THANKFUL FRIDAY

This is the only copy I have of my thesis. I've come close to throwing it out so many times. A researcher at a company contacted me this week asking me for information about this work. I had to dig it out of the back of the filing cabinet to answer his questions.

“This is the worst thing I’ve ever read.” That is what my advisor told me as I handed him the key to his lab while balancing a box of my belongings on one hip. It was my last day. My departure date had been written into his calendar for more than two months. He chose this moment to tell me that he wanted me to completely re-write my thesis, the same thesis he did not read until after my defense. I left in tears, enrolled in another semester of thesis hours and then moved to start a new job. My advisor said that he would give me notes and revisions, but months went by without hearing from him. So, I started working on it on my own, mirroring the style of journal articles. I sent my revision to my advisor, but never heard anything back. Finally, Chris camped outside the man’s office with the final copy and sign-off form. My advisor signed the form. I don’t think he ever read any version of my thesis. Two years later, my advisor died from a heart attack. One of his then graduate students contacted me with a manuscript that he wanted to get published. It was written in the style my advisor preferred, but by then I had some experience and new something about the writing style of a journal article. I told the student that the data was good, but that the paper would never get published written in that style. The graduate student replied that he didn’t want to change the style in honor of our advisor.

My work in that lab was never published. I never heard another word from that graduate student. I never received any notification of publication.

Graduate school wrecked my confidence and self esteem. I left with my masters, pretty sure that I was never going back. I told myself that I was not smart enough to get my doctorate and I wallowed in my failure for a few years. I had been under the impression that graduate school was meant to wreck you, but I have seen time and time again that this does not have to be true. I just had a bad experience. I have also worked with enough PhDs to know that I am smart enough to get a doctorate. The reasons I have not gone ahead with it now has more to do with a lack of interest. It wouldn’t get me anything but bragging rights, but I will admit that I’ve always held on to some bitterness over the unpublished work I did in graduate school. I do not have any digital copies of my thesis. All that is left is a hard copy, a thick stack of papers that I have been carting around with me for twenty years. Every time I clean out the filing cabinet, I think “I should just throw this out.” But I never do.

This week a researcher from a spectroscopy company tracked me down to ask about the work I did in graduate school. I was at work and I sent a text to Michael asking him if he would see if my thesis was still in the filing cabinet. He dug it out and sent me a picture of it so that I could confirm his discovery. I replied “Holy shit. That’s it!” I still can’t believe I never threw that thing away. That evening when I got home, I skimmed through it so I could find the answers to some questions the researcher had asked me. I cringed the whole time while reading through it. It still holds the taint of being the “worst thing” I’ve ever written, but I found the answer to the researcher’s questions. I don’t know if they’ll end up using any of my data or information, but there was something validating in their request for information on my work. Maybe finally it will actually be put to practical use.

And it only took twenty years.

GOOD RELATIONSHIPS

Cow

Nine hundred and ninety eight miles. That’s the number of miles to get from Kansas City, MO to Oklahoma City, OK and then to Weatherford, OK and then to Duncan, OK and then to Norman, OK and then back to Kansas City, MO. And it was miles worth traveled. So much of my drive took me down two-lane highways with little signs of civilization for miles and miles. There was very little traffic and often, it seemed like it was just me, the prairie and the cows. If I felt like pulling off the road to take a picture, I just did it. I didn’t let myself worry about the delay it might cause and since I was all alone, I didn’t think about inconveniencing the driver with my request to stop. When I wasn’t stopping to take pictures of the vast landscape of nothing, I was building stories in my head. At one point I even thought up my own stand-up comedy act.

I met Stephanie for breakfast one morning and got all caught up on her life. I got to squeeze Robin’s new grand baby. I soaked in a hot tub. I ate hipster street tacos with Traci, Chris and Quinn (who is more obnoxious now than ever) and we laughed and laughed. I attended a college graduation at a small rural Oklahoma College where I listened to a speech that both surprised me and gave me hope. The young man spoke about his white male privilege and how he intends to use that privilege for social justice. He told his fellow graduates that it was not enough to have conversations on race, but to be active in the fight against racism. No one booed him off the stage, but applauded and cheered and I thought “maybe we’re going to be okay.” Maybe. I sat on the couch in Amy’s library office while she spilled her guts on the last few months of her crazy busy stressful life. I drank too much wine while sitting on Misti’s porch talking about ways to help college graduates prepare for all the possibilities available to them after undergrad. I told Mark something that I have not told anyone. He’s the only person right now who can hold me accountable.

