Caught.

I've been outed. I'm afraid I haven't been following the rules laid out by Peter in another QD blog entry. In particular I failed at rule #4, since I have never mentioned this blog to my boss nor to my coworkers. Why have I been so secretive? I genuinely thought QD was going to be completely unpopular and no one was going to read it. I mean, please, a blog about the lives of physicists?! So I thought I could keep the blog as more of a journal for myself, rather than have people actually read it. See ... no reason to share it, if nobody knows about it.

Then the Symmetry article came out. Granted the article is good publicity for our experiment, but it makes me cringe a little bit. Although it's good at explaining the physics, the language glosses over the group aspect of this experiment (which is a collaboration of SLAC, USC and UCLA). Instead there is language like "O'Connell envisions ..." O'Connell doesn't do s**t but take data and write a thesis to graduate. There are much more qualified individuals envisioning the future than me and, unfortunately, that isn't made very clear.

So some serious razzing has come my way as a result of this article, which caused an unnamed person's googling me and sharing it with a coworker, which finally concluded with that coworker outing me. This is not the scenario I wanted. Now I just hope I can avoid the "Chapter not ready, were you spending too much time blogging?" comments.

Comments

[Alejandro Rivero]

We, your readers, should understand if you dissapear for a time for the thesis...

[Sean]

I won't argue; it's true that some people will give you a hard time for having the blog (as well as for the article in symmetry). But it's just sour grapes. What they don't appreciate is that it's outreach efforts from people like you that keep the money flowing to people like them. When you are writing the blog, you are really selflessly toiling for a greater good. Keep it up!

[Gustav]

Sean: yes, outreach effort it is. But I wouldn't be surprised if the QD blog system will also be used as a more internal communication system, where physicists write for and read other physicists' blogs.

[Mike]

Don't let them put you off. I enjoy reading your posts. So keep up the good work!

[Matt]

Well, poo. No writer, particularly an upstart like myself, wants to hear their source say the article makes them "cringe." So I am sorry for that. My goal was to tell a story from a slightly more personal angle...

But really, if I had gotten the impression that you "don't do s**t except take data and write a thesis," I probably would have looked elsewhere for a source. As your blog readers can attest, you're very good at describing what you do, and you do it with wit and humor. In short, you're a science writer's dream source. How could I resist?

As for balancing the blog and your thesis, I'll make one humble suggestion... Next time someone gets on your case, just retort with a quote from the late, great Dr. Feynman: "You cannot develop a personality with physics alone, the rest of your life must be worked in."

You might be interested to see this: http://preposterousuniverse.blogspot.com/2005_04_01_preposterousuniverse_archive.html#111352281743888136

[Sacha]

Hi- Don't let co-workers bother you. I am a co-worker of another QD blogger, and I don't trouble her to describe all the 'we' in what she writes about. The blogs are meant to tell your story to others, not to describe your work for your colleagues (I suspect there are more than a few shared efforts being described in these blogs). On the other hand, we thesis advisors do like to keep tabs on our students....