It occurs to me that I have not had a vacation in 15 months. And the 15-month-ago vacation was tacked onto the beginning/end of a conference, which was lovely because I could not have afforded the ticket to confer-cation location otherwise, but it did mean that I spent a considerable proportion of the "vacation" finessing my talk. (Yes, I was nervous.) Since then, I wrote and defended my dissertation, started a new post-doc position immediately thereafter, continue to wrestle with some publications from grad school, and pulled together what I hope will be a successful fellowship application. I have been working my ass off.
I need a vacation. Really, really bad.
I got a fuckton of shit done last week - superhuman productivity. So, on Saturday I rewarded myself with a do-nothing day in which I sat around eating junk food and watching junk TV in my PJs. All day. And I didn't even feel guilty about it. God, it was good. Then on Sunday I made the epic error of checking my work email. (On a Sunday...why?) A message regarding my fellowship application was enough to send my planned weekend of relaxation into an anxiety-ridden tailspin. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. To ameliorate the anxiety (or rather to beat it into submission) I went to the weight room and lifted until I couldn't lift anymore. It helped, a little. I need to get a handle on this. I need to take a break. I need to start pinching pennies to put into a vacation fund so that I can plan one, have one to look forward to, and actually take one before I burn myself out over here.
About Me
- Ambivalent Academic
- Ambivalence - a state of having emotions of both positive and negative valence or of having thoughts or actions in contradiction with each other, when they are related to the same object, idea or person (for example, feeling both love and hatred for someone or something [i.e., grad school, or academia]).
What people are saying about Ambivalent Academic:
Recent Comments
Subscribe To
Posts
Comments
Recurrent Characters
- Better Half - My sweet and charming significant other, also a very talented scientist.
- DangerDog - My contribution to our fur family. He is adorable and hyper-excitable and would probably be easier to live with if Ritalin were approved for dogs.
- GrAdvisor - My well-meaning PI/graduate advisor. We have our differences, but I can chalk most of them up to disparate communication styles, which makes it easier to live with the fall-out of our communication-fails.
- New PI - So far an awesome mentor. Needs a moniker. Will take suggestions.
- Thing 1 & Thing 2 - BH's cats. Actually, I'm not sure if they really are cats or some alien life forms bent on world domination.
Dispatches (10 Most Recent)
...and the science gets done...and we get cake!!
This work is protected!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. If you want to use material from this site, you must attribute it or you can email to ask permission. I will most likely say yes, but no guarantees.
Sitemeter
10 comments:
Definitely save up. Come visit Sci. :) Beaches are good, too, though.
Oh, no! I took a two week vacation six months into my post-doc (which I started BEFORE I went back to defend my dissertation). I came back, and now have a fellowship to write. It was perfect timing though, and definitely worth planning/saving for.
I was in the same situation you are in and all I can say is: take a vacay ASAP woman. You'll be glad you did.
I am seriously considering buying plane tickets for the end of next month. I even found a great deal.
How's things MXX? Is life returning to (relative) normalcy since the kiddo arrived?
Do it! Everyone needs a vacation. I'm taking my first real vacation in 2 years in a couple of weeks and it can't come soon enough. All I want is a sandy spot, a NYT best-seller list novel, and an icy, fruity drink in my hand.
I get an amazing amount of vacation days over here, and the thing the personel lady said who did the contracts a dn stuff was that they were ment to be spent on vacations, even though everybody around you doesn't go, she said: go! It will save your sanity. So that's what I did, I took almost all of them every year. Not that I went away, but taking them off just because it was sunny. Or the car needed to go to the garage, or we went on honeymoon. Or camping in France. Anyhow, TAKE DAYS OFF> Saves in burn-outs later on.
In a year or so, when I have to defend, I will reveal whether it was a smart thing, for now, it feels a I as much pressured as the other students who worked three years in a row.
Things are slowly returning to normal. The first couple of weeks back in the lab were interesting. I think I was more in danger of breaking something or hurting myself than in danger of actually getting something accomplished. I've been back six weeks now and I think I've almost got my groove back. At home is a whole different story. The house perpetually looks like a bomb went off.
Buy those tickets!!!
Oh God. I've just been talking myself OUT of a holiday. Thanks.
you work too hard!!
you know what I find? i know it's kind of crazy, but several 4-day vacations can be much more relaxing than a single weeklong vacation, because then you don't have as much guilt or shit built up when you come back. Plan a quick Friday-Monday, drive 250 miles away, sleep in a hotel and wear a bathrobe all day long, watching TV and going to the spa. Then do it again in 3 months. You only lose 2 weekdays each time and it's awesome.
Hi Phizz!
I like you mini-vacations idea. The only problem is, it takes me about three days to shed all the work-think, so I'm only just starting to get some quality relaxation in at about day 4. Four day weekends are not very restful for me as a result.
Never fear though. I have a vacation booked next month. Now I just have to stay focused between now and then.
Post a Comment