How a scientist's worth is measured in academia

I promised myself that I wouldn’t post too many work-related pieces anymore, mostly because there’s so little about modern workplaces these days that is positive in my estimation. Most of the posts would just be depressing. You might think that 'noble' academia would be somewhat better than non-academic workplaces that are simply out to make a profit, but you'd be wrong. After reading this article online yesterday, I simply had to comment on it, as depressing as it is. It is a tragic real-life story of a gifted scientist in England named Stefan Grimm who simply couldn’t take the pressure of the ‘business of science’ anymore and committed suicide (http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/imperial-college-professor-stefan-grimm-was-given-grant-income-target/2017369.article; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2861588/Professor-dead-cash-row-Cancer-scientist-said-told-fellow-academics-chiefs-treated-like-s.html). Before he did, he wrote an email to his colleagues telling them about what had happened to him and how his workplace had treated him. This incident took place in England, but I can assure you that the ‘business of science’ in Norway is no different. Universities and research institutes treat their scientists in much the same way; the only difference is that universities here cannot fire their scientists for not hauling in huge amounts of grant money, because scientists are unionized and that affords them some protection. But if they could, universities and research institutes would fire scientists without money because they are a drain on the workplace; it doesn’t matter if they have years of expertise, if they are professors and can teach, or even if they write articles and publish frequently. This country is no different than any other westernized capitalistic country in the world when it comes to worshiping money, even if it likes to think otherwise about itself.

For those of you who romanticize the world of academic scientific research, this article should rid you of any notion that there is anything idealistic or even noble about academic research these days. There isn’t. Firstly, it’s BIG BUSINESS now, and it’s been big business for a while. Money is the operative word. Those who make it to the top and gain power, those who are ‘successful’, are those who drag in hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in grant awards. In other words, your funding is ALL that matters; it defines your worth in your workplace—period, and if you don’t get funding, you are worth nothing to your workplace. Even if you got funding five or ten years ago, not one person who sits in a leadership position cares about that or even cares enough to remember that; the ONLY thing that matters is: did you get funding this year, this month, this week? And did you get a lot of funding? What is the innovative potential of your work and can it make us money? Are you patenting your work? Theoretically, I don’t have a problem with the idea that a workplace should benefit financially from the research of its employees if their work leads to a profitable drug or treatment, for example. But it’s gotten way out of hand in reality.

Secondly, there is subtle AGE DISCRIMINATION being practiced. I know scientists who were once productive, with small research groups working on interesting topics, who no longer get research funding. Why does funding suddenly dry up? It’s certainly not a gradual change; rather it is an abrupt one. Why do good scientists who once got decent funding, no longer get any funding whatsoever? One possible reason is that they are now middle-aged (late forties/early fifties for most of us; but in Norway, you are old at 53, and I can find many articles that corroborate this). These middle-aged scientists no longer get any financial support whatsoever, not from external granting agencies nor from their universities or research institutes. They get their salaries and that’s it. It borders on idiocy. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you don’t get funded, you don’t get students. Without students, you have zero chance of getting substantial research done. Without research data, there are no publications, and without publications, you have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a grant award. After several years of this vicious circle, management steps in and tells you that it’s your fault you don’t get money, when in reality it’s not. In many cases it is age discrimination, albeit subtle. It could never be overt; think of the lawsuits. You simply reached the magic age at which point you are old and no longer ‘worth funding’. The problem of course is that you cannot retire with a good pension at 53 years of age. So you hang around your workplace hoping your luck will change. Everyone involved knows it won’t. It goes from bad to worse. Years go by with the same results; there are no publications and now management wants to know why there has been no progression in your work. What can you say? It’s merely survival of the fittest; you’ve seen the nature programs where the young males attack the old ones for control of the tribe or the harems. The same occurs in academia; once you’re labeled as old, you’re finished. You are punished for growing old.

Thirdly, if you are not designated as the absolute BEST OF THE BEST, CREAM OF THE CROP, you are finished in research these days before you even get started. Academic research science is beyond elitist at this point; it’s more like trying to make it through the proverbial eye of the needle. Almost no one manages that. Young people do their PhDs and then move on to something else; few to none are offered a post-doc position in any given research organization (http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/may/23/so-many-phd-students-so-few-jobs). One or two may end up as the 'chosen ones', the ones that management deems worthy enough to bet on. The reason given is that they are the brightest of the bunch, but often it’s nepotism in action—those that move upward are often simply those who are management’s favorites. They are the ones who are granted the academic career opportunities. They join the networks that management has laid out for them; all involved know that this is the key to gaining grant funding, since colleagues in those networks often work in positions that have enough clout to ensure that those networks get funding. They may not review the actual grant applications, but they have a say in the final prioritization of grant applications that have been recommended for funding by external reviewers. 

