I write letters

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#phdlife

Cover letters. Applying to jobs. Every other day.

Are cover letters necessary? Couldn’t one just forward a CV? Well, in my case, I feel the need to explain why I’m still competent even though I’ve been stuyding for a PhD.

Yes, even though the PhD. It seems as if a doctoral degree is like krypton to commercial employers. I’m beginning to think I should leave it off. It seems weird that 10 years of media/corporate editing experience at some pretty good firms counts for nothing in the face of the stupidity of pursuing a research project for a little less than 3 years. Now I know what those mothers who took breaks to look after the kids feel like. Except, ironically, I never took a break to look after the kids. I never even took a break from commercial work, I kept freelancing throughout. But I guess the fact that I got accepted into a programme for abstract thinkers that very few people get accepted to makes me untouchable now?

And why do I want to go commercial again? Well, because academia will qualify you but not employ you. That is, all the jobs want teaching experience even though you just got your qualifications. It seem impossible to get even a part-time teaching job (which by the way pays less than my PhD stipend) without teaching experience. That old chicken and egg thing. The way around this is to know someone. Basically, many positions aren’t advertised, and when they are, it’s a formality and they already have someone in mind. Yet, the ad makes the poor sods out there who don’t know enough people think they actually might have a chance and so you apply (‘to the void’ as my colleague put it because noone ever replies). The only two gigs I’ve secured are through people I know, which should make me happy but makes me sad instead. These gigs pay so little there is no point celebrating them,.

Forget part-time teaching, I have not heard back from teaching assistant jobs. Maybe because it might make the actual teachers who are not PhDs insecure, I suppose.

Okay, to be fair, I still don’t have a PhD (I haven’t submitted and done the exam yet). Though honestly a PhD as a part-time teacher is overqualified. But okay. Fine. Maybe all this will miraculously change when I have that piece of paper.

But what won’t change is how little they pay. After spending 3 years, at best (at worst 5-7) on this thing, you have to spend a couple more doing part-time work or if you’re lucky a postdoc before you can actually get a job that basically pays less than my previous job correcting people’s English.

This makes me feel so angry that I want to chuck the whole dream posthaste (and I would if someone would offer me something else to do. See part on commercial sector cold shoulder). The poor pay, exploitative working conditions for part-time staff and general lack of transparency makes me want to smack the next academic who starts sanctimoniously critiquing the commercial sector.

Because you know, in the commercial sector, if you apply to advertised positions, you actually stand a chance of being considered based on your resume. Well, it seems like a better chance than in academia which really does seem to run on influence at the lower levels anyway. And that sector pays better. And you get nice tea in the pantry. For free.

This morning when I was reading a story to Mimi I was thinking that I could apply for a teaching assistant job. At a kindergarten. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

By the way, those are the jobs that seem plentiful. The teaching English. At all levels. That I am not actually qualified for, because I don’t have TESOL qualifications, but I know that doesn’t matter in the lesser institutions, if you’re the right colour. Which I’m not. Too much cafe in my au lait.

I really should have gotten a TESOL qualification if I wanted to diversify my career path (which I didn’t. I thought of the PhD as a passion project and that I would get back to editorial work after. Except the blemish of the PhD it appears is overwhelming).

When I started this job hunt, I was wracked with indecision about what I wanted to do. Ha! Now I’ll take whoever will have me.

 

 

Conference notes

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#phd

It never fails to amaze me how weird academic conferences are.

At a conference I attended recently, the first session I went to, one of the presenters mumbled about logistical problems and then proceeded to read from her paper at super high speed. Yeah, people were mostly ‘reading’ not presenting. All the while she was pulling her hair in different directions.

Another panelist in an attempt to be helpful turned out the lights during the presentation so we could see the visuals. But the lights system turned out to be more complex than anticipated and for a while it was a disco in there while hair pulling woman kept on going. Instead of giving up, the guy seemed to be obsessed with getting the perfect lighting, only when he did, it was time to turn the lights back on. Turns out he was this really famous scholar too.

