margaritas and queso

Last night was one of those truly fabulous evenings that don't happen nearly often enough. Morgan, Jess, Andrea, Rachel and I met over Mexican Martinis at Trudy's. We spent the evening deep in declarative commentary about whatever our conversation led to and annoying our waiter by occupying his table for over two hours without ordering food, aside from the mandatory bowl of queso. After deciding we had been taking up space for too long already we went back to my apartment, which was lovely. I love having company, but my place is so small it doesn't happen very often.

Evenings like these keep me sane.

scientific thought

Quote of the Day:
"I keep the subject of my inquiry constantly before me, and wait till the first dawning opens gradually, by little and little, into a full and clear light."
- Isaac Newton

In graduate school this can also be called torturing yourself, depending on the subject of inquiry and the amount of pressure involved in the situation.

still no answers

Nature Neuroscience published an editorial titled "Women in neuroscience: a numbers game." Basically, the magazine looked at the statistics of the number of women publishing in the magazine in various author roles. (Side note: scientific articles are generally published with multiple authors. The first is the primary author, the person who did the most work, both research and writing. Occasionally the first two authors will have contributed equally to the paper. The final name on the paper is the name of the person whose lab and grant funding is responsible for the research. Roles of middle authors vary.) Basically the percentage of accepted papers is compared between male and female submissions, both first and last authors. Bottom line is that no significant difference was found between the sexes.

Another interesting thing about the article is the fact that the number of female first authors (generally graduate students or post-docs) is more than double the number of female last authors (always faculty members). This brings the article into a discussion about the "reasons for this progressive loss of women from science careers." No definitive answer is reached, but my favorite line in the entire article is "it seems disingenuous to attribute the entire gender discrepancy to innate factors while female scientists remain demonstrably disadvantaged by the uneven allocation of career resources at work and at home."

I have nothing new to add to the article. Based on the indications good science comes from both men and women in equal proportion, women are apparently just as capable as men in neuroscience. My major concern is over the lack of fostering of interest in the maths and sciences of young girls. I would imagine that girls and boys at a certain age take to science like ducks in water in equal proportion. Most importantly, I still want to know why women leave science in higher proportion than their male counterparts. Society or Biology?

weekend revelry

I finally posted photos from Laura's Party last Friday night. The flickr photoset is here.

addendum

It occurred to me that I missed a great link. Stan at Payne County Line has a page of radioblogs of various CDs of some of the acts he promotes for. There are both No Justice and McClure links. I also recommend the Jake Moffatt. I recommend the Matt Powell Dragonfly disk as well. And I like listening "Before He Cheats" on the Carrie Underwood album. Not planning on doing anything to anyone's vehicle, but it's still somehow empowering.

blogging the past

Tonight, while I should be working, I am browsing the web and reliving my senior year at Oklahoma State. Most of the bands I was crazy about then have MySpace pages with their new music I've never heard live. While of little interest to anyone else, for me it's considerably better than anything on TV. That was a year filled with live music and a sense of independence and being on the brink of something great. On the Verge, if you will. Who knows, maybe I really am in the middle of something great, I just can't see the forest for the trees. Or the lake for the water I'm treading. Whatever.

All I know for sure is at that point in my life I was on top of my game. Successfully finishing my bachelor's degree, headed for bigger and better things. Gaining a certain level of comfort in my environment. Knowing that everything would be just fine. I look forward to getting back to feeling that confident again. If its possible once one has lost a certain amount of naivete

so a few links to the things that take me back...
Mike McClure Band. The live music obsession started with an MMB show just before my 21st birthday. I lost myself in the music and found the cure for burnout. Mike toes the line of insane, but if that's what is required for genius I'll keep buying his CDs.
No Justice. I nearly wore out their first CD. A few of their songs still make me smile like little else.
Stillwater Scene.com. I lived by this publication. It still amuses me that a hometown rag with little but bad stories and bar ads could be so incredibly successful.
Kevmo.com - One of the coolest drummers you could ever possibly meet. One time after being ditched my one of my best friends in OKC (she had left me her Land Cruiser, granted) he and I sat in the balconey of the Wormy Dog and watched a Mike McClure acoustic set while he told me stories about various musicians from the Red Dirt scene. Kevin's blog was also one of the first I read regularly.
TableZero.com - Ragan's website. Tons and tons of pictures of live shows, some of which I was probably in the crowd.

take the blame and be a parent.

A 14-year-old Travis County girl who said she was sexually assaulted by a Buda man she met on MySpace.com sued the popular social networking site Monday for $30 million, claiming that it fails to protect minors from adult sexual predators.

The lawsuit claims that the Web site does not require users to verify their age and calls the security measures aimed at preventing strangers from contacting users younger than 16 "utterly ineffective."

Seriously? Seriously?

Okay, people, as much as I hate to state the obvious here, it is not the fault of MySpace that your fourteen year old daughter was naive enough to get into a car with a total stranger. No, Parent, that is your fault.

