Jan 6 2014

Back in the saddle

2013 was a big year for me. It may not seem that way from the amount I have posted in this blog. But having your second child – a beautiful baby boy – will do that to you. Suddenly mundane astro stuff loses importance and time is too precious to get all worked up on the philosophy of science in general.

I love the way a child can give you focus in your life. You enjoy your free time much more intensely, because it is so scarce. You bunker down during those few hours you can spare for work. I was on maternity leave during the last 4 months of 2013, but yet proposals had to be written, telecons attended, posters given. On top of that MUSE was accepted in Lyon and shipped to the VLT in September and assembled in November/December. It is now fully operational and we will see commision and first light in the beginning of February. Anyway, my point is, that the astronomy world didn’t keep from spinning and I tried to jump on it every now and then and keep up with its breakneck speed and also with an intensity, because of the value of the time.

The baby also gives you focus in that you have something to work for. I remember the drive I had to finish my PhD when my daughter was a baby and now with baby Benjamin I get a sense of new motivation. I know the next few months will be very productive for me.

So today was Benjamin’s first day at daycare. The way it works in Germany is that they have about 3-4 weeks of “easing in”. You don’t just leave the kids at daycare one day, it is gradual. Today was just me talking to the carer with Benjamin in my arms for an hour. Tomorrow, she will have him, but I will be there the whole time. On Wednesday I get to leave for 20 minutes. On Thursday it will be at the daycare for a few hours and I will get to leave maybe 45 minutes… and so on. Of course, you take it slow if there is resistance at any time. As much as I yearn to be at work, I guess this transitional phase is good, too.

And then is the guilt, of course. Always the guilt. There’s no switch to turn it off and society here in Germany is a bit more closed than it was in the US about women returning to work, while having infants (under a year). I am happy to be in the former East, where it was normal, I am sure I would have a much harder time in the West. So it’s a constant back and forth between me wanting to be at work and me wanting to be with the baby and the two of them don’t mix 😦

I sit here tonight, trying to get back into the saddle. Slowly, but surely becoming an astronomer. Part of it was blogging and wanting to get back into the saddle of that, also. Reading this post aloud, I am realizing that I am either really tired or need to practice this writing thing some more. I do miss the times where I churned out the weekly posts. I want to do that again in 2014. In fact, it was my one and only New Year’s resolution: to blog once a week again in 2014! In fact, next post, I will want to brainstorm a bit, what I want to do with this blog, perhaps focus it a bit more on something specific. Or maybe I will keep the personal touch, I don’t know yet. Anyway, 2013 was awesome, here is to an equally awesome 2014!

May 23 2013

People are awesome!

My mom and I were having a disagreement the other day. I don’t know how we got to the argument, but the basis was that I was giving people too much credit. She said that most of the population just want to live a comfortable life and are not really that interesting, their lifes, that is.

I can’t accept that, I hope I never will. First of all, obviously everybody has their natural story, with its ups and downs and progression from childhood to adulthood and then aging. But it isn’t just a conglomeration of random events, it has cause and effect and congruency. So it is my personal belief that everybody could fill out an interesting book on their deathbeds, filled not only with their lifes, but their hopes and dreams.

Second, it is about the strive to achieve comfort. The lull of complacency being such a strong pull to resist the fight, the struggle, making people boring in the process. Again, I have to resist to accept that. Maybe we aren’t all awesome. going out into the world, changing it, rather sitting in our the comforts of our home and the extend of activism liking a Kony 2012 vid . It isn’t about that, it’s about following your passion!

Here is where the main disagreement was. Do you think that enough people follow their passion?

I was on a radio program the other day (brag!) and before starting we had a small pre-interview with the moderator. Of course, the moderator wanted me to feel comfortable, so she was very “fascinated” with astronomy throwing out phrases like “how interesting!” and stuff like that. Anyway, eventually we got to the question of what made me go into astronomy. First she wanted to know, why I entered such a male dominated field. It must have caught me off guard, because I didn’t know how to answer that, it was never a question for me, I just did. But it made me stop and wonder why people didn’t make the same choice, that moment when somebody decides as a teenager/young adult saying to themselves “ok, that image I had of me as a [insert dream profession here] is nonsense, I will give it up”.

It’s not like I haven’t had these disagreements with other people before. Just a few weeks ago we were debating on a poker forum about some professional poker players. There is a saying that if you can be a succesful professional poker player then you probably would be more succesful monetarily in some other venture – it’s a really hard way to make an easy living. And so the argument was to dissuade people from doing it, because you would be more succesful monetarily doing something else. For example, with the knowledge you have from poker math and statistics, you have the ability to comfortably make 200k/yr with minimal investment (e.g. programming classes) versus pursuing your passion which will pay off crappily. But I would never make that choice, it would almost feel like betraying myself. Am I wrong in thinking that people don’t betray themselves? I’d rather be happy with myself than complacent with the world.

