Fruit flies....

How to get rid of a fruit fly infestation in 10 easy steps:

(1) Clean your kitchen top to bottom, sanitizing all surfaces.

(2) Remove any fruit or vegetables from countertop surfaces. Store in enclosed containers or a fridge, as is appropriate for the fruit or veg.

(3) Use a little vinegar or bleach to clean out the garbage disposal after running half a lemon or lime through it.

(4) Take out the trash and sanitize all waste bins thoroughly.

(5) Go to the gas station.

(6) Buy several gallons of gasoline.

(7) Pour the gasoline liberally over any and all surfaces that have been associated with the fruit flies.

(8) Strike a match and watch the house burn to the ground from a safe distance.

(9) Relocate to a tropical island.

(10) Repeat until you finally escape the fruit flies.

I'm kidding - PLEASE don't commit arson. It's just getting annoying - they have decided that the filtered water out of the fridge is a great water source so I can't get ice out of the dispenser without killing a small handful of the little buggers. I have worked with them for research projects before, their life cycle is really short but they can live off of very, very limited food resources, even the junk in the drain, and reproduce so exponentially you wouldn't even be able to imagine it unless you'd done work with them in the past. All will be well here in two weeks, using only bleach or vinegar, and no arson will be committed.

*No gasoline was harmed in the making of this post.*

*Edit: In Step 9 it should be noted that the relocation should be accompanied by a considerate and attractive partner of whatever gender you prefer to ensure mental health during the transition. I would recommend also ensuring it is accompanied by a spiced rum and coconut beverage, as ethanol is a great disinfectant and coconut water a wonderful source of electrolytes. White sand and crystal clear waters also recommended but not required.*

True Power

I am Amanda, possessor of opposable thumbs.

I can open doors (endlessly) and cans of tuna (occasionally).
I can work a water faucet and cut tines off bales of hay.
I can single-handedly clean a litter box while holding a baby bunny in the other hand.
I can wield a knife and remove apple treats from the fruit.
Of the 15 of us on this tiny ranch, I am the only one of us that can do all of these things.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Now I will snuggle a 3-week old baby bunny.

California Shenanigans

I should probably write the "Storm Area 51" post first, but instead I will write upon California.

"It's 72 degrees, zero chance of rain, it's been a perfect day..." - James Blunt, Stay the Night

To be perfectly honest, California was a sequence of perfect days.  I went to visit colleagues and collaborators at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for a week, and stayed with an old friend and had a great time.  On Friday we left work early (3PM) to head out to Leo Carrillo state beach for beach camping and grilling and campfires and music and sing alongs and card games and happiness.  At one time I was about the most bored I'd been in the past 4 years and the most happy, because I couldn't quell my boredom with Netflixed TV shows (no service) but rather had to sit back and lazily enjoy it.  It lasted about all of 8.5 minutes before I was running into the waves and losing my bikini bottoms to a 6-foot nasty thing, climbing rock cliffs and having the lifeguard yell at me to get down, smuggling White Claw in a coffee cup out to a secret cove only accessible at low tide, having to swim out when tide came in...  And then I remembered why I don't let myself get bored.  If I get bored, I get into shenanigans.

Let's please remember that word: SHENANIGANS.  Because that is what the rest of this post is about.

Saturday at some point, my friend Saul texts me, "I'm coming to California, will you be there?  Do you want to hang out?"  I responded, "My flight is Sunday evening and I need to do work Monday."  "You can do work in California.  Stay through Tuesday night.  Move your flight.  I'll take care of you while you work."  I called Delta.  After much pleading and begging they waived all but $35 of my fees.  Okay, that's fair.  "Saul, pick me up from Brenner Park at 7PM."  "Got it mami,* I'll be there."

