I have said goodbye to many friends this year, as they pack up and leave for the other side of the world. Some are planning on coming back, while others have a one way ticket. I guess its that point in our lives where we have all finished our undergraduate degrees and worked for a while, and are asking what next?, and from that making some decisions for the long-term. I chose to start a doctoral degree, while the majority of my friends are looking to further their careers overseas.
A close friend that I met in my first year of university left today. She rang me from the airport this morning for one final goodbye and I felt so overwhelmed with sadness that another friend was leaving. It feels as though everyone else is moving forward in their lives, but because I am ‘still at uni’ I have somehow been left behind a little bit. I am still living the lifestyle of a student while my friends working a nine-to-five job in the city have moved on from that.
Thursday, 31 May 2007
Monday, 28 May 2007
Research training wheels
Everything was plodding along at a manageable hectic pace, but somehow I went to sleep one night last week with everything under control and woke up to chaos.
Boss’s projects are all coming together at the same time, which of course means my work load has doubled – and it isn’t even especially remarkable work. For example, today I learnt the ins and outs of mail merge. Exciting stuff all round. But recruitment has to be done, and eventually I’ll have to start the long process of recruitment for my own work and learning the way that someone other than Advisor A approaches it is actually of surprisingly practical use.
However, because I am putting in extra hours for Boss, Advisor A is getting frustrated at my lack of progress on my own research. She has always expressed a certain amount of disapproval at the fact I work for Boss, and now feels she has a legitimate reason to vocalise those reservations a little louder than usual. But I do see (and am worried) that I am letting my research take the back seat. My university tries to deter research students from getting involved in large projects removed from their own research, but doing work with Boss is the only hands on research experience that I am getting. I mean, how does the department expect me to conduct ‘good’ research when I have little of my own practical experience, further coupled with a limited time (and budget).
So that is how I am justifying working with Boss, both to myself and Advisor A. A little lost time on my phd now is probably going to save me time in the future. But that doesn’t really help temper my current state of sleep-deprivation unfortunately.
Boss’s projects are all coming together at the same time, which of course means my work load has doubled – and it isn’t even especially remarkable work. For example, today I learnt the ins and outs of mail merge. Exciting stuff all round. But recruitment has to be done, and eventually I’ll have to start the long process of recruitment for my own work and learning the way that someone other than Advisor A approaches it is actually of surprisingly practical use.
However, because I am putting in extra hours for Boss, Advisor A is getting frustrated at my lack of progress on my own research. She has always expressed a certain amount of disapproval at the fact I work for Boss, and now feels she has a legitimate reason to vocalise those reservations a little louder than usual. But I do see (and am worried) that I am letting my research take the back seat. My university tries to deter research students from getting involved in large projects removed from their own research, but doing work with Boss is the only hands on research experience that I am getting. I mean, how does the department expect me to conduct ‘good’ research when I have little of my own practical experience, further coupled with a limited time (and budget).
So that is how I am justifying working with Boss, both to myself and Advisor A. A little lost time on my phd now is probably going to save me time in the future. But that doesn’t really help temper my current state of sleep-deprivation unfortunately.
Monday, 21 May 2007
A few weeks ago I got a frantic phone call from a mother whose daughter was doing psychology 1001 and failing. I'm not teaching this semester so I am still not quite sure how she got my number. She spoke to me at length about how her daughter wasn’t applying herself to her studies, how she took time off between high school and beginning university and as a result was struggling getting back into the studying routine. Reluctantly I agreed to do some one-on-one tutoring for her daughter, Claire. She gave me her daughter’s number and with much gratitude finally hung up. By this stage I was already mentally shifting my week around to try and work out how to fit her in. I understand how hard it can be to adapt to university life, and work out the best way to study, and I naively thought that I could do a little good and help out a student in need. Plus, during my undergrad years I always felt a little smug at my studying methods, and was happy to be able to pass them along.
I called Claire, and she reiterated that she was failing and that she really needed some help. However arranging a time was a little troublesome as apparently ‘it's really hard to maintain a social life and keep up with first year psychology’. That maybe true, I said to her, but it is important to work out your priorities. She agreed, and after much deliberation she finally found some time to spare. She was worried however that she wouldn't recognise me and asked for a description of what I look like 'short-ish....brown hair....' was all I could say. Well, she said taking charge, I'm blonde and 5'9. Just what I thought, I chuckled to myself.
