The professorette introduces herself

Hi. I'm Emma Jane Maple, of Granolan College. Everyone else has talked about the terrific work they've done and how it relates to underwater basketweaving. Um, I've done some stuff. But it's about something sort of different, and there isn't very much of it, and you'd all laugh, and I'm ashamed of the details, so let me just skip that discussion.

I'm here because my doctoral advisor, Dr. Complicated, and my current collaborator, Dr. Wow, dragooned me into it. Not that either one of them particularly wants to talk to me. But you're all at research universities, and you've all published lots, and you're all smarter than I am and work harder, too. So I don't really blame them. (Although, hey, Dr. Wow, could you at least say "hello" in English? I'm not the only person at the workshop who doesn't speak Russian, you know.)

My primary concerns right now are, well, extracurricular. Where, in this horrible open-plan space, am I going to pump? How is Miss T. doing on her day with dada, and how will she do with a strange sitter tomorrow? Why in the name of God am I attending three days of talks and breakout sessions, to which I have nothing to contribute, when the net result will almost certainly be a baby who cries more than she would have otherwise? And why am I not home working on syllabi and stocking the freezer with lasanga and so forth, when classes are about to start and my blessed beautiful helpful Beaker is about to go into the hospital for an entire month?

What am I hoping to get out of this workshop? A good evening or two visiting the friends I'm staying with. No direct insults from either Dr. Complicated or Dr. Wow. Beaker will get some face time with his bosses; the location was good for him, as it turned out. Oh, and I might hear about some things I could try to work on—although Dr. Zoom up in the front row usually publishes a showstopper paper on any subject I start looking into, about a week after I articulate the questions to myself. (Is it true you're working on a monograph, Dr. Zoom? Perhaps I should just give up now, since it will probably anticipate everything I'll ever try to do in my entire career.)

In closing, let me request that you don't ask me any questions. If I know the answers, then I'm sure you already do too.

Comments

[luolin]

Yikes. It took all the social assertiveness I don't have to say hello to my undergrad advisor who is now pres of nat'l organization in my field at the conference last year, but at least I don't have to worry about my grad advisor insulting me.

[Hope]

Hi -- Can't remember exactly what blog I originally found you through, but I hear you about the conferences and the pumping and undue stress. I've basically put myself on hiatus from them until my little one is weaned.

[luolin]

PS. Sorry about Beaker and the hospital.

[AinH]

I'm ditching academia after this year. I didn't do much (read: any) research when I was pregnant last year and I'm going to do even less now that I've got a little baby. I'm depressed about dropping my baby off at daycare where he cries all day. And I feel like a total sham at the office--I feel horribly guilty about taking this fantastic post-doc position (that many people would love to have) and not doing any research at all.

Meh. I'm impressed that you're "doing it all". I want to quit tomorrow and get my boy out of his lame ass daycare. :(

[Jody]

Well, the kids started kindergarten today, so I am now officially in my finish-it-or-dump-it dissertation year, and I'm wishing you would write more here. 'Though understanding why you don't.

And I'm sorry about Beaker. I hope it all goes as well as it can and should.

(Don't you wish you really could deliver such an address? A little bit?)