inside, just immersing myself in reading. Being in the now and focusing on the immediate world right there. Not caring too much about the time nor what happens later on.

The problem? That I'm worried that I'm losing the few friends I had before. That I'm so good at living in the now that I have lost track of where the future is going. Maybe I'm not living in the now as much as avoiding the decisions that I should make for the future? Because, as any woman knows, "there is only so much time you have".

Hello overthinking introvert.....

protect me from what I want

(this turned out to be a blog post like from the old days. The introspective, thinking and emotional one. New normal, as in work and science, will resume shortly. I wanted to get this out first though.)

The band Placebo made a nice song in the 90ies called “Protect me from what I want”. I’ve been thinking about this for a bit. A while back I went to visit an old friend of mine. it was a nice visit. although my ulterior motive was that they would tell me what to do, I’m having a little bit of a thinking-doing issue, life wise. And over thinking. Of course, as a nice good friend they spelled it out for me. I need to decide what I want and then do it. Not care about what other people think or what I think they expect me to do.

It all sounds so easy. A few times I think about my upbringing and the consequences that it has had for the adult me. I’m not the person who goes “it’s due to my upbringing” as a blame, and it took quite some time in therapy to accept that “upbringing explains a lot of your present day choices” without having a blame connotation. Nor am I the person to complain and say I had it bad. I didn’t. And most of all, I don’t want to go into it in too much detail in a blog post since I’m still working on the “personal but not private”. I will make it more about the saying from Al-Anon “it’s hard when you grow up/have lived as a co-dependent to sort out what you want”, since your feelings haven’t really been the focus. It’s all about someone else primarily.

One of the best things I’ve done in my life was to work on a support phone line while at uni. I worked Friday nights and Sunday nights. These were the nights when people called in. Fridays when they were feeling alone and not going out with friends (“I have no one to go out with and nothing to do”). Sundays when they were regretting things that had happened over the weekend and having to face them Mondays (“I think I hooked up with that guy/girl and people know about it”).  Like today, Sunday that is Valentine's day - It would've been a phone fest from all the people who didn't have a valentine's date, didn't have the perfect weekend, didn't know what to say tomorrow and most of all, trying to deal with all the emotions of being good enough and fitting in 

It ties in to a conversation I had before the holidays. I mentioned then that my memory of the phone line was that a lot of people called in before holidays stating their concerns about going back home to their parents. Why? Because they weren’t doing what their parents have told them to do, what was expected of them. (it’s extra interesting to me nowadays since we didn’t have tuition fees when I went to uni - only having to get money to “live and buy books” and we had farely good deal on governmental loans. It wasn’t about the money per se, it was the dreams and hopes of the family that hung around.) They had dropped out from engineering or medical school since they wanted to study art history/anthropology/something else that didn’t fit with the planned idea and now they were scared what their family would say when they found out.

The idea that “do what you want” is not as easy as one would want it to be. Even if you have the financial means to do it. Or the thought that you are “free” to do it. A lot of us are carrying the aspirations and wants of our families. I’m not using it as an excuse, I’m mainly trying to explain. (Funny that I find myself defending myself, even thought I am not from a traditional “keep with your family wishes”.) A lot of wealthy people (upper class) as well as people from  middle class with a family business or solid working class train their children to know what’s expected from them when they grow up. No funny business.

This all factors into my, and my friend’s, life. It’s not as easy to know what I want, and what I’ve been taught what I should want. At the same time these other expectations have been spelled out since we were small and half of the time, maybe you don’t think about it too much. You just do it. 

not placing eggs in one basket - have outside connections

Last month has been the final straw for one of my friends. They are leaving the lab, finally deciding and getting out. The abusive environment in the lab has finally taken its toll and they are done with science overall*.

It's hard. It's extremely frustrating for me, partly because I couldn't help then, and I can't help now - apart from being there and trying to make the exit plan the best one. (I think I've said this before, but I'll say this again - exit strategy and future planning is very important.)

Let me run down some points that I have learned over the years - and from watching both myself and others end up in less than great situations.

First and foremost, go with gut feeling. If something is starting to ping your tummy - listen to it and start collecting facts, then take a look and see if the feeling is warranted. If spider sense is warranted, get out as soon as you can. If you start in a lab as a post-doc and after less than 6 months things seem to be weird. Maybe the PI is screaming at people. Maybe the atmosphere is "not to have any outside contact outside the lab". Maybe something else that sounded weird when you started but you adapted, shrugged it off and then now it doesn't seem as bad.... Take another look. You might be like the frog in hot water - or the Stockholm syndrome. Get out ASAP. Moving labs within the first year can be salvaged. "It wasn't the right fit", "the project didn't turn out to be what was told at the interview" etc. It's not a great thing, but leaving earlier is better than adding another two years in a bad situation.

Second, which ties into the first, HR works for the employer. Not you as the employee. If you want them to help you, its probably going to include you having leverage and a solution planned so it's the least messy situation and solution for them to choose. But again, they don't work for you.

Third, have contacts outside your lab. Another mentor, another connection apart from your PI. Keep your old job connections and grad advisors in the loop. It's nothing strange to have another angle on your career and research. It doesn't mean that you tell all about the research from the lab, it means that you have another person who can be a support person to you. If you aren't a post-doc (like a research scientist or lab manager), definitely have outside connections for future career planning or options in case your PI loses funding or gets a new offer to another institute.

Fourth, if you find yourself in a bad situation - device an exit plan. Talk to some people outside of the situation since you will most likely be a little biased, scared and not thinking really straight. There might be some salvageable ideas and efforts. Perhaps even a solution that you have missed when being caught up in a bad situation. Don't just quit cold turkey. It could be that it happens that way but most often there are other solutions. Mainly because there is less hard to find a new job if you already have a job... and if you are on a visa... see next point.

Fifth, if you are on a visa - like I was on my post-doc - you need to be very diligent and know your requirements very well. How long can you stay in the country when your contract is up? If you are terminated, how long can you stay? (I had a 30 day stay in the country after the contract was ending. Not really super great for long term planning but the reality at the time.) How are things affecting your future visa status and applications? Do you have a possibility of applying for permanent residency for example? Is it possible to shift jobs within the institution or could you shift between places etc.

This post wasn't meant to be a negative one - but considering what I see now and have seen a few times, not to mention went through myself for a bit in my post-doc - it is a reality that one should look into. Like the saying goes: Si vis pacem, para bellum ("if wanting peace, prepare for war"). I interpret that it is better being prepared and having options. It's easier to take on challenges that way.




*they don't think they can get another job within science anymore. But mainly they don't think they have it in them for now to risk another lab. I'm not sure what will happen, I have my own hopes here, but I'm hanging in there providing support and alternatives.