Ten minutes before she was due to arrive, Claire calls me on the phone. She was running late, would it be alright if we pushed back the time by one and a half hours. I apologised, saying that I had a meeting for the rest of the afternoon. Thus ensued a painful 10 minutes of her deliberating what other time would best suit her. She eventually settled on a time, only then checking that it suited me too.
15 minutes before the lesson was to start, I got the call I was expecting. She had lost the piece of paper with my location, and incidentally, she also forgot to bring her books and written work to university today, ‘is it still worth me coming for a lesson?’ she asks. I told her that it was up to her, and she jumped at the out I gave her, agreeing that it would be a better use of HER time if she came prepared. I didn’t try to organise another time. She tried to mention it, I said to email me, and left it at that.
Does she seriously think that I have all the time in the world to wait until she is ready to get her act together? I just hope her mother won’t call me again – that woman was almost impossible to get off the phone!
I'm not pissed off at all really, the opposite, I'm bemused by the whole thing. I do wonder, however, if she'll attempt to arrange another time. Third time lucky - but lucky for her or lucky for me, I'm not quite sure?!
I called Claire, and she reiterated that she was failing and that she really needed some help. However arranging a time was a little troublesome as apparently ‘it's really hard to maintain a social life and keep up with first year psychology’. That maybe true, I said to her, but it is important to work out your priorities. She agreed, and after much deliberation she finally found some time to spare. She was worried however that she wouldn't recognise me and asked for a description of what I look like 'short-ish....brown hair....' was all I could say. Well, she said taking charge, I'm blonde and 5'9. Just what I thought, I chuckled to myself.
Ten minutes before she was due to arrive, Claire calls me on the phone. She was running late, would it be alright if we pushed back the time by one and a half hours. I apologised, saying that I had a meeting for the rest of the afternoon. Thus ensued a painful 10 minutes of her deliberating what other time would best suit her. She eventually settled on a time, only then checking that it suited me too.
15 minutes before the lesson was to start, I got the call I was expecting. She had lost the piece of paper with my location, and incidentally, she also forgot to bring her books and written work to university today, ‘is it still worth me coming for a lesson?’ she asks. I told her that it was up to her, and she jumped at the out I gave her, agreeing that it would be a better use of HER time if she came prepared. I didn’t try to organise another time. She tried to mention it, I said to email me, and left it at that.
Does she seriously think that I have all the time in the world to wait until she is ready to get her act together? I just hope her mother won’t call me again – that woman was almost impossible to get off the phone!
I'm not pissed off at all really, the opposite, I'm bemused by the whole thing. I do wonder, however, if she'll attempt to arrange another time. Third time lucky - but lucky for her or lucky for me, I'm not quite sure?!
Tuesday, 15 May 2007
McFreaky
I was driving on the main road a few days back, and had this in the passenger seat of the car behind me. I had to stifle a scream – so very strange and unexpected. When I turned around to double check I wasn’t hallucinating, McFreaky gave me a slow wave. I’m not sure why, but the whole thing was at once chilling and hysterically funny.
Sunday, 13 May 2007
The balancing act
In a surprising move, I managed to get out of bed on Thursday and go into uni and even managed to be semi-productive. I gave myself the goal to work til 3pm, but the thought of going home and mooching was so depressing I managed to work until 6pm. And then I did the whole thing again on Friday and then again on Saturday.
I’m relieved to say things aren’t looking nearly as bleak as they did a mere four days ago. There is definitely a seductive quality about sitting at your desk and working and pretending that there is no chaos going on in your head. Although, it did manage to seep through at times, and I found myself just sitting, staring at the screen and it took a gargantuan amount of self control to keep going and not curl up under my desk and take a long nap.
I am aware of the fine line I am treading between doing productive work and doing productive work to avoid ‘real life’. It’s a struggle I’ve had for a long time now and I am genuinely puzzled by those fellow students that manage to balance it all. There is one practically brilliant grad student, who is literally the poster-child of the psychology department. He is constantly being showered in accolades, and is often the subject of departmental emails congratulating him on his most recent success. The point of mentioning poster-child is that he is normal. He comes in late, laughs and fools around and, by the sounds of it (is it my fault I overhear him on the phone?!), has a pretty active social life. How does he do it??
I’m relieved to say things aren’t looking nearly as bleak as they did a mere four days ago. There is definitely a seductive quality about sitting at your desk and working and pretending that there is no chaos going on in your head. Although, it did manage to seep through at times, and I found myself just sitting, staring at the screen and it took a gargantuan amount of self control to keep going and not curl up under my desk and take a long nap.
