is academia the road to emotional fulfilment?

trying to be a study blog [photographs mine unless otherwise stated]

[pefkaes]

hello studyblr!

it has been a while since i've been posting but i haven't formally introduced myself (or, maybe i did when i started this blog 8 years ago). so here it goes ~~~

👾 31, she/her

💫 PhD Candidate in Gender Studies

📍Naarm/Melbourne, Australia

this blog is to track my PhD journey and other study-related activities. i hope that curating my journey in some measure will keep me motivated and accountable. however, I do not plan to put any pressure on myself, so i may not post regularly.

enjoy scrolling!

research interests

feminist and queer theories

decoloniality

digital humanities

memory studies

social movements

other interests, hobbies, etc

anime, k-drama, k-pop

fantasy & sci-fi

journals & stationery

tarot

travel

trinkets

video games

i hope to create some masterlists as i progress through my candidature!

[pefkaes]

26.05.2026 // drowning in the stress spiral

struggling with the current chapter that i am writing; once again, the feeling that i've bitten off more than i can chew. i'm dealing with the stress by procrastinating, which is of course causing even more stress. last week of teaching and then off to marking assignments.

a friend told me that she's finally submitting her phd thesis next week and i actually gasped out loud. when i had first met her 2.5yrs ago, she had just come back from her fieldwork and was struggling to get back into writing. we will eventually get there.

[pefkaes]

Hello! May I ask which brand of pens are you using for your academic studies? I’m going back to college and I’m trying to figure out a good brand to invest in (I’m very particular about them for some reason 😂) thank u!

hi, all my pens are from muji! the colour pens are the smooth gel ink ballpoint pens (knock type 0.5mm). i pick up a couple every time i visit the nearest store.

[pefkaes]

15.05.2026 // topsy-turvy state of mind

writing has been equally frustrating and rewarding. thankfully, i am not the only one who feels that way; my officemates also seem to be on the same boat. work has picked up as it is the end of the semester. while teaching has been fun, i am looking forward to the break.

[theinternetarchive]

a few great films that are free on the internet archive

in decent quality too!

here is the archive collection of these films so you can favorite on there/save if desired.

links below

black girl (1966) dir. ousmane sembene

the battle of algiers (1966) dir. gillo pontecorvo

paris, texas (1984) dir. wim wenders

desert hearts (1985) dir. donna deitch

harold and maude (1973) dir. hal ashby

los olvidados (1952) dir. luis bunuel

walkabout (1971) dir. nicolas roeg

rope (1948) dir alfred hitchcock

freaks (1932) dir. tod browning

frankenstein (1931) dir. james whale

sunset boulevard (1950) dir billy wilder

fantastic planet (1973) dir. rené laloux

jeanne dielman (1975) dir. chantal akerman

the color of pomegranates (1969) dir. sergei parajanov

all about eve (1950) dir. joseph l. mankiewicz

gilda (1946) dir. charles vidor

the night of the hunter (1950) dir. charles laughton

the invisible man (1931) dir. james whale

COLLECTION of georges méliès shorts

rebecca (1940) dir. alfred hitchcock

brief encounter (1946) dir. david lean

to be or not to be (1942) dir. ernst lubitsch

a place in the sun (1951) dir george stevens

eyes without a face (1960) dir. georges franju

double indeminity (1944) dir. billy wilder

wild strawberries (1957) dir. ingmar bergman

shame (1968) dir. ingmar bergman

through a glass darkly (1961) dir. ingmar bergman

persona (1961) dir. ingmar bergman

winter light (1963) dir. ingmar bergman

the ascent (1977) dir. larisa shepitko

the devil, probably (1977) dir. robert bresson

cleo from 5 to 7 (1962) dir. agnes varda

alien (1979) dir. ridley scott + its sequels

after hours (1985) dir. martin scorsese

halloween (1978) dir. john carpenter

the watermelon woman (1996) dir. cheryl dune

EDIT: part two here + the letterboxd list

edit: part three here

[pefkaes]

10.06.2026 // digital detox hours

realised that i've been spending way too much time online, so decided to do a digital detox for a few hours (after taking aesthetic photos, of course). my friend and i, sitting beside each other in quiet intimacy at the community library—me, journalling and reading; her, translating from sinhala to english.

[pefkaes]

6.05.2026 // it's finally autumn, only a month late.

this will be my first full autumn-winter in this city and i'm looking forward to the cold. i skipped winter all of last year thanks to my fieldwork. i plan to lock in and just write my thesis so that i'm on track to producing a first full draft by the end of the year.

