It's my first day of my new working life and so far I have skived for an hour and argued with DB for half an hour. Excellent!
Am really stressed about working I have realised. I am really intimidated by the work. I feel dulled and slow and as if the working world is miles away from me. My self-confidence is low I guess. I also feel i have two full time jobs - as a housewife, and as a PhD student. I cook, clean, tidy and organise my family, am the primary carer for bean (by default as I am Woman and of course, I adore the job :0)) I don't sleep much because of said child and am also a full time PhD student. Something has to give and all to easily it is the work. I need to get back into it so badly, to gain momentum and a feeling that the work belongs to me, that I can do it and that it isn't some kind of hobby I moonlight with. I want to be able to do it but I find it hard to have the energy and motivation when so many other jobs call for my attention. It is no coincidence either that these jobs are ones that will provide a immediate sense of satisfaction as they are quick and easy to complete - in comparison with a PhD that is a long, long, long slog. I try and switch off from my other jobs but feel that I cannot sit down at my desk until they are done - until the house is clean, tidy, organised and Bean is settled. But this rarely happens, because housework does not start at 9am and finish at 5pm, but is a constant cycle of labour. So I never feel settled at my desk and always seem to have reason to pop off and do something 'important'. I can'gt work anywhere but home, the commute to Uni would take up a quarter of my very limite,d precious time and I don't even have my own space there but a research room with glaring overhead lights and, ug, other people.
I want to view my PhD as important, but it just isn't any more to me. Working on it feels self indulgent, because both DB and Bean are unhappy when I am doing it. DB because he needs to work too and Bean because I am his world and if DB is preoccupied Bean doesn't get distracted very well and gets bored and mardy. I have one hour a week for ME, and that is when i go to commando fit. Otherwise, I even take my baby to the loo with me (he cries if I leave him!). I sleep with my baby, I am almost never without him. I love this, but it is taxing.
So I am here, after sorting out my barney with DB and he is making me a cup of tea. I need to work well today, not necessarily for a long period of time, but to do something. Have a feeling of accomplishment, even if it is only 15 minutes.
I wonder if I should leave the chapter for a week and concentrate on some reading, get back into the language and rhythm of work. Or just go back into the chapter. Am dreading the chapter so I guess I should tackle it head on and make it my friend again. That would be some achievement! It feels like a lifetime ago that I did my fieldwork.
Ok. Today I am going to read through my chapter and then start typing up the fieldwork results again. I have two hours (though Bean will want a nap at some point so will have to do that). It isn't long enough. *sigh*
I shall skim read the chapter as it stands and then start typing.
x J
Monday, 31 January 2011
Sunday, 30 January 2011
Back in the Game!
Phew wee, am back at work!
It is sunday today and am sorting everything out and getting my house in order. I will work:
Sunday 10-2 (DB with Bean)
Monday 11-3 (DB has Bean)
Tuesday 10.45-2.15 (Bean with childminder)
Wednesday 10.45-2.15 (ditto above)
Thursday 10.45 - 2.15 (ditto above)
Friday OFF
Saturday OFF
The hours will be revised at the end of Feb and hopefully upped a bit. I will be writing at these times and Sunday will also be my review period for the week and setting targets for the next week - an easier day really :0) I will also read in the evenings, each week i will set literature targets. This week I have three articles to read. I won't read on Fri and Sat evenings but all others are game, even if I have gone out and exercised and am knackered. I want to do 2 hours an evening. I will also start getting up at around 7.45am (ug) so my baby is in bed and asleep by 8pm. He generally sleeps 12 hours after getting up and for about 3 hours at a time, so by 8 I should have exercised, eaten, and the baby should be asleep so I can sit and read (in front of the tv to start with until I get more serious). He will hopefully start sleeping more as he settles with the childminder and we have a routine going, but who knows. I do need to be more routined though if I want to work in the evenings.
My baby is downstairs crying and I hate it.
Anyway. Today I have sorted out a timetable of sorts, worked out the work I want to do for the week, worked out my hours and am feeling lovely and cleansed! I am a worker! I will finish this thing! *fingers crossed*
x J
It is sunday today and am sorting everything out and getting my house in order. I will work:
Sunday 10-2 (DB with Bean)
Monday 11-3 (DB has Bean)
Tuesday 10.45-2.15 (Bean with childminder)
Wednesday 10.45-2.15 (ditto above)
Thursday 10.45 - 2.15 (ditto above)
Friday OFF
Saturday OFF
The hours will be revised at the end of Feb and hopefully upped a bit. I will be writing at these times and Sunday will also be my review period for the week and setting targets for the next week - an easier day really :0) I will also read in the evenings, each week i will set literature targets. This week I have three articles to read. I won't read on Fri and Sat evenings but all others are game, even if I have gone out and exercised and am knackered. I want to do 2 hours an evening. I will also start getting up at around 7.45am (ug) so my baby is in bed and asleep by 8pm. He generally sleeps 12 hours after getting up and for about 3 hours at a time, so by 8 I should have exercised, eaten, and the baby should be asleep so I can sit and read (in front of the tv to start with until I get more serious). He will hopefully start sleeping more as he settles with the childminder and we have a routine going, but who knows. I do need to be more routined though if I want to work in the evenings.
