Does January even count?

Well it is February 2017. January went by in a flash and was a wonderful month! We came back from visiting family in Barbados, the Swede graduated from the psychology program, I found several interesting newspaper articles from the 1960s for my dissertation, and I started teaching as part of the history of modern medicine course!

Even though January was the best, it still somehow feels like the year doesn’t officially start until February. Or maybe that is just because I cannot get a real routine going until February..

But February also means I have been at the department for a year! I have somehow got through an entire year of doing my phd and it feels good. 🙂

That being the case, I thought I would briefly reflect on how it feels a year later. February 2016 was exciting and very confusing. February 2017 is exciting, less confusing, and somehow more daunting (but not necessarily in a bad way!). I know what I am doing more or less and have embraced the independent nature of doing a phd. I also feel much more comfortable with everyone in the larger project I am working on, inspired by their work, and able to ask people for advice without worrying I’ll mess up their names.

So this is the year of digging into my dissertation and producing real amounts of text. Of teaching at the department, taking more Swedish classes, learning more about my employee benefits (such as early morning yoga!), and carving out time for creativity on the side! I am not sure what that means for blogging because I have two other writing/illustration projects that I want to spend more time on. I guess only time will tell. 🙂

 

Several Months Later?

Wow, I have not been good at consistently blogging..

What can I say? Apparently netflix has managed to hijack most of my freetime. I frequently wish there was two extra hours a day for creativity. I miss reading novels and I have been lagging behind in my drawing, but I have managed to teach a small furry animal how to live in a human dwelling! (And that takes up quite a bit of time actually).

We have also been traveling around Sweden a bit (teaching Hugo about trains) and indulging in my intense love for all things Harry Potter (the Swede got us tickets to see the play in London!). So beyond the phd things have indeed been good this autumn.

^ A beautiful autumn/winter day in Uppsala

^ A quick look at London before our marathon Harry Potter play ❤ (which was the best!)

^ My roomies. They help keep me sane. 🙂

I guess I am mostly writing a blog post about how I have not been writing blog posts. So now to somehow connect this back to the wider theme of doing a phd..

(Right, I have been talking about not blogging..having no time because of netflix..but that means I technically do have time I am just lazy..and I am lazy because..I..have..no..energy?)

A phd takes up a lot of energy! It can take up the same amount of time as any other job if you are organized, as in about 40 hours a week, but it does tend to exhaust me mentally. To be fair though when I was working 40 hours a week at a store which sold baby paraphernalia I was also pretty exhausted…so maybe it is just one of the common effects of working. 🙂

I have been doing my best to take it as it comes, to not overwhelm myself, and to keep the “tick” going.

Ah yes, what on earth is the “tick”? Well, in October I was having a supervision meeting with one of my supervisors and he said:

“This text is all very well and so, but may I ask, why do you care about any of this?”

After spending two months writing a literature review on population policy I had mostly been focusing on making everything clear and concise..not on why any of this mattered to me. To my surprise, this whole “why do you care about any of this?” question was difficult to respond to after minimizing that aspect for so long.

But what my supervisor wanted to remind me about was the intensity of taking on a phd dissertation  and continuously checking in with oneself to keep the “tick” alive. The tick is essentially the component of the research that makes you tick. 🙂  The thing you really care about behind all the technicalities, previous research, theory, and method. After being reminded to refocus on that aspect of the research every so often I have definitely become happier with my research decisions.

With that, I shall wish everyone a God Jul! Next week I meet up with my family for the holidays and considering my terrible rate of blogging so far I can only assume this will be it for 2016.. 🙂

 

One Academic Term Later

Hej hej!

Lately I have been a rather irregular-blog-updater, mostly as it has taken a while to find a balance between work, life, creative projects and dog stuff. Life has ebbs and flows though, so I try not to get too strung up on losing the thread of my projects sometimes.

^ this little guy takes up a lot of energy! 🙂

But in any event, lately I have been thinking about how I now have one academic term as a phd student under my belt. Things are still confusing, but now I feel much more aligned with the confusion.

(Although I still cannot get our office phone to work…but neither can the two other phds in my room.)

And not to congratulate myself too much, but I was the one of us to notice that there was an extra computer tower in our office. It was sitting between me and the fellow across from me, whirring away everyday. I was under the impression it was his computer and I was a little baffled that he NEVER turned his computer off. Ever. Turns out it was a computer left from 2012 that no one had ever bothered to turn off…

So yeah, that computer is now turned off and back in storage so I’m kind of a hero.

But back to the actual academic stuff.. This term I will present my work to the department for the first time and hopefully get some constructive feedback. I should probably also find more interesting conferences to attend, but sometimes I feel my subject is a bit of a weird one..So I either have to go to very, very broad historical conferences or to very tiny specific ones. But it might result in a trip to Bucharest next year if I read one particular conference heading correctly.  I am also figuring out a good balance between my two supervisors, and my Swedish is slowly, slowly improving.

I hope everyone else who has had a confusing professional year has found their footing! Eventually things usually seem to come together. 😀  For now, I am looking forward to October and all the nice autumn weather headed our way.

 

Hugo!

