Does it ever annoy you when...

1. You're on the bus, it's pretty empty and the only person who gets on after you decides to comes and sit right next to you...WHY?
   
2. You're on the bus, it's starting to fill up and there are people who'll let their bags occupy an entire seat...one seat per tickets, folks...pay for your damn bags if you want them to sit on their own seats in the bus.
3. You're on the bus and there are these people who will sit in the aisle seats, leaving the window seats empty...and will not be really happy to move and let you sit by the window. People, it really does not make that much of a difference whether you sit aisle or window...the person on the aisle seat will get up and let you out when you get to your stop.
4. You've been waiting at the bus stop for a while and the only bus that comes looks like it's full. But that's only because some morons have decided that they cannot move back past the half-way point. Whatever happened to compassion and empathy? I guess they fly right outta the window the minute you make sure you're safely inside the bus.
5. You're on a CROWDED bus and the driver refuses to open the back door to let you out.
6. You're forced to endure cell phone and other conversations on the bus, because some people have no idea how loud they actually are.
   
7. You're waiting in line to be served at the grocery store or at the bank or anyplace and it's always the person in front of you who has a problem that will require the assistance of the entire customer support staff of the establishment.
8. As a variation on #5, ever noticed how the person ahead of you in line always knows the store clerk and will insist on having long conversations well after they've been served?
9. Clerks at the store know you're waiting to check out, but will insist on finishing their personal conversations with their friends who are on a break before they condescend to help you. And as a final insult, you have to thank them for their help.

Some days are toughter than others, I guess :)

Dr. Beth Jones- Women in Science

Elizabeth Jones, the very respected head of our department passed away about a month back, due to complications arising from an abdominal surgery. When I heard the news, I was saddened but only for a brief while...it's the kind of grief you feel when you hear such news about people you were never close to, but you saw almost on a daily basis. I knew my life would go on and that I soon return to the world where experiments and publications hold centre stage. I'm a fifth year graduate student...thinking about graduation is taking a considerable amount of my mental space currently. And I'm beginning to wonder about what I need to do next.

As I think about my immediate concerns, one of the things I've realised is that as a woman in science I now have an array of options that are available to me. And one of the most important options available to me is that I can continue to pursue a scientific career without compromising on my desire to have a family. Women in science are being increasingly encouraged to believe that they can indeed have it all. Having it all was not an option for the women of Dr. Jones' generation. You could have a successful scientific career or the family life of your dreams...one or the other, not both. While there was certainly support provided to Dr. Jones when she embarked on her career as a scientist, the fact remained that science was and still is, to an extent, dominated by men. And in order to succeed and prove that she was just as good as any man, Dr. Jones chose to pursue her career over any desire she might have had to have a family. While I heard that she always regretted having to make that decision, the fact remains that she did prove herself to be one of the greatest scientists and teachers of her generation. The more women scientists there were in the picture, the greater the chances that problems unique to women researchers would get addressed. It is the result of such incredible sacrifices by women like Dr. Jones that women in science today have the confidence to believe that they can balance work and family.

I never knew Dr. Jones personally...my interactions with her were limited to greetings on the elevator and the one car ride I had with her. But as I plan for my future, I feel an immense amount of gratitude for her and other women of her generation who made tough decisions for themselves, but in doing so have opened many doors of possibilites for the rest of us.

Thank you, Dr. Beth Jones!

Button Button

One of the books I read recently was a collection of short stories by a writer called Richard Matheson. I'm assuming that I'm in good company when I confess that I had not really heard of the author. Interestingly, the book cover said that Matheson was one of Stephen King's great inspirations. While I'm not Stephen King's greatest fan, I'm not at all averse to the genre he specialises in. So, anyway, I picked up the book after the title caught my attention. It was called Button Button and other stories. Now, there's no way I'm putting down a book which has a story titled Button Button.
The story turned out to be most interesting. Without giving away the plot let me highlight the major issue the story tries to raise. Would you be willing to suffer a great indignity in order to achieve a noble (or in the story a not necessarily noble) goal? As written by the author in the preface, would you, for instance, be willing to walk naked down Times Square in exchange for World Peace? I'm sure that for most of us (excluding ofcourse all beauty pageant participants who honestly believe in their ability to bring about world peace) walking naked down Times Square is an absolute no-no, whether or not world peace hangs in the balance. And atleast from my perspective, walking down anywhere naked is a big no-no. But then we come to the issue of my body image and believe me that subject has enough material for multiple blog entries :) So, anyway, I tried to think about it...would I humiliate myself in order to achieve a noble objective? Without lying or trying to make myself seem a better person than I really am, I must say that I most likely would not. Which is not to say that I don't want to. I most certainly want to step out of my comfort zone and be humuliated (:))...unfortunately, it's just not something my highly protected life has prepared me for.