*Mami is literally Spanish for mommy, but for some Spanish speaking cultures it means more like, "sweet girl" or "baby girl" or "babydoll" or anything like that.  Like, to your daughter, "that's such a great painting, mami! Make me another," all the way to, "those are nice jeans, mami, I'd like to see them on my bedroom floor."  Versatile in its application and acceptance.  Like "sweetheart" in English I suppose, although I don't speak enough Espanol to really understand all the connotative differences.  I suppose the main difference between calling your kid sweetheart, your sister sweetheart, your friend sweetheart, and a woman you met at the bar sweetheart is context and innuendo anyway... //end digression

He picks me up, we set destination "Malibu" and I find an AirBnB.  Looks good, cheap, in Topanga Canyon.  We get there late (had to stop for groceries) and crash out almost immediately.  I wake up at 7:30, 8:00AM telecon.  Saul hadn't seen the Canyon before but said it looked like the part of Mexico where he grew up.  When he joined me on the porch, he was blown away by the views.  It's so beautiful up there.  I jumped on my telecon as Saul said he would make us breakfast.  Telecon went well, Saul cleaned out the cooler we got the weekend before out at Area 51 and just as my telecon ended he walked behind me into the frame of the camera... In a partially buttoned white shirt that shows off his large muscles with his curly dark hair cascading down to his shoulders.  Now there are going to be all kinds of stories circulating Georgia Tech about my hot Latin lover and that's why I'm in California. Ha ha ha...

After mucho discussion between him and his friends, me and mine, eventually we set the GPS to Leo Carrillo again.  We get out there, find a spot to park, and walk out to the cove that is usually so isolated and alone.  It's a Monday.  I bring my computer because this is supposed to be where Saul naps and I get some writing done.  The cove is packed with people.  There are a lot of signs.
"340,000 minutes"
"That's how long I've known you."
"I've known you only 2% of my life."
"I do know one thing for certain after 340,000 minutes."
"I love you."
"I want to spend all the rest of my minutes with you."
"Marry me."
Ha ha ha!  That's why it's packed!  These are friends and family waiting to witness a marriage proposal.

Obviously this is not going to be the quiet writing retreat I had planned...  so we toss our things down in a sheltered area and start to explore.  The cave is open but tide is coming in.  Waves are high and getting higher.  We climb up a cliff and look down and I say, "We can go down there, but it gets dangerous when the waves come in and you are in flip flops."  He takes off a flip flop and tosses it down.  Looks me dead in the eye with a sly little grin as he tosses the other off. "Now we have to go, mami."

I didn't go, but he did.  He survived.  We made it to a hotel on Venice Beach that has a sign "no shenanigans."  I had to explain that his sandal thing was "shenanigans."  We watched the sun set over the ocean in a cool summer breeze, then went to the Getty and to In and Out the next day (hey, both are high class Cali establishments last I checked). 

I didn't finish writing that memory when it was fresh like I intended to.  Now it's clouded by time and struggles and... Science is so much more funny.

It's raining now, unexpectedly, and that's probably the best thing ever.  You can never beat a good thunderstorm.

Noah's ark is a parable for Scientific Writing

To preface this, I have to say you'll need a little education on how the Noah's ark story works, or on how Scientific Writing works.  Please scroll to whichever section you require prior to scrolling down to the main story....

Noah's Ark

Told in Genesis Chapter 6+, I'm going to end on Chapter 8, just cause, and I'll paraphrase Chapters 6 & 7.
Chapter 6:  God identifies a problem.  Man, it's a big problem, like a giant problem and the world is going to end.  God looks at the problem, comes up with a generalized solution, and asks if someone will do it for him.  Noah says, "Okay...."
Chapter 7:  God gives more specific instructions.  Noah says, "okay."  Then the flood starts, waters rising, but Noah's safe because he was following God's instructions to build and maintain an Ark to save humanity and all of Earth's creatures.  Everyone else perished.  The flood continued.
Chapter 8: (here I'll quote directly below)
6 After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark
7 and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth.
8 Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground.
9 But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark.
10 He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark.
11 When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth.
12 He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.

