botany, shoes, books, and justice
Companies would rather not pay STEM professionals high salaries with lavish benefits, offer them training on the job, or guarantee them decades of stable employment. [link]
So they whine and wail about fake labor shortages until the market is flooded with highly STEM graduates (trained on yours and the government’s dime). And then they argue that they shouldn’t have to pay taxes because they’re “job creators.”
this aqueous vapour is a blanket more necessary to the vegetable life of England than clothing is to man. Remove for a single summer-night the aqueous vapour from the air which overspreads this country, and you would assuredly destroy every plant capable of being destroyed by a freezing temperature. The warmth of our fields and gardens would pour itself unrequited into space, and the sun would rise upon an island held fast in the iron grip of frost.
Tyndall in The Emerald Planet by David Beerling
Stuff worth reading
Debilitating — But Only Moderately Painful — Migraine Attacks. Exactly this.
Drawings Made with Fingerprint Patterns by Nicolas Jolly
I had a shit ton of migraines in August. Fortunately by taking a triptan (relpax seems to work better than others for me) and/or 800mg ibuprofen & 1000mg tylenol when I get a migraine, I can usually guarantee that I’m not in extraordinary pain. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean I’m well enough to work. Migraines make me very stupid.
I also took the time to break down my migraines by week and treatment. Unfortunately, the only thing I’ve tried in the last year that’s seemed to tamp down my migraines also made me sleep 10-17 hours a day, gain 10 pounds, and regularly caused half my body to go numb and tingly. Fun times. Honestly, I was so fuzzy and drowsy the entire time I was on amitriptylene that I’m not sure if it really reduced my migraines or if I just slept through or forgot to record many of them.
Numbers are the fraction of days during a treatment that I had a migraine.
Fingers crossed for the new treatment I’m trying this month!
It is easy to forget that natural history museums are dynamic entities preserving not only the spectacular dinosaur skeletons adorning the magnificent display halls, but also preserving and cataloguing the dramatic story of how plants evolved.
From The Emerald Planet by David Beerling
Halving something doesn’t always make it easier | Photo credit: Flickr user Fazia_
My migraines have been slowing my PhD progress way down. At my current level of migraine, I’m going to have half the time of a normal student to do my PhD. I’m fortunate to be in a really supportive environment, but I need to do a better job using that support. My advisor and committee have all asked me what they can do to help, but I’m not sure what to ask them for. I asked for some advice on twitter, but thought I’d widen my net and try here, too.
If you’ve had a chronic illness during a PhD and needed accommodations, what have you asked for?
For those of you who were well during your PhD, I could still use your advice! If you’ve had to finish your PhD in a hurry, what strategies helped you? What did your advisor and committee do (or you wish they’d done) to help you finish quickly?
If you’re an advisor or committee member, what do you wish your sick or slow students would ask you for?