My baby is downstairs crying and I hate it.
Anyway. Today I have sorted out a timetable of sorts, worked out the work I want to do for the week, worked out my hours and am feeling lovely and cleansed! I am a worker! I will finish this thing! *fingers crossed*
x J
Friday, 28 January 2011
Heck!
Ok, ok.
I was meant to start work at the beginning of Jan...
Week One: still looking for childminder - find childminder hurrah!
Week two: Childminder ill! ug. At home looking after Bean, no work done.
Week three: settling in the Bean with childminder - no work done as this takes all week.
Week four: Bean comes home from childminder after one hour because he is ill. has been ill all week, therefore no work done.
ARG! I am still not working :0( am so sad and my work feels a million miles away from me. Good points: I have sorted out the 'office' (junk room) to be able to work in from Tuesday when Bean goes to the childminder (and stays hopefully!). I am also really ready to work. Last Tues (before he was sent home) I was really sad about having to leave him. Bit mopey.
Oh think said child is awake. He knows am blogging!
x J
I was meant to start work at the beginning of Jan...
Week One: still looking for childminder - find childminder hurrah!
Week two: Childminder ill! ug. At home looking after Bean, no work done.
Week three: settling in the Bean with childminder - no work done as this takes all week.
Week four: Bean comes home from childminder after one hour because he is ill. has been ill all week, therefore no work done.
ARG! I am still not working :0( am so sad and my work feels a million miles away from me. Good points: I have sorted out the 'office' (junk room) to be able to work in from Tuesday when Bean goes to the childminder (and stays hopefully!). I am also really ready to work. Last Tues (before he was sent home) I was really sad about having to leave him. Bit mopey.
Oh think said child is awake. He knows am blogging!
x J
Friday, 21 January 2011
Hello!
Ok, so I have a few minutes to type while my baby sleeps :0)
I am not back at work yet really. I have spent that last two weeks looking after Bean and settling him into the childminder's. Am not doing the latter very quickly as i am really keen that he likes it there so it can be for the long term, and perhaps with a chance of increasing the hours as my work ratchets up towards the end of the year. i wouldn't be able to work knowing he was unhappy there. My CM is just adorable and they get on so well so I am hopeful that I should have my first four hour work session by the end of next week. Whether I work or not is yet to be known - to be honest at the start am likely to clock watch until i can go and get him and know he is ok. Once I know he is settled there and having fun I shall be able to concentrate and have it as guilt-free work time.
Having a baby makes everything waaaaaay complicated! But also more fun so hey-ho!
I did email my Sup and for the first time *ever* admitted that I have fallen behind and for one reason or another not been working and so my deadline looks in jeopardy. He emailed back to say that I shouldn't worry, that I'll be fine and not to think too much about submitting at this 'early stage'. Early! I was so pleased to get that email I actually slept that night :0) I'll be ok. And again, I'll be ok... Am really looking forward to getting back into it - now I can see that I will, and that the time will be too precious to waste I feel it coould be good. My office is back as my office and is relatively tidy and spacious. DF has his office over the road. Bean in childcare (boo hiss, but ok).
Personally, I am back exercising which is cheering me up and I have entered a baby triathlon for April... 16 lengths of the pool, a 20K cycle and a 5k run. Very doable but still need to tone up so I don't make a fool of myself. DB and I are happy and back on track and am planning our wedding! hurrah!
Oooh the baby is up! he has a 6th sense for when am on this blog!
laters all
x J
I am not back at work yet really. I have spent that last two weeks looking after Bean and settling him into the childminder's. Am not doing the latter very quickly as i am really keen that he likes it there so it can be for the long term, and perhaps with a chance of increasing the hours as my work ratchets up towards the end of the year. i wouldn't be able to work knowing he was unhappy there. My CM is just adorable and they get on so well so I am hopeful that I should have my first four hour work session by the end of next week. Whether I work or not is yet to be known - to be honest at the start am likely to clock watch until i can go and get him and know he is ok. Once I know he is settled there and having fun I shall be able to concentrate and have it as guilt-free work time.