Scientific Writing

Told in NSF, NASA NSPIRES, etc...  I'm going to use NASA as an example and paraphrase all but the last bit, as I did with the biblical account.
NASA Science Plan:  NASA identifies a problem.  Man, it's a big problem, like a giant problem and the world is going to end.  NASA looks at the problem, comes up with a generalized solution, and asks if someone will do it for him.  Several research groups say, "Okay.... How about we do it this way?" The research groups propose some solutions, and NASA / NSF / NIH / whoever selects the one(s) they want to do it.
Grant Review:  NASA gives more specific instructions.  Research group says, "okay."  Then the research starts, political flood waters rising, but the research group is safe because they are following NASA's instructions to build and maintain [something].  Everyone else perished due to lack of funding.  The political flood continued.  NASA demanded publication of data.
Data Management Plan: (here I'll avoid quoting directly because believe it or not legalese is wordier than Leviticus) NASA says: "Publish your stuff ASAP so the public will stop accusing us of conspiracy theories." (Totally paraphrased with intent definitely implied but could be close to accurate, who knows.)  Typically this means sending a manuscript to a journal, seeing if it will stick, but it will come back, and then you send it again with revisions, etc...  Eventually the little birdie will find a place to land permanently, and it will be published forever in the annals of scientific literature.

Our Story Writing Scientific Literature

We sent out the raven of our first draft.  It didn't land, and it didn't even come back to us, it was referred to a different journal.  Shucks.  So we modified the manuscript and sent out a dove to the new journal. It came back this time, but it hadn't landed - major revisions were required.  So we sent it back with revisions.  It came back - this time minor revisions - the dove had an olive branch!!  So we sent it again... and it came back.  So we sent it again.  It came back.  We sent it again.  It came back.  We sent it again.  It came back.  All this time revisions are little things like "Blur currency in images," and "don't include copyrighted images."  We sent it again.  We're still waiting to hear back...

The Moral of the Story

A lot of times in life, you raise a little birdie and you let it fly free.  You never know where it will roost, and you definitely don't know when.

“Oklahoma” or how I narrowly avoided being arrested for being a total idiot.

Another story told as a series of texts…

This is just backstory, not part of the story.  In Oklahoma, where I grew up, when you buy a car from an individual, you have 30 days to swap your registration for the plates after you sign the title transfer.  There’s a 30 day grace period for everything, including insurance etc…  There’s a small fee if you miss the deadline, but it’s not bad.

Boston, as a big city should have been a wonderful place to be a college kid.  For me it was a prison.  You couldn’t get OUT of Boston easily, and the only ways to get out were trains that mostly went to other towns.  How could I go trail running, climbing, hiking, well away from all these people I didn’t want to hang out with?  I needed a car.  I needed my own car, because I couldn’t continue to rely on the kindness of friends and strangers.

After a year in Boston, I get an internship and finally save up enough money to shop for a car.  That’s where this story is contextually located.

Nearly seventeen years later, I’ve met this nice man who is really super interested in me.  I’m interested back.  We are texting one night, and he asks me for a story.

10:02 PM Matt: Do you ever get flustered?  If so what are some things that get to you?

10:03 PM Amanda: Hmm yes I do.  Misunderstandings that I can’t get out of are usually the worst.

10:04 PM Matt: Yes, well put! 😊

10:04 PM Amanda: Like a deadpan sarcastic line intended to be a joke that gets taken seriously.

10:05 PM Amanda: I’m particularly upset when I didn’t understand a situation and made someone feel bad but didn’t mean to. Like that makes me blubber lines like a 4 year old.

10:06 PM Matt: Well, it sounds you’re well meaning then.  Sounds like you don’t want to make people feel bad.  I’d say that’s a good trait.

10:07 PM Amanda: One time I was working the night shift at a grocery store, I was 16, and EFT cards had just come out.  I thought EFT was like another brand of VISA or MasterCard or something.  I was being chatty, it was a quarter to midnight, and I asked about it.  Basically, “I hadn’t heard of the EFT until I started working here.  Is it like a VISA?  How do you get one?” She was not chatting back so I just kept rambling.

