To birth or not to birth

A big story in the news these days in Calgary is about a 60 years old woman who just had twin boys. Seems she and her husband always wanted kids but they couldn't ever conceive. About 10 years ago they tried to get IVF treatment in Canada but she was considered too old. She tried IVF in India (where she is from). They spent all their savings but she couldn't conceive. Last year they again tried IVF in India and she conceived and she just had her two healthy little boys last week. Supposedly she and her husband are taking care of the kids with the women's two parents.
There is a whole lot of hoopla right now about the ethics of the whole thing. Was the woman right to have the kids? Is it fair to the kids?

For me, it's a really hard decision. In a way I understand that people have dreams and this couple has wanted a kid for so long. And they are able to provide both financial and emotional support. But I also wonder how it would be for the kids to grow up with such old parents. It is bad enough having one generation gap between yourself and your parents, here you have two generation gaps. Then again they say that a lot of kids are brought up by their grandparents and they turn out well.
I do wonder why the couple didn't adopt kids when they were younger, but then again a lot of people prefer to have their own kids.

So I don't know. I would love to hear what others thinks.

My Birthday

Is my birthday soon? Why is it that during the time of my birthday I had no idea what I wanted.. oh no, I had everything I wanted. And when my mum and my husband asked me about what i wanted i couldn't say what. But now.. alas, I have something i want. So can my birthday be next week? :-)Check out this beautiful female binary watch .. which is ultra cool. or is that ultra geeky? I don't know and I don;t care. This is one watch that I want! :-)
The only thing is that I saw this watch on the wrist of thi guy at the conference last week.. and it is pretty big watch. It kind of engulfed his hand. So I just have to make sure it doesn't swallow me up... but to be swallowed up by a binary... may be that won't be so bad! :-P

Girls Girls Girls!!

I was talking to two good friends today at lunch, lets call them B and S. They are both smart and very nice girls and very good friends. We started talking about the difference between girls and guys, specifically with respect to their PhD studies. B was saying how after talking to a lot of people, it seems that it is generally girls that never feel they are ready to graduate or propose (PhD proposals), that they know enough. They feel that they are imposters, somehow having tricked everyone and there is always the fear that they will be revealed. Why is it we feel that way? B mentioned maybe it is to do with the fact that we talk and analyze things too much. I wonder if that is why. Does this insecurity have any good affects? Maybe it does and maybe it does too much damage.

It is funny, a lot of what she described are exactly my feelings. My confidence level with regards to my studies is very low. Maybe that is because I haven't had the best graduate studies experience (actually it is definitely related) but I also think that the lack of confidence is a girl thing. It is especially worst, when you think about the fact that I am in a male dominated field and it is generally these males that have over sized egos and inflated confidences.

I do other dumb girl things: the other night I said something at the dance class, where I was joking. Later on I kept thinking about it and thinking what if no one realized that i was joking? Oh they must think i am such a bad person. You wouldn't believe, this went on for literally half the night. I couldn't stop myself from thinking of this and I was so worried and by 3am and I was still awake, I knew I had to stop. Is it just me or do other people worry about dumb things as well. You analyze everything you say and then reanalyze.

The Two Body Problems and its Ramifications

This is a very interesting article in Nature, about the problems scientist couples face, including the infamous two body problem. There are a lot of interesting ideas in the article, including the question of the two body problem on females versus males.

One question the team hopes to answer is are such marriages tougher for female scientists? Besides being a minority in their field, female physicists struggle with the two-body problem more often than their male counterparts. A 1998 survey by the American Physical Society found that although only about 6% of its members are women, 43% of these are married to other physicists. In contrast, only 6% of married male physicists have a physicist spouse. Other studies have found that almost twice as many women chemists are married to or partnered with another chemist as compared to their male colleagues, and 80% of women mathematicians are married to other scientists.

I really recommend everyone to read the above article.

Now for some fun, read the following article about why smart girls date in parallel and not serial! :-P That is, dating explained by circuit theory!

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