We don't have the flu

At least I think not. We haven't been able to see a doctor, given that we are abroad and I didn't want to go to the emergency room - where we would be sure to catch something in the waiting room.

Anyway, while I am sure that whatever is affecting various members of my family at different times is not serious, the situation still sucks. I am in one of the most idealized cities on the planet and I spend my days in a poorly lit flat with two children. One mostly wants to be held and drink milk - all day long - the other instead spends his day watching cartoons on a laptop. So on top of being grounded I also feel like the ultimate mothering failure because I have completely lost control of the situation since the beginning of this "holiday" and my older son is now a tv addict. And he might have bronchitis too.

It could be worse...

... it could rain. No wait, it was raining already.
I know, the kids could be sick! Right.

Now all I need to know is: is this a cold, brought on by jumping in the puddles at the park the other day, or is this The Flu?

A Paris

We are in Paris. Dad is here to work, mom is here to look after the children and get a glimpse of this charming city for the first time.

Do I recommend visiting Paris with two children under three in tow? Not really. In rainy weather? Just our luck.. And when I see some little characteristic cafe I think how different this trip could be if it were just the two of us.

But, while we were waiting in line for tickets at the Tour Eiffel, my son was looking up at the lights on the Tower singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" with his little voice. Can you beat that for cuteness?

The Good (The Bad and The Ugly coming soon...)

This month's theme for the Scientiae carnival is what do you like about being in science, or at least what gets you through your day :)

I am not really in science right now, I am on a long maternity leave from my postdoc position, but since it is a question that I ask myself everyday let me give this topic a shot.

The last time I felt really excited about my job was in my last year of grad school, when I was expecting my first baby and applying for my first postdoc. Quite unexpectedly I got some very good job offers and I found myself being able to choose between some of my dream research places. I had to turn down the best offers in favor of something a little less flashy but more realistic for my new family situation - long story - but I felt confident that I could do some great work no matter where I was.

It turned out that I was wrong about many things, starting with the idea that the offer I ended up accepting would be the most family friendly one. I don't want to talk about all the things that went wrong though, because that would make for a very depressing post and that is not my intention right now.

Instead, I want to take a moment to think why I feel different about my work now. When I was a student there would be times when my thoughts were completely taken by the project I was working on. It would be the last thought before going to bed and the first thought in the morning. At other times things were slower and I struggled to find my path, but I had all the time in the world - too much time for my own good I used to think - to go back and forth between ideas, journal articles, some nice math book found in the library and so on.

I know some people keep working like that throughout their careers and in fact sometimes it seems that the whole system is designed for such people. People who call their collaborators late at night because they kept thinking about some problems and suddenly got an idea and want to discuss it right away. I get it, it is very exciting and I loved doing science like that, as if it were the most important thing in the world.

With children though, that wouldn't feel right - forget realistically possible. You have to split your time between different responsibilities and your job is just one of them, sometimes not even the most pressing one. So suddenly research is just a regular job, 9 to 5 at best if I can find good child care and of course I am jealous of my colleagues who seem to be able to live like eternal graduate students even with a family at home. And yet probably even if I had a stay at home husband I still wouldn't spend my nights at the office chasing some ideas or finishing off a paper. As I said, that wouldn't feel right anymore.

But, since this is meant to be an optimistic post, let me end with some self-encouraging thoughts. In spite of all the (few) ups and (many) downs of the past few years I can't forget how doing scientific research used to make me completely happy at times. Doing something challenging and being good at it in your own unique way is a great feeling and I suppose I could say that pursuing that feeling is the reason why I want to be in science. That and being part of a worldwide community of interesting and stimulating people. If I were to drop out these are the things I would really miss.

The Rain is coming

Monsoon weather, as seen from my balcony.


This is the North-East Monsoon, reaching Chennai a bit late this year. I hope to get some real rain pictures soon, but we are heading to Europe on Saturday for a couple of weeks, so it might have to wait until we come back.

A link and some confused thoughts

Please go and read this post, and the comments too. It is nothing new, just a mother who has too little time and energy to do it all and is feeling guilty about it, but for some reason it really hit me - and not just me it seems, judging by the number of comments.

The thing is, as one one commenter said, even if we don't buy into the models presented to us of what a perfect mother should be, we still have our own idea of perfection and usually we feel that we are falling short.

I am on maternity leave and spending my whole day with my baby, but I feel that I am not giving him the attention he needs, and I also feel like a failure because I am not able to maintain my sanity with two kids in the house and so my older son goes to daycare. When he is home I feel guilty if he is spending too much time in front of tv and if I give him my full attention I feel bad because I am ignoring his brother.

So you see I don't think I am a better mother because I spend more time with my children. At the same time though, I can't say I think it's ok to spend only a couple of hours a day with one's child and I don't think my saying it would make that mother feel any better. What one should try and accept is that there are times when taking care of a child can be really hard and it is probably fine to just survive until things get better. I really don't think the answer is for all mothers to just stay home with their children, I just wish we could have it all, even though deep down something tells me it is not possible. Nobody should be blamed for trying, though.

Who am I?

This is not my first attempt at blogging. When I gave it a try the first time, a couple of years ago, my profile said:

I am a woman in my late twenties and a theoretical physicist. I am also the mother of a very cute few months old child and the happy half of a geographically challenged, but otherwise close to perfect, marriage.

Reading this now makes me smile. :) I am dangerously approaching the end of my twenties and I am once again the mother of a cute few months old child, so that makes two. I no longer think that my marriage is perfect, but we are also much closer to solve our geographical problems than we were two years ago, although this is unfortunately happening at the expense of my career. Not that my husband hasn't made sacrifices, but it just so happened that my job situation was less robust than his and so it suffered more. In fact I am not sure anymore if I can think of myself as a theoretical physicist, but after much thought I have realized that I really do want to keep thinking of myself as a scientist. How to make that possible is what I am trying to figure out at the moment.

I need a space to lay out my thoughts, hence the return of the blog. It will be about being a mother and a woman (struggling to remain) in science. It will probably also be about cultural differences and living in India, which is my husband's home country, as a western woman. Other than this, I am not sure what I will feel like writing about, which is why I am leaving the title so vague for the moment. Let's first see if the blog lasts more than a few weeks and then maybe I will worry about giving it a more definite identity.

I blog pseudonymously mostly because I am shy and also because I don't want this blog to come up if someone googles my name when I submit my next job application. Having said this, I don't have any illusion that if someone wanted to know who I am that wouldn't be too hard. What I have written in this first post already narrows it down quite a bit. What you will not easily find out though, is what my pseudonym means: that is my most guarded secret :)

One final note: as it is probably clear, English is not my mother tongue. If anybody out there is reading this, please forgive the grammar...