What are my words worth?

I haven’t posted here in a while. I’ve written, but I haven’t shared much, and the reasons why have a lot to do with Impostor Syndrome.

I am very good at convincing myself that everyone else knows what I know. This line of (faulty) reasoning leads me to believe I have nothing new to contribute. Though I often encounter evidence to the contrary, it is a habit of thinking I tend to fall into.

Recently, some colleagues and I got talking on the topic of classroom ‘tricks’ for things like getting student to do assigned reading and encouraging participation in class. I mentioned some things I’ve tried and things I’ve considered trying but haven’t tested yet. My colleagues weren’t familiar with these ideas. They asked for more details, and I was happy to share what I knew, but I was also surprised: how could I, the “newbie,” know things they didn’t? They have more experience than I, surely I should be learning from them?

I recognize, of course, that my colleagues and I have had different experiences. My students teach me new things all the time, and I think nothing of it. But then, although I am often surprised by my greater knowledge than someone else, I’m rarely surprised by my comparative ignorance. This realization bothers me.

If someone offers me help, I am grateful, but if I provide help to others, de nada. It’s nothing. Somehow, I am in the habit of sabotaging myself: I undervalue my own knowledge, expertise and efforts, as if my thoughts, opinions, and ideas are somehow less worthy than those of the people I encounter, so I’d better keep them to myself so nobody else can know how inferior I am.

This is not a productive line of thinking.

So. A new resolution of sorts. I am going to keep posting here. Maybe you, dear reader, already know everything I will say. But maybe you don’t, and I have the pleasure of sharing these things I have learned with you. And maybe I will learn to keep sharing and stop measuring myself against the giants I see and imagine around me.

Hire me

I love working at Lyman Briggs, but the job I have is a temporary one. I’m only here for a year. The academic job market has a particular annual cycle, and right now it’s application time for tenure-track positions. This means that though I will be happily teaching chemistry at Briggs from now until May (and possibly into the summer), I have to look for next fall’s job now.

I don’t like applying for stuff. I don’t like selling myself. I worry that nobody will want me, that nobody likes what I do, that I’m not good enough, experienced enough, polished enough to get the job I want. I worry that I’ll be passed over because of my gender, my opinions, my beliefs, my appearance or my personality. I worry that the search for the next job will be a hindrance to the job I am currently doing.

But.

When I can drive the poison of Impostor Syndrome from my addled brain, I remember that I’m actually a competent, qualified instructor with a passion for teaching. I’m an expert in my field, with the publications and fancy diploma to prove it. I am capable and talented and enthusiastic. I have a deep desire to ask and answer scientific questions. I have the potential not just to succeed, but to thrive.

So if you’re at a liberal arts college or regional university and you have an open position in chemistry to fill for next fall, I hope you’ll consider me when my application crosses your desk.

Blogging silence

I said blogging would resume, but I haven't posted in weeks. It's not because I haven't been writing. It's just that so many of the words I've written have been sad and angry. And overall I have not been sad and angry. I am delighted with my new job, my wonderful students and my friendly, supportive colleagues. I still have yet to find my balance-point—the last few weeks have not been easy—but I am doing well.

No, the things that have filled the news I read are what creep into my writing: Ferguson, Ebola, war and conflict all over the globe, misogyny nearer to home. So I have written out thoughts and decided not to share them, not to add to the anger and sadness and frustration. I don't want to be yet another angry blogger. I want to contribute in a positive way.

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One hard thing about my new job is the time my workday starts. I am not a morning person. At all. I don't get up early easily or happily. I am very good at staying up too late for a good night's sleep, and not so good about dragging myself out of bed the next morning.

My lecture is at 9 am. That would not be much of a struggle, were campus closer, but I drive 65 miles to work. To arrive on time and ready to teach, I get up by 6, which is even earlier than I got up back in high school. It's an incredibly simple thing, getting up early, but so hard for me. To cheer myself—and my students, who may be as grumpy early-risers as I—I start every lecture with a chipper "Good morning" and picture of a sleepy animal. It's silly, but it makes us smile.