Having a baby makes everything waaaaaay complicated! But also more fun so hey-ho!
I did email my Sup and for the first time *ever* admitted that I have fallen behind and for one reason or another not been working and so my deadline looks in jeopardy. He emailed back to say that I shouldn't worry, that I'll be fine and not to think too much about submitting at this 'early stage'. Early! I was so pleased to get that email I actually slept that night :0) I'll be ok. And again, I'll be ok... Am really looking forward to getting back into it - now I can see that I will, and that the time will be too precious to waste I feel it coould be good. My office is back as my office and is relatively tidy and spacious. DF has his office over the road. Bean in childcare (boo hiss, but ok).
Personally, I am back exercising which is cheering me up and I have entered a baby triathlon for April... 16 lengths of the pool, a 20K cycle and a 5k run. Very doable but still need to tone up so I don't make a fool of myself. DB and I are happy and back on track and am planning our wedding! hurrah!
Oooh the baby is up! he has a 6th sense for when am on this blog!
laters all
x J
Monday, 10 January 2011
Happy New Year!
Happy New year all! Am finally back to work... sort of...
I have managed some successes over the chrimble period. I have got DB out of the spare room and into an office, and so I have my old desk back, hurrah! The room is starting to look like a spare room/office rather than a vile junk room and this pleases me greatly. I also have a new laptop! Although this was by accident as my last one finally conked it on Thursday. I totally crapped myself because i hadn't saved any of my work for months. Not at all! Why?! Whyyyyyy?! But I managed to save my stuff by going into it on the safe mode, as the normal mode was frozen completely. Won't open. Am much poorer but happy that I have a safe laptop now as was always waiting for the other one to die anyway... So peeps:
BACK UP YOUR WORK.
Oh I thought I had lost all the photos of bean since he was born too. That was very very sad. PhD I can re-write, photies I cannot replace. They were found ok though :0)
This weekend was a nightmare. We were off to London to see my bezzies, was sooooo excited. And there was a freak snowstorm which made the roads so slippery but so what I thought(am getting blase about the snow now) but DB went to ge the car to pull it up for us to get in and slid down the road into a (very very quiet) junction :0( another car slid into the wheel and wrote the car off. He was ok thank goodness, just shaken up by the shouting he got from the driver of the other car, even thogh he really couldn't help it. So we didn't go to London. I was really disappointed but of course, it couldn't be helped. Then yesterday we went out to go for a walk with the little dude when a baby deer was run over right in front of us. Arg it was awful, we pulled over and looked after it until the RSPCA came, though they said it would be put down. It was in a right state. We were down for the rest of the day after that. I still wish we could have saved the deer. The git who ran over it drove off. How could you do that? Hmmm.
Today was meant to be the first of the settling in sessions for Bean with the childminder. Oh yes! By the way, we have found a childminder :0) Found her last week, she is brill! Very gentle, big emphasis on treating each child as an individual and makes sure she spends quality time with each child on their own as well as all together, Loves to be outdoors with them and lets them take the lead in activities/crafts/walks so is always child-centered. Mealtimes are all taken together and they take their time, using it as a place to chat and socialise eating food they pick from the garden. Sounds just lovely. Very calm environment, and no tv :0) I know it is precious of me but I can stick bean in front of the tv, I want someone who can add to his life you know? help nurture him along a bit, not just babysit him for me. And some of the people we went to see - chuh! They were businesses - they had helpers and everything (the more adults you have in the hosue, the more kiddies you can have) and I feel that really takes away from the point of leaving you kid with a childminder rather than a nursery. I like the informal, chilled and personal side to childminding, rather than busy nurseries - just until he is older. Is definitely horses for courses though - to many my childminder would seem very wishy washy and pointless. Anyway, we have found her and this is a weight off my shoulders. I will take bean for three sessions a week - 10.30am to 2.30pm and come back here and WORK!!! WORK work work work work work work work WOOOOORRRRKKKKK! I will be so happy to have that time! So today was meant to be our first settling in day but she has tonsilitus! so another week will probably pass before we start it again, then that will be a week of settling in - and it may take longer than a week, and all of a sudden it will be Feb. I am now starting to panic slightly. i know it may seems tupid - I mean, why not just work as and when? But I need routine, the comfort of knowing when I will sit down next to keep up some momentum. Until bean is settled in and I am not scrounging hours from DB I shall not relax and work properly.
