PhD Parenting

It’s strange being a PhD student with a small child.

Semester two has passed us by in a glorious and seemingly never-ending whirlpool of pre-school illness: ear infections, perforated ear drum, scarlet fever and vomiting bug (though I managed to avoid that one myself by taking hand washing to levels previously only observed in OCD sufferers). As I write, my daughter has laryngitis and a serious case of stay-at-home-with-mammy blues. So she’s watching ‘Traein na nDineasár’ (fact: if the cartoon is in Irish it’s educational) and I’m supposed to read for my theoretical framework (fact: reading theory is the most difficult PhD task you could decide to do with a four-year-old). But I’m far more interested in all the red spots appearing on my skin. Which childhood disease could this be?

Just Tackle It!

This was my first year of PhD. It is a big deal. The first year is the beginning of your personal great enterprise, that is fuelled every day by the magical sensation you felt the first time you proudly thought “See? There are people who think that a research project involving the words “pulp”, “hack-writer”, “trash” and “cadavers” is actually worth developing!”

Running Backwards: Finding a Structure for Biography

Have you seen that man in the Kingfisher gym in NUI Galway that runs backwards on the treadmill? He’s not as unique as you might think: it has become quite the trend. I see them on the roadside now, jogging along with the traffic, serious faces and muscly legs. At first, it simply intrigued me – I nearly crashed the car straining to watch how they kept balance and avoided potholes. Then I wanted nothing more than to roll down the window and ask why, why, why? It was when I saw the sixth or seventh backwards-runner (do they have an actual name?) that something clicked and I understood… They do it to exercise different muscles. They do it because when they turn around again, they run faster and with infinitely more agility and focus.