We don't start with the serious stuff, the exam worries, the homework frustrations, the mistakes we have made. We start with a smile. A smile's a pretty good way to start the day, I think.

Back from Vacation

An afternoon in Tuscany

Last month I went to the Single Molecule Approaches to Biology GRC in Italy and had a wonderful time meeting delightful people and learning about cool developments in the field. It was a pretty great week. GRCs don't allow recording of the scientific sessions, but I was allowed to snap a few photos of the gorgeous view from the hotel.

After the conference, my husband and I spent a couple weeks vacationing in Italy and Germany, seeing sights, eating delicious food (we had the best gnocchi in Florence), and visiting old friends of mine. We came home happily tired from all the travel.

After that, I took a sort of technology vacation. It was unintentional to begin with: I had almost gotten used to being Internet-less. But after a few more days, it was really nice not to feel the pressure of email and Facebook and the endless stream of Twitter. That was as relaxing as anything else after we came home.

But I have a new job, and even if it doesn't start until next week, there is preparation to do already. So this week I reconnected myself to the buzzing web. Blogging will resume shortly.

What's next

I defended my thesis in April, and turned in my dissertation at the end of May, but I haven't left my grad lab yet. Here's what I've been up to, and what's coming up next.

Wrapping up

First I'm wrapping up some things. I've been revising and polishing two papers (one is done and submitted, the other will follow shortly), doing a few experiments for my last project, and getting things ready to hand off to the next person.

Most of my dissertation work was about watching the motions of one protein, TcpP, that is involved in the pathway for producing cholera toxin in Vibrio cholerae. Cholera toxin is the compound (a protein complex) that makes you so very sick if you contract cholera. TcpP (along with another protein, ToxR) activates the transcription¹ of the toxT gene. The ToxT protein activates transcription of the cholera toxin genes.

Aside from its role in cholera toxin production, TcpP is interesting because it (and ToxR, too) is bound to the inner membrane of the bacterium. In order to activate transcription, TcpP and ToxR must bind to the DNA, but somehow they manage to do this without leaving the membrane. Since DNA tends to be compacted into the center of the cell², it's pretty remarkable that two proteins on the membrane can find a specific region of DNA and bind to it. There aren't many proteins that bind DNA while bound to a cellular membrane, but there are a few besides these two.

To learn more about TcpP and how it pulls off this trick, we labeled it with a fluorescent protein and watched it move around the cell. My part of this project is done. Another grad student will watch ToxR move around to learn more about how these two proteins interact. So I'm updating my index of data files, checking that any protocols I've revised are up to date, and commenting the Matlab code I've written that he might use for analysis.

My other dissertation project was a collaboration with my labmate Jess, who has been studying fluorescence enhancement by plasmonic surfaces. I've been learning about plasmon-enhanced fluorescence for years, and it still seems a little bit sci-fi to me: by shining light on metal nanoparticles, you can create an enhanced electric field that makes fluorescent molecules shine brighter and longer.³ Jess has been enhancing fluorescent proteins using nano-structured gold surfaces. A while back we began pairing my fluorescently labeled bacteria with her plasmonic surfaces, to see if we can get enhancement inside live cells. We had some success [$] with our initial experiments, and the project has grown from there. Just because my dissertation is done doesn't mean this project is, though. I've been busy with experiments and trouble-shooting throughout June, and Jess will carry it on after I leave.

Shipping out

My last week as a Biteen lab member will not be spent in lab, but at the Single-Molecule Approaches to Biology Gordon Research Conference in Italy. I like the GRC conference style, and I can't wait to hear all the latest and greatest research in the field. It doesn't hurt that the conference is at a resort in Tuscany, either.

After the conference, it's time for vacation. My husband will meet me in Italy, and we'll tour parts of Italy and Germany and visit some friends of mine from my time as an exchange student. Then it's back to the States so my husband can get back to work and I can enjoy a couple of weeks of unemployment (and prepare for the next job).

