Rebooting Me (by sarah)
So I have done what the Dr suggested and then thanks to responses to my other posts i.e. this one, this one and this one have no reached a situation were I can again see a future for me.
One; that involves me going with the flow of my life and not fighting against things so much. Saying - yeah ok I do actually need to do 3-4 hours of physio during the day and long hot baths to keep things under control with my back. And this goes with the science and business stuff too.
For a long time I have supressed, ignored or ridiculed my artistic self - just stuff to entertain Jean or just a way of being able to afford gifts for people. I had to choose between art and science at A'levels though I kept a toe hold with the creative writing short course.
I chose science - I chose A'levels when I could have been off to St Martins to do a Foundation course - I do and don't regret this decission. At the end of the day I have a 2:1 from Imperial College and I worked hard to get it and learnt skills that have fed into many other areas of my life. I don't think I can even be pure art in the same why I could never be a pure scientist am both.
This is my issue - I love geology and rocks and people who understand what I'm talking about if I start spouting geology terms.
And I have been assessing what I actually want out of science - what is my altermate goal?
I realised in the autum that I want to communicate science - I want to build bridges - I am not a lab monkey. But I didn't realise lab monkeys existed until I tried to go back to science. I found that during my course I loved the lectures and I adored writing the two essays on science subjects I hadn't seen before and joining it all together, pooling the knowledge that was spread out amoungst all those journals all those papers - seeing connections that others had not noticed - suggesting things to try from other branches of my knowlegde for ecology stuff and so on.
I want to write popular science and show kids that science is fun. I want to learn new things and make links that might well be lost. In a Stephen Lawhead book (can't remember what it was called but it involved Hindu gods, dreaming and Mars) they actually had a position in academia called a Bridge - a person whos job was to know a little bit about everything - to talk to people and see where the needs were and have the ability to see what connections between subjects or people needed to be made.
This is sort of I supposes Holistic stuff for science and society - looking at how it all fits together - if you are focused on one area you can't see that the answer you need is over there in the humanities departement.
I have a depressing tale where this would have been a very valuable person to have around.
At an EANA conference just before Jean came into the picture (I wont say she wasnt there becuase she was! Just!) I heard the sad tale of money time and effort and we are talking alot of money and lot of time (years) that some people spent on designing a special drill for sample return missions.
When the person I was talking too looked at what they had done he noticed that they had from first principles designed exactly the sort of thing the oil industry has been using for decades. How could this have happened?
The research group where all physists - they didn't even think to look at the mining and oil industries - it didn't occure to them that those industries had to take samples under hard conditions.
Academia at least is getting a bit better with this but only becuase inderviduals have decided to have lateral careers - ie they move from Chemistry to Physics or from Medicine to Geology and so one.
I ask myself why do I want a PhD and they answer seems to be - so that people will actually take my science writing seriously. But to do a PhD you have to be passionate about one topic, or slice of topic and be focused on that alone for 3-4 yrs. Now I still want a PhD to have tasted the science world beyound where I am now but I can't cope with doing it part time whilst trying to do everything else so I think it is going to have to wait until I am older and yes this means I am probably giving up the shining career I have gilmpsed from time to time, for the family life but hey what else am I going to do with my retirement 😉
In the mean time there is the webstuff, my blogs and art I can do in my own time at home - hopefully moving forward.
Art and writing is not just something I do to fill the time - and so I am awaiting a book of free poems becuase I happen to be one of the poets and I am going to send off more - now that I have started to have things accepted - its taken me what? 3 years from when I started submitting to things again - I have to confess I got disheartened and tend to do rashes of sending stuff off!
If I can raise the money I may go for the Craftsmen Guild - they get your stuff displayed and only demand you steward a few exhibates for a few days a year - I think I could handle that - but there would be prep work so its a maybe at the mo - I would have to get a portfolio of crafts stuff put together which would take some time I think. Plus I would like to get the dragon case mod finished before I start down that sort of root.
The writing is still all ticking away there and will continue to do so - but where does this leave the science and my course?
I'm not sure if college will agree to this but I want to drop down to the one year course and get a diplomer in reseach and so that at some point in the future I can go for a full time PhD (way in the future this is at the moment).
I want to do my pacing (part of the pain management) with 1/2 of sitting down doing computer stuff ie writing or websites and 1/2 up and at them with sorting the house and Jean out etc...
