Aw, shucks!

I disappear and become a bad, bad infrequent blogger, and instead of all of you ditching me, the fabulous Addy N. has nominated me as a:

My first blog award! *small wriggle of excitement*

/begin{shameless self-promotion}
She says: I really enjoy reading Elli's blog about her experiences as a graduate student. I think she is much more together than I was when I was in grad school! I think blogging is a great outlet for all of us working our way through research and writing. Keep up the great work, Elli!
/end{shameless self-promotion}


:)!

I'll take this as a kick in the behind to start writing more regularly! (and, "together"? Clearly Addy N. hasn't seen me on my "where are my keys?!?/I'm locked out!!!/Call the building manager!!!/No, just break in!!!/...no, the keys are in my pants pocket" days :P) Office space issues have finally been worked out and my summer is kicking into high gear, so I'll have plenty of fodder for posts.

For now, I get to tag five people! Woohoo!* Some of the people aren't actually on my blogroll yet, but I'll be updating that soon. And I KNOW some of these are repeats, but I can't help it - their blogs are just too cool:

ScienceWoman: I know girls my age who read chick lit over and over because they dream of being fashionable professional shoppers in The Big Apple, just like the main character. ScienceWoman's blog is my chick lit - I read it over and over because that's what I want to be doing someday!!! (so if the large number of multiple hits from one person were freaking you out, never fear, it's just me geeking out in the archives :P) Even though it's not all fun and games, it's a great example that a woman in science can make life work, and work well!


Jenny F. Scientist: it was reading her blog that gave me the idea to start my own. She writes extremely thoughtful and relevant posts, and I'm always happy to see a new post pop up over there.

Female Science Professor: again, a blog I see as a role model. And she has this creepy clairvoyance in constantly writing about issues that are on my mind at the moment. She has a lot of good things to say about being a scientist AND a female scientist at that, and I learn a lot by reading her blog.


StyleyGeek: I like birds, I like to laugh, and I love how she writes. I'm an archive-crawler (this is an amazing way to procrastinate), and her archive is a blast to read. I think this about many bloggers, but with StyleyGeek it's the most prominent - if she ever wants to ditch this whole Ph.D. business she'd have a great career as a comic writer.

Geeka: I stumbled across this blog more recently, I think thanks to Scientiae, but it's really fun to read. She's also a great writer, and since I work in a very non-labby discipline, reading about biomedical stuff is both educational and fascinating!

Thanks to these and all of the other blogs I read. They're inspiring, reassuring, and sometimes downright hilarious, and it's been awesome to have a sort of therapy/support network spring up as a result of blogging, whether its via carnivals or comments or just poking around. It helps me keep going - I really think it makes me a better grad student to realize how many of us are out there and how many people have faces the same or worse problems as me and come out the other side doing great! So thanks for the awesome pink button, and please, everyone, keep writing!!!

*As a disclaimer, I'm new to all these new-fangled bloggy technologies, so I'm "tagging" by linking to people. I FOUND my tag during my regular reading of Addy N.'s blog. So apologies if I do this wrong.