Les Bonnes Choses

I like news headlines because their lack of critical parts of speech, such as prepositions, makes them prone to comical misinterpretation, and general hilarity. For example, today The Ceeb had the following:

Stunning 82-year-old hospital patient with Taser was justified.

Now, you might click on the link with eager excitement at the prospect of reading about an elderly invalid in a fabulous black evening gown who's got a good excuse to be carrying around a non-lethal sidearm -- but you'd be disappointed. Instead, you'd read about how Canadian law enforcement means business. Forget that polite stereotype. Around here, laying on a gurney (or wielding a stapler) is a good way to get yourself zapped, my friend.

Of course, we could also be defined by what we don't do. For example: fund research. My thin envelope from NSERC arrived in the mail today. I didn't have to be Johnny Carson to know what it said. One thing I did forget about was that it had a brochure about applying for the Industrial R&D Fellowships program.

Dear Canadian Funding Agency Purseholders,
If I wanted to work for a large multinational conglomerate, I would have spared myself the last 6 years of graduate work and tens of thousands of dollars of tuition and applied to work at a bank directly out of my undergraduate career. Then I could have been doing something that the business community finds useful for the last several years. Like help run the world's economies into the ground, for example.

I'm suspending my blog posts for the foreseeable future.

Fortunately, I seldom plan past the end of the week, which is when I'll be marking some assignments that will hopefully not cause me to cringe. Thus, the foreseeable future may be upon us sooner than you might think.

I also really hope that things go well for K and me. I had originally written 'K and I' and was about to explain that 'K' was an initial, whereas 'I' was being used as a pronoun to refer to myself, but then I realized that it would have been ungrammatical, thereby saving me the extra effort of having to issue a clarification. Except that I then went ahead and wrote about it.

Oh, I did want to announce that I am now up to 2 lost friends reclaimed via the internet. The first was Vivian. Sitting on our picture shelf at the top of the stairs is a photo of me, Bill Hodgetts and Nicole Anderson, on the day of our graduation. I knew that Nicole had gone off to grad school at Mac after that, but previous efforts to track her down via the email addresses on her publications were for naught. Fortunately, she saw a comment of mine on the facebook group dedicated to critiquing the abysmal state of research funding in Canada and contacted me. Fait accompli!

Another thin envelope arrived in the mail today, this time from a Quebec university. The one thing I would like to comment on was the following let-me-down-easy statement ("it's not you, it's me"):

I would like to let you know that the Search Committee was truly impressed with your academic profile and research accomplishments. [emphasis added]

As if my education hasn't continued long enough, I received an email from Fanshawe College on Friday from their continuing education program. That I am on their mailing list isn't really surprising, as I took the highly recommended motorcycle driver's ed course, which in this area is run through Fanshawe's continuing education program. A suggestion that I would make to the program's registrar, however, is that they not try to drum up business with an email from fees@fanshawec.ca. If that's the email they use for marketing, it makes me wonder what account is used to notify a person when his or her tuition is in arrears.

This afternoon, I went with my mom to Fabricland because word on the street is that they have some high-grade boxes there. I'm reasonably sure my mom is under the impression that I am more familiar with the staff there than I am, because I really have no idea who any of these people are. Yet the deficiency is clearly mine, because they always know exactly who I am. Anyways, she took me to the manager's office (really, not much more than a closet with a desk) to see Ann to ask for boxes. My mom volunteered that I'm looking for boxes because we're moving.

"Really?" asked Ann. "To where?"

"I don't know."

It's strange when that's the most truthful answer to that question that you can give. But on the upside, I'm looking forward to seeing the house get decluttered as things go into boxes (or sold on kijiji). I have no idea how much it's going to cost to get the lawn in a presentable condition. I do not plan on asking the Weed Man to do it, though, as you may recall my previous dissatisfaction with them.

I had my phone interview today. I think it went fairly well, which is a good thing because I've gotten rejection letter #2 from these people today.