In another sessions, the moderator timed the sessions using a standard watch instead of a digital timer, got into a passive aggressive thing with one of the speakers, and sliced her finger across her throat to indicate that speakers had to stop, now! Then at one point in the discussion, she burst out, “Well, I’ve been clinically depressed” to complete silence.

It struck me how this would be considered totally bizarre in any other setting. But here everyone remains totally poker faces through these shenanigans. Don’t get me wrong, I kind of love it. But it does make me want to laugh out loud sometimes.

As I’ve observed earlier, people seem to come to these things in groups and stick to these groups so while there is an illusion of networking, people are just largely talking to their friends while the monitory of us who didn’t come with a posse stand around FOMOishly. When you do reach out to someone they politely spend about two minutes with you before moving on. Except in this part of the world no one passes out cards.

Nevertheless, there were some really good papers and the discussions were some of the best I’ve witnessed. My own panel attracted a small audience partly due to being scheduled early in the morning but I got a great response from those who were there, so that was lovely (and frankly a first and a welcome change from the blank looks I have sometimes been greeted with).

On the final night, there was a dance party with a full-on brass band contracted to play, and it was great! I dithered over whether to go or not, seeing as I didn’t have anyone to go with, but finally FOMO and wanting to listen to the band got the better of me and I went, and it was fun. There were people from the age of 80 down dancing up a storm. I had lengthy conversations with more people here than I had had the entire conference, and ended up getting sweaty as hell dancing, resulting in me having no clothes to wear to the conference the next day and having to attend in a flannel shirt and slightly torn jeans (which again is perfectly fine at these things. heh.). I also noticed a couple of women dragging guys onto the dance floor and then getting really flirty, while the guys looked uncomfortable. One of these was a woman who had been quite aggressive to a guy during a panel, but then I saw them going to dinner together so they had clearly made up, only then she tried to get more handsy with him and he didn’t look happy and then she left.

Overall, this was one of the best conferences I’ve been to, and I think conference should always open with a dance party.

 

 

 

 

Academia

Tags

#phd

Attended a lecture in our department by a staff member of our department. Should be cozy and nice right. Well, not quite.

Looking around the room, I wondered at how things have changed. A couple of years back, I’d have been agog with interest and enthusiasm, gearing up to contribute to an exciting discussion. Now I find myself scanning the room and struggling to keep a poker face and not to roll my eyes because I can see all the posturing.

First we are urged to come sit in the front row, but the minute some senior person walks in there’s this silent pressure to move. Or to pull out more chairs for everybody. Apparently, this is the duty of the junior people in the department. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised given the part of the world I’m in, where hierarchy still prevails, but given the discipline I’m in, I thought the point was the smash these systems. Bah.

Then, the way questions are asked to the speaker and the politics of it. If the speaker is well-liked, the questions are less acerbic. The expressions around the room less smirky. Also who gets to speak. Two years down the line I realised, there really is an order in which people should speak and students are not high up in that order.

There are a couple of people in the department I really admired when I started. I still admire them as intellectuals. But as people, not anymore. I realised they are scary fake. Realizing that gave me a shock, even though I’m quite a cynic. I didn’t realise people could pretend to be that nice and end up being the opposite. It made me take a hard look at other people and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s hard to find nice people at the professor grade or thereabouts. Maybe because academia is so cut-throat these days that they are constantly embattled. I think it was easier to find nice people in the corporate sector ironically. Or maybe I never expected much in the first place.

The junior staff are much nicer. But I realise they are on the make too. They have to be to progress. So they choose who they give their attention to, and us being students, they don’t want to be seen interacting too much with us. There are I think exactly two people who fall into this category among the many quite nice ones.

Maybe the only people one can get on with are one’s peers, if at all. Even they, I guess, one will have to watch out for because we are all competing for such a small slice of the pie? Though there seems to be some genuine camaraderie among peers.