Yes. Your. Fault. Not that of MySpace. Not that of any other adult in her life. For not teaching her to be wary of strange men - of any age. For not teaching her that we live in a world where not everyone is honest and good. For not teaching her that just because it says so on the internet, whatever it is isn't necessarily true. However, what I'm saying is true: stop blaming other people and be the kind of influence in your child's life that you need to be, so that situations like this one never even arise.

fantastic times

Early this week, on the heels of a weekend surrounded by some of the the amazing women I am fortunate to call friends, I started a blog entry. I never posted it because it wasn't coming out to my satisfaction. But, that is okay, because Melissa Lafsky has again put into words exactly what it is I've been trying to say.

Last night was Andrea's Bachlorette Party. What a fantastic night. Lingerie and drinks then dinner at Starseeds - with ten women, none of whom bothered to remark in a faux-disgusted tone, "Oh, God I should not be eating this." Then more drinks, dancing, finally s'mores at Halcyon. Running free with no one's expectations but our own - or most specifically Andrea's - upon us. I doubt I have ever had so much fun downtown.

quote of the day

"Boys, get mamma's plastic stripper shoes outta your lay-go bahx"
-From My Name is Earl

But for the grace of God...and I thank Him for that every day.

no one can see the light at the end of the tunnel

Lately I have started reading the blogs of other PhD students. And, no suprise, most everyone is going through similar things. In part this makes me want to just lay down and die, because apparently NO ONE can see the light at the end of the tunnel. So that must mean there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

Alright. I told myself I would refrain from being overly dramatic. Still, my immediate resposne to reading this article at PhD Explosion is to curl up in a ball under my desk and whimper and shake. There is no reason graduate students shouldn't also be mentally healthy individuals, but no one is doing anything about it. The system is broken and no cares enough to change it.

the power of the internet

This totally rocks. Karma's a bitch, sometimes...

ergh

For whatever reason I am reminded of a scene in Hope Floats, and not the one where Harry Connick Jr. sweeps Sandra Bullock off her feet - literally...

Justin: You look terrible. Been drinkin'??
Birdee: Why does everyone think I've been drinkin'?! Is there a coaster stuck to my butt or somethin'?
Justin: You gotta feel depressed looking like that.
Birdee: Gee, Justin, do you always say what is on your mind or is this just my lucky day?
Justin: I'm doing you a favor by not lying, Birdee.
Birdee: Well Justin, I don't need any favors...I just need...somethin'... (she turns and leaves)
Justin: (under his breath) Is that an invitation??

I wish I could storm back to bed like that.

Yeah, it's work stuff that's got my all twisted up and worried. Nothing I am comfortable publishing in a public space like this one, as much as I would like to vent about it. And that may make it all that much more frustrating, because I'm not even comfortable talking about it anywhere that it might be overheard and get back to...

Sigh. I need a margarita. A deep one.

the weather is here, wish...

second sunset at Francesco's
Originally uploaded by Hull Cove.

I wish I was anywhere but here.

Ios would be nice...

quest for equality

"Were you sorry to see Harvard's outgoing president, Lawrence Summers, attacked for saying that men and women may have different mental capacities?

He was taking seriously the notion that women, innately, have less capacity than men at the highest level of science. I think it's probably true. It's common sense if you just look at who the top scientists are." From NYTimes.com

Bullshit. Bull. Shit. I give you Rosalind Franklin. Marie Curie. Barbara McClintock. I give you Stephanie Kwolek. Shelley Payne. Karen Artzt. Women who fought for, and earned, the respect of their male colleagues as researchers. Science is one the many arenas where a woman must be better than a man in order to be considered their equal, so those women were, or are. The "top scientists" are men because we still live in a male-dominated society, in a society where women are paid $.765 to every $1 made by men. The "boys club" still has a lot of power in science, as demonstrated by the membership of the National Academy of Science, which is made up of less than 10% women.

Do men and women think differently, are they mentally wired in different ways? Yes. Does this mean that women are unsuited to the "highest level of science?" No. Absolutely not. Nothing scientific has even been postulated that there is some chemical or gene expression difference between men and women that makes males superior in physics or math or biochemistry or anything else involving logic and analytical thought, and making claims of this sort is nothing but mysoginistic and condescending. It is appalling that there are still faculty members in the College of Natural Sciences who believe women have no place in science.

On the other hand, it saddens me that feminism is so often synonymous with man-hating. I identify myself as a feminist, and simultaneously a number of my closest friends have always been male. I can honestly say that I am privileged to know some really incredible human beings, both female and male. The first feminists, in the form of suffragists and progressives, rallied for a voice and for better treatment without being anti-male. Why the change from first to second wave feminism? Women hating men is no different then men hating women, and both are, on some level, born out of fear. It is not necessary to emasculate men in the quest for equality.

i heart chuck

Proof that Chuck may be the coolest dog ever. And quite possibly a rugby player in a previous life.

Oh, and speaking of "I hearts" - the guy from I heart Huckabees was at the Broken Spoke last night. Don't even know his name...Jason somebody, perhaps. Anyway, how bizarre is that?

not that it matters right now

That settles it. At this juncture in my life I am far too selfish to want children. I cannot give up my weekends. Except to graduate school and science, but that is a battle I already lost...

getting there

I'm working on an update of my trip, I promise. Until then, my photos from Rome are up at my flickr site.