Quiet

As things calm down at work, the inbox gets quiet, there are less forms to fill out and people to help; I get to focus on my own work. This sounds ideal, but the shift to having time to work on your own writing is always a little tricky for me. I think my mind likes having the excuse of being busy with other work, it convinces me that "if I just had the time" I'd be writing my own papers for my PhD, that time is the only thing holding me back. But then "the time" is available and I'm mute. I sit staring at the clean blank page and I struggle. It's true that once I start I tend to find it easier. So I know that I should "just start writing" but is often the hardest thing for. I've come back here to try to ease myself into the act of writing again. What do you do to start? How do you work past your writer's block?

Bukowski

nobody can save you but
yourself.
you will be put again and again
into nearly impossible
situations.
they will attempt again and again
through subterfuge, guise and
force
to make you submit, quit and/or die quietly
inside.


nobody can save you but
yourself
and it will be easy enough to fail
so very easily
but don’t, don’t, don’t.
just watch them.
listen to them.
do you want to be like that?
a faceless, mindless, heartless
being?
do you want to experience
death before death?

nobody can save you but
yourself
and you’re worth saving.
it’s a war not easily won
but if anything is worth winning then
this is it.

think about it.
think about saving your self.

- Charles Bukowski, nobody but you.

Each day

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trying to breathe

Feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment. Trying hard to focus and remember to breathe. It's not always easy.


Things that help a little...


Great advice like this...


Music like this... 






And watching videos like this...


My friend Maia from julia warr on Vimeo.

Papers papers papers

I have been working late these past two weeks to get a couple of papers ready for submission. They're two papers which will make up half of my PhD thesis and I've been working on them for some time now. I finally submitted one last Wednesday (this one had previously been rejected and needed some further polishing). And I'm about to submit the second. Well, I was until I realised I'd need a particular form emailed to me prior to submission. Bit of an anti-climax! I'm hopeful the American editors are on the ball and respond overnight. 

My reward to myself is a visit to Sydney this weekend, hopefully with sunshine. I had also planned to have my thesis review (a university required "milestone") completed by then - but alas, not to be. So I don't get to go to Sydney with an entirely guilt-free conscience. Then back to finish the next two papers...


I think that's the part I look forward to most in finishing this PhD - the removal of guilt. No matter what I'm doing, I'm always guilty that I'm not working on the PhD. It will be odd not to have that feeling!

Looking forward to some op shopping while in Sydney. Stay tuned for that when I return next week. I'll likely appear here to post during one of my bouts of procrastination.

Guest posting excitement

I was recently invited to do a guest post for one of my favourite blogs, Oliver and Abraham's while McKenzie was off getting married and enjoying post-wedding bliss with her husband Jamie. I was so excited when she asked me. But then panic set in. What would I write? It's one thing writing for your own blog (with your own very small set of followers), it's another thing entirely to write for a 'famous' blog like McKenzie's! 


I managed to put something together, with a few of my favourite pictures and emailed it through. And then it appeared! Have a look!

Thanks McKenzie, and big congratulations to you and Jamie. May you have a life filled with joy and love!

Out West

I arrived home last night after spending five days out west. It was both inspiring and exhausting. A few times a year I visit a state school in a small town called Cunnamulla with some other researchers to take science to the kids. Our goals are to: 1) get the kids to come to school, 2) get the kids to finish school, 3) get the kids to consider university as an option, and, 4) get them to consider science as a degree.

Cunnamulla State School is considered by Education Queensland as a disadvantaged school. There's a large percentage of indigenous students (86%) and attendance and compulsory test scores are lower than average. These kids are smart though, really smart. Sometimes I think they teach me more than I teach them. I only wish I could show you photos of the kids.

A fresh water turtle the kids found trapped between rocks at the Weir. We released him back into the Warrego.

The local flock of geese at the Weir.