Scientists see beauty in everything

Yet another reason why I love xkcd. (and slime molds too - they really are quite cute!)

Dinos in Durham

While in N.C. we visited the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. It was AWESOME. We first rode the little train around, from which you can see the longneck (above; yes, she recently watched The Land Before Time) and Meat Eater!!! (below; it's an Albertosaurus).

After the train we walked through the dinosaur park exhibit, marveling at the size of the dinos and how cool they all were.

(Above: Leptoceratops)

We even got to dig for fossils, and found some! The museum had trucked in a bunch of soil from a nearish quarry where lots of small shell, coral, etc. fossils are regularly found. That was cool.

In all, the museum was amazing. There was a large outside portion, including the train, dino trail and a butterfly pavilion (also very cool). In fact, we hardly spent much time inside, but what little we did see was really neat. We'll definitely have to visit this museum again.

Wish I could remember the name of this one. Has anyone else noticed how many more dinosaur names kids know these days? Why, back in my day, we had Stegosaurus, T Rex and Triceratops. Everything else was "a dinosaur like..." one of those three. Oh, plus dinosaurs like the characters from Land Before Time. At least until Hollywood brought us the Velociraptors.

Doodle even got to sit on one. It's a Parasaurolophus, of course.

International Rock Flipping Day

September 20th is International Rock Flipping Day. This is a fun way to explore a part of the outdoors that's often overlooked, and to share what we find. Homeschoolers, this would be a fun project for your kiddos to participate in.

If you're joining in for the first time, here's a quick rundown of the procedure:

• On or about September 20th, find your rock and flip it over.
• Record what you find. "Any and all forms of documentation are welcome: still photos, video, sketches, prose, or poetry."
• Replace the rock as you found it; it's someone's home.*
• Post on your blog, or load your photos to the Flickr group.
• Send Wanderin' Weeta a link (she's coordinating IRFD this year). Her e-mail address is in her blog profile, or you can add a comment to any IRFD post.
• She will collect the links, e-mail participants the list, and post it for any and all to copy to your own blogs. (Maybe we can Tweet it, too, this year. Use the hashtag #rockflip.)

There is a handy badge available for your blog, here.

* A reminder to all rock flippers that rocks should be flipped back into place. If there are critters underneath, don't place the rock back on top of them, move the animals to the side, replace the rock and let them scurry back.

Thanks to Bug Girl for alerting me to this fun exercise in nerdery.

Hope to see you flippin' rocks on the 20th!

aaaaand... rejected.

Yep. I got the email from The Journal today. My manuscript was rejected. Doesn't quite fit the focus of the journal. *sigh*

No time to think about it now. I'm polishing my presentation for Monday. After the conference I'll be back to figuring out where my manuscript might be a good fit. Or maybe for now I'll just work on getting the thesis past my committee and worry about publication later. We shall see.

A rant on maternity clothing and what I think looks "professional"

I hate clothing shopping. I always have. One of the things I dreaded most growing up was the back to school clothing shopping, especially the search for jeans that would actually fit me. None of this has changed. But now that I have a preggy belly it's more complicated.

All I wanted was a simple, professional looking shirt to wear for my 15-minute presentation at Botany on Monday. I did manage to find a shirt that will work. However, I also came away with shocking insight into my ideas of what looks "professional," "sciency" and "serious".

Beware: major ranting ahead.

I went to Motherhood Maternity to find The Shirt. Yes, Motherhood makes cheaply-assembled crappy clothes and is overpriced. It's also pretty much the only option in Logan for anything beyond maternity t-shirts and jeans. So I sucked it up and went in there. Overbearing, overeager salesperson aside, it was not terrible. But the three rounds of trying on shirts in the dressing room, coupled with excessive scrutiny on my part, made the task really suck.

Things that I realized I didn't like about the shirt options:

• Ribbons or bows. These are inherently feminine, and thus not "professional" or "serious" enough for what I needed. Yes, I recognize this is a bullshit assumption. I know I could pull off a cute skirt with a little bow on it and still look professional. But if you lived in my head you would understand that girly does not equal serious, so ribbons are out.
• Puffy sleeves. These are both too feminine and too matronly. I have never ever ever liked puffy sleeves and am not about to start now.
• That damn elastic between the boobs and the belly that's supposed to make me look more shapely and cute? Annoying as hell. It rides up in the back, causing a Quasimodo poof between my shoulder blades while emphasizing that the shirt was really cut for someone a little more well endowed than myself. Screw that. Oh, and if you put a ribbon ON TOP of this annoying elastic? Double no from me.
  
• Pleating that shows off the belly. Yes, I'm pregnant. Yes, I'm happy to be pregnant. No, I don't want my shirt screaming "LOOK AT MY FERTILE WOMB" from 50 yards away.
• Ditto on the boob pleating. I'm trying to look "professional" and "serious," which apparently in my brain means that I must look as androgynous or close to male as possible. Males do not have boobs. Therefore shirts that draw attention to my boobs are out.

The wiring in my head that says "serious" "professional" "scientists" must look androgynous or male is totally fucked up. I realize this. I'm a woman, and I'm a scientist. I should not need to make myself look as masculine as possible in order to be taken seriously. Yet that's how things are coded in my brain - so much so that I visibly sneer at my reflection after putting on a maternity shirt that draws attention to my curves which I otherwise love so much right now. Because when I'm talking science I don't want to accentuate those things, I want to downplay them. Ugh.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I am totally fed up with myself for thinking like this, but glad that I recognize that I'm thinking like this. Where do I start with the reprogramming? How do I make it okay for myself to wear something feminine and cute AND think I still look professional. And why does it matter what anyone else thinks about what I'm wearing? Shouldn't they be paying more attention to the information I'm trying to share with them?

I was going to suggest the alternative of a professional conference in the nude, but... ummm... no. That opens up a whole nother can of worms, and I'm not ready to go there either.

Submitted!

I just submitted my first manuscript for publication to a scientific journal!!! This manuscript will be one of the two data chapters in my thesis. Now begins the waiting game (as far as this manuscript goes) to see what the reviewers say.

*bites nails*

Okay, back to putting together my presentation for the big conference on Monday and tweaking the other thesis chapters (plus gestating, mothering, partnering, bellydancing... just a few things to do).

It's Submitted!!!