10:10 PM Matt: Did she seem irritated, or was she just ignoring you?

10:10 PM Amanda: Three days later she shows up with a friend and I have a super full line and I’m the only cashier and the friend starts going off on me about how disrespectful I had been, and who did I think I was, privileged (bad words) blah blah blah and I’m apologizing profusely and trying to explain that I was naïve and an idiot and I had NO idea EFT was food stamps and oh my gosh now that I know I see I was so insensitive…. 

10:12 PM Amanda: They went to speak to a manager and he knew me, and was like, “Oh, honey, I am so sorry that happened to you.”  But I have remembered that to this day why when I don’t know about something I shouldn’t assume and if it’s possible that it’s a sensitive topic I should ask someone else rather than the person themselves.

10:12 PM Matt: Oh God, that sucks that you were the object of that tirade.
10:14 PM Matt: Well, it sounds like that bad situation at least gave you a new perspective that’s served you well.  Sounds like that lady nearly put you in tears.

10:14 PM Amanda:  Oh no, it happens to all of us.  I’m not sorry about the tirade.  I deserved it.  But that’s probably what gets me most flustered.  When I’m in the wrong by total accident and get called out.  Like, oh my gosh officer I had no idea that I didn’t bring my ID, or a better story is from buying my first car in Boston, hahahaha

10:14 PM Amanda: Hahahahaha

10:15 PM Amanda:  I’m willing to type it out because I think it’s hilarious…. I can also save it for later.

10:15 PM Matt:  You’ve got me hooked.  Type away!

10:16 PM Amanda: Hahahaha okay so a little context…

10:17 PM Amanda: This is the backstory not part of the story.  In Oklahoma when you buy a car from an individual, you have 30 days to swap your registration for the plates after you sign the title transfer.  There’s a small fee if you miss the deadline.

10:22 PM Matt: I see.

10:23 PM Amanda: So I go check out this car, a purple Chevy Lumina out in the mythical city of Medford (we come back to why it’s mythical later), and it’s perfect.  They only want $2000 for it and I had just got my first paycheck from my summer internship.  I had $2100 in my bank account.  My friend Kat and I (she looks just like a sister to me, long curly hair, similar facial structure, and at the time I still had my Oklahoma drawl and she had her Louisiana one and to native Bostonians all they heard was “hick”), we took a cab out to Medford to pick up the car.  We sign the title and the prior owner gets a screwdriver and takes the plates off.  I’m confused.  You transfer plates, right?  The owner says, “No, you send them back.”  Okay, weird.  He gives us the keys and he gives us the weirdest look.  “You girls gonna just drive it off?”  “Yeah, I own it now.  Gotta take it home.”  “You don’t have plates, registration, or insurance.” “Oh, that’s okay, we’ve got 30 days to figure that out.”  He looks skeptical but oddly happy that we are taking the car.  Should’ve been a warning.

10:26 PM Amanda: So we start trying to get home.  This was before Google Maps and GPS but after you could print MapQuest directions.  I’m not sure there is a direct path between Medford and Boston that doesn’t include passing through a 5th dimension even in the modern era of GPS.  Like you could drive up a hill and see Boston from Medford but no matter what you did, how well you sketched maps with a pencil on the margin of the map to figure it out from your vantage point, you couldn’t get there.

10:30 PM Amanda:  Eventually, miraculously, we find the wormhole but now we are lost somewhere near Harvard in Cambridge.  I see a familiar intersection and beeline for it.  Kat’s like, “You’re going to turn left, aren’t you?  “Yes….”  “It’s a no-left-turn intersection.”  “We’ve been lost for four hours.  I can get us home if I break the law this once.”  “You’re right.”

10:31 PM Amanda: We go for it.  There’s a motorcycle cop just past where we could see him, and he pulls us over.  Please try to remember all of this happening in Oklahoman, Louisianan and Bostonian.

10:34 PM Matt:  LOL.  This is great.  Hehe.