When I look at the new students in the department, I’m reminded of myself. How naive I was in some ways. How I wanted to read everything and do everything and be everything. There is one guy who keeps citing theory after theory and babbling about how he wants to “use” this and “use” that. And I was the same. Until I realised – two years down the line – that the boring things some people were telling me was true. You can’t apply everything and many of those big names are irrelevant to a work grounded in Asia. Then another girl wants to read everything. That was me too. Until I realised there isn’t time. You need to know what you want to do and read only what is directly useful. Such is a three-year PhD. Maybe it’s different if you have the luxury of time.

I feel so jaded, similar to when I was at the end of my MA, but not as fed up with the work itself. I still love what I do, even if noone else does.

 

What’s been happening

Nene was sick for about two weeks. First he had red eyes, but it wasn’t itchy or runny so I ignored it but it got progressively worse so I took him to the doctor and he had a slightly stuffy nose so the doctor says it’s an infection and gives antibiotics. Now, this doctor gives antibiotics at the drop of the hat, so I’m reluctant to give it. We decide to use the eye drops and wait for a day, and I take him to another doctor who prescribes eye drops but no antibiotics even though she checks his throat. But that night he develops a fever and the next day we spot white spots on his throat – which is the first time I’ve ever been able to (I remember when I was a kid, my mum would make me open my mouth and peer inside but I’ve never been able to see anything when I did the same, until now!). So we decide to give the antibiotics, but basically he has a fever for three days and no progress, so we go back and the doctor changes the antibiotics and drops, but after another two days, he still has a fever. Now, some people are recommending I take him to the hospital but I decide to go back to the doctor and he gives yet another antibiotic.

When there’s no change overnight, I take him to the hospital and the doctor takes one look and says she thinks it’s adenovirus because of the eyes and asks me if I want to get a swab test. Which was my aim of going to the hospital. The next day we get the results and it’s a virus. Not the one she suspected, but a virus which means the antibiotics were pointless – except probably preventing a secondary bacterial infection. I’m pissed for listening to stupid doctor.

So after a week, the fever has gone, but the eye is still bad and he has a cold again. He’s been out of school for a week, and fortunately had a midterm break after so he had time to rest. Take him back to the pediatrician at the hospital and she now thinks the eye is an allergy as is the cold. She prescribes a nose spray and drops for the allergies. I give it a day or two,  go to an opthamologist, who agrees that it’s allergies but prescribes steroid drops. This finally seems to be showing some results but considering the strength of the medication, his eyes are still reddish.

I feel so sorry for my boy who has borne all of this stoically. After the opthamologist appointment, I take him to a cute little cafe in Mong Kok, just a few streets away from the craziness of the Ladies Market. In a cafe with numerous coffee choices, I pick Earl Gray and Nene has a hot chocolate. We split a ciabatta and fish and chips. The flavours are unusual, but I’m surprised that Nene tastes and likes them all. We have a lovely time decompressing and go home. I decide that I need to do a date with each child more frequently. V tends to favour cha chaang tengs for meal stops with the kids, but I’ve noticed that they do appreciate places with nicer ambience.

***

We’re into birthday season, kicked off with V’s. This year was a big one and though he insisted he wanted nothing better than to be left in peace, his sisters decided to surprise him with a trip to HK. They are the fun loving types and I warned them that he would not want to anything crazy. Unfortunately, V ended up seeing their messages on my phone and the surprise was out of the bag (though he still pretended for their benefit). We had a lovely dinner at one of our favourite Chinese restaurants on his birthday and ice-cream cake which he requested. Then it was four days of basically non-stop shopping madness with the sisters-in-law (i.e. they proceeded to buy up half of Hong Kong; we watched in bemusement and were sometimes plied with the spoils). We also had some intense conversations, and ended up sleeping at 2 am almost every night. On the weekend, we went out for a drink with friends, the boys left after a couple of drinks and we proceeded to party till 3 am. I pretty much only go dancing in Hong Kong when the SIL is in town, and though I turn my nose up at the crazy of Lang Kwai Fong, it is pretty much the only place I know to go dancing properly (rather than shaking a leg to some uber trendy stuff). It took me a week to recover from the four days that the SILs were here.