  

Finally, many universities now take on far too many PhD students, knowing full well that there are no careers for them in academic science, and knowing full well that they cannot offer them any sort of job future. It’s irresponsible behavior. But there’s money involved, so that makes it ok in the eyes of the universities. PhD students come with a specific sum of money for consumables and small expenses, and additionally, if you are the primary adviser, you get a tidy sum of money for having been an adviser, once the student is finished. Additionally, more students means more hands in the lab to do the research work. Who is going to turn that down? And who is going to be honest enough about the lack of academic career opportunities to tell potential PhD students to consider another profession because there are no jobs for them once they're finished? I do it as a senior researcher, but very few others do. I've said it before but it bears repeating; there are better, healthier and yes, nobler ways of earning a living and making yourself useful to society. Find them. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

P.S. This is the email that Stefan Grimm wrote to his colleagues before he committed suicide, including the link to the article that published it. 

http://www.dcscience.net/2014/12/01/publish-and-perish-at-imperial-college-london-the-death-of-stefan-grimm/

Begin forwarded message:

From: Stefan Grimm <professorstefangrimm@gmail.com>

Date: 21 October 2014 23:41:03 BST

To:

Subject: How Professors are treated at Imperial College

Dear all,

If anyone is interested how Professors are treated at Imperial College: Here is my story.

On May 30th ’13 my boss, Prof Martin Wilkins, came into my office together with his PA and ask me what grants I had. After I enumerated them I was told that this was not enough and that I had to leave the College within one year – “max” as he said. He made it clear that he was acting on behalf of Prof Gavin Screaton, the then head of the Department of Medicine, and told me that I would have a meeting with him soon to be sacked. Without any further comment he left my office. It was only then that I realized that he did not even have the courtesy to close the door of my office when he delivered this message. When I turned around the corner I saw a student who seems to have overheard the conversation looking at me in utter horror.

Prof Wilkins had nothing better to do than immediately inform my colleagues in the Section that he had just sacked me.

Why does a Professor have to be treated like that?

All my grant writing stopped afterwards, as I was waiting for the meeting to get sacked by Prof Screaton. This meeting, however, never took place.

In March ’14 I then received the ultimatum email below. 200,000 pounds research income every year is required. Very interesting. I was never informed about this before and cannot remember that this is part of my contract with the College. Especially interesting is the fact that the required 200,000.- pounds could potentially also be covered by smaller grants but in my case a programme grant was expected.

Our 135,000.- pounds from the University of Dammam? Doesn’t count. I have to say that it was a lovely situation to submit grant applications for your own survival with such a deadline. We all know what a lottery grant applications are.

There was talk that the Department had accepted to be in dept for some time and would compensate this through more teaching. So I thought that I would survive. But the email below indicates otherwise. I got this after the student for whom I “have plans” received the official admission to the College as a PhD student. He waited so long to work in our group and I will never be able to tell him that this should now not happen. What these guys don’t know is that they destroy lives. Well, they certainly destroyed mine.

The reality is that these career scientists up in the hierarchy of this organization only look at figures to judge their colleagues, be it impact factors or grant income. After all, how can you convince your Department head that you are working on something exciting if he not even attends the regular Departmental seminars? The aim is only to keep up the finances of their Departments for their own career advancement.

These formidable leaders are playing an interesting game: They hire scientists from other countries to submit the work that they did abroad under completely different conditions for the Research Assessment that is supposed to gauge the performance of British universities. Afterwards they leave them alone to either perform with grants or being kicked out. Even if your work is submitted to this Research Assessment and brings in money for the university, you are targeted if your grant income is deemed insufficient. Those submitted to the research assessment hence support those colleagues who are unproductive but have grants. Grant income is all that counts here, not scientific output.

We had four papers with original data this year so far, in Cell Death and Differentiation, Oncogene, Journal of Cell Science and, as I informed Prof Wilkins this week, one accepted with the EMBO Journal. I was also the editor of a book and wrote two reviews. Doesn’t count.

This leads to a interesting spin to the old saying “publish or perish”. Here it is “publish and perish”.

Did I regret coming to this place? I enormously enjoyed interacting with my science colleagues here, but like many of them, I fell into the trap of confusing the reputation of science here with the present reality. This is not a university anymore but a business with very few up in the hierarchy, like our formidable duo, profiteering and the rest of us are milked for money, be it professors for their grant income or students who pay 100.- pounds just to extend their write-up status.

If anyone believes that I feel what my excellent coworkers and I have accomplished here over the years is inferior to other work, is wrong. With our apoptosis genes and the concept of Anticancer Genes we have developed something that is probably much more exciting than most other projects, including those that are heavily supported by grants.

Was I perhaps too lazy? My boss smugly told me that I was actually the one professor on the whole campus who had submitted the highest number of grant applications. Well, they were probably simply not good enough.

I am by far not the only one who is targeted by those formidable guys. These colleagues only keep quiet out of shame about their situation. Which is wrong. As we all know hitting the sweet spot in bioscience is simply a matter of luck, both for grant applications and publications.

Why does a Professor have to be treated like that?

One of my colleagues here at the College whom I told my story looked at me, there was a silence, and then said: “Yes, they treat us like sh*t”.

Best regards,

Stefan Grimm

What Eckhart Tolle said

A man of wisdom--Eckhart Tolle, as revealed by the following.........
--------------------------------------

Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.

The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is.

Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" --- and find that there is no death.

Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.

Being spiritual has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with your state of consciousness.

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.

You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness.

Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.

Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.

The past has no power over the present moment.

You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.

Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you.

All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.

