I've never really been able to find my voice on this blog, and it wasn't because of the technical issues. Part of it has to do with blogging non-anonymously. I feel like I can't be as candid as I would like about issues in my life, particularly the deep soul searching that I would like to be able to share with people, because I know I personally get a lot out of honest, difficult discussions about juggling science and family and life. But given that I'll be frantically applying for jobs over the next couple of years, I don't think it's wise to post about self-doubt and indecision in a place where search committee members might stumble over it.
So, where do I go from here?
Well, I think the archived posts will stick around for a little bit, anyway. Some of them may disappear without warning, however.
I do plan to keep blogging, but elsewhere. I will continue to update my livejournal blog, which has the convenient feature of locking posts away from prying eyes, and does not have my real name associated with it. I also have plans in the works for blogging about women in astronomy under my full real name elsewhere. If you want more updates, comment here or send me email, and I'll tell you exactly what's up.
Anyway, it's been fun, but I'm moving on. Happy Solstice, everyone!
In case you've been wondering what happened to this blog, I've been blogging over at http://youngstellarobjects.blogspot.com/ due to an unexpected server failure. The server is all fine now, but I'm getting annoyed at its unreliability.
I went a book signing and panel discussion this week for this book:Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory. It was in sharp contrast to the workshop I attended last week, where everyone was so concerned about women dropping out of the academic pipeline and not reaching that Holy Grail of full professorship. Rather, the panel had 9 out of 10 women who followed what I might call non-traditional career paths. They sought part-time employment, consulting gigs, work in industry, volunteer work, you name it. Some left the academic ladder of their own volition, some were pretty much forced out. In all cases, though, they were happy with their careers, having redefined for themselves what "success" was.
It was both inspiring and sobering: inspiring that it's possible to leave academia and lead a happy life (perhaps happier than the academic route); sobering that academia is so inflexible as to cause so many good women to leave it.
Interestingly, they all referred to "juggling" career and family: none of this "balance" stuff.
Unfortunately, I couldn't stay until the end, but I bought a copy of the book on my way out. Reading material for the plane trip tomorrow.
In thinking about all this, I had an epiphany today.
My mother (who lives in the US, in case that isn't clear) sent me some stuff to take with me to my grandmother. Included was a note that basically said, don't forget to be polite to everyone. As if I planned to go and, I don't know, give noogies to my grandmother uncles and aunts and great-aunts and so forth. Now, I may be a brash American, but I do know how to behave like a good Korean girl, even if I prefer not to.
This year's MacArthur genius awards were announced yesterday. Among them were two astronomers: Adam Riess and Andrea Ghez.
Needless to say, I'm thrilled to see a woman astronomer win one of these awards! I've had the pleasure of meeting Andrea Ghez on a few occasions. It's truly inspiring to see her give a talk, because her enthusiasm for her work is infectious.
I'm leaving for South Korea on Saturday. I'm quite excited about this trip, but also, perhaps equally so, quite terrified.
While I'm of Korean descent, I was born and raised here in the good ol' US of A, and never once visited Korea. My conversational Korean is pretty poor, and while I have some familiarity with Korean culture, I'm not completely secure in that knowledge. Basically, I know enough Korean culture to be terrifed that I'll accidentally commit some egregious faux pas that will bring shame and disgrace on my family for generations to come. And I'm not really exaggerating there.
I'll be staying with my mother's family in Seoul. My little brother, who did have the opportunity to visit Korea for a summer in high school, assured me that they will all be very kind, and forgive me for any faux pas on account of being a "savage American" (his words). Me? I'm not so sure.
Last week, I attended a 1.5-day workshop on women in SEM (Science, Engineering & Medicine), hosted by the Committee on Women in SEM of the National Academies. The workshop was on helping women through transitions to help them stay on the academic career ladder. Overall, it was a great meeting, and I'm really glad I went.
I should note that I was late on both days for a reason that is perhaps emblematic of at least one of the problems career women face: dropping the kids off. You see, I don't have any options for childcare before 7:30am, so getting to an 8am meeting downtown is cutting it close to begin with. And why do so many conferences start at the ungodly hour of 8am, anyway??
Scene: Department post-colloquium socializing. Characters: Several white men and one Asian female*. Scenario: characters are discussing a popular topic these days, election politics.
Asian female: Wait, am I the only American here right now?
Or, you could read this article that quotes McCain attacking Obama for his earmark requests:
"That's nearly a million every day, every working day he's been in Congress," McCain said. "And when you look at some of the planetariums and other foolishness that he asked for, he shouldn't be saying anything about Governor Palin."
Emphasis is mine. Right, because tools for teaching science to the public are just so foolish. Even better, later in the article:
McCain cut off a question about the "Bridge to Nowhere," which Palin claims to have killed in Alaska even though Washington pulled back money for the project before she turned against it.
Okay, let me think about this: according to the article, for 2009 Obama requested $900 million and Palin requested $200 in earmarks. Illinois has 12.8 million people, Alaska has 0.68 million people. So that's about $70 per capita for Illinois versus $300 per capita for Alaska. Right.
As if it weren't already abundantly clear who I was going to vote for this fall. Bah.
I have hardly any voice left, so clearly all I can do now is blog.
I spend my day at LaunchFest, a big open house put on by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. They were expecting 20,000 people at this event, and considering the sizes of the crowds, I would not be too surprised if that turned out to be an underestimate.
I spent my morning staffing a booth in the Exploration Sciences area. In the afternoon, I met up with the rest of the family, who had had a grand old time actually seeing the kinds of cool science and engineering that get done at Goddard. By the time I met up with them, they were more interested in moon bounces and ice cream. (Oh, and there may have been some singing and dancing in there as well.)
My husband's comment at the end of the day was that if you didn't know any better, you'd come away with the impression that two-thirds of the people who work at Goddard were women! Umm, sadly, but no. I've touched on this topic before, but it's more that women are more likely to do E/PO work. Is it because it's a job that's vital and necessary, but not rewarding in a concrete way, plus women are suckers? I mean, Goddard's demographics are something like 20% women. How do you wind up with such a huge disparity in the volunteer ratio?
Bah. My consolation is that all the female faces might do some good in changing the perceptions of what scientists and engineers look like, and might encourage all those girls who came by to pursue STEM fields in the future.
It's a working mother's dilemma: what do you do with the kids when you have to travel for business? Here are a couple of scenarios:
1) An astronomer is going to an AAS meeting. She applies for a childcare grant, and uses it to defray the costs of flying her spouse and nursing child to the meeting. The spouse and child go sight-seeing while the astronomer attends the meeting.
2) A state governor uses government personnel and state resources for childcare and to commute from her home to the state capitol, which are separated by hundreds of miles.
This guide is not meant to be a comprehensive or scholarly introduction to the complex topic of the role of women in astronomy, but simply a resource for those educators and students who wish to explore the challenges and triumphs of women of the past and present. It's also an opportunity to get to know some of the key women who have overcome prejudice and exclusion to make significant contributions to our field. To be included among the representative women for whom we list individual resources, an astronomer must have had something non-technical about her life and work published in a popular-level journal or book. This explains why so many talented women are not covered; their work is mainly known through journals that students cannot read. Suggestions for additional non-technical listings are most welcome, however.
It lists a number of women astronomers from the past and present. It tells you what a small field astronomy is when tell you that of the 17 living women listed, I can confidently say that 6 of them know me personally, and I've met probably another 5 of them, even if they can't remember having met me. Hence why I think keeping an anonymous blog about women in astronomy is a futile endeavor.
