What's in a name

Choosing a name for myself on this adventure was probably the most difficult task I faced in setting up this blog. My husband suggested FemaleScienceGraduateStudent, modeled after FemaleScienceProfessor, a favorite blogger of his. Although I am very proud to be a female scientist, I balked at being so narrowly defined. It is one of my pet peeves that when I meet new people and tell them that I am a physicist they almost unanimously reply either: "I didn't like physics in high school." or "Wow. You must be really smart." And then the conversation dies. Apparently, I can't be related to by a non-scientist. Nor am I expected to have other, non-sciency, aspects of my life upon which we might find common ground. Although I intend to use this blog to talk mostly about my life in science, and realize that most of my followers will likely be scientists, I still prefer to describe my musings more broadly. As well, I find that a fair number of my graduate school woes stem from the fact that, in my lab, I'm a physicist swimming in a sea of biologists, and the tide can be overwhelming. So I decided to give my blog the moniker Interdisciplinary Introspective. Welcome to my world.