And so I keep on refusing to believe that people make those comfort choices, how at least in their spare time they keep chasing their passion, on forums on the internet (TV fanfic, video game cheats, …), through similar interest groups (book clubs, knitting circles, choirs, …), by just following through (building hot rods, cooking the perfect meal, travelling, …). I don’t care what you do as long as you do what you love and for that you will earn my respect and I will call you awesome!

And another thing is the large amounts of stories we don’t hear. There are an immense amount of role models out there and they are just “normal” people like you and me. The website and blog Grandma got stem presents women that pioneered in the STEM fields in the 20th century, how they had to overcome obstacles and biases. Just awesome women you never hear about. And so I believe there is that awesome individual in all of us.

Just recently I was alerted through facebook about a David Foster Wallace excerpt turned into a video (This is Water!). The message of the video that resonated with me is that it is up to YOU to choose how you see the world and the people in it. If stuck in a traffic jam or in the line at the supermarket it is incredibly easy to dismiss everybody as simple idiots who are just in your way, but everybody in that line/traffic jam has an incredibly complicated history on how they got to be there at that very moment and probably had very good reason to act the way they acted. In a last piece of irony, it is amazing that David Foster Wallace had that insight into human perspective, yet chose to take his own life in 2008.

Mar 27 2013

Escaping the “always busy” – happily on vacation

As I am writing this, I am sitting on the porch of a friends’ house staring out into a garden of sun-bathed flowers and listening to a concert of birds. Very far out in the background you can hear a leaf-blower, but this is pure bliss vacation feeling for me. The last 10 days I have been on vacation, first with my best friend in Colorado, now in California (see picture above of the Santa Monica pier), also visiting friends and enjoying the warm weather. My daughter is at her old daycare, happy to see her old buddies and engaging in Spring Break activities.

So vacation… yay! I have not done much in terms of work in these last two weeks, except to talk to some colleagues about it and look over some proposals, but no data reduction, no programming, no writing! I quickly went over the Planck results last week and I was sad to hear about NASA possibly suspending outreach programs due to the sequestration, but it all seems so far away right now.

My husband is sitting besides me, also on the computer, but our work on it today has been limited to finding good restaurants, managing dinner invitations and reviewing rental car agreements (and me writing this blog). It has been good to turn off the mind for a while. In a world where we are ever growing busy (or are we?), some days of rest do the body good. The opportunity to catch up with friends, to sit down for long meals and reminisce of old times or to have new meaningful conversations is priceless.

And it’s sad that so many people in astronomy don’t take proper vacations. The lecture-free time at Universities often coincides with conference season and people get their travel there, but it’s not a shutoff of work. I have been guilty of the same phenomenon. I have worked on my vacation days on purpose. One time, after attending a public event during the night at our institute, we got an extra day of vacation and I only half-jokingly complained that I didn’t have time for vacation.

And it’s hard, you know. Research is never-ending. Except for those days where you submit a paper and feel like you’ve conquered the world, there’s always “something to do”. When I was a student, I worked as a waitress for half a year on the weekends. When those days were over, you were tired, but it was good, you got home and felt like you accomplished something. You were tired and just wanted to veg out in front of the TV. But it’s not like the thoughts were lingering in your head “oh, I still need to wash that wineglass at work” like they do when I come home from astronomy work. I like the thoughts that linger in my head at night, I wouldn’t be a scientist otherwise, but it’s good to shut them off once in a while.

So this post should serve me as a reminder to shut it off sometimes, to get bored and “unbusy”, to let go. It’s good for my health, especially mental health. See you guys on April 8th! 🙂

Mar 13 2013

Keep on truckin’

The picture above I took while traveling through Germany on January 2nd. 2013 is going to be an exciting year in my journey – personally and academically!

I am sorry I did not continue the blog. Part of it was that pressure to finish that blog about the meeting we had on AGN at Ringberg castle. It was an impressive meeting, I learned a lot and Ringberg is a really beautiful location, especially in the snow. But… I felt lazy blogging about it. I grew scientifically, but I don’t know if that interest people that read my blog. I don’t know much to say beyond what was said on David Rosario’s blog on the meeting here and the live tweeting/discussions that I had with people online during the event.

And that became sort of like the blogging dilemma everybody goes through. My numbers of readers did not overly increase. I kept wondering if reaching out to those that read this blog was important. If me writing about my New Year’s scientific resolutions online would be viewed as conceited. If me addressing some “crisis” (philosophical or practical) in astronomy could be viewed as megalomaniacal. I am a postdoc, enjoying what I do, still mostly an observer and wonderer about the world around me. In the last few weeks I have found myself on opposite sides of the “consensus” opinion around me and I wonder if my voicing it in a blog is not adding fuel to a fire to which everybody is entitled to their own opinion (for example, politics).