I am aware of the fine line I am treading between doing productive work and doing productive work to avoid ‘real life’. It’s a struggle I’ve had for a long time now and I am genuinely puzzled by those fellow students that manage to balance it all. There is one practically brilliant grad student, who is literally the poster-child of the psychology department. He is constantly being showered in accolades, and is often the subject of departmental emails congratulating him on his most recent success. The point of mentioning poster-child is that he is normal. He comes in late, laughs and fools around and, by the sounds of it (is it my fault I overhear him on the phone?!), has a pretty active social life. How does he do it??
Wednesday, 9 May 2007
The descent continues…
I’m trying desperately hard to roll with the punches but today was unfortunately the icing on the bitter cake I’ve been eating all year. The Boy and I are over. And the timing could not have been worse. He was the only thing at the moment that was keeping me sane, and forcing me to get out of bed in the mornings. The war between Advisor A and B and my thesis debacle didn’t faze me as much as it would have because I felt I had a secret weapon - someone to go out with and laugh about the absurdities of the psychology department, someone to go out to dinner with after another dreadful day at uni and tell me that it is not the end of the world.
I don’t really know what to do with myself anymore. I don’t know how much more I can take. I just want to scream out that this is so unfair. Boy was the one pursuing me, and I was the cautious one, aware of the very real chance that I would get hurt. But in the last week I felt enough was enough, time to just let go and go with the flow. And the sad thing is that I was really enjoying myself. For the first time in a long time my research wasn’t my only occupying thought. I felt excited at the fact that I could share things with someone, and even better, have someone share things with me. The whole relationship thing felt all at once attainable. It seems especially cruel that I got to have a tiny taste, and then have it all collapse around me. And I don’t want to have to say that I should have run when I had the chance.
My worst-case scenario situation is now, in all its melodrama, my reality. My thesis topic is back up in the air, after months of work, and to add insult to injury, just when I was starting to get excited about Boy, it too is over. The theme of my pity party is ‘why me, why now’.
The problem that now faces me is that I don’t want to go back to being the untouchable research machine that had no need for a life outside of university. Living like that was lonely, and the sacrifices too high. I’m going to need to dig deep to sort this all out, and not go back.
I don’t really know what to do with myself anymore. I don’t know how much more I can take. I just want to scream out that this is so unfair. Boy was the one pursuing me, and I was the cautious one, aware of the very real chance that I would get hurt. But in the last week I felt enough was enough, time to just let go and go with the flow. And the sad thing is that I was really enjoying myself. For the first time in a long time my research wasn’t my only occupying thought. I felt excited at the fact that I could share things with someone, and even better, have someone share things with me. The whole relationship thing felt all at once attainable. It seems especially cruel that I got to have a tiny taste, and then have it all collapse around me. And I don’t want to have to say that I should have run when I had the chance.
My worst-case scenario situation is now, in all its melodrama, my reality. My thesis topic is back up in the air, after months of work, and to add insult to injury, just when I was starting to get excited about Boy, it too is over. The theme of my pity party is ‘why me, why now’.
The problem that now faces me is that I don’t want to go back to being the untouchable research machine that had no need for a life outside of university. Living like that was lonely, and the sacrifices too high. I’m going to need to dig deep to sort this all out, and not go back.
Sunday, 6 May 2007
The Descent
Just when I feel that I have my footing on this whole phd/research thing, the rug gets pulled out from under me. I presented my three year research plan at Rival’s Uni last week. Advisor A and B were there, as well as Rival and a cast of characters associated with my area of research. I thought my talk went well. Although I did feel that Advisor B asked a few too many difficult questions, and even one downright rude one, but at the time I was so intent on answering coherently I didn’t realise that it was probably inappropriate for him to grill his own student in front of the other members of staff.
Rival didn’t say much during the meeting, toward the end, however, when everything was winding up, she mentioned that she would like us to review her new protocol. We looked at it, and my stomach just dropped out. It was completely revamped from her initial programme, and now followed a pattern closely related to a major portion of my research plan. Now, the presentation that day was merely a formality; my research area was common knowledge at Rival’s Uni even months prior to the day’s meeting. Advisor A and I could hardly contain ourselves, and accusations began to fly across the room. I wasn’t sure if I was going to lose control and throw my book at Rival’s head or lose control and cry. It was horrible. I just felt ill. In the end I could see that we weren’t going to get anywhere, and suggested we reconvene the following week. As we were walking out I could hear Ad A sternly tell Ad B that there was no way her student was going to be able to continue in that line of research.
