Something Sweet

Hello Baby,

I was sitting through a boring talk at the end of the day at the conference when you decided it was time that we eat. You informed me of your wishes with insistent rigorous punches and kicks to my various internal organs. So we cut out early and headed out for some salad, pizza and laughs with Mr. Dave and Ms. Fonda, old friends from your momma's grad school days. You are going to have to learn baby, that everyone here is Ms. This and Mr. That. It is just polite, down here in the South.

I don't know what kind of growth spurt you are on, but suddenly while walking alone on the way back to the B and B after dinner, I needed something sweet and I needed it NOW.

Two blocks later, I came across an Argentinian cafe and went in, waltzed right up to the back counter, and asked for something sweet and yummy for desert. I think the owner recognized my demand for what it was- pregnancy craving- because not two minutes later a clearly oversized piece of Tres Leche cake showed up at my table.

I ate it all, and I don't even like cake.

It hit my singing sweet tooth. Or maybe that was your sweet tooth, but I don't think you have teeth yet.

The owner came out after to ask me about you, and to tell me about his four children and four grand children. Judging form his stories and the giant size of that piece of cake, he knows all about pregnant ladies.

Your Momma.

Books and their Covers

This story of judging books by their covers comes in two parts that happened at a conference I was attending this week. 

This morning, I gave a talk at the conference. I was excited to present some work one of my first graduate students has been doing, because I knew if the audience was right, his results would make a bit of a splash. 

But it all started off on the wrong foot. As I got up to talk, I was introduced by the moderator of the session (another professor) as a student in Professor Male Student's laboratory at Vanderbilt.  

It annoys me when I get mistaken for a student (at least it wasn't an undergrad this time) but today it was especially grating because I am trying to meet and impress my new American scientific community and peers. This is important stuff since these are the folks that will invite me for talks and review my papers and grant proposals. 

I usually chalk it up to looking young– time will fix that– but at five months pregnant and seriously round, my cynical side wonders if there isn't an underlying biased expectation that serious science professors are male and females only make it as far as graduate school.

I felt like a bit of a twit doing it, but I corrected the moderator in front of the crowd and went on with my talk. (And just so you know, the talk went very well and I think I did make a splash that will have ripples as far away as Uppsala, Sweden)

But then something else happened that made me put this all in perspective. 

At a break not a half hour later, I was waiting in a Starbucks line with my Post doc. This big guy in front of us saw our name tags asked us where we were from and I said Nashville. 

My post doc piped in and proudly added "I'm originally from Puerto Rico."

Then this jerk said "Oh wait just here, I have to make sure that my hub caps are still on my car, " laughed and tapped my post doc on his shoulder. 

My post doc just blinked once and kept smiling. I was horrified. 

The guy continued talking and my post doc just smiled politely up at his stupid ugly face and inane story. 

The moment passed and I just stood there with my arms crossed- very passive aggressive. How LAME! That was the best I could do? I regret I didn't say something to this twit, but well-timed poignant quips only happen in movies. 

How DARE he insult my intelligent, hard working, PhD toting post doc and imply he should be ashamed of where he is from! 

When the twit finally turned his back, in hushed tones I asked my post doc if this happens often and he just shrugged it off. I asked if he wanted to leave the line, and he shook his head no. To boot, I discovered he didn't even want a coffee and was just waiting in line with me. 

After getting my decaf coffee and on the way back to the session I told him that "we NEVER need to spend time around a DICK like that just so I can get a coffee." 

I just can't stop thinking about it. It is one thing to accidentally expose unconscious biases by being a young female prof, it is completely another for someone to flat out tell a racist joke to one's face, insulting your identity and expect you to laugh. 

They have my Fingerprints beacsue the DMV guy messed up. Welome to Ameruka.

For the last couple of weeks I kept calling the courthouse between the hours of 12:30 and 3 pm and I kept getting the brush off that my Citation had not been processed yet. I called on Monday and they said it had been processed and that I MUST come in by the 14th- like Wednesday. Too bad for me that I have two grants due, two classes to teach and a flight to a conference between Monday afternoon and Wednesday!

Anyway, I got up really early and was at the court house by 7 am this morning when it opened. By about 8:15 I had mug shots, fingerprints the whole bit and then was sent directly to the court room. By the time things got started at 9, there had to have been 500 people in the court room all waiting to be processed through. All the benches were full and even the back and sides were packed with standing people. I waited until about 10 am on the hardest benches you could possibly imagine. They were punishment enough!

I think today was translator day as there was a VAST majority of spanish speakers in there and none spoke English too well. I could hear the translator working hard on the other side of the room.

My Lawyer -great man to do this on such short notice- zipped over from attending court in another county and found me in the crowd. He took my paperwork and two drivers licenses, went and had a chat with the DA and clerks and about 20 minutes later I was out of there. Charges dropped.

He is filing the paperwork petition the court to have it all expunged from my record this afternoon and that will take 2-3 months to get processed.

He also thinks I should complain to the uppers at Vanderbilt Police and thinks the guy shouldn't have bothered giving me a ticket. The whole thing was a waste of my time and the court's time. Maybe next week when I get back from the conference I'll go over and speak to the supervisor.

All in all: two trips to the court house and one to the DMV, a lot of wasted time, 150$ for the Lawyer, mug shots, humiliation, a few tears, a lot of stress, a bevy of Chicken hugs and several large bowls of ice cream.