***

In between, I’ve been trying to revise and submit a paper. I had submitted a manuscript to a journal a year ago, it came back with tonnes of very useful feedback from the reviewers, requiring major revisions. I asked if there was a hard deadline, and was told that there wasn’t. One year later, I get a note saying that my submission will be deleted if I don’t resubmit within 60 days. The fact is that I would have preferred to resubmit a little later on once I had finished writing a chapter or two and got my thoughts straight in my head, but I do understand that a year is a long time. Having gone through the process halfway, I couldn’t let it go either even though there is a low chance of acceptance. So I scrambled and wrote basically a whole new paper in about a month.

***

That’s what I’ve been up to. I have a birthday coming up, then Nene has his, and then we’re off to India in December. In between, I need to write a chapter of my thesis. Oh and did I mention, I’ve started Mandarin classes?

 

 

 

Mellowing in Melbourne – Part 1

My long-awaited work/fun trip to Melbourne finally happened:

• Flew on Quantas. The airline has a bad reputation in my mind, but I was impressed. And apparently on some poll, it’s one of the top 10 airlines in the world. Heh. The cabin looks nice, the normal amount of legroom, one of the best touchscreen TVs I’ve experienced (even if the selection – though wide – was not to my liking), decent food. The service staff were older but good, they did a lot of old school things like several rounds of the cabin – with bottled water, with (delicious) juice in a jug, with the arrival cards, over and above the regular drinks service.

• On the flight there, I managed to score an aisle seat and then groaned when I saw a kid in the seat next to me. I was sure that his parent would request me to change. Turns out the kid’s parents were in business class and they switched a couple of times in the night. The person he switched with was his grandma, who spoke only Mandarin as used me as her interpreter to the service staff. It was cute and I was happy to help. There was an awkward moment when I decided to watch Girls Season 4 and a sex scene came on and I became acutely conscious of the kid sitting next to me. The problem is I couldn’t find anything else to watch that I liked, so I took to fastforwarded the adult-rated parts.
• Everyone in Australia is super friendly. It’s like a breath of fresh air coming from Hong Kong. First of all, everyone speaks English so there isn’t the usual communication hurdle posed by language. And then people have a friendly disposition. After I had finished all the bureaucratic formalities, acquired a SIM card, changed into warmer clothes and was ready to  go find my bus to the city, I realised that I had left the folder with all my booking as well as my conference paper at the immigration counter. I could have given up on it as I could print out everything else, but I was vaguely uncomfortable with all my booking information lying around. After surveying the area and finding noone that looked like an official, I saw a ‘customer service guy’ roaming around. Asked his help, and he advised me to try Border Control. This did not sound like a Border Control issue, but I went down to the office with some trepidation. To my surprise, the guy at the counter said: “Let me call them.” In ten minutes, someone from Immigration had come down with my file. I was so impressed.

• I stayed at Jasper Hotel on Elizabeth Street near Queen Elizabeth Market and I highly recommend it. I arrived two hours before check in time but they let me have my room which was a great help as I could have a nap before heading to my conference  drinks reception. The room was clean, modern and much larger than I expected. The toiletries were amazing Appelles products. The hotel is located walking distance from Melbourne Central Station, with a tram stop opposite to Flinders Street station and other tram lines and a number of nice little (inexpensive) restaurants down the street.

• And of course Queen Victoria Market. It’s a wholesale market, with a lot of fresh produce etc, but also some lovely artisinal shops such as bakeries, chacuteries and chocolate shops. It opens early so I picked up a cheap and delicious breakfast there every day – freshly baked gozleme or bratswurst sandwich with toppings.
  