Watching the Orion liftoff

If you want to watch live coverage of the Orion liftoff, check out the following links:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#.VIBDJ9LF8rV

http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv

The liftoff has already been delayed several times due to wind, core engine temperature readings and a fuel and drain valve that did not close. Let's hope there is a launch today within the time window remaining.

For those of you who don't follow NASA's activities, Orion is an unmanned flight that will launch atop a Delta IV heavy rocket. It will be a two-orbit, four-hour flight followed by landing in the Pacific Ocean. The launch will be at Cape Canaveral in Florida, and will be a flight test of the systems that are most critical to safety. The ultimate and future goal is to take astronauts further into space than they've ever gone before.

Quotes about birthdays

Today I thought I'd share with you some good quotes having to do with birthdays, since today is my birthday and I was in the mood for some wisdom from the minds and hearts of others...........

--------------------------------------------
Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!  --Dr. Seuss

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.   –Voltaire

It takes a long time to become young.  --Pablo Picasso

I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.  --Eleanor Roosevelt

Don't just count your years, make your years count.  --George Meredith

My life is better with every year of living it.  --Rachel Maddow

Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.  --Maya Angelou

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.  --William Shakespeare

A birthday is just the first day of another 365-day journey around the sun. Enjoy the trip.  --author unknown

Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed.  --Charles Schulz

They're not gray hairs. They're wisdom highlights.  --author unknown

You're not 40, you're eighteen with 22 years experience.  --author unknown

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.  --Robert Frost

The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.  --Lucille Ball

Quotes about Thanksgiving

Best wishes for a very Happy Thanksgiving! There is much to be grateful for--family, good friends, a roof over our heads, a job, and life itself. 

--------------------------------------------------------------

There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.  -- O. Henry

Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.  ---Marcel Proust

To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your prayer knows much more about it than you do.    ---Victor Hugo

Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough. ---Oprah Winfrey

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. --- Marcus Tullius Cicero

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.  ---Ralph Waldo Emerson

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.  ---G.K. Chesterton

When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. -- Willie Nelson

Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. -- Charles Dickens

I give thanks to my Creator for this wonderful life where each of us has the opportunity to learn lessons we could not fully comprehend by any other means. -- Joseph B. Wirthlin

God is glorified, not by our groans, but by our thanksgivings. -- Edwin Percy Whipple

What I've learned from cats

Back in the 1980s, I shared my life with two cats, a mother and daughter combo. Smoky was the mother’s name, and Mushy was her daughter. They were as different in personality as two cats could possibly be. Smoky was in a constant state of snit, whereas Mushy was in a constant state of happiness. Even when Smoky was a new mother, she seemed irritated by the constant need that her kittens had for her. Perhaps what annoyed Smoky was that her daughter was a much happier cat than she was. It’s hard to know. I loved them both and respected their different personalities. Both of them were affectionate in their own ways. Smoky’s affection was on her terms; she came to you when she needed some stroking or a hug, but didn’t always take kindly to being petted or fussed over if you wanted to give her some affection. Mushy was the complete opposite (hence her name); she was a people-pleaser and loved nothing more than to go from one guest to another for some affection and cuddling when I had family and friends visiting. Before I moved to Norway, my friend Cindy suggested I stay with her for a few months in order to save some money, which was a wonderful idea and one for which I am very grateful to her. However, it involved moving myself and my two cats into her home, something that Cindy’s cat Burgoo did not take very kindly to. He was used to ruling the roost and was very territorial about his house, especially the kitchen, which was of course the one room in the house where we all liked to congregate. My cats did not exactly know how to deal with him initially; he would pick fights with them (especially Smoky) no matter how much berth they gave him when they walked past him. Smoky especially did not like him, something he must have sensed very early on. Their fights escalated in intensity and ended with her being relegated to the cellar in order to prevent her being injured by him, since he was larger than both my cats and quite aggressive. I spent a lot of time in the cellar with her after that. With Smoky out of the way, Burgoo tolerated having Mushy around. He permitted her entrance into the kitchen, on his terms of course. And those terms translated into her becoming a completely subservient cat. She would slink past him, body hugging the ground, not looking at him. Her behavior signaled ‘harmless’; it also signaled to him that she would not and did not want to fight him, oppose him or take control of anything he ‘owned’. She was willing to let him rule the roost whereas Smoky was not. Smoky did not take kindly to any person or any other cat telling her what she should or should not do, and she was certainly not willing to become subservient in order to deal with the situation. Looking back on it now, I wish it could have been otherwise. I wish I had not put them through that stress, even though I found a good home for them afterward where they both were happy. Had I had wanted to take them with me to Norway, they would have spent over four months in quarantine before being allowed into the country (those were the rules at that time), something I did not want to put them through since they were already older cats.

