• A Meandering Scholar by Ian Brooks

    Wherein I hope to document the path of change: The continuing evolution of the Postdoctoral Fellow within academia.

    • Pulling out

      Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 17:01 UTC

      Thanks to DrugMonkey over at ScienceBlogs.com I heard that the Society for Neuroscience is looking for bloggers to cover the annual meeting, being held next week in Chicago, IL. Thinking that I’d be blogging whilst there I applied and gave them this blog as my example. I explained about the “Meandering Scholar” theme and how I would be able to provide perspective from “both side of the bench” (whatever that means). I also highlighted my recent Correspondence to Nature as an example of why I should picked.

      And lo and behold, hither, thither and yon, they picked me!

      Thank you for applying to be an SfN Neuroblogger for Neuroscience 2009. Your blog application was reviewed, and we would like to invite you to be an official Neuroblogger! If you accept, please provide a final blog URL to program@sfn.org for immediate posting.

      As we begin to post final URLs of the accepted bloggers, SfN Interactive will be displayed on www.sfn.org/am2009 page and General Attendees drop-down menu. Announcements will also be made on the main SfN home page, Facebook, and next week’s Neuroscience Nexus. Here are some reminders:

      From Oct 17 to 21, please write at least one blog entry per day about activities, events, and experiences related to Neuroscience 2009.
      Bloggers will be categorized by theme but will not be limited to blogging about just that theme.
      Your blog link will be posted on the Web site until Friday, November 13.

      Also, while you are at the meeting, keep an eye out for novel methods and technology development within your area of neuroscience.

      We look forward to hearing from you!

      Best regards,

      Annual Meeting Program Staff

      The only problem being that I found out a couple of days ago I can’t go to the meeting after all. Events beyond my control have lead to the loss of my hotel room, and with 35000 scientists descending on the city there is literally, no room at the Inn.

      I’ve had a couple of mates from here in Memphis offer friends’ attics/basements/spare bedrooms, but I’m not prepared to go that far. This really sucks, because this will be the first SfN meeting I’ve missed in several years.

      I’m trying to get my registration transferred to someone else from my Office who is going, but no luck so far. Hopefully at least one of the co-authors of our work is going so we don’t have to withdraw our presentation too. This really is a massive kick in the nuts ego.

      Last updated: Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 17:01 UTC

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      • Comments

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 17:12 UTC
          Richard Grant said:

          I was about to say congrats, but ‘bad luck’ instead.

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 17:14 UTC
          Eva Amsen said:

          =( I would have taken up the offers for friends’ attics if I were you. And who’s going to blog about it now? =/

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 17:19 UTC
          Alejandro Correa said:

          Richard – bored, punished.

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 17:43 UTC
          Ian Brooks said:

          @rpg: Yeah, every silver lining has a cloud, eh?

          @Eva: I’m too old too tired and too jaded.

          @Alejandro: As enigmatic and inane as ever!

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 18:09 UTC
          Alejandro Correa said:

          Tal vez enigmatico, but stupid nothing. Small subnormal.

          In the other hand I am speaking with Richard G., that is my friend.

          Unhappy!

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 18:11 UTC
          Richard Grant said:

          Neither small nor subnormal.

          Abnormal, well, you might have a point.

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 18:13 UTC
          Alejandro Correa said:

          Thanks Richard, my English is no good, is cool!!

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 18:29 UTC
          Åsa Karlström said:

          awww. schucks! That is a bummer. Are you sure about the hotel room? (silly question but still.)

          I was, as Richard, about to say Congrats but alas, no such thing now :(

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 18:34 UTC
          Alejandro Correa said:

          Åsa – is really!!

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 18:54 UTC
          Jennifer Rohn said:

          Ian, terrible luck. I’d probably kip on a sofa in your shoes, even though I’m older and more jaded than you are! It sounded like a great opportunity for more exposure as a writer.

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 19:01 UTC
          Ian Brooks said:

          There are some modest financial constraints that make it difficult for me to spend a week eating out in a big city too, but those I could have worked around I guess.

          For some reason this really feels like the last nail in the coffin of my “scientific” career and I’m feeling rather maudlin about the whole thing. Doubly frustrating is all the effort I had to go to to get approval to attend (memos to the Executive Board etc.,) and then the Admin side of things disapproving my advance expenses request. And finally, after a lot of hard work I lose the hotel room.

