not to mention the female earth scientists?

I read a number of blogs on a regular basis. Many focused on how to navigate through grad school and all the way to the ivory tower. Before the birth of blogging i found similar stories elsewhere. I have read my fair share of books, articles, websites on how to do your Masters Thesis, how to write a dissertation, how to manage your advisor, how to get a job in academia/ outside academia/ anywhere ... and I love them all. Not because they make me a better scholar. Most of them haven't made much of a difference to my academic accomplishments, except as a way of getting even further behind schedule when the time slot for "doing research" went into reading about how-to-do-research rather than actually doing any.

But occassionally one stumbles across real gems - like real people's stories. People who are like me. Who seem to be regular persons, with regular lives. Who have friends and families and make wrong choices and sometimes do something really stupid, AND who still managed to jump through all the hoops, land academic jobs and dare say out loud what it's really like.

As so many others in my generation, I am the first PhD2b in my family. I didn't realize that I would go for a PhD until shortly before applying to the programme and even then I had no imagination of doing research for a living. Not because I didn't like it. I finished a research intensive Masters programme previously and did well, but because I felt like a fish out of the water. The few PhD students I had any sort of interaction with, seemed to be extraordinaryly intelligent, completely caught up in their research, working 24/7 and - mostly men. The only people I knew who had an academic carreer were the faculty at my institution and a few of their collegues, most of whom were twice my age and also men. I "grew up" in the academic culture of never-let-anyone-know-if-you're-not-on-top-of-everything and whatever-happens-be cool. Not exactly my mirror image.

Besides the age and gender differences these people are probably not that different from myself, but the perpetual game face precludes me from knowing. It also precluded me from any ambitions of walking in their footsteps. I do like my subject and I CAN talk passionately about it for hours and days, but I DO also have other interests in life and I DO NOT support the culture, that we should never let anyone know, if we find anything difficult. That's why it has been such a relief for me for to find carreer advice books, chronicles, blogs, online forums etc. where real people tell their real stories. It may sound odd, but I've gotten more carreer inspiration from these sources than from most human beings I have actually met.

That's why I wonder. Where are my earth science peers? Most of the blogs I read on academic matters are written by students/professors in the humanities. While they are certainly good reads and offer plenty of recognition and inspiration on more general matters, I am still on the lookout for role models in my own field. While procrastinating yesterday I googled for a range of combinations of the words "blog", "geology", "geologist" and the like, and I did manage to dig out a few personal blogs - written by men, twice my age and focused on scientific news. I checked it out again today and ended up with a world of blogs about creationism (and that's a whole other story).... doesn't look like my peers are out there really. I don't know. Maybe they have no problems ever, maybe they don't like to write about themselves, maybe I just didn't find them. Too bad because other earth science academics2b, may look for inspiration as well.

As a rare breed this blog is not about geology as much as it is about the interface between the professional and the personal life of a geologist. I wish there were more of these out there. I would read your posts. Until then I will admit failures, fears and joys on these pages free of charge.