Rollercoaster ride

Talk about a roller coaster ride.

I'm currently cleaning my emails trying to find the details for my mid-year review. Came across this email conversation with my friend on 22 March. I generally miss the grumpy bits on this blog cause I'm too busy being grumpy. Here goes, it's time to share

• Friend

...! How are you?

• My reply

I'm crap. Sitting here with a patch on my eye waiting to see the specialist cause I cut my eye on wire from the dress ups. My back is stuffed from hunching over the computer. Phd is good but with no eye and a useless back I'm having a cup of tea instead. Whoops U asked : ) also made Liam cry this morning cause I'm a crabby cow. How is u?


So the PhD life can be horrid. There are some simple solutions to the problems above. Be nice to kids even when I'm grumpy (hmmm I'm no saint and neither are they). Don't sit at the computer for too long. I'm now perched on one of those big ball chairs. It makes me sit straight rather than slump. Also the physio gave me some exercises for the back and a recommendation to get up every 15 minutes. I rely on an alarm for that one as I get too focused on my writing. As for the eye I was lucky. Just a superficial cut on the white of the eye ball. Shame I reacted to the eye drops but all is well. I still have my eye sight.

The roller coaster on friday reached high- I got the proofs back for the next publication and  I handed in draft Chapter 1 to the supervisers. Hopefully the coaster ride won't travel too far down when I get Ch 1 feedback.

Those questions

So many questions and comments from friends and family that mean well, but really it just digs at this stage of both studying and parenting. Guess I'm grumpy or would it be sensitive.

PhD

When do you finish? (ages away)

When did you start? (ages ago)

Are you still studying? (yep)

What are you going to do when you finish? (so so so much)

Who would employ you? (do you doubt I'm employable?)

My friend finished in three years (good for them, I'm green with envy)

Treat it like a job (I did but 6 years on, three kids, hubby, dog, chooks, parents etc I'll burn out)

Do you get paid to study? (yes but its peanuts)

Do you only get 4 weeks holiday a year (yes its a job but with little pay)

When X finished her PhD she had to work as a traffic conductor as she couldn't get a job (hmm that make me feel special)

Are you still studying the same subject you studied for honours? (of course I loved honours and it generated so many more questions)

Parenting

Have you tried bribing the child to stop a medical problem? (as if we haven't tried everything)

You won't know yourself when they start school (so I have no idea who I am and I'm going to change overnight?)

What are you going to do when they start school
(FINISH MY PHD OF COURSE!)


ps if you want to buy the cup above check out the cafepress web site

http://www.cafepress.com.au/+mug,9873152

Burn Out

Burn out is fast approaching. I do monitor for potential burn out but sometime it’s just out of my control. I can cut back on certain things but they are normally the “me” things. No easy solution but to accept sometimes it’s all too much and to settle for a cup of tea. Blogging is great for that. I feel like I’m sitting down, debriefing with a bunch of imaginary friends. It’s nice not to continually burden the local friends with my mundane dribble.  Read a great article on burn out the other day from Dr Mum.

Check it out.
http://drmum.anu.edu.au/Becoming_Dr_Mum_Report/Avoiding_burnout.html

 

Todays burn out topics

1.      Liam (7yr old) has a temperature and sore throat. He spent the night in our bed (which means I’m sleep deprived again) and he’s now asleep at 10:30am. My lovely hubby offered to stay home so I can do my uni work but I already have prior engagements based at home. It was just last night Isaac came into our bed due to health issues. Its musical beds in our home at the moment

2.      Our dog Alex had a paralysis tick yesterday which is worrying me today. His eye is twitching and he’s a bit slower. My brother lost his dog to a tick which makes me very aware of tick problems.

3.      SWICH lunch. A bunch of academic women are coming around for lunch. I did get one snail out of the home grown lettuce. It’s great to socialise with similar buddies who have done, are thinking about or are doing these crazy PhDs.

4.      School canteen. Long story to share another day

5.      Annual review. I’m awaiting a phone call from the post-grad coordinator to finish this tiresome process off. I’m going to complain about library access issues for mums on leave today. Basically I’m a happy camper about uni and they have no plans to kick me out yet due to my limited productivity.

6.      Musical festival for Kai (8yr old) tonight. The cornet is broken again but fixing it can wait. He can still play.

7.      Internet is down and the kid’s computer has a porn adoring virus…

8.      I really need to finish this paper for uni I’m writing…NO MORE BLOGGING ; )

Actually it’s not so bad now I’ve written it down. Time to study and watch over Liam, our sick sleeping 7yr old.