Another part was that a lot is happening around my life. Many changes are on the horizon for me, many of which I will address on this blog in due time, too. But some things, like job prospects, really shouldn’t be talked about until everything is sorted out. There are people that thrive on it, that are delighted in discussing the rumors of who’s going where and when and why, but I simply don’t like to talk about it.

Then there are other things keeping me away: proposals, observing, work. It seems like every day is filled with meetings that keep me away from the desk and at the end of the day I sit there wondering where it went – I used to be so much more productive.

I was wrong, though. I missed blogging these last two months – those few hours of introspection. I missed putting my thoughts about the week into words. For example, last week I had a 2-day career workshop. It didn’t do wonders or anything, but it solidified me in many decisions I took 2 years ago – staying in astronomy. I still feel like I need to put down those experiences into written words, but also to share it with anybody that is interested in it (that would mostly be astronomy postdocs).

I am not going to be all draconian about it, though. Maybe I’ll write a week, maybe I won’t. Maybe there’ll be two posts in a week, who knows. On Saturday I will be traveling to the US for three weeks. I am sure lots of thoughts will go through my head, plus travel is always good to write about. So with that, if you still have me in your Readers or RSS feeds – thank you. I hope to continue writing stuff about being a postdoc in observational astronomy. In the end, it’s something I really want to communicate to the world, because I really like what I do!

Dec 10 2012

Two pet peeves in astronomy

I am going to be a complainer today. Yes, it’s not all sunshine and roses in our profession (is it anywhere?). But I am in a grumpy mood today and just needed to vent about it. Blog post about Ringberg AGN meeting will have to wait. With that I give you my current two pet peeves about astronomers:

a) Potential employers don’t write rejection letters

In a typical application year of a postdoc, I have heard of people applying to 20-30 job positions (perhaps less if there are constraints like 2-body problems, etc.). A few of those will result in job interviews and I hope the candidate is good and lucky enough to get that position. But what I find really sad is that from half or more of these positions advertised out there, the candidate will hear nothing. That’s right, I don’t mean no feedback or anything like that, NOTHING. Sometimes, one can find out via the rumor mill, but not all positions are advertised there and it’s not up to date with all positions.

This is endemic and embarrassing to our field and frankly I don’t think there is ANY valid excuse to not do this. How difficult is it to write a form letter with the bottom 90% candidates in the bcc: field. “Dear Applicant: we are sorry to inform you that your application was unsuccessful. Thank you for your interest.” !??! Boom, that’s it. You don’t need a special secretary, you don’t need an explanation, but your candidate will be thankful (well, at least acknowledge) that he/she can cross that one off and move their hopes to the next application. It is really unprofessional to leave job-seekers waiting in the dark, when they are willing to move their whole life for your job.

On a related note, it is not necessary, but it would be great if there could be an acknowledge-letter that the application was received. I applied to a position where it was not entirely clear if one could apply via e-mail, I wrote 3 e-mails (one to the official address and two to the person designed to be in charge) and never received an answer. Only a few weeks later came a cryptic message that interviews were in the process of being scheduled for December – well, that leaves me guessing that they did get my application. I never received anything from them again – well, that leaves me guessing I am not on the shortlist. It’s a guessing game – this is a job where I would have to move my whole family to attend and it gets treated like some contest to win some knives over the internet.

b) Astronomers complaining about traveling too much

Successful astronomers travel. It can be for observing, conferences, invited seminars, scientific collaborations, etc. If you are really successful it might be to offer an opinion at a large panel or to coordinate administrative duties on a large project. In any case, even in the days of good telecon software, skype and remote observing, travel is often a necessity. What I don’t understand is how people know this, yet they complain about it. You know what you signed up for, it’s quite often in the job description, many people actually become astronomers because of it. Why are you complaining?

Is it to brag? Oh, look how many seminars I got invited to? That’s cool and I am actually happy for everybody’s success, but why wrap it within disdain. Is it too much for you? What would happen if you just declined invitations? If you got invited to 12 conferences in a year that’s great and all, but you don’t have to attend all of them and if you do, then I feel like you don’t have the right to complain about it. Strangely, I have found that the most successful or senior scientists that travel quite frequently don’t complain as much.

On that note, I would urge you to ask yourself if you really need to take that trip. I was on a white paper on the decadal survey on “Low Energy
Astrophysics“, trying to become greener astronomers. One of the main steps is trying to reduce your carbon footprint by traveling less to remote locations. Driving a Prius, changing your light-bulbs and having a water efficient shower-head at home is all great, but it’s a bit moot as soon as you start traveling overseas regularly. There’s a wiki for this initiative, which unfortunately has not gotten much updates lately.