Month: May 2014

Gads, there are some folks on my FB feed that really make me feel like I am in a recurring REN AND STIMPY loop.

Ok, so a lot of my friends have higher academic standing. Which means they’ve had the tenacity to endure the torture that acquiring a PhD* entails. For the record, I don’t find my PhD training in Europe to be torture at all, it is sheer joy 90% of the time, but I’ve been in science a

long

long

long

time. And as such, I am used to a few things. Things like:

1 — Just because a person has a PhD means nothing as far as intelligence. They are probably over room temp. Maybe even room temp in the Sahara. But that doesn’t mean that they have a remote clue about EVERYTHING IN EXISTENCE.

2 — having trained many a PhD candidate and postdoc, the CO can say with a fairly high degree of confidence that having a PhD does not mean someone is smart. It means they can buckle down and get it done. Possibly kicking and screaming.

3 — having a PhD in anything other than applied statistics, industrial engineering, reliability engineering, quality engineering, applied mathematics, statistics does not mean that the work  done is actually worth anything practical.   As Tukey said, there are “lies, damned lies, and statistics”. More PhDs than one can shake a stick at are terrible at statistics, don’t understand the basic rudimentary constructs of different types of statistics, are afraid of statistics, and just plain use a statistical algorithm because everyone else in their field used that same test. This does not mean they are doing good work. IT just means they can mimic a test and get a printout that says there is or is not a reason to reject the null.

4 — the CO believes there is a glut of American PhDs that think that because they have a PhD they are worth more respect than the guy that fixes their plumbing. Personally, anybody that would wade in muck and fix a backed up sewer system on Christmas Eve is definitely worth more respect than any PhD, ever. Period.

5 — PhDs are, by definition, generally worthless. This is to say that they cease being ‘generalists’ when they do their thesis, and unless they are very, very good at engaging in multiple projects to stretch themselves, they become very specific in their knowledge. If someone came up to the CO and asked her what was killing their pine trees, it is possibly that she could figure it out eventually, but since she spends most of her time with the Nightshade family, she’s generally NOT the person you’d ask for help with your grain production, or turfgrass problems. Besides, turfgrass is an environmentally irresponsible reality.

6 — that last sentence brings me to the next point — Arrogance. Some of us are not arrogant because of our graduate work. We were arrogant before our graduate work and our graduate environment allows us to continue. We really are asses. We don’t all mean to be, although there are a few of us that actually believe that we are better than others as a result of our interest in methodical engineering/scientific practice. Probably a high proportion of us are high functioning autistics with very little patience for what we consider idiotic conversation. We treat each other this way as well — for instance, the “pure” or “basic” sciences vs. the “soft” sciences. It’s all hard work. Some of us “pure” or “scientific/applied” folks don’t understand the work involved in Political Science or Sociology and find it dreadfully tiresome, just as folks in other fields find our work to be dreadfully tiresome. This is why it is always a bad idea to take a non-scientific spouse to a conference dinner and expect marital harmony. Unless —

7 — PhD’s don’t always attract other PhDs. Sometimes real humans partner with PhDs; real, honest, caring folks. These folks help to metre the arrogance and elitism of those folks that have somehow managed to inflate our ego to the point of our graduate work.

There’s a reason why the layterm for PhD is “Piled Higher and Deeper”. It’s a narrow pile.

HOWEVER! There is hope! There do exist a few beacons of hope and sanity in the advanced academic standing population. Generally these are folks that have had their PhD long enough to realize it really doesn’t mean that much except to get jobs in fields that are pretty tiny or involve education or for promotions or to practice in some sort of medical field (for a rant on why the MD/ND/DO/DNP etc is NOT a scientific degree, stay tuned — these are engineering degrees, not knowledge degrees). Thankfully the CO has worked with a few of them. There’s one on Long Island out East. There’s one in the Soil Lab at Rutgers. There’s a couple in the plant bio dept at Rutgers as well. There are a couple in the hort dept at Farmingdale State. And there’s a retired scientist not far from Rhode Island that is probably the best example of a humane, humble, I know-what-I-know-and-can-learn-from-YOU advanced academic that I have had the fortune to know.

So. Long story short — got a PhD? Not exempt from R&S** statments.

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* or MD, ND, DO, EdD, ThD, DNP, etc…
**Ren & Stimpy

There is a deck building game (for definition of deck building game, see google) called Dominion. It has many expansions, but the basic game in itself is a good game. A friend, GAMESDUDE, has a game store – not an arcade, but that old fashioned place where people can go and buy games, play games, indulge in magic or d&d or what-have-you tournaments, buy cheap 99c Arizona Iced “Tea” and similar ilk beverages. It’s a good location, and a great escape, although to the uninitiated it does have the gentle reek of nerds (which works out ok for the Caustic One as her sense of smell with regard to some of the more sulfur and ammonia products was destroyed by an ammonia-based blueprint maker in a room with inadequate ventillation many years ago). It was at this location that Gamesdude taught the CO Dominion.

(As an aside, Dominion was actually the second game with which the CO fell in love, the first is Agricolae, but Agricolae is a space-intensive, many pieces board game that, while a fantastic game, takes longer to explain than to play. Dominion is great b/c the learning curve is much shorter, the space more manageable, and, well — let’s be honest. CO’s German still pretty much sucks. Her game companions are pretty good in English, but Agricolae would be too much. And the apartment is soooo tiny, that the space management superiority of Dominion is a real plus).