10:35 PM Amanda: Kat starts sniffling a little – she went to an all-girls Catholic high school and we were roommates in the all-girls dorm.  We were both raised to be “good girls” and this is the first time either of us had been in any real trouble.  I’m like, “Kat, stop it!  You’ll be fine.  I’m the one in trouble.”

10:36 PM Amanda: Officer walks up and asks if we know why we were pulled over.  I say, “Yes, sir.” Kat starts bawling, “I told her it was a no-left-turn! We’re so sorry!!!!!”

10:38 PM Amanda: He asks for license and registration.  I give him my license and the new title signed today.  He asks for my registration.  I say, “I only just bought the car.  It hasn’t been registered yet. Check the date on the title.”  He walks off.

10:38 PM Amanda: Another cop pulls up.  Now Kat is losing her s$!& 100%.  She’s telling me we’re gonna be arrested. For making a left turn at a no-left-turn intersection.

10:40 PM Amanda: He comes back and asks if I have proof of insurance.  “No, officer, I’m telling you, we only just bought the car.  I haven’t had time to get all those things. We’re just trying to get it home.”  Kat pulls it together a little, “We’ve been lost for four hours and we’re just trying to get home!!!”  “Where did you but the car?”  “Medford.”  “*snort* Figures. Can’t hardly get here from there.”

10:41 PM Amanda: He walks off.  Another cop pulls up.  We can see them all talking behind us and Kat has gone from bawling to still as a corpse and white as a ghost.  I’m pretty sure I wasn’t doing any better.

10:42 PM Amanda: An officer we hadn’t met yet walks up, slowly, and we’re sure we’re about to get arrested and have our entire careers and our lives ruined…

10:42 PM Matt: So now we’re up to 3 cops.

10:44 PM Amanda: He leans down, both elbows on the window.  He says, “Look, you’re driving without plates.  You’re driving without insurance.  You’re driving without registration.  You’re driving with an Oklahoma license in Massachusetts in a car you own, that’s not a rental or registered in another state.  You took an illegal left turn.  Do you know how many laws you have just broken?”

10:46 PM Amanda: We both break into tears and Kat wails, “YEEEESSSSSSS” in the WORST Louisana drawl and I say, “I only knew about the plates.  Officer, in Oklahoma you get 30 days to get all those other things.”

10:47 PM Amanda: He asks, “Where do you live?”  I point and through tears, “Just past 77 Mass Ave.”  I’ve got my Brass Rat on and his face changes a little.  “You girls go to MIT?” (In unison and sobbing) “Yes…”

10:49 PM Matt: You two were sweating bullets here.

10:50 PM Amanda: He says, “Okay, you write this down.  You park this thing IMMEDIATELY.  You do not move it again until you complete these steps.  You get insurance on this thing.  You get it registered.  You apply for plates.  You put them on the car.  After all that you can move it again.  Until then, YOU LEAVE IT PARKED, DO YOU HEAR ME?” “Yes, officer.”  “Okay, we’ll follow you home.”

10:51 PM Amanda: As he walked away we heard him say to one of the other officers, “Too damn much paperwork on this one anyway.”

10:52 PM Matt: Oh my God, I’m rolling.

10:52 PM Amanda: It’s a good story.

10:52 PM Amanda: The campus police intercepted our little motorcade parking outside the dorm.

10:52 PM Matt: It’s an AWESOME story.

10:52 PM Amanda: And that’s the first story of how I got all the campus police and firemen calling me “Oklahoma.”

10:53 PM Matt: Oh no, more cops!
10:53 PM Matt: And the name stuck?
10:55 PM Matt: And you were 18 at this point?

10:55 PM Amanda: Yeah.  I set off all the fire alarms in the dorms three times that summer trying to cook eggplant.  I have a memorable look and used to have a memorable drawl. So I got a little notoriety for being a bit of a naïve idiot that required police and fire intervention.  Summer of 2002.  Have to write a song about it someday.

10:55 PM Amanda: I was 19 going on 20.

