"That Bitch with a PhD"

Tales from Academia and other stories. Currently reading: Ce que je sais de toi - E. Chacour

[thatfrenchacademic]

Describe your academic research with tags, but only ao3 tags.

[thatfrenchacademic]

I am begging you all to keep them coming, the tags on this post are glorious.

[thatfrenchacademic]

Sometimes I get so angry at the state of academia that I go non-verbal and communicate in memes only.

[thatfrenchacademic]

Finished Katabasis. What an absolute trip.

Short review: the book gets better as it goes on. It may end up becoming a comfort read. Sits at the same table as Piranesi with its "makes me feel like I am tipsy or should be tipsy reading this" vibe.

[thatfrenchacademic]

I was out of coffee, so I switched to one of my housemate's energy drink thing.

This is either the best idea in the world or the worst idea in the world. It's like someone turned the chaotic neutral knob to 11. May finish the research note and answer all emails and prepare the speaking point and come up with a 12 slides presentation OR may quit my job, buy a fitbit, enroll is sewing lessons and move to Amsterdam. Who knows ?? Not this girl, let me tell you.

[what-even-is-thiss]

They don’t actually give you an encyclopedic knowledge of something when you get in a degree in it. They give you the skill to learn more about it on your own.

[ekjohnston]

This is 100% the second most important thing I learned while getting my archaeology degree.

[beka-tiddalik]

Incidentally this is why asking "what do you even use your degree for, you don't work in the [arts] industry" questions are wrongheaded.

Arts degrees teach the philosophical background of the subject, how to distinguish between sources, how to interpret data, how to analyze sources, how to properly cite your sources, and how to present a cohesive argument on something that's inherently at least somewhat subjective.

I do not work in academia but I use this skillset almost constantly, because one is never not exposed to ideas or data that one then has to form an opinion on.

And frankly it's why it doesn't matter how good your vocational degree is, you still need to keep current and upskill every once in a while because new processes and discoveries and standards come out all the time and it's adapt or become unemployable.

[thatfrenchacademic]

Oh boy do I have news regarding what people think lawyers know.

They *know* nothing about *the law*.

They sure know *how to know* the rules and not-rules about anything and everything, very fast, and very accurately. That's it, that's the skill.

[thatfrenchacademic]

Doing emails on Monday morning is like playing wack-a-mole, because everyone else is also answering their emails on Monday morning. So they are inistantly answering any thing you send them, and you do the same. you thik we went through all 24 emails, but meanwhile, 10 of them already got back to you.

[thatfrenchacademic]

No matter how much I try, nothing I will write in my entire will go as hard as the intellectual evisceration of the natural rights doctrine by Bentham.

Natural rights ? "Nonsense" Unalienable natural rights ? "Nonsense upon stilts"

Man really wrote entire essays channeling the "you are an idiot sandwich" meme before it even existed.

Same energy as that letter Voltaire sent Rousseau saying that that never had anyone spent so much energy turning people back to stupid beasts.

[thatfrenchacademic]

Flying back from conference in the morning and then having to work in the afternoon should be illegal.

[liones-s]

one of the most boring lessons I’ve learned is that when a task feels overwhelming, you just have to start doing it. Even if you’re not sure how to do 90% of it, look for one small component that seems close and start there. Sometimes it’s reading one article on the topic, or searching one related term, or literally just googling how to do the task. Do anything other than thinking about it. The process of working on a thing inherently makes it less scary.

[thatfrenchacademic]

Characters that are dead but are *everywhere*. They haunt the narrative to the point of possessing it. Characters that move the plot forward like they are physically pushing it. That might as well whisper in the ears of the living. That people hesitate to mention because they their constant presence is so strong is becomes taboo. That are the anchor of every thread that got tangled together. They died and from that moment the plot marches on, and on, and on, and toward its inexorable end.

[thatfrenchacademic]

oh no I have started watching The Summer Hikaru Died.