On August 8th we drove five hours to Gothenburg airport, picked up this little black ball of energy, and drove five hours home.

He was nervous, tired, and skittish but still full of affection. He clambered into the car and lay quietly behind us for the entire drive home.

Now, almost two weeks later, he has definitely settled in! He is plumper, happier, cheekier, and full of teenage spunk. His name is Hugo and we are doing our best to teach him not to jump up on people but it is a slow process apparently!

Getting a six month old puppy has some advantages. He was very quick to housetrain and has a little more independence than a tiny, little pup. But he also came to us on the brink of a very youthful, rebellious, hormonal phase of puppydom which involves a LOT of chewing.

Fortunately, the Swede and I have very flexible schedules throughout August so we can help him adjust a bit. We have also signed up for obedience classes which start next week so hopefully we can take him to the dog park soon once he listens a bit more.

I am a bit nervous about us transitioning back to work in September, but we are going to do our best to help Hugo get used to being alone a bit before then. We shouldn’t have to leave him alone more than a couple hours in a row, but it seems like it will be a rocky transition initially! Keep your fingers crossed for us. 🙂

I was also nervous about getting a dog while doing my phd, but I thought about it a lot and figured once we get him trained he will make me healthier and happier during the entire phd process. It will be good to have someone else to focus on, to be forced outside during the day, and to get regular exercise! Plus dogs are just the sweetest. ❤

 

En Svenska Kurs

^ I may have a weakness for puns..

Considering that I am doing my PhD in Sweden, in a mostly Swedish speaking department, with a majority of events, seminars, and emails in Swedish it makes a bit of sense that I spend some energy learning Swedish. My department is very supportive of my efforts and were happy for me to attend an intensive Swedish course this August. So for the first two weeks of August I am going over grammar, reading comprehension, conversational skills, and such at Folk Universitetet.

There are about ten of us in the class from all over Europe. Consequently we all have different accents, strengths and weaknesses and so far it has been fun learning from each other. Our teacher is sweet but terrible at names. I am fairly certain she mispronounces everyone’s name and since that is how we learn each other’s names we all now go by some weird demented version of our proper names. But since it is across the board it feels pretty fair.

I will be busy this week preparing presentations and making a mad dash to Göteborg and back (hopefully we will have picked up a new furry family member too!) but soon enough the ‘normal’ phd life will resume.

I hope everyone is having  a lovely August!

Värmland

We are back from the Swede’s mormor’s summer-house. It was a lovely week in the sun and the lake, with enough bbq’d food to sink a ship. My only complaint would be the billions of bug bites I amassed. (But that isn’t so surprising considering I am a beacon for blood sucking bugs). Perhaps I should just start thinking that red, splotchy bite marks nicely complement a tan. 🙂

When Swedish Summer shows up, it really shows up. 😀  It could not have been a better week, and the long summer days only help. We mostly swam and hung about in the sun, but we also did a quick trip to see the nearby ‘car cemetery’ which was somehow whimsical and creepy simultaneously. I also managed to pick up a few Swedish vocab tips from the Swede’s two year old niece. So now I can balance out all the technical ‘history of medicine’ jargon with some good ol’ itsy bitsy spider.

On Friday we took a seven hour bus journey home only to have lost our apartment key.. This was initially a bummer, let me tell you, as both of us needed to pee. But after a few phone calls we figured it would be cheaper to stay with a friend and then have a weekend out on the town then to pay the weekend ‘open your door’ fee. So, along with our full bladders, we hunkered down at a friend’s for the night, then found a cheap place to stay Sat/Sun and had a surprisingly lovely weekend! When faced with a $340 fee to bust into your place I can thoroughly recommend (if possible) waiting until Monday to pay $25 instead. And then just spend all that other money on fun food and movies.. 🙂

It is pouring rain and thundering outside now, a good week to be back at work!

Vi ses!

Summer

Hello!

Summer holidays have been in full force since midsummers. We had two wonderful weeks in Canada, and tomorrow we leave for the Swede’s mormor’s summer house. The summer house is on a beautiful lake in a lovely wooded area near the Swedish-Norwegian border.

It seems that during the summer you can get work done wherever you can. This last week I have been back at the books for a bit and I will cart some with me to the lakeside as well. Even though I have been waking up and working during the week it still feels like being solidly in holiday mode! I work from home and that saves time and allows me to shuffle off into our spare bedroom (converted into an office) in my sweatpants. I like being forced into the ‘real world’ every so often, but I am definitely enjoying this break from it!

But enough about that, here are some snaps from our Canadian adventuring 🙂

We were in Vancouver, Whistler and on Vancouver Island. It was wonderful to be back in BC during the summer and my heart feels full of home now. ❤

I hope everyone is having lovely summer holidays! And if anyone is ever in need of British Columbian travel tips drop me a line. 🙂

This Time Last Year

A year ago we were in Norway, exploring Lofoten with my mum and simultaneously celebrating the end of the academic term and my thesis defence. This year the academic term stretches into the summer on my end, although there will be travels and adventures sprinkled throughout. My general impression at the department is that everyone gets a lot of writing, research and holidaying with their families done during the summer. Classes are over, there are no meetings, no seminars, and no reason to be at the university if you would rather read your texts somewhere else.

