Skunk Totem's Blog: A Twitter-Free, Facebook-Free Zone

I'm sick of Twitter and Facebook. More accurately, I'm sick of the craze that seems to obligate everyone to use social networking. Fans even dare to assert that shunning Facebook is a kiss of death to your career. It reminds me of the Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation: "Resistance is futile! You will be assimilated!"

At least the Borg are fiction.

I hope that Twitter and Facebook go the way of CB radio. (CB remains the ideal communications medium for truck drivers and volunteer emergency responders; it just isn't a dictatorial fad like in the late 1970s. So I'm not wishing TW and FB out of existence)

I'm hardly alone. Read this Omaha World-Herald article on the Slow Media Movement. It quotes and journalism professor Jennifer Rauch: "The movement attracts people who feel 'that some sort of boundaries need to be set;' that technologies should be chosen, not embraced blindly; should serve, not be served."

No, I don't drive a '72 Pinto with an 8-track player. I don't have a black-and-white TV. And if I hated the Internet, you wouldn't be reading this. But I am content with my Stupid Phone and a computer that must be plugged in. If I wrote books, I'd have them available on Kindle (but I read the old fashioned kind: no batteries required.) I, Ms. Rauch, and other "Slow Media" advocates bristle that we are Luddites or even "anti-broadband." We just want to take our technology in smaller doses. I love peanut butter, but that doesn't mean I want three pounds of it in one sitting or to put it on everything I eat.

Forget Nostradumbass prophecies: I figure we'll be doomed when the Old Order Amish are on Facebook.

A Long Overdue Tribute to Ted Andrews

Noted writer and teacher Ted Andrews passed away last October. I did not learn about it until some time later.

Ted's famous book, Animal Speak, inspired me to choose Skunk Totem as the name of this blog. It made apparent that the skunk is one of my major animal totems. I think if I were an animal, I probably would have ended up being a skunk. This often misunderstood (like me) animal teaches how to give and demand respect, and live peacefully among others. (Despite its reputation, skunks are pacifist animals and only spray in self-defense, usually as a last resort. They typically reciprocate how we treat them--good or bad).

Ted's legacy will live on.

OWLTHENA'S ROOST: Ted Andrews dies

On the light side in languages a few translated

Have you ever tried one of those online translation utilities, only to discover that the English "translation" is at best laughable or incomprehensible? As humanity continues to get more global, more people who speak different languages interact...and, well, I suspect human translators will have job security for years to come. A computer can only go so far (with current technology) and because each language is unique in its syntax, grammar, phonics (or no phonics at all) that automated translation may never be perfected.

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To Chinese-simplified and back:
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To Spanish and back:
You have always tried one of those utilities in line of the translation, to only discover that the "English translation" is in the best one of the cases ridiculous or incomprehensible? As the humanity continues obtaining more global, more people than speak diverse interactive languages... and, well, I we suspected that the human translators will have security in the use by the years to come. A computer can only go until now (with present technology) and because each language is unique in its syntax, grammar, phonics (or none phonics in all) that the translation automated can never be perfected.

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To Russian and back:
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And one more: To German and back:
Do you have at all one of that on-line translation of utility programs, only it tries, in order to discover that the English "translation" at best laughable is incomprehensible or? While humanity continues, to keep more global, those assume more people the different interacting languages... speak and well I that human translators have job security, so that years come. A computer can go only up to now (with present technology) and because each language in its syntax, grammar, Phonik is singular (or no Phonik at all) the translation automated, can be never perfected.

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Yes, the above is inviting admonitions to "get a life," (Obtains the life, Obtain a life, You will obtain the life, Receive a life).

Why are you working here...

...when you have a Ph.D.?" If I had a dollar for each time I've been asked this, well, money wouldn't be so tight. I can't hold it against someone to have such natural curiosity, but I've grown tired of 'splaining myself over and over and over...

Becoming a Ph.D. scientist was what Dr. Donald Clifton and Paula Nelson called a "misyearning" in their book, Soar with Your Strengths. Among the things that give rise to misyearnings are listening to others'"helpful" advice and ignoring your own heart and talent, or "going for the money" instead of answering your calling. In my case, I found a graduate fellowship that would pay me just enough to live on and give me an excuse to move out of my parent's house (Five-hundred mile
commutes (each way) just aren't doable). Moreover, I enjoyed my undergraduate years that led to a biology/chemistry degree and the pharmacology Ph.D. seemed a logical sequel.

I spent six years with a graduate advisor who is a very good scientist but not so adept at recognizing a misyearning. Instead, I got a lot of chiding about how I needed to develop initiative. The real problem was my heart wasn't really in it: I like my science the way it's presented in consumer drug books, Popular Science or on PBS. Through the 1990s, molecular biology and the Human Genome Project muscled their way into health science, and try as I might, I never quite "got" that field. Comprehending passages like, "In many black African populations, the capacity for CYP2D6-dependent drug metabolism is generally reduced. A specific variant of the CYP2D6 gene (CYP2D6*17) that carries three functional mutations (T107I, R296C, and S486T) ... (Oscarson et al, Molecular Pharmacology, Vol. 52, No. 6, 1034-1040, 1997)," was a hopeless ambition. I'm not disparaging this article or its authors. This is their area of strength, while my strengths lie elsewhere. Not to mention that the world of research can be a rat race wherein you're scrambling not to get "scooped."

Some people pooh-poohed my feelings as college stress. I didn't help myself by believing that as well. After a lot of soul-searching I concluded that I would rather be an architect (a childhood goal that faded to the background during undergrad school. But by that time, I was too close to the end to walk away without the degree.

The biggest mistake I made was to have no plan "B:" after a two-year postdoctoral stint near Washington, DC, I bailed out without having something else to get in to, and ended up working clerical jobs through a temp agency. It was hard enough to pay bills, to say nothing of spending money on AutoCAD training.

Yet, my education and experience provided plenty of skills that don't necessitate working at the bench. And designing buildings isn't the only thing that stirs my blood. When my first paper made it into a professional journal, I remember the rush I felt at the realization that "I'm an internationally published author." Nothing to make me famous, but just being in print was enough. Had I given it more thought
back then, I would have looked into freelance and other writing opportunities before my finances went down the toilet. That is the direction I'm looking at now.

The message to the reader is to look at what you enjoy doing now and can do well without having to go back to school. Don't just say, "I hate this and I want to be a ____." Above all be patient; I wasn't. Had I been willing to take a longer time to make the transition or come up with alternatives that would be partially satisfying, I probably would have been better off. The old cliché is right: hindsight is 20/20.