So, anyway, back to Dominion. CO loves this game. Time spent in the US with ExtrovertBabe and Dancing Mom playing was always time well spent. SO, as a gift to the CO for heading off to Germany, ExtrovertBabe and Gamesdude gave the CO a shiny new copy of Dominion. After a few attempts at gathering a core group of interested players, it’s a regular once-a-month, every-three-weeks -ish event in Witzenhausen. Generally we have four players, although we do stretch and go with six occasionally. Dominion is supposed to take 30 minutes to play, but we take literally hours. Like, maybe the shortest we’ve done it has been 2 hours? 90 minutes? We don’t play Dominion like gamers. We play as collaborative socialists and talk about life, the universe, and everything. We also help each other “you know, you get another buy”. “Remember, the point of the game is to get the green cards”. Generally the points are close. We just have fun. Maybe in real life we are competitive, but we are all into agriculture and sustainability in some way, be it marketing, research, farming, social impact, etc. so perhaps we’re all just more cooperative than conquerers.

Generally speaking, we chow down on tea, or wine, or fruit juice and a huge tin of popcorn seasoned with Morton’s Seasonings. Oh. Yum. Yesterday the popcorn was accompanied by salad from the CSA share and a few doctored-up frozen spinach pizzas (why do they NEVER have enough cheese on them??). Panda Purralicious finds one person who looks like they will share a chair and ingratiates herself — possibly just to keep warm.

It’s also one of the ways in which the CO forces herself to keep her apartment reasonably tidy. Not perfect. Dusting — oh. Now, there’s another post.

Anyway — these evenings really are great for sanity. Nice people, fun game, good conversation, language learning for all of us — English, German, a bit of Czech… Quiet lovely. I remember when I was a child, my parents were part of a group of four couples that got together on a periodic basis to play Sheepshead*. Maybe this is a genetic need!

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* if you don’t know what Sheepshead is, maybe Schaffskopf? Or reverse Euker? Well, google is your friend.

well, like this. Days when one has been fighting some sort of bug for what seems like weeks, but when today standing in a shop makes one dizzy, so the thought of getting on a train or bus and exploring is just not that appealing. Days when the thought of doing just about anything is exhausting. Not unappealing, just exhausting.

For weeks, today was going to be “go through the clothes, put away the winter stuff, rearrange the bedding for warmer weather, play with some UFOs (Unfinished Objects)”. Most weekends I like to go for a walk, or a bike ride, or get on a train/bus and explore, but today, the quick little walk across the bridge, checking out the local thrift shop, back across to the Markt and surrounding shops to just imbibe in the ambience of a small town on a Saturday while the shops are open,listen to the music from Arends Sammelsurium & Antiquitariat old-style radio/turntable, listen to the children running through the Markt, old friends greeting each other, people having coffee or ice cream, well, that was enough of the walking around.

Did, however, manage to get a good price on some flower pots for my myriads of flowers outgrowing their pots. The Capt kindly put up some hooks and hung my macrame flower pot holders so that they can go up. The Caustic One remains skeptical that the smaller hooks will support the weight of three large pots full of dirt and flowers, but we will see, won’t we. Yup. We will. Of course, there isn’t enough potting soil / dirt to fill them at this point!!

Anyway, back to the day. All these words and ideas flowing through my cold-ridden head make for a sort of surrealistic mental experience. Maybe putting hair on a doll’s head wouldn’t be a bad idea — except for the klutz factor that always increasing with any sort of sickness. Large needle. Potential blood letting experience. Well, it is a plastic doll, it washes out. Maybe try to do a panel of this very cool pattern for a tablecloth in #10 cotton with a teapot motif. Maybe something more mindless, like ironing and watching Agatha Christie’s Poirot, as portrayed by David Suchet (for over 20 years … or is it over 30 years). Perhaps putting together a puzzle for the bedroom; there are four of them waiting for me to assemble specifically for tacky bedroom decor, they are all kinkaid ripoffs from the Big Lots! That could be mindless yet accomplish something.

Well … yeah.

There is a Gebrauchtswaren Zentrum (henceforth GWZ) here in Witzenhausen. This is akin to a municipal Salvation Army or Good Will store; tons of things for the home – but no clothing. Clothing may be found at various thrift stores or, for a less expensive option, the DRK – Deutsche Rote Kreuz.

The GWZ accepts donations from just about anyone, as long as the items are resalable. Sometimes they have amazing antiques that, even at the incredibly discounted pricetag here, are still a bit out of the Caustic One’s price range. Sometimes they have decent quality for quite a cheap price — but one must arrive when the things arrive, or shortly thereafter, in most of these cases or the things are snapped up. Currently the Ms Caustic is looking for a Kleidershrank — or two small Kleidershranke. There is a limit to the size of furniture that can be carried without disassembling. On several occasions the delivery mensch have looked at the steps, the curve, the ceiling, and said “ummm” and reasurances such as “yup. It will fit. You’ve done this before and this thing is smaller and lighter”, or “You’re the professionals, you can make it work!”.

Occasionally there is something there that the Caustic One finds so lovely that she stalks it in hopes that it might be there when the money to purchase is available. Today was one of those days — a week ago a really beautiful, ornate fondue kettle was available. She kept going back to it, caressing it, taking it apart and putting it back together but she didn’t have “bar” (cash) and wasn’t up to pulling out the ol’ bank card.

Today, she wandered into the GWZ as part of a feeble attempt to get out and get some fresh air. Alas, the beautiful thing was snatched up by a more savvy (and economically flexible) person. Of course, this meant spending thirty minutes or so perusing the Kleidershrank/e, of which there was one that was exactly the size, shape, and cost range necessary — already sold. It was stained a funny blue, though. Eh.

You win some. You lose some. Guess we’ll wait on the fondue party!