Wanna Be PhD

PhD 2006. Now fully blown by the Postdoc Experience.

Name:
Location: My Appartment, Academic Nowhereland

Email: wannabephd@gmail.com

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Abstract submission

So, my dear little future academic. What have you done. Now you're sitting here, one hour before the deadline, working on two abstracts simultaneously. That's not gonna get you good results. Promise. And why did this happen? Why? Because you didn't go to the library for work. Not in the last three days. This is why you suffer now, stupid little girl. Never, ever start sitting at home again when you know work is due. It only makes you bad thoughts about the boyfriends you do not have. And it makes you wanting to eat tons of chocolates. And it keeps you procrastinating and feeling sad. And you don't even have the time for recreational reading. Bad girl.

Friday, April 28, 2006

Confused

I put shower gel onto my hair while washing them. And I happened to feel that I forgot how logarithms work.
Is this going to get dangerous?

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Another anniversary


I remember the evening when they announced it on the news on TV. We were just having dinner, the TV running besides. Mom and dad were engaged in a heavy fight. Both of them red all over and screaming at each other. We, the kids were listening and chewing. Suddenly they quieted down. It was a female speaker who said the unbelievable.

I remember our cat died a couple of weeks later.

I was small. I thought Russia was very far away. Thought we were safe b/c we were so far away. Now I'm older. Russia is not far away at all.

Incredible amount of social life

Today, I was around the university building. I was working in the library for about two hours. All in all, I bumped into four people I know. Amazing! Leaving the apartment does defeat the loneliness!

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Cafe blogging

3:13 p.m.
I am sitting in a cafe (close to my apartment) in the garden. Little light green things are falling from the maple tree into my keyboard. I bet that the seeds are quite harmful to the interior of a laptop.

Nevertheless, I am back to writing the paper for collaboratorix. I kinda enjoy it. Life is better without internet. Without relentlessly checking email over and over again. I experience a relief.

Can it be that I am a real internet/email addict?

Of course, I know that I have pursued addictive behavior previously (with food, not with drugs), and that there is all kind of addiction in my family (food, no food, drugs, alcohol, whatever you want). Um.

I adore mypodcasts! Its like surfing the web and reading various journals without doint that, but while getting around in the fresh air.

Podcast forever! :-)

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3:31 p.m.
When I close my eyes it smells like summer holidays. Like swimming. Ice cream. Sun. Wind.


There's a quy sitting at the other end of the garden. Quite an attractive haircut..... alone!!

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3:55 p.m.
Girlfried of cutie has arrived. Grumble.

Next to me, there sits an old woman. There are several elderly ladies arround, as there is a home for the elderly across the road. She's been sitting alone at her table for about an hour. Talking to no one. Like me. Are the only people that are sitting in a cafe at a sunny afternoon elderly ladies?

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And now, one of them is eating an apple pie. And I can smell it. I want it. I need it. uuuuuhhhh...... But I am on diet. And I have brought (knowing what would happen) only 5 € with me. Thant's not enough for coffee and pie.

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4:54 p.m.
I was a very good girl. Completed Part 2 (of overall 3) of our paper. Indeed, writing off-line is really fast. I am amazed. Now I'm going on for another hour to collect and structure the comments of Head of Department. Must find out what to write on the missing 29 pages. Or remaining 24, as I'm going to have a couple of pages with acknowledgements.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Library blogging

10:55 a.m.
I need to go to toilet. But I won't go until I have done a little library blogging. Here is my new life. I am a good girl today. Set the alarm at 8. Got up. Grabbed my computer. And here I am. In the library. Working.

As you know, I really suffered from isolation this winter. And - surprise, surprise! - I have grown fat!

(back from the toilet)
I have to write a paper now - the one which collaboratorix and I have been presenting. Some Big Scholar and Journal Editor has asked us personnally to sumbit it to his journal! Yeah!

Because I am so lonely at home and procrastinating so much, I have decided to pick up a better working habit. Something like: 4 or 5 hours of writing in the library. Monday to Friday. The best part of this is that I do not have WLAN (hence: no procrastination surfing!) and that food is prohibited (which - hopefully - helps me to slim down a bit).

Part II of My New Life is to go to the park for 2 hours every day, doing my reading. I have made a list of all the things that popped into my mind. Of course, there is subject and thesis related stuff I want to have read, but there are other things as well, say, research on new media and stuff, which I am not into but which seem interesting from a general point of view.

Part III (the final one) is that I have set up my podcast system. Today it was my first ride to the library (which takes about 1/2 hour) where I listened to an American podcast. Maybe I'll add the reference later, not sure yet. It's cool not only because it's interesting but also b/c it helps me with my English. Y'know, the fact that you can hear it over and over and over again, to repeat the parts which you didn't understand (and at some point remember the new expressions and look them up in the dictionary, at some very remote point). Whatever, I enjoy it.

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11:26 a.m.
If I am a good girl, a reeeeeeealllly goooood girl, I will get a diet coke from the vending machine at 1 p.m. *slurp* Almost 90 mins to go.
A cool one. Fresh and chilly. jumjum.


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11:55 a.m.
To the bitch that opened the window. Yes, I appreciate fresh spring air. That's why I am going to the park in the afternoon. But I hate the noise from the construction site out there. It disturbs my thought and keeps me off from writing. AND I AM HERE FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF WRITING!!!

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Long time no see

The last couple of weeks I spent doing nothing. I was on vacation in the mountains and at my Grandma's over the Easter holidays. And now, I am somehow starting to get back to work.

Thank you all for your congratulations! But the thing isn't over yet. I had a meeting with the head of my department. He said (I still can't quite believe it) that he wanted me to write 200 pages. I have now 171. I think it is ok if there is some substantial thing that is missing and that I should add this, but just a mere page limit?

Somehow I feel like an idiot. Doing my research for people who do not care a shit about it. And even this head of the department has always seemed so bright and distinguished.

So, if he wants it to be 200 pages, he'll get exactly 200.

There is going to be a meeting with Ex Supervisor as well, b/c he is somehow involved in the committee. That's going to be pretty funny, b/c he hasn't read a single page yet. And now he has to b/c I'll try tp schedule the defense within the next couple of weeks.