Point of clarification: it was the second rejection letter, and it was from these people. It wasn't the second one they sent. They aren't that mean about it.

I'm not sure why I feel I must advertise each time I get rejection letters. Maybe it's just to show everyone how, behind this facade of perfection, is a regular guy. A totally awesome, but otherwise regular, guy.

I received an email in my inbox just moments ago, entitled [Wilfrid Laurier] Position. My first thought was that they had a really quick turnaround for their rejection letters, as I sincerely do not expect them to entertain the idea of interviewing me, let alone hiring me. However, the email just outlined their interviewing process for shortlisted candidates, which I assume to be similar to that of other universities, and rather similar to what I just went through in San Diego -- a process which which I can happily report I am comfortable. Ken always said that, face to face, I come off very well, so the major hurdle for me is just going to be to get my foot in the door. Quite literally, I just need to make myself look better on paper.

I just received an email informing me that the U of T linguistics position is off the table. It's unsurprising, since I don't think of myself as a very cunning linguist, so it would have been a bit of a stretch for me. Truthfully, I had sort of forgotten about that application anyways, probably because I had applied knowing that I probably wasn't what they were looking for. Nonetheless, it's a bit of a drag when the rejection letters start filtering in.

I realize I haven't posted in over a week (by a few hours), so I should probably hastily jot some thoughts down.

No, I really have no thoughts. I am somewhat agitated about hearing back about either of the postdocs to which I have applied. I may have to endure a longer than strictly-necessary wait to hear about the San Diego job because I learned that there may be a policy that requires the position to be externally advertised, even if the position has effectively been filled. Still no word about the Brown one. And I have yet to apply for the one in Amy's lab. Also K (she uses initials to refer to her colleagues in her blog) is making me agitated by osmosis with her recent musings on the prospects of finding employment.

I'm sorry this entry isn't more amusing; more Tony Hawks-ish, as Carrie would call it. Unfortunately, I haven't found my thoughts to be especially amusing lately. Maybe I should read more light-hearted fare. I tend to introduce elements of the writing styles of authors that I am reading at any given time.

I already expressed these sentiments in a comment on my own note on Facebook, but that was before I made the return trip home. I just got back from a trip to San Diego where I am a candidate for a postdoctoral position at UCSD working with Jeff Elman and Marta Kutas -- though I quickly figured out that, in saying you work in so-and-so's lab, all you are really doing is indicating where your mail should be routed, because everyone works with everyone down there. It's like some kind of research orgy or something. Probably pays something like $88/hr (see Carrie's note if you can).

I don't travel quite as much as, say, John, or Chris, but I have made a decent number of trips into the US over the span of my postgraduate career. I can truly say that I have never before had a more pleasant trip. Sure, on the way down there was a brief period of panic when I was unsure whether I would catch my connecting flight out of Detroit. But in all my interactions with the various incarnations of what is now the Department of Fatherland Homeland Security, everyone was pleasant and non-confrontational on both ends of the trip. Compare this to the last time I went through the border crossing, coincidentally for the purpose of my first meeting with Jeff Elman. Back then, the inquisitor at the Ambassador bridge gave me quite a rough time. When asked what the purpose of my trip was, I replied that it was for a meeting. The moron actually asked, "So why doesn't he come up there to meet you? Why do you have to come here?" I still fantasize about smacking him in the face and calling him a dipshit, but that fantasy always comes to a grinding halt when I get charged with assault and barred from entry into the US in response. Apparently, my ability to fantasize is impaired by my mind's insistence on imposing realistic constraints, and so unlike most people, I fantasize about being able to fantasize.

I'm meeting Jeff for brekkie in 30 mins. I've showered and am just going through my slides again. I woke up at about 6:30, well ahead of my 7:00 wake up call, but it felt like I slept till 9, and I slept straight through (not even waking up to pee) so I feel well rested. Also it feels like my brain is firing properly, so I think I'll be fine today. To be sure, I made myself some hotel room coffee. It tastes like how Erin and my dad make it.

