~a dream of a defense~

~I suppose one insect's bad day is another's jackpot of a day~

~~~~~

Has anyone noticed all of the spiders this year?   Golden Silk Orb Weaver - Nephila clavipes, and the jewelled spider - Gasteracantha minax, seem to be the most prevalent ones.  They're everywhere.  A few days ago one started a web between my car door and a camellia - I guess they're running out of places...

~~~~~

Things are busy.  And tough.  I'm feeling really drained and I'm fighting it - which is what alot of us have to do sometimes, just hopefully not all of the time.  That is the hope, isn't it?  It's all of the crazy background drama - as for the science, it couldn't be more interesting.  Today there was some discussion of how a bacteria senses changes in temperature - and something that the eclair-baking postdoc read clicked and I think that some real progress was made intellectually for all of us.  This is what I like so much about science - the data drives you, you don't drive it (or at least you shouldn't).  And then every now and then you have some data, in this case genotypic and phenotypic data, that seems to support some studies in the literature, all of it coming together into a hypothesis that just might work.  Now, regardless of the background drama - that is indeed a good day!

~~~~~

But the day started out funny.  I had one of those crazy, vivid dreams that stayed with me for awhile - and fortunately had me laughing.  I don't often dream about something science or lab-related, but last night I dreamed about the lab's senior doctoral student and his dissertation seminar and defense.

Now, let's just say it wasn't your typical defense...

In the dream I showed up at where he said he had reserved an auditorium for the seminar - and it ended up being a church.  Without air conditioning.  When I arrived the place was packed - and as I looked around, I realized that I didn't recognize anyone, except for a few folks from the lab.  The senior student, aka defendee, hadn't arrived - and I just stood on one side of the church waiting for him.  Finally he did arrive - wearing gym shorts and no shirt like he had just worked out.  He was carrying a bunch of random papers in his arms, and he rushed up to the front of the church.  He first apologized for not remembering to bring his powerpoint presentation and just started randomly talking about his research.  I was just standing there - in the church - in shock.  I didn't know what to do.  It got even stranger when the defendee asked someone from the audience to talk for awhile, and then another person - who walked up to the front of the church and started looking for a nanoparticle that he said had fallen on the floor.  The defendee them but a shirt on - and came back up and started talking some more - then said he was done.  Next in the dream, we were in a room with a conference table for the closed door, defense portion of the 'ordeal' - and suddenly I noticed that not a single committee member was present.  I asked the defendee, and he realized that he had forgotten to tell them the defense date.

Well, as you might have guessed - he didn't pass the defense.

(And yes, I did tell my student about the dream today.  He laughed - and then went back to writing.  He needs to have his dissertation into his committee by mid to late-August at the latest.)     

Comments

[John B.]

This was interesting: You said, "This is what I like so much about science - the data drives you, you don't drive it (or at least you shouldn't)." I know what you mean here--that you're not massaging data--but individual pieces of data just sit in isolation from each other until the researcher comes along and wonders if they might be related in some way. That's not a bad thing--science wouldn't get done without it. But the scientist is still making choices about what s/he will then sit back and objectively observe and measure. Hence the occasional accusation leveled at scientists that they are prejudiced against data that seem to argue against such received wisdom as natural selection and a warming planet.

It can get tricky sometimes, can't it, doing the best you can to make sure you're not including/excluding data because of your predispositions.

Oh--and the dream was funny. Weird that you're dreaming something like that on his behalf . . . or maybe it's just too early for him to be dreaming it yet. Come the end of this month, though . . .

[Janet]

Bizarre dream! Also interesting that you remembered so much detail. I may have detail when I first wake, but 10 minutes later, the 'feeling' about the dream is still there, but the flow and images are fleeting.

[Pam]

Yes - it is hard. But sometimes we talk it to death, try to look at the data as if it is a 360 degree piece of information. My lab is very good at doing the 'devil's advocate' stuff - so we propose something, then spend time trying to defeat our own proposition. But then data can only say but so much - in the case of climate data, there's an issue of scale that can create conflicts - and yes, folks can strongly believe in one side or the other, and skew their evaluation of the data in that direction. I think the key with climate data is once again not one person's evaluation of it, but the scientific community at large's view of it. It is that consensus that is key. That is probably true of all science really.

Janet, I had woken up, taken the dogs out, then come back in and crawled back into bed. Sometimes when I do that, it is then that I have dreams that I remember vividly. Otherwise, I generally don't.