This has been working well the last few weeks though obviously pacing is far harder to actually do with Jean about.
Thu 18th Jun 2009 9:26 am 
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By @ndy, Thu 18th Jun 2009 @ 11:27 am
It's good to take time to reflect on these things and it looks like you are forming your plans again.
It's not a bad idea to get the Diploma: it'll give you something for your effort and allow you to get closure on that part without breaking yourself for the MRes or abandoning it altogether. It's similar to what Kiki did. She switched to the PGDip from the MSc because she decided that she'd done the bits she was interested in and was ready to explore her plans for something new.
Don't let the PhD be something that you promise yourself and then spend all your time waiting for it: that'll just depress you again in the long run. I've always been interested in doing one but, when I left college I decided that I was done with academia and it was time for something different. I decided to reevaluate the PhD thing when I retire... Yes: that's a long way off. But at least then I'll know that I'm doing it because I really want to rather than because I think I need to for whatever reason. I've not even committed to doing one then: just deferred the decision until then because I know that I've got a whole truck load of things that I want to do now; and they're going to take a long time.
Carina's comment about choosing art or science and keeping the other as a hobby is a really good idea but it does take discipline, especially if you are naturally a dilettante. Don't plan to do too much: just take one, or maybe two, projects in hand and completely ignore the rest until you've worked out how long things seem to be taking you. If you plan more than that then when things take longer than expected (which they always do) then you'll just end up feeling under pressure and depressed that you aren't keeping up.
Sure, make a big list of projects that interest you, but once you've picked one, plan to only finish that one and make sure you break it down into small, achievable goals: things that take no more than a couple of hours, or maybe an afternoon, to accomplish. That way you'll have plenty of time left over to do the things that really must be done, you'll feel like you have done something you wanted to do and you won't feel like you are falling short.
Good luck. It's very difficult to decide how you want your life to be and then to shape things so that they turn out how you wanted. Many people don't know what they want or even try to work it out: just look at the number of people that join a random company and stay there, plugging away for years and years. I guess some get lucky and find something that they like first time, but I bet most of them do it just because they don't know what else to do or don't want to take charge of their own destiny.
By Ella, Thu 18th Jun 2009 @ 1:27 pm
Hiya,
Actually, I think that science is getting more and more specialised which is a bad thing. There are generalists (or bridges) but to be a generalist in science is much harder. I've been looking for post doc positions and when all the adverts are so specific about what they want, it's hard to move areas.
Regarding science writing, I think that the new scientist runs an essay competition every year to find new writers, you might enjoy doing that.
Regarding your back/health and family issues, I think it's sensible to take things a little slower. It's not giving up, but chipping away at what you want a bit at a time.
Regarding doing a PhD, I don't know whether you would enjoy one or not. Yes, they are very focuses. To begin with you can learn a little around your subject (but not much as you have deadlines and things to focus on), but you do end up going very deeply into a small part of your subject. This will teach you how to do research in a way that a several short term projects on different subjects won't, because you see how the direction changes over the time of research.
Regarding sitting down using a computer, I've started standing up using my laptop. It means I move around a lot more and change position a lot (and well as doing yoga style standing on one leg poses as I think). When I had to spend an entire day sitting at a computer I found I got really fidgetty! Anyway, clearing a space on a dresser so you could sometimes stand up and type might help with you back, perhaps.
By Sarah, Sat 20th Jun 2009 @ 2:39 pm
Thanks @ndy and Ella
Ella its not just the sitting down its the typing - if I type for too long standing or sitting I loose the use of my hands - I have to be careful when doing anything with my hands especially during a flare up but even just in general.
By Tom, Sun 21st Jun 2009 @ 5:00 am
Yeah, you definitely need to give some things up. I don't know how people find the time for blogging and networking... I can't do it. I follow a few blogs related to programming, Tunes, etc. and hardly ever post.
You're dead on about overspecialization... could that be a reason to forget the PhD? 🙂 Holistic science doesn't fit very well in academia. Hmmm, there's a book that might speak to you, The Independent Scholar's Handbook (it's online somewhere). I like the chapter about Alvin Toffler working some lame reporter job in D.C., struggling to achieve recognition, writing Future Shock in his spare time... and the rest is history!
Anyway, things will probably work out fine if you ignore all the advice you're getting and do what you really want 🙂
Best of luck to you and Alaric... hopefully things will turn around soon!