Positivt syn på formidling?

God kveld fra høyt her oppe i Rose-slottet, alle <3

Før sommeren fikk jeg et veldig spennende oppdrag fra magasinet Sykepleien Forskning, om å skrive en tekst om formidling. Formidling er et tema jeg virkelig brenner for, og jeg har gjort en del valg ila doktorgraden som mange mener er dumme for en karriere i Akademia, og sannsynligvis har de dessverre rett i det... Jeg har valgt å bruke mye (til tider SVÆRT mye) av tiden min som jeg egentlig skulle ha brukt til å forske, og å skrive vitenskapelige artikler, til å formidle til et bredt publikum istedetfor.

Heldigvis har jeg merket en gradvis endring når det gjelder forholdet til formidling*, og jeg håper og tror at også det å drive formidling til "folk flest" vil bli skikkelig verdsatt i Akademia snart. Og da mener jeg ikke "verdsatt" i som at man får et klapp på skulderen og noen gode ord på veien, mens den andre forskeren som ikke gadd å dele forskningen sin med flere enn de 50-100 andre i verden som virkelig forstår hva hun driver med får jobben...;)

Les hele teksten HER, om hvordan jeg begynte å formidle etter Fukushima-ulykken, og hvorfor jeg ikke har sluttet :)

"Formidling tar tid. Per i dag blir man «straffet» for å formidle, i og med at en som bruker halvparten av tiden sin på å formidle, kun vil ha halvparten så mye tid til å forske. Når alt kommer til alt, skal det mye til for at en med halvparten så mange publikasjoner får jobb fremfor en som har brukt all sin tid på forskning, og null på formidling.Så hvorfor gjør da jeg det? Det er et godt spørsmål som jeg til stadighet må stille meg selv. Jeg har kommet frem til at da jeg hørte om Fukushima-ulykken, kjente jeg mye på at formidling var en del av mitt samfunnsoppdrag som forsker. Folk var redde for stråling, jeg hadde kunnskap og var – og er – lønnet av deres skattepenger. Videre har jeg kommet frem til at jeg synes det er givende å forklare mitt eget, sære fagfelt på en slik måte at «vanlige» folk forstår hva det handler om. Dessuten tror jeg at det å formidle, faktisk gjør meg til en bedre forsker."

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* Ja, det er en forskjell på forskning og formidling; selv om jeg selvsagt formidler noe når jeg skriver en vitenskapelig artikkel, så er ikke det det vi vanligvis mener med formidling, siden den vitenskapelige artikkelen er skrevet for at kansje 50 andre i verden vil syns den er interessant, og forstå noe særlig av hva det handler om. Formidling er forskning for alle interesserte, uten alle de detaljene som faktisk er mer eller mindre uinteressante for alle andre enn de der 50 stykkene ;)

I'm not dead (and I haven't stopped blogging either!)

I just needed a real break - a vacation - and I got it <3

I've been completely "off" from everything (physics and e-mail and blogging) during July, and it's been wonderful! But now it's time to start again; this is the last semester on my PhD (*troublebreathing*), and Alexandra starts school - so there's a lot going on in the Rose family this fall. Yesterday was Alexandra's first day at AKS (Aktivitetsskolen, which is where she'll be after school, before we're back from work), and Anders and I had our first day back again at the University. 

It wasn't the most productive day, but I made a long list with to dos, and I tried something new; namely programming support via Snapchat :D Anders was of course my guy, and he got it right, so that I can plot experimental results and theory at the same time (it looks like theory and experiment more or less agrees, and that's COOL.)

had to start by showing him the code that wasn't working exactly like I wanted it to

and of course an output; with 9 correct numbers, and 1 that wasn't even supposed to be there

I didn't understand what Anders meant, so I just had to guess...this wasn't right :P

but then :D (Anders: is it working now? Me: well, what did you think the "9! ding ding ding" meant??? ;))

When I was on my way to leave the office yesterday, I felt quite good; I patted my back, and thought I was a good PhD student. Then, on my way down the stairs in the Physics building, I realised that what I've spent all day on, Anders could've done in 10 minutes, and then I just felt really bad :/ Today has been better, but I think I realise that this semester will probably not be my best ever...

It will be hard.

That's life, and here I tell you the truth.

Just really looking forward to the day I can write the blogposts "The article is submitted to the journal", "Another article is submitted", "Almost done with my thesis writing", "DONE" - you know, something like these ;)

Then I'm going shopping! (Yes, all of these blogposts deserve shopping, and I know what to buy when the next article is submitted to the journal.)

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Hope you all had, or are having, a great summer vacation! And I hope you'll follow my phd struggles blogging here this fall ;)

Not all done, and Alexandra's last day in kindergarden

Yesterday was Alexandra's last day (ever) in kindergarden... She started in August 2011, and now, more or less 5 years later, she's ready for new challenges. But it feels really strange, and a little sad - I'll be the first to admit. I think she's having mixed feelings too; one minute she's all about being a big girl and she can do everything and she takes responsibility, and she's really an angel - next minute she's winey and not cooperating at all, and says she isn't starting school after all, 'cause she's going back to kindergarden (all quite normal, I think ;) ).

