How is it that nine months have passed since I last wrote in here? So much has happened, and so little, that it seems strange to even try and capture it all here. I'd say I've come a long way since this time last year, and at the same time, no way at all. I'd say that I've achieved what I wanted, and that I've not even started.
Padua was fantastic, and a real affirmation of my desire to become an academic, and develop a career in this vein. Prior to Padua I'd had a slight experience of doubt whereby I applied for a high-flying London job and surprisingly progressed to interview. A moment of clarity, of me giving up the pondering and the passion and heading for a regimented and driven /career/ seemed so discordant with so much of me that I couldn't do it. I didn't want to. And so I confirmed to my parents, to myself and to my friends that this is the path I have chosen. So why am I still beleaugered by doubts?
I hate that at all points money is such an object. It's striking how one rejection or one false hope at an opportunity can bring so much self-doubt crashing upon you. For example, on one memorable day this year I found out that a charitable organisation were willing to give me £2000 a year for the PhD. Fantastic, yet what dampened it were two other communications, albeit for smaller pools of funding, one of which was attributed to my not being disadvantaged enough (hmm) and the other to me never having been eligible. This rankled, as my not being eligible had been apparent from the start of the (encouraged) application.
I'm looking further afield now, I want to go where there's a chance of funding... I can't be the only postgraduate pushing an elephant up the stairs while all around me people are sitting on full funding. Working in a shop, trying to 'live' alongside thesis preparation isn't the easiest thing in the world, nor should it be, but I can't realistically do another year like this. It's too much.
No comments:
Post a Comment