I'm going into the day smelling like juniper. Maybe -- that's what the soap and lotion said (I have very dry skin). The hotel at which I am staying is the Estancia Spa/Hotel. That's right: spa. So they have fragranced everything. Funny how a dude can smell like olive oil and juniper extract, and if he has an excuse like, "I've just come from the spa," then it's okay. If instead his only excuse was that he likes to roll around in botanicals, he gets the big ole stink-eye.

I've been reading. I just finished reading Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain, which was a remarkably fast and enjoyable read. I received a book called The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch, in my stocking this past Christmas. Apparently, Carnegie Mellon had a series of lectures called The Last Lecture, where speakers were invited to pass on their wisdom for the ages, as though it were their last chance to be heard. In the case of Randy Pausch, when he gave the lecture on September 18, 2007 (my birthday), he did so knowing that it was his last lecture because he had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. He died July 25, 2008. I'm going to go ahead and read the book, but damn, that's just the most depressing way to start off a book. It doesn't help much that the book is peppered with photos and such of him with his three young kids. I'm not sure if it's a cause or an effect of my vocation, but I very often find myself putting myself inside someone else's head. It's very useful when trying to figure out what the hell people are doing (or are going to do) when they're taking part in psychological experiments (which often require perfectly normal people to do rather bizarre things). But sometimes empathy is a real pain in the ass.

Maybe I should just read the volumes of research put out by the people I will be visiting in San Diego on Monday. I doubt I'll feel too much one way or another while reading Neurophysiological evidence for transfer appropriate processing of memory: processing versus feature similarity.

Lots going on in '09. First off, there's all those things that are supposed to happen by 2010 that have to get taken care of. I couldn't find an online list, but I imagine there were quite a few outlandish prognostications made 10, 25 and 50 years ago.

My own prediction for the upcoming year is that things are going to get up-ended around here. I'm jetting down to San Diego in a couple of weeks to check out Jeff Elman's digs. I'm not entirely sure what that says about the likelihood of me getting an offer for a postdoc, but that's sort of what I'm banking on because I haven't heard back about any of the faculty positions to which I applied (which means I'll have to wait until March to start getting the "we like you, but just as a friend" letters). And of course, on top of that, Rebecca will be giving birth to the child now referred to as Tricky Monkey in the middle of all this, possibly at about the time that we're selling our house.

2009 is going to be a big production.

There is a predator in Masonville Mall. She's caucasian, possibly from the Mediterranean region, about 5'4" - 5'6", 120 lbs., brown hair and very aggressive when approached.

You will find her manning the temporary booth on the first floor, selling Dead Sea skin products. I was shopping yesterday for a stand lamp for Rebecca when I was approached by this woman. It's a bit of a blur, but this is what I told the police:

She addressed me by asking whether I would like to try some lotion. My hands are presently very dry, as in the sort of condition you might expect my skin to be in if my job was to scrub floors all day. Without gloves. With lye. So I figured, 'hey, what's the harm in getting some lotion on my hands?'
She squeezed a blob of this revolutionary lotion on my hand, and I rubbed it in, only then realizing that this was a very feminine smelling product. She then told me how this lotion was made with ingredients from the Dead Sea as the final horror sunk in that I was now going to be walking around the mall smelling like a floral arrangement.

Now my mind was racing to figure out an exit strategy, so only part of my attention was focused on her - just enough to allow me to react in case she jumped at me with an avocado facial.

"Do you want to see something amazing?" she asked.
"Something amazing?" I repeated, estimating that she would probably not show me anything sufficiently amazing to justify what I had just endured.
"Show me your fingernails. What's your worst finger?"
'Oh my God, I smell like flowers and now she wants to give me a manicure,' I thought. "No, thanks," I replied, now walking away.
"Don't you like the cream?" she asks after me.
"It smells a little -- girly," I replied back, I'm sure with a disgusted look on my face.