I learned some things while watching and taking care of Smoky and Mushy when we lived in Cindy’s house. The first was that Mushy was none the worse for wear after her short stay in Burgoo’s house; she adapted to that situation and dealt with it in the best way she could. When she and her mother went to live in my friend Judy’s house, she adapted to that situation as well and became a beloved member of Judy’s family, which included a dog and two cats from before. Smoky also adapted in her own way, but stayed mostly to herself, as I might have expected. I’ve thought a lot about both of my cats since then, and about how they adapted to change, new situations, and potential threats. I have a bit of both Smoky and Mushy in me. I haven’t backed away from a fight if felt that I was threatened or if I found myself in an unfair situation; I have not had any problems stating my opinion or making my wishes known. I haven’t had major problems with change, although it does take me a while to adapt to new situations. And if change or unfair situations threaten me or those I care about, I am more likely to respond as Smoky did. But what if Mushy’s way is the better way? What if choosing not to fight gets you what you want? Mushy did not want to end up living in the cellar like Smoky; she wanted to make sure she could always be in my vicinity. So she gave Burgoo what he wanted in order to get what she wanted, which was me. She was smart. I don’t know how she figured that out, but she did. And she definitely understood that the cellar was not where she wanted to be; she avoided going down there when I went to visit with Smoky. Mushy wanted to be with me and with people generally; she cared more about that than about doing what she had to do to appease Burgoo. She appeased the aggressor. I have to wonder how she knew how to do that, and why Smoky could not learn that behavior. But we humans don’t always manage that either; some of us will fight forever against what threatens us and it can end up literally killing us (stress, heart attacks, poor health). Whereas some of us will try to appease those who want to keep us down or take us down, by giving in, letting it happen, dealing with it and moving on. I have a hard time with that. I have a hard time ‘giving in’ especially in situations where I know that being in opposition would be the more ethical and fair way to proceed, for example, in work situations where workplace leaders harass others unfairly because they sit in power positions. But let’s suppose that appeasement might get you what you want, e.g. to an organizational level where you could make a difference? Where you could fight for the rights of those you meant were treated unfairly? I suppose what I’m trying to say is that you’ve got to strategize; you’ve got to give in order to get in a world that is not fair from the get-go. Strange that I should be learning that now at this point in my life. But now the goals are clear and more important than trying to change unfair and unethical leaders into fair and ethical ones. I am not the person who is best suited to taking on that fight, and I’m not sure I ever was.  

Quotes about Forgotten

·        “Write what should not be forgotten.”
― Isabel Allende

·        “I left the library. Crossing the street, I was hit head-on by a brutal loneliness. I felt dark and hollow. Abandoned, unnoticed, forgotten, I stood on the sidewalk, a nothing, a gatherer of dust. People hurried past me. And everyone who walked by was happier than I. I felt the old envy. I would have given anything to be one of them.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

·        “When do you think people die? When they are shot through the heart by the bullet of a pistol? No. When they are ravaged by an incurable disease? No. When they drink a soup made from a poisonous mushroom!? No! It’s when… they are forgotten.
Dr. Hiriluk (One Piece)”  ― Eiichiro Oda

·        “She existed in her friends; there she was. All the parts of herself she'd forgotten. She knew herself best when she was with them.”
― Ann Brashares, Sisterhood Everlasting

·        “And none will hear the postman’s knock
Without a quickening of the heart.
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?”
― W.H. Auden

·        “But that was New Orleans for you. The old didn’t die here. They were just forgotten.”
― Amanda Stevens, The Dollmaker

·        “No matter what happens, I don’t think that anyone will remember me when I disappear. It will be like I was never here. There will be no proof that I ever existed … you can’t be sad if you disappear, because disappeared people can’t feel sad. They can only be remembered or forgotten.”
― Matthew Green, Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend

·        “Be bold in life. Seize the moment. There is no surrender, no retreat. There is only conquer or be conquered, victory or defeat. Anything less is to be forgotten to history.”
― Jeffrey Fry

----------------------------------------------------------------

Thinking about situations and times in life when people feel forgotten by others--old age, sickness, personal crises. All those times when people might feel completely alone, left on their own, pushed aside or slighted. I remember my mother saying that in old age, she felt invisible. Ignored and forgotten by the world. It hurt to hear her say that, because many older people I know have said the same thing to me. And most of them didn't and don't take kindly to being treated that way. But it happened all the same. So it's something to think about.......

Autumn moon photos

Bureaucracy and the film Brazil

I first saw the film Brazil in 1985 when it was released. It seems to have made a lasting impression on me, since I have remembered its basic message many years later. The message is that an out-of-control bureaucracy goes hand-in-hand with an Orwellian world, a dystopia, where the bureaucratic powers that be control the lives of society’s citizens. Parts of the film (a satire) are funny, but if you’ve lived a while and had anything at all to do with dysfunctional bureaucracies, you’ll understand that what you’re seeing on the screen is far from funny. A functionary named Sam Lowry, who is good at his low-level job but bored with his life, has recurrent dreams about rescuing a pretty blond girl and flying away with her to live a life of ‘happily ever after’. His mother, who is well-connected with all of the important bureaucrats, is trying to get him promoted, which he doesn’t want. She’s also trying to get him together with the daughter of a friend, something neither he nor the young woman wants. One of his assignments is to rectify a form error that resulted from a fly falling into a typewriter and causing the typewriter to type B instead of T when writing the name Tuttle, which has dire consequences for Archibald Buttle (a shoe cobbler with a family), not Archibald Tuttle (a terrorist and enemy of the state). This proves to be more difficult than he can imagine, and in this dystopian future, Archibald Buttle ends up dead. The bureaucracy that caused his death wants nothing more than to cover up this error and to forget it. Lowry ends up meeting Jill Layton, a neighbor of the Buttle family who reports this error (she is the woman from his dreams), and finds out that she is considered a terrorist because she insists on justice for Buttle’s family. When he decides to help her, he is also labeled a terrorist along with the woman he loves. Along the way, he ends up meeting terrorist Archibald Tuttle, a heating engineer who doesn’t play by the rules and who fixes Lowry’s heating system without the proper forms and authorized parts. This causes Lowry a number of problems with the bureaucracy that simply won’t accept that he has had unauthorized repair work done on his heating system, and his apartment is taken away from him. Those scenes are funny and sadly enough, true if you work in bureaucratic public sector workplaces and don’t play by their rules.

