Monday 23 April 2018

Academia, messiness and doing things differently


I’m, writing from Edinburgh before I get the train back home. OK, not back home, but to my sister’s place in Durham. I am currently sat in a cafĂ© by the university in Edinburgh, with my laptop and all the work options I could possibly have. Do I mark the *huge* list of essays sitting in the turnitin folder, still unmarked? Do I work on my PhD? Do I do emails? Do I prep for my conference presentation in two days? (no – I told myself no tweaking my slides) Do I prep for my teaching next week? I don’t know. Well, I do know. I’ve done none of those things, and I decided to write a short post on here instead. Though I have a feeling it’s not going to be so short. I’ve been working on writing in various forms for long enough now, to know that nothing I write can be considered ‘short’.

One of my favourite things is being able to stop and think/process things. I don’t normally find the space to do that at home, but I can usually carve out a space to do that when I’m away, or doing something different. I guess it makes sense I need to not be in a familiar place – doing things differently is more challenging when you're doing what you’ve always done. It’s paradoxical because looking at my life, you’d be reasonable to assume that I’m a person who doesn’t stop and think/process. Not because I don’t think deeply about most things (some would say over-think). I definitely *do* think deeply a lot. But you’d be reasonable to think that I don’t, because I literally don’t stop. Not for lunch, not in the evenings, very rarely at the weekends… It can become problematic if I don’t keep myself in check. Even if I do watch myself, it can still be problematic. Again, the wonderful question of how do you stop to chill, when you don’t actually know what it is that you do to ‘chill’ anymore? I run… Or I travel and see friends/family. But it’s always doing, and 99% of the time I always over-estimate my energy and under-estimate the time and emotional work it takes to do the things that I love. And I inevitably burn out - energy runs out. In the past week I’ve come up and down to Scotland twice, I’ve lost track of everything in-between, but I do know that I’ve done a lot of marking and supervising my masters students, and seeing my therapy clients, and I also know that I went to Birmingham on Friday to another conference.

I’ve only been teaching for two years, and never thought I would love what I do as much as I do. I also never thought that what you care very much about can also be draining and exhausting. There’s something relentless about the culture of academia. The concept of stopping, or ‘slow working’ (slow working being something you do intentionally), doesn’t match up to the type of pressure you can find yourself working in, and the type of culture that’s so normalised and rarely questioned (questioning it would be admitting you find it tough – and better not admit to that, because your career depends on your capacity to keep up!). Perhaps it’s because teaching is slowing down now, or that we're moving into conference season. Or maybe it’s that I’ve transferred my PhD to a different university and navigating new spaces and new relationships is ridiculously complex, especially when you still live and work (and feel a sort of belonging) at your old PhD home and current work home. Even though that will be knocked down in the imminent future and the new space will look different. Perhaps the work isn’t finding some sense of stability or normality, but perhaps the work is in just being OK with the messiness and the unknowns.

As a way of being OK with this kind of messiness and ambiguity, I’ve been doing what I call ‘Radical Things’. One of those radical things was deciding that my work will be enough. I am going to a conference in a couple of days (one that I actually left half way through last year, because I felt that looming imposter syndrome that most women in academia feel at some point – sometimes at many points – and it’s probably something that doesn’t go away). You know that feeling that you have absolutely NO idea what you’re doing, that you’ve been fooling everyone, and this is the moment that you’re going to finally be exposed. That in fact, you do not belong and you do not know stuff. You’re doing a PhD because it’s some mistake, and inevitably you’ll just fall flat on your face and everything will crumble. OK, well it’s not like that all the time, but I guess that’s a description of what imposter feelings can feel like. It feels real. What I’m finding interesting is this way that academia works, and the way people work within it. I think it can produce a person/people who literally don’t stop (as above!) and for me, especially as I’m spending time in-between places, I’m noticing the spaces of belonging and the spaces of not belonging. It’s different being a PhD student in one university and a lecturer in another. I guess I am doing things differently – or at least, noticing things, is making me try to do things differently. I’m noticing how people treat one another and I’m noticing that I learn a lot from this. Mainly how I want to be with my own students (and also how I don’t want to be). But what I’m also noticing is what works for me and what doesn’t. I think I’m fortunate in a lot of ways - I don't come up against people that really push me down or block me out. Partly because I have chosen supervisors who are the opposite to that, and because make friends and try to work with colleagues who sit with you, rather than push you out. But still, being and belonging are really complicated things. And that's all coming up now I have moved universities.

Anyway, back to where I am. Which is now on the train! For years I’ve had this thing where what I want more than anything is to find a little bit of stability and certainty, yet what I actually do, tells a different story. So here I am on a train in-between Edinburgh and Durham on my fourth coffee of the day, wondering what’s next. Wondering how you strike the balance between living ever so slightly on the edge of what feels comfortable, and just plain old throwing yourself off the cliff-edge, hoping that when you land, it’ll be OK. And yes, even if I do throw myself off the edge it’ll probably still be OK, but perhaps a little more messy than I’d like! I’m not an expert at ‘risk’, but I think that seems pretty risky to me. I had a different kind of weekend where I decided to do some radical things. Maybe some risky things. Not adventuring up cliff-edges, but radical in the sense of self-care when you think you might be close to the edge. Self-care takes on different meanings at different times for me. Historically I have moved in and out of either centralising it in my life, or not caring too much at all because I've been in a resistant and critical place thinking it is not *my* responsibility to fix an environment that doesn't seem to care for me. I think partly it’s because some discourses around self-care generally assume it’s about bubble baths cups of tea - metaphorical sticking plasters which eventually fall off and the wound is still there. I don’t buy into those ideas - the bubble baths and sticking plasters. But I do buy into something in relation to self-care. I think it’s the idea that we don’t live in a culture (and certainly I don’t work in a culture) that really centralises resisting structures and practices that aren’t useful to us.

I’ve had some useful conversations over the past week or so, which have made me think and helped me to find some kind of connection to what self-care means again. And I mean being radical in what it looks like. I think now, it really does mean doing things that work, in whatever way. Really leaning in and looking inwards (and outwards) towards the things that matter, regardless of the shame or the guilt that comes with it. Being in touch with what you need. Taking a risk to consider the possibility that you are enough just as you are, and you don't need to work the extra weekend or until 2am just to get that thing done for evidence that you are 'enough'. You can not get your to do list done and you can still be enough. You can turn to other people, create time for conversations and relationships that aren't based on competition but based on care. So, in the spirit of being radical about what self care looks like, I booked a short solo-travelling trip away for next month, because I know that will be good. I know I will need that. I also prepared a conference presentation and didn’t obsess over the slides, the words or proofing it 200+ times – because it’ll just be enough as it is. And yes that really is an exercise in vulnerability. I totally fear if I don't proof something 200+ times my mistakes will show and I'll be found out for being a fraud (hello imposter syndrome).

Now I’m no longer on the train – I’ve arrived at my sister’s – she’s made me the  most delicious coffee (number 5 of the day) and I’m pretty sure now this post has travelled from Scotland to England with me, it’s ready to post!