In touch with yourself, following your personal goals, loving your life
Have you ever physically, or verbally, or both physically and verbally pointed the finger at someone? Well, if you are a human being, you will probably have pointed many fingers at various Others during your life. I know I have.
Continue reading “Pointing the Finger”
Last week, working with such an inspiring bunch of PhD students, I found myself practicing ‘saying no’ with these wonderful scholars: “Let’s just practice saying ‘No’. One, two, three: ‘No.’ One, two, three: ‘No’. One more time, one, two…, three… ‘No!'” Their faces lit up. Saying ‘No!’, very obviously, was fun. We said it loud and proud and with such joy. And let’s face it. The importance of knowing how to say ‘no’ cannot be overstated in an academic career.
Continue reading “On Saying ‘No’: the Art and Magic of Declining”
Have you ever felt like you were ‘bracing before impact’ the moment you decided you should be opening your inbox? Maybe you were* dreading the people who expected to hear back from you. At other times, you may have felt nervous because you were expecting a peer review or a response to an application for research funding. If your experiences resemble mine then you know that the phrasing in those emails can affect your day (to put it mildly)…
Continue reading “Our inboxes: why academic ‘suffering’ needs accepting, not fixing…”
There we were.
In the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
For the ‘Night of History’, the ‘Nacht van de Geschiedenis‘.
If you stop and think about it for a moment, if you slow down to such an extent that you can catch up with yourself: do you feel you belong in the academy?
Continue reading “From feeling like an imposter… to…belonging…”
Working as an academic is such a privilege. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it actually felt like a privilege?
Ever had a really meaningful, open, vulnerable and ‘true’ discussion with your colleagues about how you grade your students’ work? Grading – let’s face it – is one of the most violent aspects of our academic work…
Early this academic year, my paths crossed with a junior colleague who was having a bumpy start, just like me…
Communications between academics can get quite violent quickly. With ‘violence’ I am not referring to people acting out physically…
Continue reading “Digging deeper – why indignation can be a present”