  
• On the evening, forced myself to wake up from my nap and head to the university for the conference opening drinks reception. It was a good thing I needed to get out, plus I met some people, who then became people I could talk to the rest of the time. I did notice that the white people stuck to each other, and it was a theme that continued throughout the conference. It was very white and Western, and although there have been critiques of this for decades, I was surprised that despite the talk of diversification, the problem still remains in practice.
• My paper presentation the next day went okay. Low expectations are key. I was advised to read slower and this is a reminder to me to a) resist the urge to pack everything in b) resist the urge to put in long quotes c) find a way to talk not read. I got a tough question, but it was friendly.
• Over the course of the conference, I made some new contacts, listened to some really interesting papers and actually made one contact who I think will be really useful, so I think I can rate it a success, despite my critique of it being too Western-centric and my determination to stop going to philosophy conferences. So it was a positive experience overall.
• That evening, very old friend K arrived. As knackered as I was, she dragged me out. We discovered a very yummy South East Asian place with delish nasi lemak that we ate twice over the weekend. And then lots of chatter of cocktails, having the drinks spilled on us, giggling madly, continuing to chat, taking mad pictures with the guy who spilled the drinks on us, and finally making our way back to the hotel only to continue to chat some more.
  
  

  

Troubling the binary

In philosophy, it has been pointed out how Western language, culture and myths rest on a series of binaries – black/white, male/female/, good/bad, soul/body, mind/matter etc. Jacques Derrida pointed out that what is insidious about these binaries is that one term is also negative  or devalued. Feminists have pointed out how the devalued term is often associated with the feminine.

On the one hand, consciousness rests on a separation of the self from the other. To understand something one has to understand what it is not. Or so we are told. One of the philosophical questions I’ve been preoccupied with is whether there are cultures that do not think in binaries. While Eastern cultures, like Indian and Chinese philosophy are better in this regard, when you can to originary stories, you are back at binaries.

The other day I was reading one of those Mr Men books to Nene (my kids love these books although I sometimes have problems with their messages, this is again one of those instances when I cannot find it in me to censor my kids’ choices). The book was about a guy called Mr Dizzy, which is a polite way of calling him Mr Stupid, because his defining quality was that he answered basic questions wrong.

For example, “what is the opposite of black?” “Pink,” said Mr Dizzy, and everyone laughed.

“So what is the opposite of black” I asked Nene.

He paused. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “Nothing.”

I was about to say “white” and then stopped myself. I realised that my child had broken the binary. Or rather, that he did not think in binaries. That is was possible to not think in binaries. The opposite of black could be anything or nothing. It was not necessary for there to be an opposite at all.

I suddenly realised that thinking in binaries is not natural or instinctive. Or at least not universal. Like everything else, we learn it and we internalise it and then we say it was always there.

Conference

Just finished presenting a paper at a conference. I was dreading it because in a fit of enthusiasm I applied to a conference that was not really in my field, and I got accepted. It was an international conference in Hong Kong itself so I thought it might be a good idea to go, and then got cold feet about being a fish out of water.

In the end, I did  a one-day registration. It’s actually quite nice to attend for just a day. Okay, so you don’t get aeons of time to network, but I do find the amount of coffee breaks at conferences excruciating. There is only so much of small talk and circulation one can do, no? And I notice people tend to stand around talking to their own friends mostly. If that’s the case, what is the point of flying halfway across the world to chat in a strange room to people you already know?

Like I asked someone for directions, we ended up having a little chat (which I initiated), then she excused herself because her friends were waving to her. I wasn’t gutted or offended because anyway I wanted to pee, but it seems silly to rush off to your friends when the point of conferences is to meet new people.

One day was perfect, because I missed the first coffee break so I only had one more coffee break which I productively used to talk to new people. I ate lunch on my own, telling myself I needed to revise my presentation which was just after lunch. I am not averse to talking to people but I’m fed up being the one who makes the effort.

There generally seems to be a certain amount of natural camaraderie formed between the people you’re on a panel with (unless you already knew those people) so that’s a natural way to meet people. You tend to ask questions to be supportive and then continue the discussion later.