📚 currently reading: piranesi (susanna clarke); living a feminist life (sara ahmed); caliban and the witch: women, the body and primitive accumulation (silvia federici)

[pefkaes]

29.04.2026 // sat by the sea after a while

teaching foucault this week. it's throwing me back to the first time i came across him and i had found it so difficult to understand his language. i wonder if my students feel the same way. sometimes i feel like they're so much smarter than i was at that age. i used to just binge-watch kdramas all day.

btw my progress review went really well. officially in the 3rd year of my PhD!

[pefkaes]

16.04.2025 // a week's break after writing grind

i'm trying to take a break, but the truth is that it has become difficult for me to turn my brain off. submitting the thesis draft for my annual review made me realise that it's a complete mess and i need to do so much work on it. there's absolutely no cohesion or synthesis across the chapters. i am telling myself it's the 'ugly' phase.

📚 Gut Feminism (2015) by Elizabeth A. Wilson

[kjscottwrites]

[pefkaes]

easter week'26 // no rest for the phd candidate

bad decisions have been made and procrastination is biting me in the ass, as usual. i never learn, do i? this has been a week of endless writing, sprinkled with some marking. i've my annual review coming up; trying my best not to stress about it.

writing is difficult and lonely work. my draft is a mess, but i am not going to think about that >.<

[hunxi-after-hours]

“Besides, readers aren’t viewers; they recognize their pleasure as different from that of being entertained. Once you’ve pressed the on button, the TV goes on, and on, and on, and all you have to do is sit and stare. But reading is active, an act of attention, of absorbed alertness—not all that different from hunting, in fact, or from gathering. In its silence, a book is a challenge: it can’t lull you with surging music or deafen you with screeching laugh tracks or fire gunshots in your living room; you have to listen to it in your head. A book won’t move your eyes for you the way images on a screen do. It won’t move your mind unless you give it your mind, or your heart unless you put your heart in it. It won’t do the work for you. To read a story well is to follow it, to act it, to feel it, to become it—everything short of writing it, in fact. Reading is not “interactive” with a set of rules or options, as games are; reading is actual collaboration with the writer’s mind. No wonder not everybody is up to it.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin, “Staying Awake”

[pefkaes]

29.03.2026 // light-reading isn't exactly 'light'.

i'm so tired of working at desks that i ended up working from my living room sofa all day. it was a slow-ish day, but so many chores to be done around the house, including meal prep for the week. i'm writing a pretty emotionally heavy chapter right now, so i've had to take frequent breaks from the draft just to create some distance. hence, not complaining too much about the chores.

btw, i highly recommend On Whiteness. phenomenal set of essays and artworks by some brilliant minds. one of these days, i'll post a photo of my massive reading pile.

[pefkaes]

26.03.2026 // how to live in a world going to shit

long day of class, meetings, readings and writings. anyway, it boggles my mind how evil humans have historically been and continue to be. we learn nothing. truly, hope is radical. as are kindness and empathy. just one of those days when i'm feeling extremely disillusioned with the state of the world, so i return to trying to romanticise my life.

[tokkibean]

pros of having multiple wips: when im stuck on one i can just move to another

cons of having multiple wips: when im stuck on one i just completely move to another.

[pefkaes]

20.03.2026 // endless notes

i've another 3 weeks to submit documents for my progress review, and when i say that i'm wayyyy behind on my thesis draft...i mean it. i'm writing and drafting but i feel like none of it makes sense. it is also so difficult to force myself to sit still and focus; i'm constantly thinking about peripheral things.

(and no, i still don't have a consistent colour palette for my studyblr)

[pefkaes]

Hi, what are your top research tips for the humanities? What does you process look like?

Love your blog! Have a nice day

hi anon, thanks for the love!

i don't think i have any top research tips because everyone's research process looks different. for me, i like to first do a brain dump on paper and make thematic connections and note down questions, thoughts, opinions, etc. google scholar is a good place to start searching for papers, and then i jump off to other readings using the bibliography. over the years, i have developed a note-taking system. it's rather scattered actually, but it works for me.

also just generally knowing the key journals in my field, so that i am updated on the key discussions and debates currently happening. another way i keep track is just following the politics of citation, that is who is citing whom, especially in recently published articles. i also have documents where i dump any definition/insight i come across on a key term or concept in my research area with reference to key theorists/scholars. diagrams help me make sense of difficult theoretical and conceptual frameworks.

and of course, a lot of reading. and writing.

hope this helps :)