[thatfrenchacademic]

sometimes being a grown up is doing things that don't feel good but are good sometimes being a grown up is doing things that don't feel good but are good sometimes being a grown up is doing things that don't feel good but are good sometimes-

[thatfrenchacademic]

Uh uh.

At the point where I am drinking the Kool Aid, and I will actually go back to work with the little Bean Productivity App and tell the Little Ben to go knit some more socks.

Not because I don't want to bother Little Bean from knitting thousands of socks. Could care less. But because Little Bean deserve a cuter-looking desk and a nice little knick-knack stand. I don't care about the productivity of a bean in its sock-making activities, but I draw the line at its poor room decoration.

[thatfrenchacademic]

Actually my ideal job is "making academia palatable".

Let me create brand identities, visual and a clear easthetic for your seminar series.

Let me organise your conference in a way that will draw in the people you want.

Let me develop a communication strategy for your research project.

Let me write the public report to share your findings.

Academics are bad at that. I am good at that. Me not having this job is a market failure.

[thatfrenchacademic]

I appreciate that there are a lot of resources about challenging ANTs, recognizing them, not letting them spiral but I wish someone cracked how to not be distracted by them.

I spent my entire day, every 10 minutes, staring into the void because I kept being side tracked my ANTs. Just. Popping up. And then gently bringing myself back, like "no, sweetie, we are not being sucked into [very upsetting repetitive an violent images because that's what my ANTs are], we have work to do, remember? :)"

Like cool, I have mastered "challenging them" and "neither engaging nor resistig" but I swear on bad days, it's like trying to get anything done while your annoying sibling is WATCHING A HORROR MOVIE ON A MASSIC IMAX SCREEN WITH THE SOUND TURNED TO THE MAX RIGHT NEXT TO YOU

[karvina]

the really crazy thing about cooking is that once you practice it enough (for all the gamers reading this: "grind enough exp") your threshold for wuat counts as a low effort / depression / I Dont Really Want To Cook meal rises steadily and you can feel yourself becoming the kind of person whose "chill dinner" takes 1h45 and involves three pans

[broghini]

ok but how do I get there from "assembling a sandwich is too much work"

[silverjirachi]

As someone who went through this and struggles with chronic pain and fatigue, add 1 thing semi regularly. And I do mean just 1 thing.

When I first moved out most my meals were instant ramen. Then I started adding 1 egg to that ramen to get a little protein in. In a couple months, 1 egg became two. Then it was 2 eggs and 1 chopped green onion. Then a couple months later I was adding carrots and other vegetables. In about two years I was able to skip the instant ramen part altogether and now use chicken broth and noodles and I’m basically making a ramenesque soup from scratch when I’m craving ramen. It took 2+ years total of just gradually, one at a time, adding one ingredient. Over a period of months/weeks.

Start with where you’re able. If a sandwich is too much, maybe try just a piece of bread and some meat or cheese. Focus on where you can be gradually introducing more nutrients into your body. 1 slice of deli meat. A couple weeks later, that plus 1 slice of cheese. Then 1 vegetable. Maybe they don’t all make it into sandwich form and that’s ok. But if you keep what’s the most basic and simple for yourself and slowly add 1 thing that’s not too much of a hassle, over a couple months you might start toasting the bread before putting cheese and meat on it. Then one day there’s more vegetables. Years down the line you might find yourself owning a panini press or slicing your own bread.

Most of us will never be gourmet chefs and that shouldn’t be the goal. You might not ever get to the point where you own a panini press. But the more important thing is that you’re finding ways that work, for you, gradually, in order to make your meals more nutritious. The expectation to cook a full, unique meal every night for dinner is a relatively new phenomenon and completely unrealistic for most people. Having the same 3 things you can make consistently and keep on rotation is plenty fine, especially if you get to the point where you can mix it up a little bit by adding ingredients in the method stated above. Feeding yourself should be the #1 goal, getting more nutrients in #2, and stepping it up to the next level #3 when you have the capacity to. Like with a lot of things, it’s really just about consistency. Start with where you can be consistent. If that’s 1 meal a week you cook yourself and the rest is hot pockets, but you can do that 1 meal consistently, then that’s where you start. Then when you have that down, maybe try two (of the same) meals a week, or ask what you can add to your hot pocket to make it a little better for you. (Some vegetables on the side for instance).

