Wednesday, September 18

Alright, new schoolyear, new me, new notebook post! It’s approaching 9pm so I’ll keep this one brief and give a more in-depth summary tomorrow. Today was spent on a variety of UW tasks.

  • Applied to a DEI job in the College of the Environment
  • Wrote a blurb for the oSTEM conference I’m heading to (more on that later)
  • Updated and reformatted my CV
  • Did some troubleshooting on my website
  • Did some UW Trans Community stuff
  • Applied for a FINS grant

That’s all for today, I’m headed home to sleep! More to come tomorrow

Thursday, September 19

Alright, accomplished quite a bit again! This time, it all focused on the chapter I’m writing. A bit more about that:

I was approached a month or so ago by some people at the American Fisheries Society to write a chapter for a book on being a woman/gender minority in fishery sciences. Obviously this is something I’m pretty passionate about communicating, as frankly I don’t think most cis people have a very accurate understanding of what it’s like to be transfemme - the sorts of hardships faced, etc.

I’ve been working on it for a while, and today I got extremely close to a first draft that I’m legitimately quite proud of. I’ll send it off to some close pals for edits and reviews, and then I’ll send it along to the folks over at AFS! It certainly doesn’t focus much on fisheries and centers a lot more on the general hardships of being trans. But honestly, I think that’s pretty important for scientists to understand!

Also, some additional updates on the oSTEM (Out in STEM) conference I mentioned yesterday. I’ve got a pretty decent level of familiarity with oSTEM - Matthew (my ex) ran his college oSTEM club - and they seem to do a lot of good stuff. Anyways, they’re having their big conference this year over in Portland, OR and I got asked to be on the Gender Panel. Me and like three other people, with a mix of pre-written questions and questions from the audience. I’ll also get to lead some breakout groups and set whatever discussion I want! I’ve already done most of the logistical work for the conference. Remaining tasks: reflect on pre-written questions and plan the breakout group topics.

Anyways, I’ll be heading down there from Oct. 18-20. I also got entry for Jo, which I’m really excited about!!

Friday, September 20

Today I focused on updating my personal website, focusing on both the homepage and the About Me.

I used to have an in-depth breakdown of my research on the About Me page, and a more general writeup on the homepage. There was also significant overlap between the two. Now, that’s been reversed - the homepage focuses on my research, while the About Me page focuses on, well, me. Feels like a better structure.

I also did the final final edits on my first draft, and it is now fully ready to be sent out to pals for edits. Names were added (if you’re trying to come up with some fake names, try walking around your local graveyard!), I chose a tentative title (Life in Trans Heaven) and made some last-minute changes to introducing the quote I’m finishing with. I think all improved the work, but we’ll see after I get some feedback!

Taking a half day today, as I’ve got some family stopping through while flying down from Alaska. Next week: the official start of the quarter!

Monday, September 23

  • Sent out edits on the AFS paper
  • Reflected on the questions I’ll be asked as part of the oSTEM panel
  • Updated some lab notebook links that were broken on my homepage. Will work on a broader update of all links (although I can’t find the tool that was used to spot broken links! hmm…)
  • Communicated about some funding stuff
  • Reached out to Mark about DEI committee position
  • Started reflecting and brainstorming about my plans for the breakout session I’m leading at oSTEM

Tuesday, September 24

Did some smallish updates to website formatting (just the html of the main page). I also finally did the thing I’ve been procrastinating about forever!! At the end of last quarter, Chelsea sent out a bunch of edits for my modeling paper. I’d been pushing it off, but finally started looking through them. In my non-scientific writing, I’ve found fully rewriting whatever I’m editing repeatedly to be a good way to sort out clumsy phrasing and locate potential issues. So I did that - rewrote the whole abstract and introduction. The abstract saw major changes, as I reduced the length down to about half its previous extent (now hovering below 250 words), but there were also substantial changes to the intro as well. As a paper, it feels a lot more intentional and focused (thanks, Chelsea!). I’ve still got everything after the introduction to do, but a wonderful start!

As a way to reward myself for doing the thing I procrastinated about, I also wrote a blog post on the bittercrab site! I’m still in the stage of transition where writing about and reflecting on trans stuff is really cool and fun and interesting, so that was the metaphorical dessert of the day. It’s about being trans, about change, etc. I enjoyed having an outlet where I can get a bit goofy and creative with it, and it feels like one I’ll lean into more in the future.

Wednesday, September 25

Went to the first FISH 250 class! Besides that, nothing today, as I had to head to Urgent Care. Oh no! Hopefully I’ll be back tomorrow :)

Friday, September 27

Welp, I wasn’t back tomorrow. Got on antibiotics, and feeling extremely under the weather but slowly recovering.

Today’s productivity was hence somewhat limited. I did a bunch of work for FISH 250, updating all the slides and dates for the coming week’s lab. I also set up a Substack, where I’m planning to make blog posts on a wider range of topics than feels natural on the Bitter Crab wordpress. That’s about it - time to rest up over the weekend!

Monday, September 30

Pretty dang productive day! Accomplishments included:

  • Finished all my grading for the first lab for FISH 250
  • Sorted out a variety of issues with the FISH 250 lab (I was the TA in charge of setting up Lab 2)
  • Setting up my profile on the oSTEM site and updating my resume for upload
  • Got edits from 2 of my 3 reviewers on my AFS chapter, incorporated all edits! Getting the next tomorrow afternoon
  • Helping the numerous confused and scared undergrads in my class who are desperately trying to figure out how to do the whole College Classes thing and really really want to send us a billion emails about it

Goals for tomorrow:

  • Incorporate those additional edits on my AFS chapter
  • Continue going through Chelsea’s edits and rewriting my modeling paper