I thought I could juggle everything. I thought I could improve on my dad's habits. But here I am, 7 weeks into the semester and I am hitting a wall.
I thought I would be able to juggle my Ph.D., giving class, having a social life, working in the garden, cooking, being artistic, writing poetry and stories, writing articles, and writing Hive posts. But here I am, declaring defeat.
Working life is not easy, it is a balancing act between what to give up and what to focus on.
My focus was on giving classes, preparing for the classes, marking, marking, and marking. The Ph.D. is a cold piece of meat lying in the kitchen, the articles are non-existent (unless you count the one article that is being peer-reviewed and the seminar that I will hopefully get into), the kitchen is dirty and my garden is overgrowing with various plants that need to be trimmed. I cannot remember when last I worked in the compost. I cannot remember the last time I have taken photographs of birds and flowers (okay I can remember; the idea is just I am tired and cannot physically remember).
This week is going to be hell. I need to join so many lectures besides my own, so many lunches and dinners with fellow professors and doctors in philosophy, and so many important people I need to meet so that the ties between the departments can be maintained.
Meanwhile, the students are handing in papers that I need to mark, the tests and exam papers need to be finalized for May/June, and I need to send in the chapters of my Ph.D. so that I do not fall too far behind my schedule. I will then need to write three more chapters.
It is a Sisyphean battle I tell you.
And the cost of it all is my sanity. I never read books I want to read anymore. I do not write the articles I want to write yet. I am neglecting my girlfriend because at night I am so tired. It is just a messy situation.
All for the CV and the little money. All for the maybe one day getting that elusive tenure position. All for... what?
I hope that I will survive the coming year.
Alas.
The photographs are my own, and the writing is my own.
I hope you are doing well, stay safe.