The juice and the squeeze

Episode 16: All we can do is the best we can do

March 24th, 2020  |  49 mins 47 secs

Things feel a little crazy at the moment but listening to podcasts can only help. Right? RIGHT? Julia and Jonathan share how they are approaching teaching and maintaining sanity during coronavirus lockdown. Slack, Zoom tea time, faux commutes, and Julia’s speakeasy (password: “password”).

Episode 15: Talking the talk

March 10th, 2020  |  59 mins 22 secs

Scientific talks are the topic and Jonathan and Julia offer a wide ranging set of thoughts on topics ranging from practice to laser pointers to imagining Julia sitting in the back row of your audience. In an unexpected moment of honesty Jonathan admits to usually wearing pants (AND trousers, by the way).

Episode 14: Bumps in the road

February 25th, 2020  |  48 mins 24 secs

Sometimes things don’t go according to plan, and sometimes this is OK. Jonathan and Julia talk about how we react when our plans don’t work out and offer a bit of specific advice for graduate school applicants. Julia doubts that ALL dolphins are friendly and helpful, and Jonathan shares about the time he was almost a wrestler.

Episode 13: You're not an imposter, and it's not a syndrome

February 11th, 2020  |  48 mins 28 secs

IMposter or imPOSter? However you pronounce it, Julia and Jonathan take on the topic of imposter syndrome, which as it turns out isn’t really a syndrome. Everyone experiences this to various degrees but gosh it can be hard to talk about. Maybe we can change the world by being more intentional about supporting each other in both our successes and not-knowing-and-it’s-OKings.

Episode 12: Just get something on paper

January 28th, 2020  |  46 mins 12 secs

Julia and Jonathan dive into the topic of writing, including when in a project we tend to write, some common challenges, and approaches that have worked for them (and which may, or may not, work for you). Some handy tricks involve phrases like “reverse outlining”, “word vomit”, and “parenthetical REF”. Jonathan has the most boring game ever to help him write. Challenge for the week: Find a paper that inspires you to write well, and share it with someone.

Episode 11: Academic seasons

January 14th, 2020  |  40 mins 59 secs

F/U related to Julia’s tenure and weaponry, and Jonathan’s sleep deprivation, before moving into discussing seasons of the academic year. How do we use these to help us plan and take advantage of when we have the most energy? Weekly challenge: send someone you know (which might be your future self) a nice note to encourage them. Speaking of mail, keep sending your email.

Episode 10: Floss the ones you want to keep

December 31st, 2019  |  42 mins 16 secs

To bring 2019 to a close Julia and Jonathan offer unsolicited advice on a wide range of topics, including health, finances, and computers. Don’t say we didn’t warn you! Julia gets an important phone call related to her career (insert suspenseful music).

Episode 9: Please consider it for publication in [Your Fine Journal]

December 17th, 2019  |  54 mins 56 secs

Jonathan and Julia talk about how we get our research published. What do we think about when picking a journal? When in the process do we pick a journal? What’s the deal with preferred/nonpreferred reviewers? The squeaky wheel gets the grease, but when's a reasonable time to start squeaking?

Episode 8: Find your own chunk size

December 3rd, 2019  |  54 mins 5 secs

Winter is here, prompting a discussion of clothing and coziness before getting into the how and the why of organization systems (especially to-do lists and calendar-related things). Breaking things down into meaningfully-sized chunks is good (with a real-world example from manuscript writing). Good calendar hygiene is important.

Episode 7: Too much stuff in the closet

November 19th, 2019  |  42 mins 24 secs

Jonathan and Julia tackle the topic of things that distract us from what we are dHEY look a squirrel!!! There’s a balance between being focused and having the freedom to explore. If there are too many things in your closet, they won’t fit neatly, and you might just have to get rid of something. Jonathan loves the IRB.

Episode 6: Aggressively friendly

November 5th, 2019  |  47 mins 23 secs

Sometimes it works to just go to a conference and wander around, but more often having a strategy is useful. Probably trying to do EVERYTHING will not be a winning strategy. Networking just means making friends with people who are interested in similar things as you and makes conferences way more fun. One of your hosts is much more likely than the other to strike up conversations with nearby strangers.

Episode 5: A pile of no's

October 22nd, 2019  |  52 mins 43 secs

Julia’s favorite holiday is approaching and we all wish we could attend her Halloween party. Follow up to a listener email about how to handle new requests for work prompts a long discussion about how we choose what projects to work on in general. We should all be saying “no” to a lot of things but don’t.

Episode 4: 95 percent lean

October 8th, 2019  |  36 mins 50 secs

Among all of the facts, focusing on positive ones (instead of negative ones) can help keep us in a good mental place. Julia both hates and loves running and the mysterious woman who encourages her. A double-edged challenge for next time: reframe something positively to ourselves, and reframe something positively for someone else.

Episode 3: Join the resistance

September 24th, 2019  |  43 mins 18 secs

After a brief diversion for f/u we have a quick chat about the importance of having a website if you’re an academic. Taking time off from work (during the day, week, or year) seems VERY important for both happiness and productivity. But it's hard to do. Join the resistance and sharpen your saw (all credit to Julia's mom). We would all like to handle email the way Donald Knuth does but that's probably unrealistic.

Episode 2: Low-hanging fruit

September 10th, 2019  |  44 mins 13 secs

How do we know what we are bad at, and what do we do about it (if anything)? Tupperware containers, face recognition, mental math, and grantwriting make the list. One of us may or may not have been a childhood chess prodigy. Sometimes just jumping in and doing something (like writing a grant or learning a programming language) is helpful at reducing anxiety. Deciding what kind of bad we are seems worthwhile. Some things are important to just try. Of all the things we are bad at, how do we decide what (if anything) to work on improving?

Episode 1: Winding Roads

September 3rd, 2019  |  39 mins 36 secs

career

In their first ever podcast Julia and Jonathan talk about how many people’s careers don’t go in a straight line, and how this is often OK (but beware of survivorship bias). In the course of talking about their own career paths Julia reveals the costume she wore while bartending and Jonathan sort of but not really promises to play the horn sometime. Jonathan decides to double down on self-serving bias when writing grants.