Girls are capable of being awesome scientists and still being feminine

I do a lot of outreach work to get girls engaged in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). I enjoy my work, and I collaborate with a lot of amazing men and women who are equally committed to this cause. I adore and respect these people. However, there are some fairly prevalent beliefs amongst my cohorts that drive me crazy.

The most common is the belief that girls can't be "girly" and "smart." This is usually perpetuated by WOMEN, not MEN. These women are usually dressed like they just escaped from an FLDS compound. If you don't know what that means, just picture the little girl from Little House on the Prairie if she was 30 years older, her dress was 8 sizes too big and her braids had turned into dreadlocks. Now, before you think I'm hatin', let me just say that I'm cool with these women. They can wear whatever they hell they want. All I care about is that they're brilliant. However, they're usually saying things like, "Girls will absorb whatever we teach them. If we teach girls about make-up, that's what they'll learn. If we teach them about science, they'll learn that instead." (This is almost a word-for-word quote that I heard from someone at a really reputable non-profit that specializes in STEM education.) I'm not sure if it's occurred to these people that girls' brains might be capable of absorbing content related to more than one topic. I mean, seriously. WTF.

Aside from this just being ridiculous and insulting, it also bothers me because I think this is one of the stereotypes that keeps girls out of math, science, and engineering in the first place. There are a lot of smart girls who don't want to go into these fields because a lot of the female "role models" are these women who look like they've taken up residence with the uni-bomber. Some girls see that and can't relate to it, so they think these fields aren't for them. People really need role models they can relate to. You don't have to lose your femininity to be a scientist. I mean, if you want to, that's cool, but you definitely don't have to.

By the way, what is SO horrible about make-up and fashion, anyway? For me, it has always been a huge creative outlet. I like to play with color, light, and texture using make-up and clothing. Sometimes it turns into a huge disaster and sometimes it's awesome, but isn't that kind of what creativity is all about? People in science, technology, engineering and math need creative outlets to be good at what they do. It helps us bring creativity to our work. I don't think anyone should be able to dictate to us what those creative outlets should (or shouldn't) be.

I think some of these women are just being themselves, and I applaud that. However, I suspect that some of them have intentionally downplayed their feminine characteristics in order to better fit into these male dominated fields. That is a really common practice I've seen in my career. Some women "assimilate" to fit in with their male counterparts, and I totally get it. I get tired of being underestimated based on my feminine appearance, but instead of assimilating I just choose to be a huge bitch to anyone who underestimates me. It works pretty well too.

I should say that there are people on the other end of the spectrum that try really hard to integrate things that are stereotypically feminine into STEM education. Like, for example, they organize a robotics workshop and make everything HOT PINK. For the record, I find this equally annoying. 

I need a post-vacation vacation

I've had a great time in DC with my mom. However, some of her antics can be exhausting. I think they exhaust her too, which explains how she manages to sleep 12-14 hours a day. It's astounding. We are heading home this afternoon, so it seems like a good time to reflect on our time here.

Karen has a very specific protocol for dealing with the wait staff at restaurants. I've pretty much got it figured out now. First, she introduces herself (and me), and tells them that they look like some celebrity (sometimes they do, usually they don't). Then she has to tell them three stories about her childhood that have no relevance to anything. The stories are incredibly hard to follow. She references people without explaining who they are. "One time he went to that store..." -- only she hasn't said who HE is or mentioned a STORE at all previously. The restaurant is usually very busy, and the person tries to get away multiple times, but she keeps interrupting.

When they finally do get away and eventually come back with our drinks, she goes through this weird shift from acting like everyone has all the time in the world to acting like the world is going to end in 10 minutes. They say something like, "Can I get you ladies an appetizer or answer any questions about the menu?" At this point, Karen will immediately launch into her food order at hyper speed, "I'll have the creamy chicken soup. That doesn't have cream or chicken in it, does it? If it does, I'll have the gluten surprise. That doesn't have gluten or a surprise in it, does it? If it does, I'll have some hot water with lemon. Is that dairy free?" It's hilarious. What kills me is she makes it a point to tell every server that she's lactose intolerant, when I've been watching her throw back 20 ounce glasses of milk for the past 30 years with no ill effects.

