two weeks in...

The first week of our research experience was filled with some challenging activities; our second week extended the research experience by focusing on specific "projects." Blake shared a quote...something along the lines of, "...you know when you are doing research, when you don't know what you are doing;" he has obviously caught on! Even Ben has gotten to the point where he will sheepishly smile and say, "i have no idea what you are talking about." We are moving in the right direction!!!

While at the CUR Dialogs meeting in April (2009), we heard a talk from the Dean of Arts and Sciences at William and Mary and he pointed out the book by Ron Gross, The Independent Scholar's Handbook. In this book he states,

"Established researchers rarely portray the faltering steps by which they came to pinpoint their purposes, chose their subject, sharpen their skills. By the time the work of the scholar or scientist comes to our attention, it is usually well packaged as a finished monograph, a carefully-crafted article, a well-honed paper, a polished book, a museum worthy collection or display, a documentary on film or videotape, or as some other finished work. This final project seems to have sprung full-grown from the author’s head. So we get a misleading picture of how intellectual and creative projects get started."

I love this statement...it essentially tells us, that as researchers, it is okay to be confused...and more importantly...if you are NOT confused, you may not actually be doing research!!! Rest assured B2...your projects are a result of a "well packaged" grant that resulted from many hours of confusion.

Another excerpt from Gross' book states,

"Rarely do researchers or writers “let their hair down,” revealing that they started where each of us must start — with mere infatuation for a subject."

This statement may be less relevant in the context of working on other's projects...like in this case of B2 working with me on the grant objectives, but it is critical to understand that when one engages in a project as a result of "mere infatuation" then you have launched your research career...it is my hope that your infatuation is of interest to others as well...it is hard to get funding otherwise.

Curiosity goes hand and hand with infatuation. I was reading this morning a book by Tom Shachtman, titled, "Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold"...there is a NOVA program based on this book called, Chasing the Ultimate Freezing Point: Absolute Zero"...and on page 11, it is discussing that in the early 1600s that there was a "lack of curiosity that ran throughout society at that time"...they go on to say that, "Today we believe that curiosity is central to science and perhaps to all human progress; curiosity is the engine that drives the intellect to seek the causes of things." Samuel Johnson is then quoted (1751);

"Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind."