On Lush

OK, I'm tired of blogging about "heavy" subjects, which I've been doing a lot recently. It's like I don't have any interest outside of work, work, and more work. So here's my new favorite brand... Lush, and the Lush products that I love.

This is a toner tab (the one shown is tea tree... there are a few other  types). I use this after using a facial scrub and before putting on a face mask. Pour hot, boiling water into a big bowl and drop a toner tab into the bowl. Cover your head with a towel, and steam your face for 15 minutes or so. I think when I used this toner tab 2-3 times a week, my face became clearer  with less breakouts.

This is a lip scrub made mostly from sugar. Use it to scrub your lips to remove dead skin, and lick the stuff off afterwards. Melur and Arman love to use this product too... tastes like candy.

Use this in the shower to scrub, right after showering with soap. Could be a little bit hard on the skin (maybe I was scrubbing too hard?), but you'r skin feels softer afterward. Usually I could use 1 bar for 3 scrubbing sessions. I love the smell... a mix of spices and lavender.

This was the first Lush product that I used. This is a feet scrub. Great smell... like lemon grass. But I don't use this product anymore, because I switched to the overall body scrub above. 

This is my favorite product from Lush - the face mask. I've tried 3 types so far - BB seaweed, brazened honey, and  love lettuce.  I use the BB seaweed regularly, but the other two I've only tried once each. Brazened honey has this tingly feel to it when you leave it on... some people might not like that. I don't mind it so I'll use it again. But I won't be going back for love lettuce because I don't think it was doing anything to my skin. I think I want to try other face masks - e.g., cupcake and catastrophe cosmetic.

So far I've only tried two types of soap from Lush - Sultana and Lust. I like Lust better... though I'm not sure why they call this Lust. The smell is more fresh rather than romantic (floral). I would relate romantic/floral to Lust, rather than the fresh smell. Anyway, the smell of the soap wakes you up in the morning... good way to start the day.

I don't know how to pronounce this exactly, but this is a hair mask that you wear for 20 minutes or more. I usually put this on for about an hour with a shower cap. The smell could be a bit "over powering" (OK, it smells a bit), but my hair gets quite soft (less frizz) after using this product.

On the Academic Jobtalk

A big part of academic recruiting is the job talk. In the job talk, you are supposed to give a presentation on your current research (what you did for your dissertation) and your future research. The job talk could be from 60 to 90 minutes. Expect a lot of questions during and after your presentation.

Today, I had the opportunity to attend a mock job talk by another student in the department. He's going for a campus visit next week. The few things that I learned from his presentation:

1. Try to find out who will be attending your job talk. This will help you tailor (as much as possible) your presentation to the crowd. You don't want to throw out too many jargon when you have somebody outside of the field in the crowd.

2. Start by thanking people for attending, and thanking people for inviting you to their school.

3. Set the ground rule in the beginning - whether your audience are welcome to ask questions during your presentation. If you don't say anything, then the rule is they have to wait until the end of your talk. You might be tempted to have all questions at the end, but to have questions during your talk will make it more engaging. You want to be engaging!

4. Go into the topic with a good catch - e.g., a problem in the industry and how this problem is widespread. This is also a good way to frame the audience's thoughts; they'll relate your work to solving problem X.

5. Remember that you are selling yourself in several ways, including:
    a. As a researcher - give them some details of your work to show rigor;
    b. As a teacher - make sure you can be engaging and can explain complex problems/issues well; and
    c. Your overall credibility - drop in hints on your past experience or close working experience with practitioners (e.g., "Oh, I saw this when I was working as such and such," or "Yes, I saw many organizations do it this way which was problematic"). In other words, bring in your experience and your observations from research/readings.
You can also relate the anecdote (item 4) with points b and c (e.g., "When I was working for such and such, this problem occurred... and I saw this throughout my years as a practitioner."). Try to remember that you are selling yourself... and inject some points that relate to a, b and c throughout your talk.

6. Watch your body language - no repetitive movements (e.g., walking from left to right continuously). Perhaps have a script for yourself - e.g., slide 1 do x, y and z; slide 2 do b, c and z.
     a. Know what to do with your hands - e.g., hold something. Laser pointers are good.

7.  Make your slides interesting. Not too many words, or too flashy. However, some (use good judgement) animations or highlights (especially your contributions or interesting aspects to your work) are good. Do not put anything that you won't refer to during your presentation.