I’ve been thinking about this film lately, mostly because a large percentage of work time for many employees these days goes to appeasing the bureaucratic lions, tossing them bones and keeping them happy. It’s not an easy job, especially when the bureaucratic system is nothing but a dense jungle of incomprehensible rules and regulations that can choke the life out of most well-meaning employees. Case in point: you need an account number to order an instrument. You must talk to the accounting department that has its own rules and regulations concerning ordering and setting up an account number, but they haven’t talked to the order department that has its own rules and regulations concerning the same. Emails are sent back and forth, no one is on the same page, and weeks go by, even months. The accounting and ordering departments have the mistaken idea that all employees outside their departments actually understand accounting and ordering procedures and terminology. God help those employees if they make a mistake at any point along the way—if so, it’s ‘bless me father, for I have sinned’ against the great god of bureaucracy. If the system is insulted, it doesn’t take kindly to that. Atonement takes the form of listening to the functionaries’ lectures and demands of obedience to their rules, and generally being subservient to their wishes. I understand the need for bureaucracy in terms of keeping an organization ‘organized’ and running efficiently. I draw the line at having to toe their line, of having to jump when it tells you to jump. I draw the line when the system begins to feel like a totalitarian regime and when you actually become afraid to deal with it.   

The disappearance of Amy

I saw Gone Girl on Monday evening, and found it to be an absorbing thriller, one that is fast-paced and doesn't waste any time. The movie is much better than the book in my opinion. David Fincher, who directed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, did a great job of directing Gone Girl—it’s a taut thriller with a lot of unsettling things to say about personal relationships and about society’s addictive and obsessive relationship with television and the media. Ben Affleck finally found a role that suits him in Nick Dunne. His Nick is an interesting combination of clueless, indifferent, superficial, and opportunistic. He doesn’t invest more of himself than is absolutely necessary in any aspect of his life. In other words, Nick is no real prize—when he’s unemployed, he’s perfectly content to let his wife’s money pay for the bar he owns in Missouri after they’ve moved back there from New York, in order to be near his mother who has terminal cancer. He teaches part-time at a local college and ends up having an affair with one of his students, but even that seems half-hearted. He has promised his lover that he is going to divorce his wife, but seems to be immobilized by inertia or fear of telling her. Perhaps deep down, he knows that his wife is bonkers and he knows too that he doesn’t have the energy to fight her. But as the story progresses and he wakes up to the nightmare that his life has become, his anger starts to come out, and in the scenes where he is angry, he is truly believable. Stupid, unsuspecting Nick, who finally wakes up to the reality that he’s married to a psychopath, but by then it’s too late, she’s pregnant with his child and there’s no way he’s going to let her raise that child alone. So he ends up stuck in a loveless marriage, but he’s found himself and his purpose, so to speak. Up until that point, it seems as though he has mostly just drifted through his life.

Rosamund Pike did an impressive job as Amy Dunne. She’s a scary woman—Amy, not one you’d want to turn your back on for too long. ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’. And it would be nearly impossible not to scorn Amy. All men pay dearly for perceived slights and indiscretions in Amy’s world. Nick pays dearly for his infidelity, for his stupidity and insensitive treatment of Amy. She’s Amazing Amy for sure, but not in the way that her writer parents could ever have imagined. Amy is a monster--a beautiful one, but a monster nonetheless. One of the most manipulative women portrayed onscreen in a long time; I found myself thinking of Sharon Stone’s character Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct from 1992. If you wonder about what kind of marriage Catherine and Nick Curran (played by Michael Douglas) in Basic Instinct might have had, perhaps Amy and Nick’s marriage might be one version of such a marriage, at least at the point when it started to crumble.

Neil Patrick Harris did a great job as Desi Collings, Amy’s presumed stalker from her college years, manipulative in his own way, but no real match for Amy. He can’t see through her, or see that he’s being manipulated, and he pays with his life for his stupidity. Kim Dickens character, Detective Rhonda Boney, the cop assigned to the case of the missing Amy, is smart, tough, and demanding. It was a real pleasure to watch her in action, to watch her deal with her colleagues; she could definitely hold her own. The same was true for Nick's sister Margo, played by Carrie Coon--another good performance. 

The part of the story that dragged in the book, Amy’s experiences toward the end with Desi Collings, has been shortened and makes for a much more intense ending. The music score is appropriately jarring and creepy exactly at the times when it should be.