Don’t try to jump in from 0 to full course meal all at once or you’ll overwhelm yourself. Building a meal outward from bread and butter over a period of weeks is incredibly possible. No two peoples’ timelines will be the same, but it is entirely possible and that success will look different for everyone, and that’s also ok. As long as you’re feeding yourself, that’s what’s most important.

[broghini]

this is so helpful. too many times when I ask how to do something, people tell me to "just do it" like I'm supposed to already know what steps to take. and I almost never know what steps to take. someone actually telling me is so refreshing

[sleepanon]

so, I can't sleep. never had this problem before because I never really went to bed until I was so bone tired that sleep was inevitable.

if y'all have any tips for actually falling asleep once in bed, please share them!! i've been awake for nearly 5 hours 😩

[thatfrenchacademic]

MY TIME HAS COME

Time to leverage years of chronic insomnia to help my friends

Get comfortable with just being comfy

"Don't focus on falling asleep" is both true and helpful in my experience. More effective for me was being neutral about sleep ("it may or may not come, nothing I can do about it"), while thinking of how nice and cozy I feel, in bed, relaxed, not bone-tired, just comfy. On how that can be enough !

2. Change of activity

After 20 minutes not falling any more likely to sleep at all (brain still wired and firing on all cylinders), just get up and do something relaxing, low efforts, and without screens. For me: tidying or cleaning. A friend did some light cooking (eg prep a salad for the next day). Give yourself 20 minutes for that.

3. Change of space

Just try to sleep somwehere else entirely. The couch. The floor. The guest room. Ideally, a whole different room. It acts a bit like a soft reboot of your evening routine.

4. More radical evening routine

I hve found that cutting out screens not 30 miutes, but at least 1 hour before actually trying to lseep, is really helpful with bad bouts of insomnia. Same goes with switching to something actively boring 30 minutes before (usually, reading a book that I know is just.. not o great interest). I treat it like medicine: no I don't like it. I wish I was doing somethig else. But it's for the greater good (not being cranky the next day).

5. Light rest is better than no sleep...

... So put on some background noise. Listeing to very soft audiobooks or re-run of old shows puts me in half-sleep, at the cost of preventing me from falling asleep entirely. And sometimes, that's a worthy tradeoff ! So if there is something that makes you doze off and taht's all you can get, consider just getting that for the night - especially if you actively need to have you brain semi-functionning the next day.

6. This too shall pass

Once again, perhaps more for chronic insomnia, but there is a lot of anxiety that comes with "I NEED to sleep, becauseI will be dead on my feet tomorrow if I don't." And anyone who has gone through at least a full week of insomnia knows how incapacitating it is, how incapacitating it WILL be if you don't SLEEP. NOW.

(oops we just made it worse)

But.

The thing is, we forget that we can functionning OK on lack of sleep for a bit. Not ideal, but being short on sleep for a bit, is, actually, ok. It will not ruin your entire day. You will not get 10-days-of-no-sleep symptoms if you just get a handful of hours of sleep two or three nights in a row. Cut yourself (and your brain) some slack. Even if it makes for a cranky day tomorrow, it's just a cranky day. We are not going straight to DefCon 5. You will be ok, even with little-not-great-sleep for a night.

Source: I have been playing a mix of tag and 4D chess with sleep or a decade. Yesterday I was asked "so what do you do or take these days, to sleep?" and my immediate reaction was "Mate ask me what do I NOT do and take to sleep, it will be faster".

[probuccalfat]

it’s fucking wild because one day you’re like i guess i’m not dying tragically young and you go to the store and you buy dental floss, ingredients for soup, and a bath mat

[probuccalfat]

it’s this sentiment in practice, in day to day.