Thinking

I've been mulling over what I ought to do with my working life a lot recently, the type of jobs I should be pursuing and the other bits that accompany that - ie writing, publishing, conferences, academic stuff. It's that thing about having a PhD and knowing what you should do with it, but not quite wanting to... maybe it's too soon still. Someone asked me recently what my dream job would be and I wasn't sure, though I have a better idea now. It would be nice to have a Really Definite Plan sometimes though, so I'm trying to think one up.

There is useful stuff on various websites about what people actually do with their PhDs.... I found Beyond the PhD interesting as it has interviews with people up to 10 years after they completed, the types of jobs they ended up in and the circuitous routes that both their careers and their thoughts about their doctorates sometimes took. That was extremely reassuring as I realised I wasn't the only one ever to vaguely meander along for months after finishing, uncertain about what to do next, even though I knew what I was supposed to do. There were even a couple of profiles for people who ended up in research support (fancy that, a bit like me!). I guess my bottom line for now is to earn enough to live on from teaching and my part-time admin job, while starting to write for publication from my thesis and then see what happens. I've never really done the 'proper' career thing anyway, so it's easier to do things because I want to rather than because they fit into a neatly predefined career path. And hopefully the Coalition government will have finished buggering around with their destructive Higher Education mission by then and we'll all know where we are...

Hhmm, so it looks like that's the start of my post-doc action plan for now, I suppose. Blogs are good for thinking things through, particularly when you've exhausted real people's ears on the subject you're endlessly pondering.

All this mulling business was probably due to getting to the end of a really busy term's teaching in different places and getting one of my eye operations out of the way. Both have taken over my life in different ways for months though I tried not to let them, so time to think unencumbered by health problems seems quite a luxury right now. Actually mulling is an odd word now I keep writing it down, it seems a bit fishy for some reason though I was thinking of seagulls and they're not fish. Sounds like gulls and ought to look like a trout, no idea why. It was lovely seeing the seagulls swooping around outside my hospital bedroom window last week, they came so close and it was 12 floors up. A large crow landed on my windowledge for a few minutes and peered in too. I'll take a photo when I have eye number 2 done in May as the view is spectacular. I think I'll finish rambling for now, have my tea, watch Lewis and continue to marvel at the wonder of successful eye surgery.

Back soon.

Just passing through

Just popped over to feed the fish with some yellow specks of virtual fishfood. It's still satisfying to feed them and watch them swim over, haha, simple pleasures, I must be more overworked than I thought. Can't believe how tiring it is juggling teaching plus an admin job, haven't been this knackered since I submitted my thesis and that's not an experience I care to repeat. I've had withdrawal symptoms from not watching TV detective programmes, or any TV actually. Writing lectures for a new place takes SO much time, you think you've got enough material but it's not enough when you start reworking it for a different audience. Oh well. And I'm wearing one contact lens which is really annoying, though you get used to it after a while and it's the best of a load of crap choices anyway.  I scratched my cornea so have to leave the lens out till it heals. You can get by with imperfect vision when you have to. I do like flaming eyeball graphics but am not mad about those glasses, they're a bit Elton John circa early '70s in his less sophisticated days. They'll do for the blog though. A question on wiki-somethingorother asked 'what do flaming eyeballs mean?' (a perfectly valid thing to ask) and the answer was 'you need medical help.' Not a very creative response for anyone wanting to investigate hot rod art. Eyes do feel a bit flamey when you've had scans with lasers or whatever they use, your vision goes all pink for a day or so. Quite weird. Despite that, I am looking forward to having some eye operations soon.

I must finish this lecture... I'll make a cup of tea and get on with it.

Living Stole

I saw a ginger tom cat draped across the shoulders of his similarly red-headed and bearded owner last night on the bus. The tom was wearing a bright blue knitted cat jumper. His owner was getting quite irritable as the traffic was bad, but he couldn't get off because the driver wouldn't open the door between stops. The cat was flicking his tail in irritable sympathy with his owner, but he still looked very comfy slung around his owner's neck. What a nice way for a cat to see the sights of central London life!

A Tiny Output

There's an enthusiastic comment in a video about my paper from a young man who attended a conference I did last autumn at the Horniman Museum (wrong surname, but I know who he means). He did a great summary of the discussion at the end as well and his comments are very nice. I'm sure he will go far in whatever he chooses to do in life. We had to give a copy of our papers to groups of young people at the museum to read beforehand, then do discussion sessions with them a few weeks later at the conference. Mine wasn't recorded because we had a last minute room change. It's an interesting format for an event for anyone working in Higher Education, especially as there is a preoccupation with audience engagement (amongst other things) in relation to research at the moment. It's useful to think about how, or indeed whether, your own subject is relevant to anyone outside academia's so-called ivory towers, even for embryonic 'early-career' researchers such as myself. It's a good thing to have to write for different audiences too, avoiding as much jargon as possible.

