Anyway, that's not what I wanted to quickly write about today. I just wanted to register here that I should have been in Montreal tonight for the opening of the first conference in my dissertation subject area that I'd be attending in my sorry academic career.
I've been to many conferences, some of them big and fancy, but none in the small subject area I "dissertated" about (that's probably why I get lots of blank stares when I present my work, I guess I've been going to the wrong conferences).
I would be presenting my paper on Sunday afternoon, meeting other researchers from all over the world and re-connecting with one of my undergraduate professors from Brazil (he's actually from England, but taught me at the Universidade de Sao Paulo), but I'll be here packing our stuff into the truck instead.
Life. It intervenes. It did the same last year when I gave the lamest presentation ever at Harvard. We were getting ready to put the house on the market and I was unable to write a paper. I felt so pathetic and ashamed (I was co-chairing the panel too).
It's not like I haven't chosen life over academia, no, it is a conscious choice of mine to put "life" and family first. Sometimes, however, like in the situations of the conference last year and this year, I make an effort to try an academic pursuit, but life just gets in the way.
I'm at peace with all this (too bad we're also missing my sister- and brother-in-law's baby shower), but I hope that someday I'll be able to make my way back to academia somehow. Meanwhile, I'll go on "living."
please trust that there will be another conference, that your field will grow and that this is evidence of how good your (academic and otherwise!) intuition is. You blazed a trail, you have to trust that you will continue to do so, It isn't a fluke.
ReplyDeletenext year in (wherever that conference might be!)
Thanks for the encouragement, fuzzmama, you wrote some lovely things!! And I hope they do happen someday, and they probably will. The boys will grow, I'll have more of my own life back and will have time to dedicate to academic pursuits. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHi, my comment does not have to do with your post today, but as I visited this family's blog, my heart is so tight, in pain for this parents. So I decided to do something and leave this comment on all the blogs I read... I don't know if it will or not, but I wish I could do something. As a mom, I can't imagine being separated from my baby, please sign te petition... I'm so hertbroken for this family! Maybe if we spread the word in the blogsphere... maybe something good will happen soon. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/return-dominic-johansson-to
ReplyDeleteWe're listening, I promise! :) Don't always have something to say, but I enjoy reading your blog.
ReplyDelete