I thought this would be a good opportunity to do a bit of free advertising for Norway! Living in Scandinavia provides plenty of interesting and beautiful travel experiences, and for someone who misses the mountains, Norway is a good fix! So if you find yourself in northern Europe with a bit of extra cash/resourcefulness then Norway is a great trip.

We went up to Lofoten, which is in the arctic circle but fairly mild because of the gulf stream. However, you will still be quite cold in June if you do not bring proper sweaters and coats.

But it is a beautiful place to explore so don’t let the chilly temperatures get you down! We rented a car and bopped around between mountains, beaches and little towns and it was wonderful.

The year before last we drove to Norway and got caught up in all the amazing fjords in the more southern parts. This year we won’t be heading to Norway to fix my mountain melancholy because we will be going back to Canada! It will be my first time back in Canada during the summer for several years so I really hope the weather cooperates and I can prove to the Swede that we have nice, warm, pleasant summers.. (I have been complaining non stop about being cold all June here and how miserable that is, so I really need Canada to get its act together to prove my point!)

🙂

What does the ‘P’ stand for?

retro romance

 

Hej hej lovely readers,

A while ago I asked my Swede about possible topics for blog posts related to doing a phd. He promptly suggested a series of posts: what does the P stand for, then the H, and then the D. This is not a bad idea considering that for me ‘phd’ mostly means ‘something old nerdy adults do which gives them some kind of authority’. So it is probably a good idea to get a handle on the specifics.

As a kid everything seems impossible. When you are six it is all ‘How on earth will I be able to do high school level math?’ When you reach twelve you think ‘How on earth does anyone decide anything about their life and future courses?’ When you are eighteen it is all ‘Not sure I can even get into university, never mind understand all of its intricacies.’ Then when you are twenty and well into your undergraduate degree you feel just as confused about what a masters degree does and whether a phd is something worth pursuing and who even does those and what do all those letters even mean.

So while it is a bit excessive to do a post about each letter, I thought perhaps we could go over the basics all at once.

So first, the letters do not even make sense.

P:  Philosophy

H: Hilosophy

D: Doctor

PhD: Philosophy Hilosophy Doctor. Also known as the silliest thing ever.

So yeah, you have to switch them around a bit and subtract the ‘H’ into the ‘P’. Then you get the slightly more sensible sounding: Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, and sometimes DPhil).

At the end of this ride you are technically a doctor, just not the kind of doctor anyone wants to interact with on a plane:

“Is there a doctor here?! This man is having a heart attack!”

“Well, yes, technically I have a doctor of philosophy. I can summarize these events by using the lens of biopower and submit a critical analysis of the biomedicalization of society if you would like?”

“NOBODY WANTS THAT,” screams the entire plane.

A doctor that cannot do much about real-time heart attacks, is basically the subtitle. It takes a darn long time to become a doctor of philosophy and you might feel like you should rub it in medical doctors faces that you are also a doctor, but there is no need, everybody knows you are really a big nerd pretending to be as useful as a medical doctor. 🙂 Don’t get me wrong…being a doctor of philosophy will definitely delight me and I will make a point of being obnoxious about it for a bit, but I know the gig is already up. Nobody will confuse me with an actual doctor. Not unless I invest in a lab coat and a stethoscope..which is not totally out of the question actually.. (But also who needs the hassle of people showing me their rashes all the time on the off chance I can diagnose it and give them some magic cream that I obviously must carry in my pocket.)

So now we all know what the P, the H, and the D stand for and I think we can all be quite satisfied in our knowledge.

Have a wonderful week! 🙂

 

Medical history… in drawings?

Hej hej!

So it is Sunday evening and I feel very, very lazy. I have done almost nothing of significance all day and I would like to keep it that way. Generally I yo-yo between needing to be productive and needing to do absolutely nothing. (The internet has indicated this is not a unique phenomenon so I do not feel particularly special in this respect.)

In any event, I could not find the energy to express anything deep or meaningful about doing a phd. Instead, I present a peek into my notebook:

As you may have noticed I quite enjoy doodling, drawing and art in general. Sometimes this can actually be distracting, as in when I find a particularly well written or strange piece of text which I need to scribble into a drawing.

But, as anyone who has a job which requires a lot of reading and analyzing texts can tell you, you cannot do this effectively for eight hours straight. (Or at least most people cannot, but there may be a few super stars out there). I find that even when I need to read fast and furiously to keep abreast of deadlines I usually need a minute or ten to let my brain turn to mush after a prolonged amount of reading.

And that is where these medical history doodles actually come in handy. They provide a tiny break where I get to use a different part of my mind, and yet they do not completely steer me off course. (I may have also read most of the BBC’s travel columns during my mini breaks just to have something quick, quirky and accessible to read. Thanks to Diane Selkirk for her interesting article on St. Helena last week. Got me almost wanting to take a nine day boat trip from the coast of Namibia. Almost.)

So that is that! My notebook is mostly hectic quotes and arrows, but there are also a few unfortunate souls depicting strange historical events.

I hope everyone has a nice week! Hej då!