10:57 PM Amanda: For the next two years I couldn’t go anywhere with a male without a campus policeman calling out, “Hey, Oklahoma, you okay tonight?  You like that dude?  Call us if you need anything!”

10:57 PM Matt: Stop.  I need a minute to stop laughing.  Somehow the eggplant makes it funnier.  (Note: At this point in time the “eggplant emoji” was used to represent large male genitalia.)

10:57 PM Amanda: That’s another story.  For another time, perhaps.

10:58 PM Matt: Well, I think you’re memorable in a good way. 😀

At this point, it was Saturday, August 31.  Matt and I had met once (when we swapped phone numbers a full week ago) and second when we went climbing the morning of this conversation and spent until 4PM together.  We had plans to meet up the next day, which is definitely another story for another time.  However, the little tingle that we might be onto something was falling into place, as we had spent most of the day together and still couldn’t stop texting each other stories at 11 o’clock at night.

What if relationship proposals were like scientific proposals?

This blog is life and science.  Surprisingly enough, we use "proposals" in both life and in science, but they take very different formats with remarkably different outcomes.  I've summarized this in a table below.

As you can see, there's a bit of a disconnect between how we use the word proposal between science and life.  I would therefore recommend that we add a bit more science to our life proposals.

I'm so going to go through one of my past proposals and update it to be a life proposal.  It's not going to be as funny as I think it is, but believe me, I WILL THINK IT'S HILARIOUS!!!

You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit...

Those were the words of a little nursery school rhyme my sister learned at her preschool.  She's now old enough to barely remember those days, but that little line stuck with me.

It's a good life lesson, most of the time.

Here are some cases where it's a good life lesson, in my opinion, but willing to hear arguments.

The Teaching Evaluation

Teachers are graded by their students once per semester.  The evaluations range from "worst professor ever" to "best professor ever," with both comments coming from students in the same class.  At the end of the semester, it's too late to go back and change your teaching style to meet more students where they are, and you have to look at the evaluation as, "This is what I get, I won't get pissed off, I'll close this document for now and come back to it with a glass of champagne to celebrate the kind comments and a box of tissue and a pint of icecream for the unkind ones."  Really.  It's hard to see those, "Worst professor ever" comments, even if they are buried in a bunch of, "This prof is the reason I chose to go into this field," kind of comments.  You get what you get...

The Proposal

Your proposal is rejected.  I don't mean a marriage proposal, unless it was to Sheldon Cooper and he made you write up a 15 page document explaining why the union is required (honestly, that's not a bad idea to impose that on future suitors of mine).  I mean a scientific proposal.  You either spent 6 months of blood sweat and tears crafting the perfect document, or you tossed it together in the last week before it was due.  Or the last 72 hours, you do you, I won't judge.  No matter how much time you spent on it, it's a BIG part of yourself that you poured into that document, and getting it rejected feels like a personal blow, even if the comments are, "The proposal did not [do the thing the funding agency asked it to do]."  You probably knew that going in, so it's a good time to get what you get, and not throw a fit, but instead pay attention to the criticisms and rewrite for next time.  You get what you get....

The Paper

For those of you not in science, let me tell you how science works.  You spend a lot of time (usually over a year), usually with a team of people, crafting the most beautiful science possible, then spend the next 6 months turning it into the most beautiful report possible.  You submit to a journal, and it gets returned without review.  You are Noah, on your ark, and you just let your little birdie out into the world and it returns immediately, letting you know the flood is not over yet.  You rewrite, submit to a more specialized journal, and it returns with a rejection after review.  The bird comes back, but not immediately.  You rewrite, submit again, and it returns with a decision of "major revision required."  The bird comes back, this time with an olive branch in its beak.  You rewrite, and this time it is accepted with minor revisions.  The flood is over, the bird has found a place to nest.  You get what you get...

It's a really bad life lesson some of the time.

Sometimes, life doesn't hand you lemons, it hands you a challenge that is a call to fight for yourself and your people.  Let's be clear here.