On the subject of questions, I always ask something because I think it’s embarrassing for a presenter not to get any, but I can never think of ‘easy’ questions and then I feel bad that I come across as mean. Particularly in the case of this Japanese girl, who couldn’t really answer mainly because she couldn’t understand. Note to self: when it’s obvious that someone’s English isn’t good, spare them the questions. The sad thing was that her paper was really interesting, so I didn’t mean the question as a criticism but as an opportunity ot say more but then it kind of flopped. Also, I have a rule against the usual “I really enjoyed your paper, it was really interesting” because hello, if I’m asking a question obviously I was interested enough to listen unlike the other somnolent people out there, also  I find it annoying how trite those phrases come across when repeated ad infinitum, but maybe I should start using them to take the edge of questions.

The other key thing to conferences I’ve decided is to have low expectations. Just survive and move on is my new motto. Obviously, I’m scarred from my last experience, but I find that I was too brimming with enthusiasm on my first go last year. I would love to know how many people get a publication offer after these things? At most, you come away with a few more friends, which I think is useful in this business. So go in with that attitude.

Ironically, although this was not my field, this was a conference at which I felt most at home. For one, people were dressed like I expected. There were some extremely hipster folks, but a fair number in semi-business attire. One session I attended had people presenting exactly my kind of stuff. Because I am the friendly, chatty sort, even though I made minimal effort, I came away with at least two contacts. Also, a couple of people seem to have added me on Linkedin/Academia.edu right after, so that’s something, though I don’t know who they are.

I’ve still to perfect my presentation technique. I always have too much material I want to say and am dissatisfied that I cannot say it all. This time, I had to cut one whole novel from my presentation because of the time limit. But it was a good discussion because I finished right on time. I wrote a script and read it. Again this is not my preferred presentation method, though I am coming to believe that with literary analysis, part of the drama is in the wording of the argument and I cannot do that ad lib. I might just have to go with reading, but practice looking up more.

This was actually the most exciting conference I’ve attended. We were presenting in a room with huge glass windows and five minutes into the presentation of the girl before me, the roof of the building next door collapsed. My initial thought when the noise started was ‘oh construction work’, but then there was a wave of debris heading our way, and the people near the window leapt up and ran across the room in terror, and when the dust settled (literally) someone said, ‘the building next door collapsed!’ And I remembered I had seen the green roof before the session started and almost took a picture of it, but desisted because there are only so many Hong Kong skyline pictures one can have. We stood there gaping and grinning like fools, and then the panel moderator asked if we should continue or leave, and one woman sounded panicked and said “leave” and ran out. Frankly, I wanted to continue, but that’s because I wanted to get my thing over with. The girl who was presenting got the worst of it – as she was interrupted three times. It later turned out that two people had been injured in the collapse, very luckily it was not more serious.

 

 

 

Writing a PhD

I rarely write about my academic life here, but I feel I should record bits of it at least.

A lot of it is reading. Reading frenetically, with excitement, all the time. A girl who finished her PhD in Anthropology once asked me: “Are you one of those whose research i mostly sitting in a library?” Why yes. Not specifically the library, but I do read there sometimes for a change of scene. (Mostly, I tend to behave in libraries as if I’m at a buffet. I go there for one book, and come back my arms full, some of which I will not get around to reading but I can’t find it in me to return them yet).

But also, the couch in my living room, my bed, the MTR, escalotors, and of course, my office. (Actually, in my office, mostly I’m writing.)

My object of study is novels so I read those too. That’s a different kind of fun, and a built-in change of place.

I read along different, seemingly random and endless trajectories. Today, I decided I needed to define “the middle class in India”. I know that there is no easy definition but I still wanted to a) see if there was one b) if there was none, cite those people who say so. I asked my friend Curly how she would define the class the protagonist of chick lit novels in India belongs to and she said, “it’s complicated.” Ha! So Curly was in agreement with current scholarship on the subject. However, I still needed a concise and articulate explication of that.