If we're in a Mexican restaurant, it's even more of a circus because she will speak broken Spanish to everyone in sight. She doesn't understand that some people of hispanic descent who aren't first or second generation don't necessarily speak Spanish (and they certainly don't speak her version of Spanish). My favorite example of this was a time she kept asking for the check (in Spanish) and the waitress kept bringing her beers. Karen finally used her English words to ask for the check, and the girl felt horrible and had to explain to my mom that her mom was Mexican, but she had grown up in Michigan and didn't speak a word of Spanish. By then, Karen was quite drunk from all those beers.

She has weird words for some things, which I'm sure is a generational thing. Does anyone else have parents who call flip-flops "thongs"? It was incredibly awkward when Karen yelled out, "Oh man, it's raining and we're both wearing thongs!" in front of the National Gallery of Art.

When we went to Colonial Williamsburg, she made me buy tickets for this ghost tour. The tour ended up being this cute series of stories told by actors who were pretending to be some historical resident of the town. I liked it. She didn't like it because there weren't any real ghosts. I don't know exactly what she was expecting, and I'm afraid to ask. I have to admit, it was pretty entertaining that she kept calling the people in colonial costumes "dude."

She went over to Virginia to go to Arlington Cemetery while I was doing research yesterday. I don't know how, but she spent $40 in the gift shop over there. What the hell do you buy in a cemetery gift shop? Again, not going to ask. I wrote out detailed instructions for how to get there on the metro. When we met back up later in the day, she got mad at me because I told her the cemetery was on the blue metro line (it is). She insists that she was on the blue line and it kept going west into Virginia. I told her that she must have been on the orange line, and showed her a metro map that clearly showed Arlington National Cemetery on the blue line. She continued to argue with me. Maybe she thought I spent my day making a fake metro map.

I'm looking forward to getting back to Portland. It's been a fun trip, but all good things must come to an end. I think my brother should take my mom on a trip next summer.

Traveling with my Mom

Before I embarked on this trip to DC with my mom, one of my friends asked me if I had any concerns about traveling with her. My response was, "No, because I know she won't have any firearms." When we arrived at my friend's condo in DC and started unpacking, the first thing that happens is my mom yells, "I can't find my knife... No... wait, I found it! Whew, that was a close one!" She insists on carrying this knife everywhere, and I'm still trying to explain to her that there are certain places in town where she is not going to be allowed to carry a knife.

If you're riding the metro this week, watch out for my mom. She will cut a bitch. I'm not kidding. She tried to fight a lady in a hospital parking lot three days ago. The only reason the fight didn't happen was because the lady refused to get out of her car. This was a smart move on her part because my mom has very long, sharp talons and was probably carrying more than a knife. The funniest part of this story is that when my mom was telling it, she acted like the other lady was the crazy one.

For the most part, traveling with my mom is pretty funny. She won't sit in the seats that face backwards on the metro. She got visibly annoyed because they didn't have old fashioned bed warmers on display in any of the bedrooms at Mt. Vernon. Then she made me take a picture of the paper place mats in the restaurant there. When we went to the Lincoln Memorial, she decided to publicly recite every part of the Gettysburg Address that she had committed to memory. Afterward, she wanted to go to a dance club. It's like traveling with someone who is a weird combination of a 15 year old and an 80 year old.

She had to put about 20 band-aids on her feet last night because she wore a pair of shoes that hadn't been broken in. We stopped about every five minutes so that she could apply another band-aid to her feet. I felt bad, but it was a little bit funny. At one point I was like, "Wouldn't it be great if there was just one big band-aid that covered your whole foot? We should invent that and call it socks." She just looks up at me and goes, "Shut the f*ck up," and then busts up laughing. She doesn't curse very often, so I found that pretty hysterical.

On another note, I know nobody is going to believe this, but we saw two foxes on the national mall last night. I tried to get a picture, but it was too dark.

