Winter brought snow, cozy moments in the winter garden, and good laughs with family and friends. Then I found myself getting back to reality, which was (and is) filled with countless hours in the office, liters of coffee, and delicious cupcakes. At the same time, the international community is welcoming and provides some indispensable leisure opportunities and comfort.
Rarely, however, reflection on a life I chose to lead is possible. I know that it’s somewhat derisory to say that there’s a lack of time, particularly since I’m an absolute believer in and practitioner of efficient time management. Needless to say that for the important things in life there shall always be time. It’s all a matter of priority. However, when your priorities are relatively widely spread, time may indeed work against you (IVB!). Ergo I’m happy to finding a moment for reflection.
In terms of academics, I’m a happy person. Two of my (highly excellent, peripherally boring) review papers have been accepted for publication. At the same time, one got rejected and I need to work on three further papers’ revisions. It’s quite odd that I still want to write now. Be that as it may, the most proximate plan is to finally put my precious survey online. After approximately twelve times of inputting it, I need to do it all over again. The highly sophisticated website won’t allow any mistakes and makes you start all over again once you miss a coma or other trivialities that are of high importance. Research is fun!
In terms of sociability, life is good. I am constantly meeting interesting people, who understand all the pressure and pain a PhD-to-be is going through. At the same time, they do appreciate the apparent cultural differences that make the British quite peculiar (or that make us “foreigners” quite odd). I learned that networking, even on an almost entirely academic scale, is one of the most precious gifts a PhD project entails. It is all about sharing, whining and laughing and taking it easy. A friend’s smile will always brighten up your day. A friend’s frown, on the other hand, will produce frowning on your behalf. The goal is sharing emotions, sharing life.
Apart from the emergence of new people, old people bid goodbye. This, for myself, is something that may cause serious damage to equilibrium and self-perception. It appears that the world is not always the perfect little place one dreams it is. Potentially, it is necessary to leave the safe and secure place that is called my little world and view life more critically. Once the pink bubble bursts there’s no way back. Even if there was some secret path back to pink, this path will be paved with blue stumbling blocks. Those call for more critical, sometimes cynical, reflection. The apparent loss is not only a loss of an external person, but it is a loss of a petite part of the internal person, yourself. It appears rather naïve to claim that a loss is a gain in growth. Maybe it’s a question of time. There we are again, with time working at a high pace. Sometimes what you need to do is to ask for a time-out.
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