So I found a book on the anthropology of society in India. In one essay on the body and call centres (a superb one), I found some references to the middle class. I tried to find that book but it wasn’t in our library system. I googled and found the pdf of the book online! I proceeded to read book. I should probably have just stopped at the introduction but no, that wouldn’t be me. I never stop at the introduction, because reading for me is not merely goal-oriented.

I get fascinated by things that might not necessarily be directly useful to my work and I tumble down the rabbit hole. And then at the end of that hole, I tumble down another. The problem is that while the stuff I’m reading may not be directly useful, it is always going to be indirectly useful. There is no useless knowledge. So I don’t limit myself, though I should.

I like reading theory. I try to tell myself that the theory I’m reading is relevant to my work, and again it’s hard to argue that it’s not. I want to use every theory I have read somewhere in my work, and my supervisor gently tries to tell me it’s looking like a mess. But all these ideas are so cool and I want them all.

Amid them, I have to find my own. Ideas that is. It’s hard to remember that sometimes, surrounded by all this brilliance. I would be happy to bask in it without offering a thought of my own.

Eventually, I have to dig myself out of the rabbit hole of ideas, and write something. To write my two lines or one paragraph on the middle class, I’ve read some 10 things or more things. It’s serendipitous when the paragraph I was writing before I tumbled into the rabbit hole connects nicely with the paragraph I start writing when I dig myself out.

It doesn’t always happen, and I wish the connections would make themselves or the reader would just get with the programme.

Only there is no reader right now. It’s just me.

So tell me… how do you define the middle class? Do you think the protagonist of Indian chick lit is a middle-class girl?

 

 

 

End of year

This year has really sped by hasn’t it? Or at least the last semester has (I think in semesters now, maybe that’s why things seem to speed by so. Though even the summer went by in a blur).

I like to take stock, but the danger of taking stock is that you only remember the things that happened fairly recently and are fresh in the mind. Luckily, I have this blog and so I can go back and read posts for the year, and luckily, I didn’t post much this year so I assume those are the significant things that happened in the year. Soooo:

1. Biggest improvement of the year: My marriage

One of the big things that seems to be on the mend towards the end of this year is the marriage. It surprises me sometimes when the cliches turn out to be true, because I always think I’m more complicated than the cliches. But in all honestly, a big stress on our marriage was having two kids in quick succession coupled with a more stressful job situation for V. And the thing that seems to have helped me get over the years of assholery was him actually apologizing for being horrible. As I said to him, I’m not sure this will do the trick, that I can or even want to be the person I was, but if you keep apologizing, out of those many times, you may sound sincere in a few of them and I may believe you. The next step is to actually change the obnoxious behaviours and he has done that to a great extent, though it never really felt real until the apology. Of course, we have both changed in this process, the slate can’t entirely be wiped clean, but we have rediscovered how to enjoy time with each other and how to fight less, which is progress.

2. Biggest zen of the year

My holiday to Dublin and Cork, Ireland. I have not traveled for ages, and I have never traveled entirely alone. Ireland is also a place I’ve always wanted to visit. Apart from the visa drama, the whole trip was beautiful. The place was as beautiful and friendly as I imagined, I loved my little room in the B&B I picked after much drama, I met some nice people at the conference, and I came back refreshed even though I had flown some 20 hours each way.

3. Biggest low of the year

The debacle at the conference in Indonesia and being told my project was pointless. I recently gathered up the energy to tell my supervisor about it, and she was very nice and encouraging.

4. Biggest challenge of the year

Mimi’s tantrums. I have turned into a mum who loses it and yells. I’m often at my wit’s end with this girl, though at the start of the year, I accepted that  I was going to bear the brunt of her intense personality. MinCat tells me that from her niece’s experience, this too shall pass and I hope it does. In the meantime, we don’t have a strategy, but challenging her head on is not working.

