I started blogging because I love writing and telling stories (as in me getting to choose what to emphasize, leave out and stylistically mangle because I'm my own publisher). I had an old blog that I really enjoyed writing on, and I wrote whatever I wanted... but it was personal, erratic, a mashup of writing styles (spam poetry! travel logs! recipes! musings! sports refereeing! dialogue! yaaaaay) and writing for fun. That's why I called it Variations in the key of Cb.
Then I got it into my head that it had gotten too personal and that I needed a restart, and that I was going to write more about my research and be a bit serious (...as far as that's possible when you've also decided that plastic penguins are part of the concept).
But I forgot at the time, that I'm not the kind of person who really enjoys trying to report things and sound serious and impressive (ugh). Granted, I still think what I do research on is crazy fascinating and worth trying to engage people in talking about, but at the same time, if I've already fatigued myself doing the work for real, then I don't often have the stamina to keep going at "serious" when I am longing for a break and thinking there's so much more to life. I'm a social sustainability researcher who is starved for work-life balance. It's so ironic that I should grow an ironic beard.
Oh, hang on...
(Apparently I did already in 2012, before it became all mainstream)
Longing for fun is a sign that you need to put more of it in your life, so I'm re-dedicating this blog to just meandering in thought and playing with words. I can't guarantee that I'll never write about my research or serious things again. I hope I will write more penguin-related nonsense. I will use LOTS of ellipsoids because I never get to use them at work... I plan to dance more these next few months ahead, taking a leaf out of a bellydancing friend's book (she challenged herself to record herself improv-dancing once a week for a year). If I feel brave, maybe I'll post something here regarding my progress... if not, I'll tell you how it's going. Mebbe.
But actually I could just list the reasons why I haven't even thought about writing this past autumn:
- In September I participated in a Swedish nationwide competition in presenting research in a popular manner for 3 minutes. And oh - I was nervous beyond all my earlier experience at the first final. My hands were shaking, I had the attention span of a drunken wasp and the appetite of a sparrow... So that day was adrenaline-laced. But I won the regional final in Gothenburg and got to travel to Stockholm indecember for the national final. :) I didn't get to the final round there - but that didn't bother me, I thought almost all the finalists were beyond awesome and several deserved to win, so I wasn't too bummed (and hey, free hotel night!). Also, I'm kind of proud of myself for sewing a bar chart costume to explain the demographics development of Europe (made it in black lace, so it was somewhere between gothic insane lady evening wear, NERDY, and confusingly artsy... in the sense that it looked both cheap and expensive at the same time). :)
- The above event ballooned out beyond my wildest expectations, which led to me getting interviewed by some papers and invited to speak at other events - the most geekout-worthy being TEDx Göteborg. (ME! What!) On the other hand, the time spent preparing for all the extra events ballooned to, and I did that alongside an already high workload...
- As for TEDx: I have kind of a fangirl-geeky high regard for TEDx events (hello the beginnings of Brené Brown's well-deserved fame!), even if I know, from having attended in the audience last year, that it's a mixed bag. But I got on that red mat (in my lacy bar chart dress) and held my social sustainability/demographics talk for about 6 minutes. Pretty short as far as a TED talk goes, but hey :). I was also thrilled to be part of the gang of speakers, who were overall a fascinating and friendly bunch. I think the charm of many TED talkers is in their proportion mix of being personable, convicted, knowledgeable and uncompromising.
- I travelled a lot for work. One of these trips, to a conference in Pennsylvania, was happily combined with meeting my LA cousins in New York first and having fun with them (my cousin took me to the US Open, one of the better sports events I've been to). The conference itself was fun too, actually more fun than most conferences I've been to - a lot of it had to do with meeting a lot of young researchers there willing to go an extra mile when it came to hanging out... :) Especially memorable is my mental image of the bunch of us that went to a student dive bar after the conference dinner, and stood in our suits and dresses amongst all the cut-off daisy dukes and sweatshirts, drinking out of HUGE pitchers ;)
- I took a lot of courses during the last term, notably finishing up a series of 6x2-day internment courses in "Leadership for Assistant Professors", which was by far one of the best courses I've ever been to in terms of quickly internalizing a learning experience. However, the 6x2 days were really intense, very personal and very challenging, to the point of being emotionally taxing. But as far as learning for life goes, that course was one of the absolute highlights of my life, bar none. I left the course with 11 new friends and one enemy, who I am grateful to because s/he taught me a lot.
- I started (and am currently) writing a textbook (!) together with a former student of mine for my production ergonomics course that starts in less than 2 weeks. We're nearing the end, but as usual I've been a bit of a time optimist... It's got 12 chapters, all covering a different ergonomics aspect. Luckily, my co-author Caro is extremely efficient and produces good work, and has enough justified acidity in her sense of humour to let me know what she thinks about that, while maintaining that the being late aspect is chiefly my problem. We get along well. ;)
Haiku ending time!
Rambling is a noble sport
Now I'm done. Ta-daa!
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