Long-time no Blog!
It’s been a while hasn’t it? I received a subtle poke via email that strongly implied that I should make an update …or else… I’m only kidding… or am I?
So, I bet you’re wondering what I’ve been doing with my time whilst blog dodging? Well, it’s been crazy. The last month especially has been a rollercoaster of terrifying anticipation, personal victories and a dearth of socialising. I’m normally a work hard / play hard sort of person, this month has been all work and no play. I have become a VERY dull girl.
For a long time things were quiet… too quiet. I was just plodding along, doing; some reading, some writing and some teaching. The run up to Easter and Easter itself was pretty mellow. So I thought, well, this seems like a good time to do some “CV building”, and as I’m sure you might have guessed by the fact I wanted to blog about my student experience I’m a ‘keener’, if someone asks for a volunteer my hand is in the air like a shot. I need to curb it, it’s a bad habit, and it has led to everything heaping up at the end of term. So my last month has been really stressful, fun, exciting, educational, but stressful.
One of the biggest time devourers that I have lumbered myself with is ACTION 2012: Social renewal. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great! A truly exciting an interesting opportunity, but it is a little time consuming. In a nutshell PhD’s and postdoc’s from across the university come together to tackle a problem, this year it’s social renewal. So we formed groups, I’m working with a diverse bunch, different nationalities and backgrounds and we have to develop a technical solution to resolving a problem of social problem. It’s early days, but this means meetings, training, brainstorming and form filling. It’s consuming mentally as well as temporally. All that said, I’d recommend anyone who is in the first year of their PhD go for the opportunity next year. I have found it quite educational and I’m really excited to see how it pans out, but be warned it is a massive commitment.
May is the season for “annual progress reviews”- The APR is basically how the university makes sure you haven’t spent the last 9 months playing solitaire and drinking Lambrini. It’s actually supposed to be a supportive process where a fresh pair of eyes look-over your work and they chat to you about your choices and ideas, but no matter how nice it’s supposed to be no one ever likes the process, it’s a bit like applying for a job and then having job interview… but it is WAY more important.
The first step is filling in a big form and submitting some work. Personally I found this bit the worst step, because it’s that tedious form filling and box checking that I loathe. The mere sight of a form is enough to send me into a dyslexia induced panic cycle. On the other hand, it has made me realise just how valuable the E-portfolio system is… and how slack I’ve been in filling it in. It was a bit of a rude awakening, it reminded me how chaotic my working style can be and how I should probably try and be more organised. The second step is the meeting, but I’ll return to that later.
After submitting the form (“of doom”, as I like to affectionately call it), I had the HASS (Humanities and Social Sciences) first year conference. This was something that I had helped organise. Months before I’d helped develop the name, the poster and suggested a key note speaker (who ended up being the one to close the conference) which was all peachy. However, now I had the training modules on how to present, a presentation to write and the other setting up and on the day responsibilities to juggle. It was all pretty overwhelming, and time consuming. Still, everything was alright on the night, I helped people check in, I chaired and presented. I was extremely pleased that about 4/5 people came to my room specifically to see me present! I love my project!
So once that was over I had my Teaching Assessment to look forward to. Remember earlier in the blog I mentioned that I was taking part in ACTION 2012? Well as part of it I swapped some teaching hours with Mark, the lecturer for whom I’m running seminars for this term. Teaching twice as many seminars in the last week of term seemed like a great idea at the time, in hind sight, maybe not. So this coincided with my assessment, and it meant I had to work with a bunch of people I had never run a seminar for before. So I was a bit worried, I wouldn’t know who was likely to have done the reading, if they were a vocal group, or anything I like to work out as early as possible to help me with my teaching. It was all needless stress, they were a pleasure, the class went well, and I received a really good review. This was probably the sweetest of all my personal victories. So yeah, the rest of the week’s teaching went largely without a hitch. However only two people showed up for my 9 am seminar on the Wednesday, those girls are troopers!
On that same Wednesday all the first year PhD’s, myself included, had our progress reviews. So did a couple of the more senior people. Everyone was a little on edge, my colleague Emily was up fist. She came back after 23 minutes, quite happy and that was that. My meeting was later in the day, so we had lunch and I continued to fret and prep in equal measures. I was quite lucky I knew one of my panel and didn’t know the other member. So Kate tried to put me at ease before it all kicked off but it was quite nerve wracking and intense! Remember how I said Emilies was 23 minutes? Mine was at least an hour more than that. It was useful and productive, but I’m glad I have a year in between them!
You know you spend too much time trying to write academically when you want to finish your final paragraph with something like “in conclusion” or ‘to conclude:’. )
Don’t let this put you off if you’re reading this blog to get a flavour of what being a PhD is like. It’s great. It really is. I was a fraught few weeks, but after every achievement I felt myself feeling better about my position than before. If you imagine it like setting up a chain of dominos and then knocking them down, that’s what it feels like. Frustrating, then exciting, then over.