Monday, January 12, 2015

Dewar's and Water with a Twist

With the new year, I began my preparations for the semester.

But last week, my grandmother died. Death and academic BS don't mix very well.

My Nan-Nan was absolutely the best. She was always proud of me, no matter what I did. She thought it was wonderful that I was smart and that I could do many things. But ultimately, she would have loved me even if I couldn't find my way out of a paper bag. She would have seen the value in me even if I didn't go to grad school, even if I wasn't an engineer, even if I hadn't become a professor, one of the alleged pinnacles of my profession. She saw value in many things that others didn't.

She wouldn't be bothered by all of my grant rejections. She wouldn't care at all as to what the NSF reviewers thought of my preliminary data. I'm sure she wouldn't like peer review.

If she was here, she would offer me a scotch and a back scratch.

                                             Fig. 1. Nan-Nan reacts to peer review.

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