In my usual lazy way, I’m following in illustrious footsteps.
1. What is your blog about?
Like Steffi, my ambition was to help non-scientists (read, starting with the people who know me) understand the day-to-day job of it. I’ve rather given up on that goal now, and it’s become more of a diary than a series of articles, but there seems to be a small, constant group of people who remain interested and check in on both sites. Motivation enough to continue for now.
2. What will you never write about?
What I think of my friends and colleagues before I’ve had the opportunity to reflect on the impression that might make. Knitting patterns. What I’m listening to right now. My old poetry.
3. Have you ever considered leaving science?
Of course. When I had to get a job after my Ph.D. and my tolerance for the default but minimal postdoctoral funding in my Ph.D. lab had reached its limit. I had two children under the age of three by that point, and some post-partum and pre-operative depression. (Pre-op for my daughter.) Everything looked pretty bad to me.
4. What would you do instead?
At that time, I interviewed 7 successive times at an unnamed cosmetic company, thinking I might go do research in industry. Then I decided I was fed up altogether and might indulge that desire to go write for a living that I have had since I was eight years old or so. However, I don’t feel confident that my writing ability is more exceptional than my ability to carry out esoteric research, and my husband convinced me that I might be unhappy if I left science just then to freelance. So I stuck around, and lucked out.
5. What do you think will science blogging be like in 5 years?
Impossible to classify as such, as per the insight offered by Eva. Even as it is, at the Science Blogging 2008 get-together, there were already two camps of “bloggers about science” versus “scientists blogging about whatever crosses their minds”.
6. What is the most extraordinary thing that happened to you because of blogging?
When I moved to a new lab part-time in Toulouse, a fresh postdoc asked me if I read Humans in Science, since the author and I seemed to have a lot in common.
7. Did you write a blog post or comment you later regretted?
Yes. Especially when my dad asked me if I wasn’t being a little personal in my posts.
8. When did you first learn about science blogging?
The Science Advisory Board bribed me in 2004. I had been intermittently reading non-science blogs before that.
9. What do your colleagues at work say about your blogging?
See #6; otherwise, nothing. I don’t have the impression they read it, since reading in English is a chore for most of them.
10a.: How the heck do you have time to blog and do research at the same time?
I don’t. The extra time comes out of my sleep in one way or another.
10b. Extra credit: are you able to write an entry to your blog that takes the form of a poem about your research?
Here’s a shot:
A mystery is the stem cell
It remembers its babyhood well
But when in the right place
Be it time or it space
Gets so different that one couldn’t tell.
It’s hardly funny, which is the point of a limerick, but has the advantage of brevity.
So what about 10b? ;)
I very much hope you can stay motivated to blog! You got me very interested with the latest Humans in Science post on Wunderpus photogenicus – I’ll be anxious to find out whether the critter is able to camouflage itself completely, sex organs and all, or not..
Update: Interestingly, the species description (OA) is as recent as 2006! The authors seem to think the color pattern is a warning display. So maybe the beast is not even worried about its bits.
That was bloody fast Steffi!
Oh, I see – I thought I had just saved the draft…
By the way, Steffi, I find it delightful that in that reference, the authors illustrate with stylized drawings as well as photographs.
I love drawings too. Regardless how good imaging technology gets, I hope that drawing never goes away!
“bloggers about science” versus “scientists blogging about whatever crosses their minds”
I like this distinction. There are also many people blogging around science, rather than about scientific work directly.
Frank – what do you mean? Offering opinions about evolution and black holes and the like?
No, I was thinking about topics such as open access, public engagement, etc. The framework of science rather than science itself.
I like your limerick. It scans! As well as being pertinent, etc.
I am not sure which I would find most embarrassing: certain members of my family reading my blog posts or certain colleagues.
But the blogging about science/blogging about whatever crosses one’s mind resonates with me. In the latter case, “science” bloggers are no more or no less interesting than any other kind of blogger.