As I made the long drive home on Sunday, I caught the tale end of the TED Radio Hour on NPR. Dr. Robert Waldinger was talking about what makes a meaningful life. Dr. Waldinger is the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. His team and his predecessors have been tracking the health and lives of 724 men for 75 years. Actually the study has now moved on to the children of these men. It is the longest running study of its kind. One thing that has been made very clear from this study is the answer to the question of what makes a meaningful life and the answer is simple: “good relationships keep us happy and healthy.” Those relationships are not confined to marital relationships. Just having people in your life who you could count on in times of need, laugh with, cry with, is enough. These relationships keep us happy and healthy. It’s been proven by science that we need each other.

Yet, relationships for me can be difficult. I have always spent so much time alone, as a child, as a teen, in my adult life. I have to push myself to be in the presence of people, but I have never once regretted that push. Mostly because I feel like I’ve nurtured the best relationships with the best people. I am happier and healthier today for the weekend spent listening and laughing and commiserating and just being present in the company of all of them. Maybe Michael’s right about me and his prediction that I’m going to live to well past 100. Those good relationships will hopefully out weigh the bad genes and I’ll be the 90something old lady, doing yoga and zipping around town on a Vespa.

SCIENCE ADVOCACY

Tiny pine cone.

See this Instagram photo by @elephant_soap * 6 likes

The conference I attended in San Francisco had a couple of different sessions on Science Advocacy. The first one I sat in on was a talk by Ann Reid from the National Center for Science Education. The title of the discussion was "How to solve a problem like science denial?" and she talked about how science deniers are threatened by science and the information that comes from scientific discovery. I sat there listening to numbers and percentages I'd heard before like how 25% of the population does not believe the earth revolves around the sun and I was somewhere between on the verge of bursting into tears and throwing up. This talk was not so much "Hey! Look at how cool science can be!" and more "How to deal with confrontations because people are now going to think you are a witch and not a scientist." I had visions of angry mobs with pitch forks. 

There was an emphasis in this talk on making yourself (the scientist) less threatening. Scientists often say things that conflict with core values. A good example is the topic of evolution. Evolution conflicts with religion and beliefs and those kind of people either believe in evolution or they don't. The 'believing in science' thing is a phrase that I struggle with. Science is not a faith based religion. There's no believing in the facts that come through scientific discovery. Yet, that angry mob I am envisioning are not thinking analytically. Dr. Reid gave the audience some really good advice on dealing with people who do not think analytically. She told us to ask questions and listen respectfully and be personal. She showed this graph that shows how people see scientists as competent, but not particularly warm. We don't illicit comforting feelings. In fact, we're seen as the second most competent job but with the warmth level just above a lawyer. 

So, the second session on Science Advocacy, which turned out to be a table discussion, was all about how to turn socially awkward scientists into more personable, lovable creatures. This session turned out to be not at all what I thought it was going to be. I thought I'd be sitting in an audience, listening to someone talk about how to develop a two-minute speech that would convey what I do as a scientist without being threatening. Instead, I walked into a table discussion where me and Sarah (we tagged along together to this) were placed at one of the front tables. The guy moderating our table looked at us and said "Let's hear your pitch!" and flames whooshed up my neck and into my cheeks as I stammered for actual words as opposed to the sounds of "uh...uh..um..." that I was making. 

Here's the thing. I don't talk about what I do. Period. I do not talk to Michael about what I do. I do not talk to family about what I what I do. I do not talk to friends about what I do. I just don't talk about what it is I actually do as a scientist with anyone. I noticed a long time ago that when someone would ask me what it was that I do for a living and I said "research scientist" their eyes immediately glazed over or they would nod their head and say "that's nice." before turning and walking away. I have heard "Is she speaking English?" from people as I have talked about some aspect of my job. I do not talk about what I do because I have yet to come up with a simple way of explaining what it is that I do without being condescending. I suppose, if pressed, I could write something about what I do, but at that moment when the mediator at our table said "GO!" I could not form a complete sentence or even say the word 'microscopy'.

My friend told me this story about an interaction she'd had with a small child recently. The child was holding a garden hose and then asked Heather where the water came from. Heather started explaining the water cycle to the small boy when his grandma walked over and looked Heather in the eye while she turned on the water faucet. The kid just wanted the water on and had zero interest in evaporation and condensation. In general though, I feel like this is what it is like for any scientist who has been pressed to explain their work. In order to explain my work, I feel like I need to give you ALL of the information including the big picture part because my work is just a small part of that big picture. My part in the water cycle is turning on the tap or pumping that water to the tap. The questions scientists are asking are big and complicated questions that can't be answered all at once. We have to take small chunks out of the big question. That's what I do. I work on a small chunk of a much greater question. Hopefully the answer to the small chunk leads to answers in solving the big ones like curing cancer or Alzheimer's. 

In the meantime, I'm going to be sitting over here working on my two-minute pitch so I look less like witchcrafty when the angry mob shows up.