The Proposal

The proposal [did do a good job of doing the things the funding agency asked it to do], and spelled out how, but was reviewed as not doing so anyway.  For heaven's sake, if it's a truly unfair review, do not accept it at face value, but ask the program officer to go through it with you.  If your proposal was given an unfair review, try to figure out why and how, and work with the program officer to remedy the situation.  You might not get it funded anyway (unfairly reviewed proposals are often not-selectable for other reasons), but you should at least figure out the bias that was applied to yours and work to ensure it is not an issue for you in further proposals nor for further proposers by bringing it to the attention of the program officers.  ...Throw a fit

The Paper

The little birdie came back too soon given what you expected.  WTF, it's a great paper and was submitted to the appropriate journal.  Check yourself before you throw a fit - did your letter do a good job of explaining why it belonged in the journal?  Was your abstract impactful and relevant to the current climate in your field?  Do you honestly think it belongs in that journal rather than a lower-impact one?  If the answers are all consistent, then you might be the subject of a bias.  It's worth it to ask for a phone chat with the editor at this point.  Go in prepared to discuss why it's the best paper for that journal, and why that journal doesn't want to see you publish it elsewhere, I mean, you as Science would HATE to see Nature get this because it's going to be incredibly highly sited.  Back up your arguments where you can with statistics and hard data.  Hand wavy stuff is easy to dismiss, but statistics like, "Papers involving this type of methodology had a 80% increase in submissions and a 300% increase in citations over the past 5 years, indicating a high interest field with little to few researchers actually doing it compared to the need." ...Throw a fit

The Interview

This one hit a little too close to home for me today.  Here's why: female professors are consistently reviewed with lower stats than their male professors.  A study found that even when professors are teaching the same content for the same class, students will rank the female as a worse professor than the male.  Another several found that having a female name over a male name as the first / individual name (as opposed to family name) would result in the resume being evaluated more poorly than the EXACT SAME resume with a classically male name (there are so many of these studies that it's hard to cite just one, I suggest looking into Freakonomics' citation list).  Similarly for having a name traditionally associated with an ethnic minority over a "white caucasian" name, e.g. "Shanique" or "Makayla" over "Isabella" or "Charlotte."  

The thing that got me going today was a story of an interviewer interrupting, talking over, and basically "mansplaining" to the interviewee the interviewee's area of work.  At this point, I have to admit that I hate that it's called "mansplaining."  It's "rudesplaining," and there's nothing manly about it.  I've been "rudesplained" to by women and by men (mostly men), and here's how it goes: "Oh, you said something I know a little bit about, let me express my authority by interrupting you, cutting you off, and making you listen to me tell you how I already know everything about your field."  The best is when you get interrupted in the middle of a 10 minute talk to hear someone drone on for 5 minutes about their pet theory that has largely been discredited in the field (in which you are an expert and they are not), just to have them say, "Don't interrupt me," when you try to cut them off and get back to your presentation a couple times.  That's the ultimate heights of rudesplaining.

If you're in an interview and you get rudesplained to, there are a couple ways to handle it.  If you are one-on-one, you can try asking for the other party to allow you to complete your sentences and actually make the statements you are trying to make (shouldn't have to ask for this).  If it's a one-on-many, ask that the rudesplainer please cease and desist so you can actually discuss your own work rather than their pet theory, and hope the group will back you up.  I do not recommend sharply pointing out, "You invited me for the interview, so do you want to see what I can offer your department or do you just want to tell me things I already know because I am actually an expert in this field and you are not?"  It's quite gratifying to do so, but it's seen as hostile whether you are male or female, even if its a totally legitimate thing to say.  It's much better to let the rudesplainer make an ass of themselves in public and then bring it up with the chair later.  If you get the sense that rudesplaining is just par for the course in the new job, don't take it.  ....Throw a fit, actually don't.  Walk away from that toxic work place faster than an olympic speed walker, and don't ever look back. Dodged a bullet with that one.