8. Connect with your slides - i.e., use laser pointers to point to certain parts.

9. Don't be apologetic - e.g., instead of saying "I used theory X, I know it is old but...." say 'I used theory X in such and such way, this is a new and interesting way to use theory X because..."

10. Put energy and enthusiasm in presenting your work. Perhaps it is useful to have the mind set that you are presenting your work to disbelievers, and you are trying to convince them how important/life changing your work is.

11. Know yourself, the way you present is a reflection of your personality. Some people are introverts, others are extroverts. Some people can inflect their voices rather well, while others speak in a calm and soothing way. Know the strengths and weaknesses; leverage the strengths and try to minimize the negative effects of weaknesses. For example, somebody with calm/soothing way in speaking may sound more confident but at the same time the presentation can be a bit monotonous. Be wary about these things, and create suitable strategies for yourself.

12. Highlight the interesting parts of your research - explicitly! - and explain why. For example, "I found X to be maroon so this is important because everybody says X is blue." People (especially those outside of your research area) may not know this.

13. Remember to spend time on future research, especially what you intend to do within the next 5 years. Make sure you make it clear the question you are addressing in your dissertation (current research), and the questions you will address within the next 5 years (future research). Go ahead, show them your agenda for world domination.
Actually, your future colleagues like to know what will be in your research grant application and that you are not a one hit wonder.

14. Relate your current and future work to the school that you are going to as much as possible. For example, if you are going to a school that does a lot of IT and healthcare, add something along the lines of "I saw problem X in many fields, healthcare for example has problem X, I think my work can be extended to healthcare... you can do a lot of research about problem X utilizing the perspective of such and such theory."

15. Try to find good metaphors for your ideas; metaphors are interesting and make things easy to understand.

These are the comments given to the presenter. I think I got most of them down, and hopefully by writing them in this blog I'll be able to refer to them when I'm doing my job talk (sometime in early 2014). Academic is "bukan main-main hal punya," and the job talk could make or break your application.

So glad I got a chance to attend this one!

On Why a PhD? (Part 2)

I missed the mark on answering the question "why a PhD." I focused too much on the negatives, the answers are more toward "why I didn't quit," and I listed 5 instead of 10 reasons. Here's my second try. But before I go on, I need to re-focus the question... I want a PhD because it qualifies me for an academic job. I choose the academia as my career because:

(1). I have a certain degree of flexibility in terms of the research work that I take up. That's a lot of flexibility, compared to most jobs out there. In a way, I am my own boss.

(2). I can be creative. I need to push myself to see things differently than others. I need to be able to argue that what I have to show is indeed different from others.

(3). I can question everything. I am supposed to question everything. At the same time, my work will be questioned by others as well. The former is great, but the latter is something that I'm learning to accept. I honestly think I'm getting better at being questioned (not necessarily addressing these questions), but responding and taking the questions in a more positive manner. I find myself wanting more and more feedback. In the last discussion I had with my SV and he had so much comments on the paper I wrote. But I remember thinking how great that was - go ahead, better being shred to pieces now rather than later on by the actual reviewers.

(4). There's constant learning. A lot of reading (great if you enjoy reading).

(5). I can travel a few times a year for conferences. I can (hopefully at one point in the future) take a sabbatical leave somewhere interesting. I have so far traveled to Shanghai (great!), Regina (the company was great), and UK. I'm planning for conferences in Orlando and Hawaii this year.

(6). I enjoy reviewing, which is a part of academic life. My philosophy on reviewing is not to reject (to show how scholarly I am), but to give constructive comments to help the authors. In the end, I want to help the authors develop their paper into the best paper possible.

(7). I can work wherever I want. Working from home is acceptable as long as I achieve my target.

(8). There's a great sense of accomplishment in publishing and presenting your work. There's a great sense of acknowledgement in being cited. Here's an opportunity to leave a legacy... to have your name remembered.

(9). Teaching could be enjoyable. It really depends on the chemistry you have between yourself and your (future) students. Sometimes you'll have the honor and pleasure of teaching students who are willing to put in the effort to learn.

(10). Stationery galore! - You'll always have an excuse to buy highlighters, notebooks, pencils, etc. Hey, you can compete with Staples if you want to.

Yup, I'm finally done with this list. This is good. This is a start...