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Of HDRs, annual reviews, and a mac and cheese toastie
I had an exceptionally reassuring Annual Review this year. I feel so very lucky to have an immensely supportive supervisory panel, but I’m also grateful to have an encouraging postgraduate coordinator. I was so motivated this week that I found myself writing into the early hours of the morning. I needed a couple of midnight snacks though. I wanted to make something easy, simple, and comforting. I also wanted to make something I could potentially turn into a lunch I could take into work the next day.
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Being mixed race in 2020
As the Black Lives Matter movement resurfaced worldwide, I can't lie and say I didn't question my role as a biracial person. Because of how I look, I found myself questioning whether the pain I feel with everything going on in the black and POC community and all the lives we've lost, should even be revealed. Here's what its like to be mixed race in 2020.
I had a test for Coronavirus
I had a slight pain in my throat on Wednesday and I was in bed like a couch-potato by Friday. It was time to get a Covid test.
Book reflection: Gratitude - by Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks has always been one of my favourite writers. As a neurologist, his book, The man who mistook his wife for a hat is superbly written and details the many peculiar and bizarre neurological cases he’s studied through the years. His writing is also very insightful. The New York Times calls him the ‘poet laureate of medicine’. He was able to complete a few short essays before passing away from cancer in 2015. He was eighty-two.
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Trends and fashions
I’ve never been the best at keeping up with what’s fashionable. That’s partly because I like to hold on to my money, and partly because I don’t pay enough attention to keep up to date with the current thing. There is another reason though: I’m not sure the mindless pursuit of the current trend is a good idea.
Bicycles are the best
I love riding my bike. It is one of the best pick-me-ups I know. Every time that I am riding my bike I think about just how slow walking is!
What are your music playlists?
I have completed all my data-gathering for my doctoral thesis and now it’s down to analysis and writing. I am starting to appreciate how important music is to my process, especially having to work around my time engaging and caring for my darling nine-month old daughter. My supervisors have been so supportive and have pointed out that raising children while writing papers meant that there was hardly any time to procrastinate any more. I find myself writing in between my daughter’s naps, structuring thesis outlines on my phone while waiting for her during child care orientation, and so on. I started with just having one “Ember’s writing music” playlist and then I found myself needing different kinds of music for different types of music. I have Jane Austen-esque music for when I am composing words for this blog. When I’m trying to re-organise spreadsheets and data, or when I need to revise references and citations and don’t necessarily need to be thinking I put on music I can sing to. Sometimes they’re guilty pleasure type pop songs or the Beatles, or playlists from different decades or sometimes funk and soul classics. When I’m writing for a deadline, or writing with purpose, I have a playlist of instrumental music from movie soundtracks. Sometimes it’s from the Godfather, or Legends of the Fall or Cinema Paradiso or even Indiana Jones, among many others. I also created a playlist I listen to when I am trying to boost my confidence prior to a presentation or a talk.
Review: Cruel Intentions
I recently watched the 1999 teen classic Cruel Intentions. And wow, what a ride.
My mid-semester paper doesn’t exist in front of the fire
I think one of my greatest refuge places is to sit in front of a fire. I grew up in the Adelaide Hills where fireplaces and bonfires were really common, so there’s a sentimental aspect to it. Watching the flickering flames and hearing the crackling of the wood is just a really tranquil place for me. It’s a place where day to day troubles don’t exist, it’s just me and the fire I’m watching.
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