5. Biggest change of the year

My attitude to money. I have pared down my spending a lot, and particularly in terms of eating out, I am very sensitive to value for money. Last night, we went to an Indian restaurant in Central, which itself should have tipped me off, but I checked their menu online and the prices seemed ok, but when we went there, it turned out to be one of those overpriced chi chi places which made me feel really stupid because I’m going to India next week.

I also can usually walk by shops without feeling the urge to buy anything. I do have my shopping binge moments, but once a year is acceptable I think. The next one will come on in India.

6. Biggest achievement of the year

Fitness and weight loss. I lost a tonne of weight thanks to being ill, and then I followed up by starting a running-yoga-swimming routine. While the swimming has stopped because it’s too cold, I’ve kept up the running and once-a-week yoga and I’m pleased with how I look. This month, V finally got on board and started exercising a couple of times a week with me, which is something I’ve wanted him to do for ages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paris

1. I am saddened by the news of what happened in Paris. I cannot help but feel empathy for the victims and families of the victims. The attacks reminded me of the ones in Mumbai. Paris is not the only tragedy I have been upset by, nor will it be the last one. 
2. I learnt about the attack when my sister posted on our whatsapp group asking if our cousin who lives there is okay. I checked Facebook soon after. It is a reflection of the people I am friends with, or the ones that are show up on my newsfeed anyway, that my wall was flooded with people reminding us that refugees are not to blame, that the state should not crack down indiscriminately, that neoliberal US policies are ultimately to blame. I had not even seen anyone suggesting that refugees were to blame at that time, though I’m sure someone would/did eventually. However, I have come to feel uneasy about these standard intellectual responses: a) The timing and how they immediately truncate the assimilation of shock with the reminder that we have to intellectualize. b) The unimaginative nature of them – how they repeat the same counter-discourse every single time. Part of being in academia is thinking up something new. But the articulation, down to the repeated use of neoliberal, is the same every time. c) The whataboutery. (but what about this and that?). Many of these people who are asking what about Beirut or Lebanon, never publicized Beirut or Lebanon themselves, so they too are not that far off from the empathizing only with Paris because they remembered Beirut only in relation to Paris. I hope not, but that’s how it looks when I never see Beirut on your timeline but suddenly Paris happens and it’s all about Beirut. Someone termed this “tragedy hipsters” and while I agree the motivation for this response is rooted in the good intention to critique, it increasingly seems to be to be the other side of those that selectively mourn deaths in first world countries.
3. I am impatient with those changing their profile pictures into a tricolor. V said to me: “This is not about Paris. It is about terrorism.” If Facebook wanted an icon, it could have a more general one, even if it had to choose Paris as its launching point. People could also show sensitivity to those they did not mourn by not going overboard in their selective mourning. On the other hand, academics can also be sensitive in their critique. 
4. I am sad to see Muslims yet again have to do #notinmyname posts or risk getting called out as terriers themselves. Can it not be taken for granted that people don’t support terrorist attacks unless they say they do? 
5. I think there needs to be a complex assessment of why people mourn some deaths and not others. Maybe it is not to do with life but with place. That certain places stand for ideals such as the ability to speak freely and when these citadels are threatened they threaten even those in places where these freedoms are not enjoyed because they are aspirational. That when death in certain places or regions become routine people cannot mourn them with the same intensity because then they might be able to even get out of bed in the morning.
6. This article uses Judith Butler’s concept of “precariousness”. To recognize precariousness is to recognize the  vulnerability of each life and the value of protecting it, but we have different recognitions for different people, what she calls “precarity”. How to combat it? She suggests shifting our frames of reference. The thing is, the lives perceived as more precarious (French) are probably in reality less at risk than the ones that are perceived as less so (those in the Middle East). I think this is a clue. When people’s lives are constantly at risk, other people do not have the energy to track them, they suppress the knowledge and only express shock when a life that is relatively secure is threatened. This is shitty, but it doesn’t necessarily mean one actually values other lives less. Maybe.
7.  I am not sure I am right here, but I think labelling everyone who mourns Paris a fool in love with the first world is not very imaginative.