The Travelling PhD

Part of my PhD involves me travelling around a lot for various different reasons, whether this is to go for a conference or for a talk. The majority of my travelling however is to go and visit participants. Recently my car (named Emmett) reached a total 100, 000 miles. Not all of this is mine but I have made a smaller but significant contribution. Having only recently passed my driving test it has not only been an education in terms of driving but also in using and knowledge of having a car. It did make me realize that there are many parallels with driving that also are applicable to the completing a PhD.

Always Moving

Since I have been able to drive too and from testing sessions I get a lot of time to think (always a dangerous situation). It gives me far too much time where I can over think situations but also remind myself of conversations. Driving back from testing yesterday I was reminded of my a conversation with a friend about studying for a PhD and working in research.

Academic Origins

I have realized that I haven't talked much about my PhD recently, well today is not going to be that day. But something in the last couple of weeks has made me appreciate how interconnected the people I work and have worked with are. Even this may not be that surprising given how (relatively) small academic research is compared to other areas of work such as or the City. It feels more complicated than purely chance.

National Suicide Prevention Week and Superman

This past week has been National Suicide Prevention week. The aim of this week is to raise awareness about issues related to suicide. I think that everyone can agree suicide is a tragedy that in many cases can be avoided and prevented from happening. Despite being one of the leading causes of death in the world, talking about suicide is infrequent. Part of this is due to suicide being a multi-faceted complex issue spanning across many areas and crucially people come at it with their own viewpoints and opinions.

Conferencing

So the last month has been very hectic. There have been two big international colour conferences back to back in separate weeks. This was my first experience of such a busy conferencing schedule and was intense and very tiring.

Self Writing

One thing I realized that I don't do as much as I used is writing short poems or short pieces of prose. Previously when I would write it would help come to terms or clarify my position with a problem that I was facing. I found that when I would write things down it would force me to confront the issue, mapping out what the problem, see the pros and cons and then identify a solution or have a moment of clarity.

One step forward, One step backwards, One step forwards!

So after the last months eye-opening self-realiztion moment, I have spent time working on sorting out my life in general as well as social events and also PhD in there as well. I am getting better at balancing between three yet I seem to only be able to get two out of three things correct. Still this is better than only only being able to focus on one thing having no balance at all.