The film reminded me in parts of the film Presumed Innocent from 1990, with Harrison Ford and Bonnie Bedelia as husband and wife. He has an affair with a colleague who ends up raped and murdered, and he is accused of the crime. In reality, it is his wife who has murdered her to make her husband pay for his infidelity; the explanation for how it all happened was way out there, just like the ending in Gone Girl, and quite unusual for its time.

Gone Girl is an unsettling film in yet another way—one that’s often discussed these days. It depicts clearly the power of TV/media to make or break a person, a case, a cause, and the power that talk show hosts wield over the American public. It struck me that Gone Girl is a peculiarly American film; nowhere else in the world do talk show hosts have the type of power they have in America, at least as far as I know. They are the judge and jury, and if they like you, you’re saved, if not, you’re sunk. Innocent people, who don’t know how to play the manipulation game, will have their jugulars ripped out by these packs of dogs. This world is peopled with psychopaths, who manipulate the people and situations around them to serve themselves and their ratings. 

Press release for One Hundred Haikus for Modern Workplaces

And if you'd like to see the actual press release on PRWeb.com, here is the link: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/10/prweb12287136.htm#.VFZOyqUxgM0.email

Happy Halloween

I can remember a time in Norway when Halloween was not celebrated, when the only references to Halloween were in American horror films and books. In the late 1990s, a few adventurous souls, my stepdaughter Caroline being one of them, decided that they wanted to experience Halloween as they had read about or seen in films. In 1997, when she was a teenager, she threw a Halloween party for her friends at our house; I helped her with the setup. She wanted bobbing for apples, a cake in the shape of a pumpkin, and her friends to dress up in costumes. They showed up as witches, vampires, zombies, and in one case, one of the young men had made himself up as a woman, and you would have mistaken him for one. He looked great. At the end of the evening, the kitchen floor was flooded with water around the barrel containing the apples, the cake had disappeared, and my stepdaughter and her friends were hanging around and talking. My husband and I had gone out for the evening, and when we came home, the party broke up. All agreed that it had been a lot of fun. For several years afterward, there were sporadic Halloween celebrations on her part and in the country generally. There were a few children who ventured out during the early evening, dressed in their costumes and hoping to get some candy. But this was small-scale celebration compared to nowadays.

Norway is a nation of about five million people; this year the country spent about 20 million dollars on Halloween—costumes, makeup, candy, decorations, and parties. The amounts spent have been steadily increasing over the past seventeen years since Caroline had her party. Pumpkins are no longer difficult to find nor do they cost a fortune as they used to; I carve them into jack-o-lanterns and then use them in soups and breads after Halloween is over. It makes me happy that Norwegians want to celebrate Halloween since it is yet one more thing that connects me to my American roots. I so look forward to the neighborhood children knocking on our door for candy; I get to hand out candy and to take a look at their costumes. Some of them are quite creative. Mostly it’s just a lot of fun.

I’ve accepted the reality (as has my husband) that I’m just a big child when it comes to Halloween; I remember back to my childhood days and to the fun of Halloween. Today, I bought a spider candle at one of the local stores. It’s one of the coolest Halloween decorations I’ve seen or purchased in a long time, and I’ve purchased some really strange Halloween decorations through the years. I found a website that sells a similar spider candle; you can check it out here: http://www.angeliccompanions.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=96&products_id=565

Happy Halloween!

'Making your unknown known'

Georgia O’Keefe wrote: ’Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing’. This quote has been running through my mind the past couple of days, for good reason. I finally understand what she means; I’ve understood her words before, but more abstractly. Now I feel the understanding and embrace it personally. Each time I publish a new book, post new photos to this blog, or create short video clips, I am making my unknown known. But I didn’t fully realize until recently that the reason I do these things has more to do with unleashing my creative energy (true success) and less to do with aiming for financial success. Just so I am not misunderstood; if my books, photos or videos can earn some money, I’d be very pleased about that. But it’s not the main reason I create them. It matters more to me that a reader of one of my books or blog posts contacts me to tell me that he or she really liked what I wrote, or that I helped him or her see a situation in a new way. I know that’s true because that has happened in my own life. There are books, albeit very few, that have changed my life for the better. Something about the way they were written, in addition to the time in my life when I read them—a coincidence that led to change. The written word has much power; that has been commented on many times before. But the same has happened to me when I have watched a good film or happened upon a very special song. Doors get unlocked in my mind, and I get to wander through them and into new rooms--wide open spaces waiting to be filled with new experiences. The creative world is a world that I simply could not live without; it is true freedom that no one can take from you. Now that I live in it, I have no desire to return to a world that wishes to shackle me. The desire to shackle may not be intentional, but whenever the unappeasable demands of others, e.g. in the workplace, supersede my own wishes, I feel shackled. Whenever someone or something wants to waste my precious time, I feel shackled. When you finally realize how precious time is, and how short life is, you don’t want to squander it on activities or people that give you nothing in return.

Socrates wrote: ‘The unexamined life is not worth living’. It was important to him that he got in touch with his ‘unknown’; that was his definition of being alive. I agree with him. If you never dig deeper into yourself, you’ll never know what you could create. You’ll never find your talents, and you’ll never make your unknown known. Perhaps that doesn’t bother most people. But I don’t know if I believe that. I wonder sometimes if most of us just never find the time, or make the time, to make it happen. Time passes by, and suddenly a lifetime does too. Suddenly I am reminded of Horace’s quote: ‘Carpe diem (seize the day)’. There’s no time like the present to get started…….