Running uphill is not an activity from which I derive much enjoyment

For the first time in my life, I have decided to train for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. I’ve registered for the 5K for 9 straight years now. I say “registered” because there were a couple of years in my 20’s when I recall being too hung over to actually show up for the race. I told myself I was Sleeping In For the Cure. I'm sure they made great strides in cancer research with my entry fee.

Although I’ve shown up to the race most years, my training has primarily consisted of running between the couch and the pantry to grab a handful of Annie’s bunny grahams while watching a Chopped marathon. Watching the Food Network gives me one hell of an appetite. This leads to a race day performance that is, let’s just say, not representative of my potential.

With the goal of athletic redemption, I devised a training schedule that includes legitimate outdoor running of distances greater than the distance to my local Sunday brunch hangout. Mondays are now “Mile Mondays,” Wednesdays are “Wilderness Wednesdays,” and Fridays are “5K Fridays.” I can’t make things too complicated or I won’t be able to remember what I’m supposed to do. My first “Mile Monday” went pretty well. I clocked a time of less than 10 minutes, which felt like quite a victory.

My first "Wilderness Wednesday" was not such a roaring success. The intent behind Wilderness Wednesdays was to do a trail run. It seemed like a great way to enjoy nature and subsequently not feel like I’m running. I failed to take into consideration how much of our local wilderness is located on the side of a God forsaken mountain.

We decided to kick off Wilderness Wednesdays at Mt. Tabor Park. Maybe my point of view is slightly tainted after running up the face of a mountain for 20 miserable minutes, but that park sucks. The scenery includes way too many reservoirs and people (not the natural experience I had in mind), and did I mention the 20 minutes of running straight uphill? I wanted to die.

Five minutes into the run, I was gasping for breath and insisted that I could not go on. Mario was not sympathetic. He told me I’m just out of shape -- OUT OF SHAPE, HE SAID! I work out six days a week, but he accuses me of being out of shape just because I find it difficult to run up the face of a cliff. I can only think of one legitimate reason when one would ever need to be proficient at running up the face of a cliff, and that’s in the event of a tsunami. Considering that I don’t live on the coast, I don’t think I need to emphasize tsunami preparedness, MARIO.

Ten minutes into the hell run, I got dizzy. I started seeing spots. When I complained about this, Mario was like, “Those are flies, Jen. We’re outside.” I flailed my arms around in front of me and hit a few of the flies. Damn it. He was right. The flies made my situation even more dire (if you can imagine that) because now I had to breathe strictly out of my nose to avoid eating a fly. Again, Mario showed no sympathy for my fat, out-of-shape, pescetarian ass.

Just as I was on the precipice of death, we reached the top. Then we got to run down, which was a real treat for my 33 year old, fat, out-of-shape knees. At the bottom, Mario told me what a great job I’d done, which was a total lie. There’s nothing worse than someone cheering you on in an athletic endeavor when you know you’re doing horribly. It’s like getting a 3^rd place ribbon when there were only three competitors. That has happened to me, so I know exactly how stupid and demoralizing it is.

I can tell you right now that the first “5K Friday” is going to take place on a high school track in the middle of the city, where there are no reservoirs, flies, or mountains. Also, Mario might not be invited. He can go train with his college track friends, who I’m sure are every bit as good at running up mountains as he is and love to eat flies. (Except Leanne -- she’s cool.)

7th Graders are Terrifying

When I tell people that I’m afraid of 7^th graders, they usually laugh. I’m not sure if they think I’m joking or if they’re as terrified as I am and too nervous to admit it. After all, a 7^th grader might be lurking in the bushes.

I have a bevy of irrational fears. When I’m swimming in a pool, I worry about a shark attack. Even though the rational part of my brain knows that this makes absolutely no sense, the primal part of my brain forces me to swim to the side as fast as I can, claw my way out of the pool with a sense of embarrassing urgency, and scan the pool for sharks every ten minutes or so.

I’m convinced that if I turn my back on a 7^th grader for even the briefest of moments, they will taze me and dance on my twitching carcass. I contend that this fear is not irrational. I think anyone who rode my bus in junior high school will agree with me. Have you read Lord of the Flies? Well, that book was based on my 7^th grade bus.