I suppose it isn;t the end of the world. Apart from feeling like a skiver and all round Bad Worker I suppose i do technically have until June next year to complete - it is me that is wanting to finish this year. (Oh and I *shall*, however long it takes to settle bean into the CM's it won't be three months!) And I forget that I should really get a part time job in June to pay my rent anyway (I don't want to burden poor DB with my bills etc) so I can work around them, as I would have completed the first draft and be editing. I don't know, but I might be able to juggle them both if I have actually written the thing. I dunno, we shall see but there are options.
And so as of yet I have done no actual work. This is worrying as my Sup will want to see something very soon. I should be doing it now really rather than blathering here. what a numpty!
x J
I have managed some successes over the chrimble period. I have got DB out of the spare room and into an office, and so I have my old desk back, hurrah! The room is starting to look like a spare room/office rather than a vile junk room and this pleases me greatly. I also have a new laptop! Although this was by accident as my last one finally conked it on Thursday. I totally crapped myself because i hadn't saved any of my work for months. Not at all! Why?! Whyyyyyy?! But I managed to save my stuff by going into it on the safe mode, as the normal mode was frozen completely. Won't open. Am much poorer but happy that I have a safe laptop now as was always waiting for the other one to die anyway... So peeps:
BACK UP YOUR WORK.
Oh I thought I had lost all the photos of bean since he was born too. That was very very sad. PhD I can re-write, photies I cannot replace. They were found ok though :0)
This weekend was a nightmare. We were off to London to see my bezzies, was sooooo excited. And there was a freak snowstorm which made the roads so slippery but so what I thought(am getting blase about the snow now) but DB went to ge the car to pull it up for us to get in and slid down the road into a (very very quiet) junction :0( another car slid into the wheel and wrote the car off. He was ok thank goodness, just shaken up by the shouting he got from the driver of the other car, even thogh he really couldn't help it. So we didn't go to London. I was really disappointed but of course, it couldn't be helped. Then yesterday we went out to go for a walk with the little dude when a baby deer was run over right in front of us. Arg it was awful, we pulled over and looked after it until the RSPCA came, though they said it would be put down. It was in a right state. We were down for the rest of the day after that. I still wish we could have saved the deer. The git who ran over it drove off. How could you do that? Hmmm.
Today was meant to be the first of the settling in sessions for Bean with the childminder. Oh yes! By the way, we have found a childminder :0) Found her last week, she is brill! Very gentle, big emphasis on treating each child as an individual and makes sure she spends quality time with each child on their own as well as all together, Loves to be outdoors with them and lets them take the lead in activities/crafts/walks so is always child-centered. Mealtimes are all taken together and they take their time, using it as a place to chat and socialise eating food they pick from the garden. Sounds just lovely. Very calm environment, and no tv :0) I know it is precious of me but I can stick bean in front of the tv, I want someone who can add to his life you know? help nurture him along a bit, not just babysit him for me. And some of the people we went to see - chuh! They were businesses - they had helpers and everything (the more adults you have in the hosue, the more kiddies you can have) and I feel that really takes away from the point of leaving you kid with a childminder rather than a nursery. I like the informal, chilled and personal side to childminding, rather than busy nurseries - just until he is older. Is definitely horses for courses though - to many my childminder would seem very wishy washy and pointless. Anyway, we have found her and this is a weight off my shoulders. I will take bean for three sessions a week - 10.30am to 2.30pm and come back here and WORK!!! WORK work work work work work work work WOOOOORRRRKKKKK! I will be so happy to have that time! So today was meant to be our first settling in day but she has tonsilitus! so another week will probably pass before we start it again, then that will be a week of settling in - and it may take longer than a week, and all of a sudden it will be Feb. I am now starting to panic slightly. i know it may seems tupid - I mean, why not just work as and when? But I need routine, the comfort of knowing when I will sit down next to keep up some momentum. Until bean is settled in and I am not scrounging hours from DB I shall not relax and work properly.
I suppose it isn;t the end of the world. Apart from feeling like a skiver and all round Bad Worker I suppose i do technically have until June next year to complete - it is me that is wanting to finish this year. (Oh and I *shall*, however long it takes to settle bean into the CM's it won't be three months!) And I forget that I should really get a part time job in June to pay my rent anyway (I don't want to burden poor DB with my bills etc) so I can work around them, as I would have completed the first draft and be editing. I don't know, but I might be able to juggle them both if I have actually written the thing. I dunno, we shall see but there are options.
And so as of yet I have done no actual work. This is worrying as my Sup will want to see something very soon. I should be doing it now really rather than blathering here. what a numpty!
x J
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