Update October 2014: One Hundred Haikus for Modern Workplaces

October is drawing to a close, and November is soon upon us. I've been busy with different projects, among them finishing up a collection of haiku poems that is now available as a Kindle edition on Amazon. This collection is entitled One Hundred Haikus for Modern Workplaces. It's a short collection that deals with workplace behaviors, bureaucracy, leadership, politics and trends, each summed up in short poems called haikus, which are three-line poems consisting of seventeen syllables--first line five syllables, second line seven syllables, and third line five syllables. It was quite enjoyable to write them, and the strict format actually helped to make each idea more concrete and focused. This collection does not cost much, just a couple of dollars, and can be downloaded to a Kindle or an iPad. I hope you will take a moment to check it out. You can find it here:
http://tinyurl.com/lkm6po4. 

Thanks!

Here is the book cover:

Another adorable animal video

As many of you know, a little hedgehog stole my heart during the summer of 2013. Hedgie, as we called her, now lives happily on farmland in the south of Norway. It was a privilege to have helped her on her way to a (hopefully long) hedgehog life. Today, I came across this adorable video on social media of a tame porcupine eating small pumpkins, and it reminded me of Hedgie. You have to listen to the sounds this little porcupine makes as it eats the pumpkins--so sweet. All I know is that if I owned a lot of land and lived somewhere out in the country, my backyard would welcome hedgehogs and porcupines alike. Here's the video.......

An autumn walk in Oslo

Autumn this year in Oslo has been mild and nice, with only a few chilly days in early October. Both the summer and autumn this year have been exceptionally warm seasons. I've been out walking a lot, exploring new areas and streets. I have been walking home from work on the nice days when I can, a distance of about two miles--an effort to fit training into my daily schedule if possible. This past Monday, I walked a different route--about a four-mile distance to home--a route that I have taken once before and which I decided I would do again so that I could take photos. Once I left my workplace, I walked down Gaustadalleen and then further on to Anne Maries vei (street); the lower part of Anne Maries vei runs parallel to a lovely brook called Sognsvannsbekken. Of course I had to stop along my way and take some photos of these streets and the brook, on a beautiful autumn day.

Gaustadalleen

Sognsvannsbekken

Sognsvannsbekken

Anne Maries vei

Sognsvannsbekken

As it was so is it now (a new poem)

Sunday morning, windows open

Smell of bacon in the chilly air

From some unknown apartment

Down the street

Indoors the aroma of coffee brewing

Waking up to breakfast in the city we call home

Now but in any number of others

Morning routines much the same

Small things like these

Smells that trigger glimpses of a life lived

Reaching out my hand, still half-asleep,

To touch the yesteryear of memory

Remember back to an autumn morning

A Sunday many years ago another city

Espresso in a tiny pot and fresh bread for breakfast

From the organic deli on the corner

Wandering those city streets in peace

From sandy shore to colorful center

A latticework of travels

In our quest to feel that city’s heartbeat

Outside the trees' autumn colors

Grace the gray backdrop of sky

Wan sun has finally risen

But has overslept like we have

--------------------------------

Copyright 2014

Paula M. De Angelis 

Autumn visit to Jevnaker

This past Sunday, my husband and I drove about forty-five miles north of Oslo to the village of Jevnaker, which is located in Oppland county in the Jevnaker municipality. We've been to Jevnaker several times before, often during the autumn, to see the foliage and to eat dinner (very good traditional Norwegian food) at a restaurant called Oldemors Karjol: http://www.oldemors-karjol.no/  and http://tinyurl.com/lbuk7yx. If you're in the area, stop in at this restaurant; the homemade meat cakes are highly-recommended. 

We stopped at the Jevnaker church, high on a hill with lovely views out over farmland and over Randsfjorden. The Jevnaker region is truly a pastoral setting, lovely at this time of year, with farmhouses, sheep and cattle dotting the landscape here and there. The leaves on the trees had changed color--mostly yellow and rust color this year, not much red, at least not yet. We drove on further to the Hadeland Glass Works, which is also a very pleasant place to visit; you may even find some special Christmas presents. You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadeland_Glassverk

I'm including the route we took, which is quite scenic in and of itself: we drove east and then north of Oslo, via Harestua and Roa, to Jevnaker, and then back to Oslo via Klekken and Sollihøgda. The return trip took us past Tyrifjorden, which is a beautiful fjord. I'm also including some photos that I took in Jevnaker on a beautiful autumn day. Enjoy!

Norway in the news yesterday

Yesterday was an unusual news day here in Norway. Two events of major (and global) importance occurred, both involved Norwegians, and both received the news coverage they merited. Surprisingly enough, while the two news stories were quite disparate in topic, both involved science and medicine. The first story was that May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their groundbreaking and fascinating work on the brain’s internal GPS mechanism. They share the prize with their former supervisor, neuroscientist John O’Keefe at University College London.  If you want to read about their work, I recommend an excellent article in Nature that you will find here:  http://www.nature.com/news/neuroscience-brains-of-norway-1.16079

The second story, less happy, was that Norway now joins the list of countries that must deal with the Ebola virus; a Norwegian woman who works for Doctors without Borders in Sierra Leone was confirmed to be infected with the virus and flown back to Oslo for treatment last evening. She will be quarantined in the isolation ward at Oslo University Hospital—Ullevål location. There was a press conference on TV last night to announce this development and to inform the public that there was no cause for alarm; that Norway can handle this case as it has prepared and trained for such eventualities at different hospitals. The medical professionals also assured the public that everything is under control, which is likely true.

