Anyone want a general chat?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

By which title I mean, of course, that I am procrastinating and if I can't rise above it I'd love to drag you all down with me.

What are we all doing this term, and how's it going?

I'm trying to kick my book proposal into shape after yet another set of comments. I've lost track of how many times it's been 'nearly there' but I think it really is nearly there. Honest.

Thank you! Got the PM. That is useful. Now I just need to stop reading appreciatively and actually sit down and write! (Probably not at 3am with the baby, but tomorrow.)

I've PM'd too.

I need all the help I can get!

The meeting was far better than anticipated - possibly serendipitously.

I got to the venue and dropped my stuff at a table near the back, with some men on it (white / old / the usual type in my field) - they did not acknowledge me, and I did not feel like barging in.

I went for coffee and when I came back, this nice lady was sat next to me - she was chatty, polite, and interested in whatever we were discussing. This made the day a bit better.

Marasme that sounds better than expected!

I actually find it hard to network with men sometimes, especially older ones. I find it easier to approach women in the main, we seem to end up chatting about stuff more naturally. I do have male collaborators but I have tended to approach them in a very factual way- I've got this project, I'd like to apply for this money, do you want in or not? I hardly ever find male collaborators through social networking.

Milady thanks so much for PMing me the notes, I find it helps to keep thinking about how to write more effectively. I write, but terribly slowly, this year it has been almost painful. The only way I have found is to just keep doing it, small amounts, day after day unless something else truly urgent comes up, and eventually something emerges. It is the opposite of flowing, it's like sludge, but it seems to be the only way.

Oh, glad that went well mara.

I am lucky in my field that there are lots of women and I can usually expect to find someone pleasant to talk to. I forget this isn't normal until I talk to friends in other subjects. Someone I know said she was on about her 20th conference before she got through the entire thing without someone either assuming she was an admin support person, or had walked into the wrong room. She finished her PhD just after me, too, so this isn't a story from 20 years ago.

That does sound like it went well Marasme.

Oh, I'd love a PM about writing!

I just came on to boast that I am writing - good thing, as I've got a proposal that needs to be done very soon (ideally today, but realistically this week) to get our required other-people's-feedback in a reasonable timeframe. I just kept repeating the mantra "You can't edit a blank page" over and over. And so now I have several pages, at ~60% over length (and including some place holders for details I didn't yet include), to edit! But that's way better than a blank page. So feeling proud about that.

That does sound good, marasme. Interesting about the gender difference in networking - if I think about it, I do tend to network more with women, but partially because I'm in such a male-dominated field, we tend to gather and commiserate. And then next would be younger men - I do think the older men often think I'm a student (I actually had a colleague mistake me for a prospective student at visiting day just last year - I really hope he thought I was a mature student, as the thought that I look 16/17 is a bit disturbing, although I suppose he could be particularly bad at ages - he's obviously bad at remembering who he's seen at staff meetings!): I'll get asked who I "work with" or "work for", what lab I'm "in" and such. I generally just forge on talking about running my own group or whatnot, but I wonder if some people are embarrassed about the mistake and then that makes them avoid me.

I'd love a PM about writing too!
I find conferences hard work too. I sign up all keen but end up skiving off large sections because it's such a treat to have a few days to myself and I'm bad listener anyway, in the sense that I don't process talks well. I need to see things written down and find my mind drifting in conference settings. I shouldn't admit that should I?!
I'm actually writing a conference paper this morning. How many words for 15 mins? Is it 2,500 roughly? I should know but haven't presented for a while due to a couple of mat leaves. I can't even locate the last conf paper I wrote

I think it depends on your speed of clear speech - I was always told 2,500 for 20 minutes, but actually I do 3,000 clearly in 20 minutes (3,300 too fast to follow easily), so it may be a case of trying 2,500 and then practising very slowly and seeing whether you need to cut some.

Thanks. I'm on 3,300. Think I'll go to 2500 before I test or that'll be 20 precious mins gone

I got under length!! By 4 words! I'm so chuffed. Now I just need to sort the figures ("just" ) and I can send it to colleagues.

Good luck on your shortening, yoga.

Well done on the proposal writing marasme. 4 words under the word count is an excellent bit of writing just enough!

Yoga. I have a dreadful case of conference ADD too. I end up skivving off too. DH is Mr conference diligence (he is desperate to be seen to be busy attending things from the start i the conference to the end). We went to a conference in San Francisco earlier this year and he spent 5 full days attending sessions from 8am to 7pm with practically no breaks (except networking meal breaks). Even the thought of that exhausts me. I attended embarrassingly little but got in lots of really wonderful sightseeing on my own.

I speak fast too, but still have to be very firm with myself not to try to deliver 4000 words in 15 minutes.

Today a colleague an I spent the whole day working on a grant application. We're about 3/4 finished and are going to try to get it done by lunchtime tomorrow. Then we can pass it to research & business for costing. I'm not expecting it to be successful. I never am. But I can say I applied at my appraisal.

Then I can spend a day and a half on my draft for Friday. I'm going to try to get out of a meeting on Thursday to free that up too. I managed 2 paragraphs this morning before we started grant writing (taking the grand total to 4 paragraphs) but that's a long way from 8000 words. I might take my pen and paper down to the researchers' area so I can just get on with writing without the possibility of using my computer (to distract myself) tomorrow.

Sorry murmuration not Marasme. Clearly I'm easily confused by names beginning with the same letter - which is a level of imprecision that probably doesn't bode well for my writing.

Yeah well done all the grant applications folks. I literally cannot see beyond this monograph (due sept) and the bare essentials. The conference paper from today was done at top speed and has literally no new word in it

I'm impressed with your speed, Milady, it takes me hours and hours to work to write grants. I'm writing one now and I think I've put in about 10 hours (I keep track of my deep work ) and I've only mapped out what I want to do, contacted collaborators and read some key papers! Gah. It's due in August, I'd better get a move on.

Ah well, ours is due in July so speed is a necessity. We had already done the background work so it is just writing it.