          I’m just feeling like stamping my feet, right f*** it all, just forget it then!

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 19:33 UTC
          Martin Fenner said:

          Bummer. I would have been interested to follow the conference via your blog.

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 19:40 UTC
          Henry Gee said:

          I’d probably kip on a sofa in your shoes

          Either Jenny is very small, or Ian has very large feet.

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 19:45 UTC
          Ian Brooks said:

          Thanks Martin. That means a lot.

          Of course, being the contrary sod I am, I might go for it anyway…vicariously (AKA talking complete nonsense from my office in Memphis…). Don’t be surprised to read about interesting work being done on gliogenesis in the Goblin forebrain, or finding out that Francis Collins’ Keynote address was interupted by the arrival of Cthullu…

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 19:52 UTC
          Ian Brooks said:

          @HG: coffee → nostrils → monitor

          +1 Sir. Bravo!

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 20:48 UTC
          Kyrsten Jensen said:

          I think you should “go anyways” from your Memphis office and blog.

          Deceptive, yes.
          Career-blowing, possibly.

          Funny, yes.

          But not quite as funny as if you start talking about Star Wars named genes…because that would be awesome. Wait a minute, that’s already been done.

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 20:56 UTC
          Ian Brooks said:

          Oh my god, how daft is that! Thanks for the heads up Krysten!

          _the chemically induced Leishmania donovani Star-Wars mutants R2D2, C3PO, OB1 and JEDI, which display alterations in LPG often accompanied by alterations in related glycoconjugates_

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 21:18 UTC
          Kyrsten Jensen said:

          The best thing? When I was still a travelling sales rep, I got to do a vendor show at Wash U (aka WUSTL). At the show, I mentioned to one of the guys that I was a big fan of that group (my original training is in microbiology and infectious disease, and we studied leishmaniasis and studied this paper in particular). Turns out, the guy I was talking to was IN THAT LAB.

          I shook his hand and made sure to bring by food the next time I was in town, and was tempted to start a fan club.

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 21:34 UTC
          Ian Brooks said:

          I thought it was just Drosophilists (of which I am one) who did the funky gene names!

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 21:49 UTC
          Kyrsten Jensen said:

          Doesn’t drosophila have genes like lush (mediates responses to alcohol) and cheap date (they are especially sensitive to alcohol; another name for the gene is amnesiac, as mutants also have a poor memory)?

          Don’t forget that zebrafish have backstroke (I’m imagining some upside-down swimming fish), and tiggy-winkle hedgehog .

          I worked in the area of bacterial pathology – nothing that “odd” about our gene naming…sadly.

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 21:56 UTC
          Ian Brooks said:

          I worked on cacophony (mating song mutant), and we had stoned and comatose mutants in the lab. And everyone’s favourite synaptic transmission mutant Shibire

          Which is abbreviated to Shi and given the designation TS to indicate a temperature sensitive mutant…which lets you write, in grants and manuscripts…

          ShiTS

        • Date:
          Friday, 09 Oct 2009 - 22:52 UTC
          Eva Amsen said:

          I needed to use some mouse pigmentation genes as controls for something, and they have very cool names too. One of my controls was “cappuccino”. It didn’t knock down well enough, though =(

          (Table with mouse pigmentation genes . The cool names are mostly under melanosome contruction in the table, and some below that.)

        • Date:
          Saturday, 10 Oct 2009 - 01:19 UTC
          Alejandro Correa said:

          Really Mr. Brooks deserves the Nobel Prize 2009 for stupidity.

        • Date:
          Saturday, 10 Oct 2009 - 15:25 UTC
          Richard Grant said:

          I say Alejandro old bean, that’s rather harsh on the poor chap, dontcha think?

        • Date:
          Saturday, 10 Oct 2009 - 16:53 UTC
          Alejandro Correa said:

          I will not talk more about that, Richard.

        • Date:
          Saturday, 10 Oct 2009 - 17:11 UTC
          Alejandro Correa said:

          I am very angry with Mr.Brooks He doesn’t know me.

        • Date:
          Saturday, 10 Oct 2009 - 17:31 UTC
          Richard Grant said:

          I will hold your coat when you fight him.

        • Date:
          Saturday, 10 Oct 2009 - 23:27 UTC
          Ian Brooks said:

          That’s Dr. Brooks to you mate.


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