I know it's an 'output' (as they are called in research jargon) albeit a modest one, but I wish I had done it better. It was not one of my best conferences unfortunately as I had a stomach bug and felt really sick. Queasy, like I wanted to vomit. Spew. (But I didn't). Swigging large quantities of water throughout the event got me through it, but it's a shame I didn't manage to attend more of the events planned as they looked really varied and interesting.  Aah well, ifs and wishes and buts are pointless and I suppose it's all part of the lengthy learning experience of trying to be a researcher in academia. Maybe seasoned conference-presenters have a spectrum of techniques to draw on in these situations to save the day.

One naively thinks some significant conclusion has been reached with the completion of one's PhD, but then the realisation dawns that it's just the beginning  [a slightly sinister and knowing post-doctoral laugh would finish this sentence off nicely].  I don't know if I have the energy or the motivation to think about all this right now, but I am very tired of working seven days a week for what seems like little money or reward. Perhaps after a better night's sleep, things will seem better too....or maybe it's an expected part of the ongoing malaise affecting HE. I don't know. Back soon in a hopefully cheerier mood.

Crimson Trousers

My doctor was wearing an impressive richly coloured pair of crimson jumbo cord trousers when I visited him recently. They coordinated well with the red and gold swagged curtains and red velvet screen. Quite flamboyant, considering the circumstances. Not very GP-ish, but a suitable colour for sickly patients I think, a much healthier looking shade than anaemic whiteish-beigey-magnolia for the usual decor of NHS rooms and conservative, rather dull dress.

It reminded me of Winston Churchill's red velvet one piece siren suit (left). It's difficult to imagine him lounging around in red velvet when the usual image of him is the cigar-smoking, overcoat clad, portly figure in photographs from WW2.  I saw the suit displayed in an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum once. We did a double-take when we read the label to that exhibit as it seemed so odd, but there it was. Apparently he also had blue and green ones made up for him by a Savile Row tailor. Garments are an interesting starting point for taking you on unexpected journeys into people's lives, or questioning one's own preexisting stereotypes, aren't they.

Image from Culture24 -  24 Hour museum.

Rollin' rollin' rollin'....

I know the wind has been blowing, tumbleweed style, through my deserted blog. It's taken a while to settle in, but I'm enjoying my slightly odd new job at last, I am heartily relieved to admit. I also have a new chunk of teaching elsewhere which seems potentially very interesting, so it looks like I'm crossing into new frontiers this year. A good thing too, as I'm fed up with being fed up about stuff.

There are better videos of tumbleweeds (I know because I have spent a disturbing amount of time watching them, in true procrastinator style) but this one has the advantage of being set to Frankie Laine's perky 'Rawhide'- a genius combination.

Muck

Well, I've been tempted back to the blog by a news item about filth. It's something in the Wellcome Trust e-newsletter about artist Serena Korda's forthcoming work that will be part of a spring 2011 exhibition called ‘Dirt: The filthy reality of everyday life’. She is asking the public to donate dust, collected from their houses, workplaces or other locations. She will use it to make an artwork called 'Laid to Rest' which will consist of 500 commemorative bricks made from dust given to the artist by the public. Anyone can contribute and each brick will carry an inscription with details about the dust from which it is made. The project will culminate in the burial of the bricks, returning them to the earth.  Lots of events as part of their 'Dirt' season are planned too - sounds fascinating!!

The press release says "Korda's work is inspired by the commercialisation of waste in Victorian London, particularly the vast dust heaps which dominated the skylines at the top of Gray's Inn Road. Immortalised by Charles Dickens in 'Our Mutual Friend', the dust heaps supported a wide range of industries, including the making of bricks. Mud from the brick fields of Somers Town was mixed with the ash, cinders and rubbish from the dust heaps, and transformed the discarded, detritus and dirt of London into the material from which the expanding city was built."

There's loads of balls of fluff and assorted debris on the stairs at college. They're so big they look like mini tumbleweeds. I was only marvelling the other day at how infrequently the cleaners sweep those stairs - probably not more than once a year - so it becomes sort of self-cleaning, I suppose... we clear the stairs by using them and kicking the muck away with our feet. Ah well, saves money on the Estates budget and cleaning is so boring anyway, surely even for people who do it professionally? I'm not sure how dignified it would be for students to see their tutor grovelling about on the stairs scrabbling for dirt, but I may give it a go. It's a tower block so a LOT of stairs. And potentially a LOT of dirt.

Her blog doesn't tell you what to do with your debris, but perhaps if one bags it up in readiness then more details will appear soon... Something thought-provoking to look foward to next year.

Image: London: The great dust-heap. Credit: E. H. Dixon, 1837. Wellcome Images.