As a PhD student, research
seemed hard. Protocols did not work, data did not make sense, and I often found
myself stuck between false positives and false negatives. We have all been
there.
As a faculty, research
seems the most cherished part of my day. And that is because I actually get so
little time to do research. Here is what a random workday of my life looks
like:
1. 6:30 am: Woke up. Stayed in bed for the next 45 minutes,
wondering if the "revise and resubmit" comments I wrote last night
would work. Then hurriedly scampered to work.
2. Made a mental note not to miss the Skype call tonight.
The last time, I thought that it was at 9pm while the meeting was at 8pm and I
missed it.
3. Made a note to reply to the fifty-seven emails that
have been pending a response for the past five days since I was traveling.
4. Chatted with a colleague who hates the words
"seminal work" and "dissemination" because of their roots
in the word "semen" (hence, male; hence, power). I added my bit by
saying that I hate the morbid terms in academia such as "deadlines,"
"terminal degree," and "publish or perish."
5. Almost slept through a committee meeting that lasted ninety
minutes. I have no idea what they said. I was more surprised by how much people
talk, make printouts, and waste paper at these meetings. I am pretty sure
everything they said could be summarized in ten minutes.
6. Checked my Google Scholar citation for the umpteenth
time. The numbers haven't changed since the past month. It is a strange
addiction of seeking external validation I have developed of late, similar
to counting Facebook Likes. This is only more consequential and more harmful.
7. Kept thinking about the annual review that I will be
writing in January. Have I made enough progress this year? The process is so rigorous,
it makes the PhD defense look like child's play. How can I hit a couple of
sixes in the last six weeks of the year and look great on my annual review?
8. Read a bunch of student assignments. One, most
students have horrible handwriting. I wonder if they ever had compulsory,
daily, cursive writing lessons in schools. Two, many have bad grammar too,
which is surprising since most people here can get away knowing just one
language- English. I was also amazed by the number of times they used the word
"cool” -- The book was cool. The program was cool. The class was cool. The
professor was cool. Such informal language in academia- not so cool!
9. Registered for an upcoming conference in Boston. This
is the first time I paid more than a thousand dollars for registration alone.
So I sat at my desk and whined for a while.
10. Filled out a bunch of paperwork to get my student
enrolled in the system.
11. Filled out a bunch of doodles indicating my
availability for future meetings. Created a Doodle myself and sent a reminder
email to those who need to fill it out on time.
12. Conducted an interview to collect data, which also
meant inputting mundane information into an excel spreadsheet that my hypothetical
undergraduate student should have been doing. Hypothetical, because I do not
have one.
13. Prepared a bunch of expense bills from a previous conference travel. This involved painstakingly putting together every receipt with
comments and scanning all of them.
14. Called our communication manager to chat about how I would
like my new business card designed.
15. Thought of new research ideas. It means mostly sitting
at my desk, staring blankly into the ceiling until a new email pops up or
someone knocks on the door, and repeating the process till it is time to go
home.
These are not necessarily research. Just a bunch of
mundane things that may lead to research in the future.
sunshine