What a mess. I know that there is bound to be someone, somewhere, doing similar research to me, it is just inevitable. I don’t flatter myself that I am coming up with truly remarkable studies, but it is a different matter when that other person is at a close-by university and shares an Advisor with you.
Advisor A thinks it best to;
(a) relinquish aspects of my plan to Rival, and concentrate on a more focused area. Now in theory, this is fine and will probably result in a tighter thesis. But practically, I just want to scream out that Rival should do her own fricken research. I struggled to come up with that comprehensive plan for the next three years, and now I am basically being asked to split it with Rival. Can’t she do her own work for once?? Is that too much to ask?
(b) replace Advisor B as co-advisor with someone else, preferable Boss (if he’ll take me). This is an aspect that I am happy about actually, Advisor B wasn’t contributing to anything much to do with me, and by removing her from the equation, I am severely limiting the amount of help I will have to give to her students, which might mean that my work will remain my work (which in itself is a pretty novel concept at the moment)!
The problem is that I am so unmotivated to continue. And I’m worried because I haven’t done any work in the past days, I haven’t gone this long without so much as reading a paper in many many months. I was going to go in today and try and do a couple of hours, but I couldn’t muster the energy even to leave the house. I know the signs, and am experiencing an almost epic internal battle against the descent into bleakness. I’m almost too tired to fight it. Tomorrow will be the make or break day. If I manage to survive tomorrow and catch a new wave of motivation I think I’ll be alright.
Damn this is hard.
Rival didn’t say much during the meeting, toward the end, however, when everything was winding up, she mentioned that she would like us to review her new protocol. We looked at it, and my stomach just dropped out. It was completely revamped from her initial programme, and now followed a pattern closely related to a major portion of my research plan. Now, the presentation that day was merely a formality; my research area was common knowledge at Rival’s Uni even months prior to the day’s meeting. Advisor A and I could hardly contain ourselves, and accusations began to fly across the room. I wasn’t sure if I was going to lose control and throw my book at Rival’s head or lose control and cry. It was horrible. I just felt ill. In the end I could see that we weren’t going to get anywhere, and suggested we reconvene the following week. As we were walking out I could hear Ad A sternly tell Ad B that there was no way her student was going to be able to continue in that line of research.
What a mess. I know that there is bound to be someone, somewhere, doing similar research to me, it is just inevitable. I don’t flatter myself that I am coming up with truly remarkable studies, but it is a different matter when that other person is at a close-by university and shares an Advisor with you.
Advisor A thinks it best to;
(a) relinquish aspects of my plan to Rival, and concentrate on a more focused area. Now in theory, this is fine and will probably result in a tighter thesis. But practically, I just want to scream out that Rival should do her own fricken research. I struggled to come up with that comprehensive plan for the next three years, and now I am basically being asked to split it with Rival. Can’t she do her own work for once?? Is that too much to ask?
(b) replace Advisor B as co-advisor with someone else, preferable Boss (if he’ll take me). This is an aspect that I am happy about actually, Advisor B wasn’t contributing to anything much to do with me, and by removing her from the equation, I am severely limiting the amount of help I will have to give to her students, which might mean that my work will remain my work (which in itself is a pretty novel concept at the moment)!
The problem is that I am so unmotivated to continue. And I’m worried because I haven’t done any work in the past days, I haven’t gone this long without so much as reading a paper in many many months. I was going to go in today and try and do a couple of hours, but I couldn’t muster the energy even to leave the house. I know the signs, and am experiencing an almost epic internal battle against the descent into bleakness. I’m almost too tired to fight it. Tomorrow will be the make or break day. If I manage to survive tomorrow and catch a new wave of motivation I think I’ll be alright.
Damn this is hard.
Wednesday, 2 May 2007
Exhaustion
I worked for Boss today. Normally when I know I am being paid for the work I do I work extra hard, because somehow I feel that I need to prove to both myself and Boss that I am worth the fortnightly payslip in my pigeon hole. But today, I just couldn’t muster the extra energy that I expect from myself. I didn’t even feel guilty when I spent most of the afternoon laughing with my lab mate. I just don’t have any internal resources left to give a damn, I feel stretched to capacity. The thought that I have to wake up tomorrow and do it all over again is almost stomach-churning.
But I will wake up tomorrow morning, have the same breakfast I have everyday (avocado on whole-grain toast) and go to uni, because giving up is simply not an option, no matter how tempting spending the day under the blankets in bed appears.
But I will wake up tomorrow morning, have the same breakfast I have everyday (avocado on whole-grain toast) and go to uni, because giving up is simply not an option, no matter how tempting spending the day under the blankets in bed appears.
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