Moving on

Mid-August I start my new job. For the next year, I will be a visiting instructor at Lyman Briggs College at Michigan State. (Yes, I'm going to be an adjunct.) I'm excited to move to Briggs: the program is interesting, the faculty I've met have all been delightful people, and this job feels like the right thing for me right now.⁴ Briggs students take science classes that emphasize active learning, and "HPS" courses (history, philosophy and sociology of science) that give them context for science in their lives. As I said to several people while interviewing, Briggs is the kind of place I'd have loved to attend as an undergrad. I'm delighted to teach there. It's gonna be great.

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1: transcription: just like you can talk about transcribing text, i.e. copying words from one place to another, we talk about transcribing genes: copying nucleic acid "words." The nucleic acids are slightly different—DNA is copied into RNA—but both kinds of nucleic acid "words" are the instructions for building proteins.

The process of decoding RNA to protein parts is called "translation." Again, it's just like text, translating from one language (e.g. French, or, in the case of genes, nucleic acids) to another (e.g. English or, for proteins, amino acids). Stitch those translated words together, and you get functional sentences (or proteins!).

2: In eukaryotic cells, such as your own human cells, DNA is stored in the cell nucleus. Bacteria don't have nuclei, but they still keep their DNA kind of bundled up in the middle.

3: It's more complicated than that, but that's the general idea.

4: It's a one-year position, and that suits me fine. My long-term goal is still to get a tenure-track position or a permanent position off the tenure path—I want more certainty in my employment than adjuncting is likely to supply. For the next year, though, I'm very happy to teach at Briggs.

A one-year appointment also means I will go through the whole job application process again this fall. Yay

They call me Dr. Haas

Good morning. How are you? I'm Dr. Worm Haas.
I'm interested in things.

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As of today, I've officially completed all the requirements for my PhD.

So I'm not a real worm, but I am a real doctor.¹

Dr. Worm has been stuck in my head for a few days. Now you too can share in my joy/misery.

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1: As my grandmother joked: I'm not a "real" doctor, either because I'm not "the kind that helps people." (She agrees that a PhD is helpful, too.)

Thanks

I want to take a small break from my thesis-writing to thank some folks for the very kind things they've said about me and done for me lately. First, thanks to you, reader, for stopping by my little corner of the big wide Internet. And thanks to those of you who have enjoyed it enough to pass it on elsewhere. It's pretty exciting (and honestly a teensy bit scary) to see your words quoted and linked on somebody else's blog, recommended on Twitter, and highlighted as a thing worth reading. There are only so many hours in a day, and I am delighted that there are people who find my words worthwhile enough to spend some of that precious time on.

November Recap

Looking back at my November writing experiment, I'd call it generally a success. I didn't make it all the way through the month; Thanksgiving visits with family disrupted my schedule. I missed about a week of writing total. But I wrote nearly every day before Thanksgiving, and I am still writing more frequently than before, so I am satisfied.

My plan for now is to do at least one post per week, hopefully with a bit more polish. Not too much polish, since that sends me down Perfectionist Lane sometimes, but more than I've been able to manage for the near-daily writing this last month.

Hiccoughs

I just switched up my blogging workflow to use a new app that will allow me to post directly from my iPad, which is where I do most of my blog-writing. Unfortunately, the app's system for scheduling a post for the future is the opposite of the website's system, and that wasn't at all clear. So the post that should have gone up this morning will show up tomorrow instead. No big deal, but not what I planned.

On a totally unrelated note, I like the word "hiccough." I think it's interesting English.

Writing update

My stated goal at the beginning of November was to "write something worth posting every day." My unstated goal was to put up a post every weekday. Since Nov. 1st I've written every day and posted every weekday except yesterday. That sounds like a decent start to me.

Most of what I've written lately has been related to job applications and research, but I've carved out 30-60 minutes each day, sometimes more, just to write for the sake of thinking "out loud." I don't think I've been at it long enough for the habit to stick on its own, but my writing time (usually in the evenings) is something I look forward to.

When November is over, I want to keep up the frequent writing, though I think I'll slow down the posting. I've been posting near-daily as a way to keep my promise to myself, but some things need more revision before they go up, and revision also takes time. My goal for December is to post about once a week. If I'm still setting aside writing time every day, that should work fairly well, I think.