Housekeeping

Today I spent the day planning and tying up loose ends online. Now that my new volunteers have gotten started on the unfinished pages of the Space Exploration area, I decided it was time to go around and update all our profiles and links scattered around the web. Since I only visit a small number of these sites on a regular basis, it's easy to lose track of just how much I posted beyond the boundaries of the AARI site. In fact, I only come to realize just how busy I've been (trying to publicize AARI) when I open my password booklet to try and figure out how to log in to a site I haven't visited in months-- then I see just how many there are... Most people use only a few passwords and they tend to be people, places or things of significance to that person. I'm a stickler when it comes to security so it's pretty unusual for me to re-use passwords and I NEVER use all lowercase letters or just one word either! As for the booklet, I keep it locked up in a hidden safe box most of the time and only one other person on Earth knows where it is.

At any rate, I've had all these plans... things I've been meaning to get around to for the longest time. For instance, we created pages linked to our website for two educational sites we had planned to launch several months ago ("Learn with Laika" and "Future Lab @ AARI"). With all the fundraising activities (opening/running the gift shop, participating in shows and exhibitions, advertising), paperwork/red tape (for funding), a move (back to Canada from Boston, where AARI was born), planning for a second move (when we branch out to the UW-Madison campus next year), financial/business planning, research proposals... it's no wonder I took up making jewelry to soothe my frazzled nerves! Life was so much easier when I was a tech (being instructed not to think or question anything, no less!) but I just couldn't bear having to replicate and reproduce other people's work any longer. Some of us really aren't content to copy. I was hungry for something new and challenging and I sure found it, didn't I?

I'm already contemplating the next blog entry. In fact, I posted a survey about it on Facebook. Depending on how members of a certain group vote, content of a more personal nature may or may not appear in the next entry... (yes, I have to leave you hanging).

Until next time...

AARI's First Volunteers & Finding the Right Balance

I've been hesitating for a long time but I finally went through with it... and recruited some volunteers to help us out at AARI. Given how much we've grown over the last year, it's become almost impossible to manage everything on our own. Since we cannot afford to hire staff right now, there was really only one other solution-- to hand over "my baby" to the general public. That was the original goal all along but I just never expected to do so this soon. In a way, I'm relieved. It was getting increasingly difficult to be in several places at once and next year, there will be even more demands on my time as I embark on the final path to completing my formal education.

Speaking of which, I am pleased to share with you that today I was accepted to another graduate program; this one at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France. In all honesty, I never really expected to get in and without scholarships, I certainly wouldn't be able to go (at a cost of just over 33,000 euros). Still, it's nice to be wanted, and I appreciate the offer, but it just goes to show that my personal and professional life is undergoing a metamorphosis, of sorts. Now is the time to learn how to delegate responsibility to others-- while I still have time to make a few mistakes along the way; not next year when I will be trying to get my bearings in Madison.

I keep thinking about what Clark Johnson said about balancing my committments. With all the attractive offers that have come my way lately, it's really important that I learn to prioritize and plan. I don't want to ditch AARI just to have more free time to devote to UW. At the same time, I don't want my responsibilites at AARI to threaten opportunities at UW either. It's only March-- still plenty of time to find the key to balancing everything. So long as I don't wait until the last minute to get it right, we should be fine... right?

Updating AARI's Online Profiles

Those who have been following AARI's development over the past year are familiar with the veritable plethora of profiles we have scattered across the Internet. In the beginning, when we were just starting out, it seemed like the most cost-effective way to spread the word about our organization and its mission (to create it's own "footprint" on the astrobiology scene). It was about a year ago that we finally settled on the name, "Atlantis Astrobiology Research Institute". Before that, we had tentatively called ourselved, "The Jordan Protocell Society", following a few years before, where on paper, AARI went under the acronym, SARC (Sault Astrobiology Research Center). While the creation of various profiles affiliated with AARI brought us a fair amout of visibility, our name-changing meant littering cyberspace with links under a variety of names and aliases. This week, we finally decided to change all that.

As I type, I am currently uploading videos to our new YouTube channel (AtlantisAstrobiology) and keeping everyone posted on our new Twitter account (AtlantisAstro). I don't expect a huge following on either site but at least now we have our bases covered-- just in case I happen to be wrong!

Delegating Responsibility & A Few Words About UW

I'm about ready to tear my hair out... I haven't been able to write for nearly 2 weeks because I just can't seem to cram it into my ridiculously busy schedule. For a while, I was doing so well keeping up with it too! Then, I went to Madison for the Department of Geology & Geophysics' recruitment weekend (at the University of Wisconsin-Madison) and it all fell to pieces.

Seriously, I am going to have to learn to let go a little and delegate some responsibility to other people here. I can't be trying to do it all next year when I take off for Madison (yes, I have officially decided to complete my PhD there). In fact, I even discussed how I was going to handle AARI (while I'm there) with Dr. Clark Johnson, who heads the astrobiology program. In his words, "It will sure be a balance!" He wasn't kidding! So now, I'm toying with the idea of bringing some volunteers on board to help out. With nearly 200 people in our Facebook group, I'm sure we can find a half a dozen, or so good people... It's just difficult to place your baby in someone else's arms and as far as I'm concerned, with all the time and effort I've invested in AARI over the past year, it might as well be my own flesh and blood.

I keep meaning to post a nice entry about my trip and how wonderful everyone was in Madison, how incredible the astrobiology program is there, and how great it is that all the machinery in the labs there is virtually self-shielding (a very big deal for someone with implanted medical devices like myself). Maybe that doesn't seem like much, but after the last lab I worked in (where there was an unshielded NMR that practically banned me from an entire hallway), I just wanted to do a happy dance right there in Weeks Hall! Oh, joy! Somebody actually anticipated having someone like me work there! I suppose I shouldn't have been so surprised. When I was choosing NASA Astrobiology Institute-affiliates, UW really stood out as a place that cherishes diversity (they even awarded me a minority research assistantship on top of their already-generous offer). As you can tell, I'm really excited about going there. Heck, I even have a PR-guy there already who felt the need to introduce me as, "This is Heather and she has a website!" Gotta spread the word about AARI! Given his extensive outreach work with the UW-Madison Geology Museum there, I'm sure he has plenty of experience!

See, Jason? I told you this was going to wind up in my blog! Just because the details of that little "field trip" you took us all on isn't in here yet, doesn't mean that it won't ever be! Just you wait until I have an entire day to myself with nothing to do...

Hey.... would you look at that! I actually got around to putting in a blog entry today! That just made my day... whew!

This is me (left) with Andrew Honma (current graduate student; center) and Eric (fellow recruit; right) at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art on State St. in Madison, Wisconsin. Photo taken by Jie Xu.