Our bus driver’s name was Jack. At least, that’s what he told us. It would have been wise to use an alias with these kids in order to protect one’s family, but “Jack” would not have been a wise choice, so I can only assume he used his real name. I say it was not a wise choice because The Clapper was very big at the time (clap on, clap off). The theme song translated very well into “Jack on, Jack off.”

Some terrible things happened on that bus – things that only 7^th graders are capable of. I’m not talking about the standard fare of drug use and sexual experimentation. I’m talking about kids slashing the seats with a knife, ripping the foam stuffing out of the seats, soaking it with urine, and throwing it at Jack while he was driving. The stench of rage, fear, and unchecked body odor was heavy in the air. 

Every day, we would inevitably have to turn around and go back to the school because of the horrible events that had taken place. The funny thing is, I have no recollection of what actually happened when we got back to the school. Inhumane torture techniques were probably used to collect evidence against the perpetrators. I can remember my mom having to pick me up at least once a week because Jack refused to resume his driving duties for the day. I’m no psychiatrist, but I think he had PTSD by the end of that year.

This nightmare probably originated from just 2 or 3 kids who had some serious issues. I never carried a knife. I never threw things out the windows. I never assaulted Jack. I didn’t yell obscenities. I kept my pants on. I didn’t smoke anything. I certainly never urinated on anything on the bus, and I’m pretty sure none of my friends did either. However, my first-hand experience of the descent of a few troubled 7^th graders into pure savagery still serves as a cautionary tale.

Every time I encounter a group of 7^th graders, the oldest, most intuitive part of my brain says, “We’ve seen this before. Cross the street.” I will actually take shelter with drunk, homeless, gang members with nunchucks to avoid 7^th graders. I bide my time in the shadows until they proceed to 8th grade, where their complete lack of regard for the human race turns into punk sarcasm and teen angst, which I can handle with ease. 

What I learned from my DNA

Mario and I decided to get our DNA genotyped through a company called 23andMe. For $99, you get to spit in a vial and find out whether you have genes that make you more resistant/pre-disposed to certain medical conditions, sensitive to medications, or likely to display various traits. One of the traits they test for is muscle performance, and I would just like to publicly announce that I am "likely a sprinter." I'm also likely to pull a hamstring while sprinting, which I learned through field research.

So, what else did I discover? I have a decreased risk of Alzheimer's, which is great, because losing my mind is something I worry about pretty regularly. I'm more likely to have blue eyes than green, making me a self-proclaimed anomaly. I don't have the gene for alcoholism, but I really like wine (based on field research again). Finally, and most importantly, Mario and I are not related. My genes tested out at 1-2% Italian, so yeah, I was a little worried at first. I think I especially became paranoid about this after discovering that my parents are 10th cousins Once Removed. (Barf.) I'm considering getting them tested just to prove that their relation is too distant for them to share any DNA. It would make me feel a lot better. Then again, it's been fun telling my dad that inbreeding is likely the reason I couldn't learn to play the piano.

Based on DNA comparison, 23andMe actually provides you with a list of everyone else on the site to whom you're related. I enjoy genealogy (to the point of being borderline obsessive), so I get a kick out of contacting these alleged 3rd cousins to see how we're related. I've been able to figure it out a few times if the other person has a well developed family tree. It's a little bit challenging to find a common relative 4 generations back if the other person hasn't spent as much time on ancestry.com as I have (and most people haven't).

I think the most interesting thing about the relative finder feature is how many relatives I have on the site. I have 989. Mario has 180. Does that seem weird to anyone else? Based on this discovery, I can only conclude that I'm related to almost everyone in America. This means that my parents are also related to almost everyone in America. I guess I should consider myself lucky that they're only 10th cousins once removed. It could have been a lot worse.

My theory is that my colonial ancestry is the reason I'm related to so many people. I have a lot of ancestors who came to the British Colonies in the early 1600's. A lot of people in the US are probably descendants of those first 1,000 Europeans who came to America. Just so everyone doesn't think I'm too crazy, I feel compelled to point out that I'm not going to try to figure out how I'm related to all 989 of my relatives on 23andMe. I'm just going to focus on the top 20... or 30. :)