Ug

I have a LOT of work to do, it isn't difficult, but I don't want to do it. I am just desperately browsing the internet for something to waste my time.

Must. Start. Working.

It is so silly that I am not doing it. So silly. I don't even mind it! I think I am being terribly distracted by the fact it is Scan Day tomorrow. Baba will be an inch long, with arms and legs and moving around! And we will get a proper, proper due date too which is really exciting. Just to see Bean and know they are ok will be great.

Yesterday I found out something incredible - there is a uni branch of Exeter university in Cornwall, and it is down the road from where I will be living and it is a big fan of critical approaches, like me! So I can actually live in Cornwall and be an academic if I wanted (and if they wanted me but, you know, let us assume they might do for argument's sake). And I realised I was quite excited and thought 'Yeah! I have a future with my PhD!' and then later thought 'Oh dear. I wish I hadn't found that'. Because I always forget that to be an academic you have to keep doing research projects and I don't really like that side of it. I love my research and my topic - but I also love the fact it will come to an end. The actual research, the talking to people, the conferences, the networking, the emails, ARG, I *hate*. I would much rather deal with people face-to-face and do something tangible. I want a change. I want an alternative inner dialogue! I can't imagine finishing the PhD and then going into a job (academia) where these thoughts all have to come back again - foever until I retire! Oh no! I have been doing this intense work for about 6 years now, constantly, and have accrued two Masters degrees and now am working on the PhD. It is toooooo much! So although the dept is there, which is lovely (and it is v v v small so lots of scope to make a mark which I like muchly), I think I will still go and work for a charity and hopefully work with disadvantaged people for a while, rather than sitting in a room pontificating on my own about their lives. I do love the teaching and the 'expanding minds' bit, and the supervising. But I think a break from writing papers/chapters/anything and being on my own a lot will be welcome. I am really glad that it is there though, so I know why I am making choices rather than always thinking 'if I had the opportunity, would I have been an academic?' Maybe in a few years, but not after the PhD.

I have such dissonance about my future. I have a funded PhD course at a great Uni and a wonderful supervisor who really encourages and supports me, and I seem to be good at it. I do a course about social awareness and am gaining all this knowledge on the injustice in the world, and knowledge alongside it about how I think it may be changed or whatever, and yet I am going to keep it all to myself and work with a UK charity or be a social worker or a potter, and bring up a family and well, try and lead a simple life with a brood of children and art and the countryside and a veg patch. Is this inherently selfish? Do I have an obligation to 'give something back'? Even if it makes me unhappy and have a job I hate, talking about issues that I can't stand to hear about any more? Bah.

Well, I have at least three years until I start job hunting so who knows what I will be thinking by then. (Not much if I have recently submitted!)

Good luck with your days! Let us be productive!!

x J