Shortly after this encounter, I came across one of the members of my Cohort, Jon, who was also shopping for his wife. Wait. Let me be clear: He was shopping for his wife, and I was shopping for mine. I was not also shopping for his wife. Whatever. In any case, I could not greet him by shaking his hand because my hand smelled like Aunt Esther. It was awful.

Today I stayed home because I had my laptop with me, and the task for the day was to finish making the filler items for what is hopefully the final experiment of my dissertation (God, I hope it works out!)

Well, I finished creating the filler items with time to spare in the afternoon, but I was feeling pretty spry, so I decided to tackle some projects. Project 1: put some holes in the ground for 2x2 posts that will be used to support the walls of a 2-tiered raised garden bed in the back yard. Excavating a hole for a 2x2 without making it far too large is one challenge; digging in our rocky soil is another. My solution: I bought a 1" diameter masonry bit just over a foot long for my hammer drill, and basically used my drill as an auger (that's auger pronounced ogg-er, not Auger, pronounced Oh-zhay, though it might be kind of funny to imagine how to use a drill as one of those...). It wasn't quite as smooth sailing as I hoped it might be because the rocks still posed a problem, but I prevailed and suffered only a blister on my palm (I was afraid of blowing out my drill on a couple occasions). After that was done, I dug out around the boulder in the front yard to put in the edging, completing project 2, and when that was done, I attached the baby carrier seat we purchased last summer to Rebecca's bike (project 3). For my encore, I made dinner: bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin medallions (yes, that's pork-wrapped pork), BBQ roasted potato slices and steamed brussels sprouts.

Sorry, ladies, I'm taken. But feel free to try out my dinner menu, because it was tasty.


Now I take this post on a 90-degree turn and talk about the CBC Radio One programs that I like and dislike. In the like column, we have Ideas, Age of Persuasion, Quirks and Quarks, And Sometimes Y (no longer running), Spark, and Search Engine. In the dislike column, we have DNTO, Q (can't stand the hosts) and Out Front (tonight's episode was literally 20 minutes of random, unrelated sound-effects, demonstrating that the general public is not qualified to produce radio programming). I like listening to the voices of Paul Kennedy, Michael Enright, Stuart McLean, and Kate MacNamara who does the business news every odd day with an accent that I just can't place and impeccable diction. The nameless woman who reads the weather forecast after 7pm, however, speaks with the most bizarre inflection, as though she's maybe an alien infiltrator.

Warning: the following entry may be boring for those who have no interest in what I'm doing with my life, or who think that academics are weird (they are). I will also be mentioning some names that will likely mean nothing to you as though it's a big deal.


So I've been back from Italy for almost a week. 6 days ago I was walking aimlessly all over Venice. Neat place. Now that both Rebecca and I have been there individually, I suppose we should try to go back together sometime. The conference went well. I was rubbing elbows with some neuroscience bigwigs (no, literally -- at dinner, I was sitting between Sharon Thompson-Schill and Alex Martin, both of whom were egging me on to steal Ken's pizza because somehow I was skipped when they took orders, leaving me without a meal.) Unfortunately, neither Sharon nor Alex (first name basis?) had any immediate plans for postdocs. I also made friends with Sukhvinder Singh Obhi, a former UWO neuroscience postdoc, now Laurier University faculty member. He's a fine chap. I say that because he's from Britain. The best thing about talking with British people is that you can dust off and use words like "hooligan". Unfortunately, in talking with Suhk over the course of the conference, I came to realize that, no matter how much crap I already know how to do, nobody at a research-oriented school is going to look twice at my resume if it doesn't include a stint as a postdoc. For my non-academic readers, what this all means is that it is no longer sufficient to have a PhD. They had to invent something that you have to do after that!