All in all I think we're ready (and excited) for school, and really looking forward to that next chapter in life, even though it's sad to leave such a great place as Universitetets barnehage, which really has been the BEST place these five years!

on her way to the first and the last day in kindergarden - notice she's wearing the same backpack (which will now be changed into a new one for first day in school <3 )

I must admit I didn't manage to get through my entire to do list yesterday that I was supposed to before the holiday could start. Some of it doesn't matter (I didn't get to clean my desk, and that's totally ok - the mess will be there when I get back in a couple of weeks), while other things do (I didn't finish my article so that I felt I could send it to my supervisors and Gry, who also promised to read it <3), and that means that even though today was the first day of vacation, I need to work just a little bit more (won't go to the university, though). Therefore, the plan for tomorrow is something like this:

- sleep until we wake up, coffee in bed

- breakfast together, all of us

- work intensely on the article for one hour - that may be just about enough (if not, maybe I'll work 1.5 hours, and if that isn't enough either, I'll do the rest after Alexandra's gone to bed, or something)

- do something nice from our summer holiday 2016 list 

Our plans for the next two weeks are for the most to stay in Oslo, and I'm thinking about writing a little bit about that tomorrow - but not before I've sent off my article. Then, when I press "send", it's holidays for real <3

Figures: check. Tables: check!

I guess the title really says it all, but to be very specific: 

I'm done with all the figures and all the tables for the article!

What remains (TODO list of tomorrow):

• read the neptunium-article, and find out how the results were interpreted 
• place sentence about uncertainties in the analysis where it should be (aka. figure out where, which is the hard part - moving it is not)
• check and fix all table and figure captions
• read through everything and check that I'm referring to the right number of the figures and tables in the text
• work on the discussion part and the abstract
• send an e-mail to Fabio and ask about something from his master's thesis
• fix a "Draft_FINAL" and send off to both Sunniva and Jon
• clean desk
• holiday

Now I'll make a #workingyourassoff Thai soup, and after we've eaten it's time for Anders and me to go to bed - tomorrow is the last day before two weeks with Alexandra, who has her last day ever in kindergarden <3

Almost there...

This night I had another "nightmare" - simply that I hadn't done the last calculations that are supposed to be in the article, and I couldn't manage to do them, and therefore not make the last figure either. Pretty straight forward to understand what that dream was all about, I guess ;)

When I woke up this morning, it was also the case that I hadn't done all these things - but now I'm almost there! Today I fixed all the tables, and did the calculations. Since there are one and a half day left before Alexandra's done with kindergarden forever (OMG!), I think there's a quite good chance that I'll finish it all (not just the figures but entire article), like my goal is!!! I'll finish the figure before lunch tomorrow, and then I have the rest of Thursday and Friday on writing the rest of everything (this part takes longer than I want it to, though, since I think it's kind of hard to write scientifically). #Fingerscrossed

I'm soooo looking forward to at least two weeks of holiday with my favourite people now <3

Random selfie:

discovered this new crazy filter on Snapchat just now - instant heavy make up :D

I'm in Sykepleien Forskning this month, btw. Got the magazine in the post today, and I'm so proud that they asked me to write a text for them, and it's really cool to be a "teaser" on the cover, and that my text about outreach (of science) is on the first page after all the "mandatory stuff" :) 

Now I'm going to get a quick shower, and then wait for Anders to come home (according to Find my Friends, he's still at the University, but he said he'll leave around now...). We'll probably watch one episode of Grey's Anatomy and then go to bed - we both have a lot to finish the next two days.

Result of today

Today is not so good again... I've tried calculating some stuff, and I just can't get the units right. I'm quite embarrassed, but I've spent much of today trying to get this thing right :/ (I've also got stuff into tables, and written two equations and several sentences on the article, but still - I'm moving with the speed of a snail.)

Hopefully tomorrow'll be better <3

I felt really great this morning, but now not so much - anyway; this is my outfit today

DONE. (relieved)

I haven’t had the best couple of days lately. I've been feeling horrible, and like I’m drowning in work, drowning in stupid figures (oh, those stupid figures, and thank goodness for Anders, who have spent too much time helping me analyse these data, and make good fits). I haven't slept well; I've been having strange dreams about how Anders is a graph, and I'm the area beneath it (I'm an integral for crying out loud!), and that I can't oversleep since I'm late with a deadline, and so on. Kind of stressful. 

That’s, of course, the reason why I’ve been quiet here, and I’ve hated that port too (there’ve been some tears, I promise). But today I finished several figures, and now there’s only one more left for this article, and this analysis. That makes me fu****g H.A.P.P.Y.

yup, this makes me happy :P

what I'm working on tomorrow - I'm still hopeful <3 (when I' come to thing about it, I think the mass number here is 234, and not 233)

I can start the week (last week before summer holiday with Alexandra) tomorrow with a more optimistic view on everything; maybe I'll actually reach my goal, of finishing this article before the holidays.

Right now I'm working at Villa Paradiso with Vibeke (Mattedama, from House of Math); we've had a great session, with antipasto, a glass of wine, talk, laughter, and, of course, work - perfect Sunday work session! But I think it's time to head home very soon, so that I can get to bed, and get up early tomorrow, to start making that last (last, last, LAST!) figure for this article.

today's happy worklook

So, finally I feel a little bit like not a total looser – hopefully that feeling will last longer than until lunch tomorrow... ;) Only one more figure to make!!!