Retreat Ettiquette

This past weekend, I attended the annual MSTP retreat: a two-day vacation in the exotic paradise of Wisconsin. Having thoroughly read Emily Post's "Essential Manners for Informal Scientific Conferences Volume III," I was prepared. But so many of my peers were unable to handle the complex mix of faculty, administration, and students. For you, here is a guide for proper conference manners.

1. Listening to presentations

Students have spent years of their lives compiling data, tweaking experiments, and wrestling with personal and professional failure to bring you 15 minutes of science. It is acceptable to fall asleep.

Pictured above: Or, as one of my peers demonstrated, you may also design and draw a tasteful headdress for the current speaker.

2. Talking to faculty

Professors are people, just like you. People that have unlimited power over you and hold your career in their hands like a delicate quail egg. It is best not to inquire as to why they are wearing sandals with jeans.

3. Drinking

As a teetotaler, this is not a problem for me. But for you all, you should remember that the type of alcohol is really key here. While it is very elegant to share a fine scotch with the Assistant Director by the fireplace, it is less graceful to be doing jello-shots with the Dean of Students.

4. Activities

Why not play some sports? Oh, yeah. You are a scientist.

Pictured above: "Hey, do you think we could sample some of the lake E. coli?"

So, Ivan Pavlov Walks Into a Bar...

I love Japanese food as much as the next half-Japanese guy, so you can imagine my excitement at getting some authentic food from my homeland. This time, it was a lovely establishment called Ginza Restaurant. However, I had to go with my "friends," many of whom haven't even BEEN to Japan. For insurance, I brought along a full Japanese person, but it turned out we didn't even need her, since I knew the Japanese password ("I have brought shame to myself and my family").

Pictured above: You heard me. I don't need you.

It was a fun night, as we were celebrating the end of our first summer research rotations. My friend Diego just ended his time in a pschiatric laboratory, so there were pyschology jokes abounds.

Pictured above: "And then the bartender says, 'That's not MY unconditioned stimulus!'"

Afterwards, as is tradition when I spend time with these people, I bought a cake/pie and try to consume it in its entirety. I failed.

Pictured above: I'll bet Kobayashi could have eaten it, along with the paper plates and glass table.

Fond Memories of a Mad Scientist

Today, on a very special episode of The Sartorial Skeptic, we will take a look back at the fond memories I had during my laboratory rotation in the Evanston campus of Northwestern University, as it will come to an end this week.

Pictured above: NOT Trash.

This is a pile of “NOT Trash” outside my lab. It seems odd to label something in the negative, perhaps reflecting upon the philosophical struggles of these everyday scientists. Every day I walk past it, and I have the urge to print off and add hundreds of sheets of paper labels of other things that they were not: “NOT Elephants,” “NOT Bombs,” “NOT People,” and so on, with one that just says “MAYBE a metaphor for human drive to stall the inevitability of death.”

Pictured above: Sign on the flammable (inflammable?) materials closet. Another victory for CAPS LOCK.

I'M SO GLAD THAT THE TOP OF THIS SHELF IS CLEAR. I FEEL VERY SAFE. OH, AND YOU'RE WELCOME. I WAS GOING TO PUT SOME FLAMMABLE MATERIALS ON TOP, BUT SINCE YOU SAID THANK YOU, I FELT COMPELLED TO OBLIGE. WHY ARE WE YELLING?

Pictured above: An anthropomorphized brain slicer.

See? Mad scientists know how to have fun. They put eyes and a mouth on this brain slicer, which is clearly humorous. Much better than the time that robot we built that could only experience pain escaped into the woods. The villagers thought that was much less funny.

Pictured above: Arch on campus. '06!

Ah, unnecessary quotation marks. What is the proper reading of this arch? Is it saying “06” ironically? Sarcastically? In my mind, the arch is saying “06” while rolling its eyes and wishing its parent arches weren't so square.

Pictured above: Farewell, university arch. You know, old-timey lantern, I think I just might miss you most of all.

Now, I am preparing for the brutal transition from professional student scientist to professional student doctor. Well, it's not that hard. It really just means wearing a slightly shorter white coat, though I am excited to have a real reason to wear a tie.

Science Initiation

You are about to hear about a ritual never before documented by modern investigation: the savage initiation into scientific research.

When men and women of "normal" professions, such as firemen or nurses, go through their daily lives, they are able to enjoy a reasonable amount of comfort. They know that there is vocational transparency in how they shoot water from a hose or stab children in the arm with needles. The public appreciates their service, often showing their gratitude in the form of popular song.

But what of that shady cabal of professionals known as "scientists"? They are universally feared for their excess of evil and unkempt hair, and thus remain a mystery. I penetrated their cult to shed some light on this dark, modern-day magick.

I entered the nefarious laboratory camera-in-hand, ready to capture evidence of hideous mutant, hybrid man-beasts or bubbling cauldrons of corrosive acids for alchemy (now outlawed all US States, with the exception of Massachusetts, where it is mandatory). But I instead found this:


Document A: The laboratory. This was the show-floor, available for public viewing, appeasing the expectations of a gullible populace. The real research was being conducted thirty stories below the earth, in the famous Northwestern science bunker/fallout shelter/fallout generator.

Upon my entrance, I was blindfolded and forced to recite the names of Nobel laureates. When I got to Linus Pauling, I was forced to drink a gallon of orange juice.

After a number of subsequent trials, including one where I had to identify each element of the periodic table by smell alone, I had become one of them. I had truly joined their ranks and become a scientist.


Document B: The trophy. I was presented this coffee mug as a testament to my initiation. Also, the phrase "Neurobiology & Physiology" was branded onto my back with a cattle iron.

My colleagues assured me that the cup will come in handy when I attend lengthy lab meetings or blood oaths. In either, it is important to stay hydrated.