If ever there is doubt as to the importance of medical research, these two news stories are proof that research is necessary. With regard to the brain’s internal GPS, this work may be crucial to the eventual understanding of what happens to Alzheimer’s patients, since losing one’s sense of direction/location is an early symptom of this disease. Those individuals at risk for Alzheimer’s may eventually benefit from treatment that could evolve from this research. With regard to the Ebola virus, the humanitarian crisis in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea points out the need for increased medical research into cures for this virus and others like it. Luckily, there are researchers who want to study these areas in the hope of finding cures. Society should continue to do all it can to support their tireless efforts.

Skies that remind me that we live on a planet

Some of the early morning skies were spectacular during the month of September, and when I was up early, I was able to photograph them. Some of the shots I took remind me that we live on a planet; the cloud covers and formations give me that feeling of living in a universe. I get the same feeling when I look out upon the stars on a clear night. Fun fact for the day: the Earth moves at about 100,000 km/h (about 67,000 miles per hour) around the Sun, in case you were wondering.

Another great song by Emerson, Lake & Palmer--From the Beginning

Another great song that found its way into my mind and heart from the moment I first heard it. I loved it from the first and still do--From the Beginning from ELP's Trilogy album released in 1972.

From the Beginning (2015 - Remaster) - YouTube 

From The Beginning

There might have been things I missed

But don't be unkind

It don't mean I'm blind

Perhaps there's a thing or two

I think of lying in bed

I shouldn't have said

But there it is

You see it's all clear

You were meant to be here

From the beginning

Maybe I might have changed

And not been so cruel

Not been such a fool

Whatever was done is done

I just can't recall

It doesn't matter at all

You see it's all clear

You were meant to be here

From the beginning

A great song by Led Zeppelin--Ten Years Gone

Heard this song by Led Zeppelin yesterday on the way to work. The song is Ten Years Gone from their Physical Graffiti album, released in 1975. Seems like only yesterday that I heard it for the first time. An amazing song that brings me back to a time when it was actually ok to acknowledge feelings of regret, love, sadness, melancholy and others in songs. It's harder to do that now for some reason. In any case, I'm posting the lyrics as well. Almost forty years gone since I first heard it.........how the years fly. 

Ten Years Gone    by Led Zeppelin

Then as it was, then again it will be

An' though the course may change sometimes

Rivers always reach the sea

Blind stars of fortune, each have several rays

On the wings of maybe, down in birds of prey

Kind of makes me feel sometimes, didn't have to grow

But as the eagle leaves the nest, it's got so far to go

Changes fill my time, baby, that's alright with me

In the midst I think of you, and how it used to be

Did you ever really need somebody, And really need 'em bad

Did you ever really want somebody, The best love you ever had

Do you ever remember me, baby, did it feel so good

'Cause it was just the first time, And you knew you would

Through the eyes an' I sparkle, Senses growing keen

Taste your love along the way, See your feathers preen

Kind of makes makes me feel sometimes, Didn't have to grow

We are eagles of one nest, The nest is in our soul

Vixen in my dreams, with great surprise to me

Never thought I'd see your face the way it used to be

Oh darlin', oh darlin'

I'm never gonna leave you. I never gonna leave

Holdin' on, ten years gone

Ten years gone, holdin' on, ten years gone

Meeting of minds---a new poem

Meeting of minds

Carving out a niche in time

Each evening when darkness descends

Amidst all the busywork

To meet the masters of yesteryear

Ripples in the collective unconscious

A stirring in the great cerebral hall of fame

A room of one’s own

Awaits those who seek 

Difficult to find

Amidst the many cluttered passages

In the vast house

Remember the path inward

In dreams a path remembered

Door opened in childhood

Leading me inward

Onward toward the masters

Swirling in the mist above

Flying high above grasping hands

Consolation, not alone

A world of minds exists apart

Unknown except to few

Who hold the secret close

To grateful hearts  

A world unlike any other

---------------------

Copyright 2014

Paula M. De Angelis

Bird's eye view and mine too

Some different photos from this past week--watching the magpies from my kitchen window congregate on the rooftops and chimney of the buildings across the street. And then watching the incredible cloud formations and the plane that made its way across them. 

Patterns and beauty

I took this photo of a halved red cabbage a while ago, and posted it on a photography blog that was active some years ago. I no longer post to it, but the other day, I received an email telling me that someone had commented on this older photo (see below). It was a very nice comment, telling me that it was 'great that I celebrated the red cabbage'. The commenter went on to tell me that her faith in God had been restored while chopping red cabbage, because of its sheer beauty, and that she was surprised that she had not noticed its beauty before, because here was the proof she needed that God existed. I agree. It is the lovely patterns in the cabbage that amaze me. Beauty in the humblest of things.