Distractions: friday haiku

my grandmother's day
must have been so slow, so calm,
fewer distractions

5 reasons not to do a PhD, and 5 reasons to give it a go...

Being a mum aint healthy for your career. I've spent the last 10 years working part-time, working for myself, and teaching my craft rather than practicing it. With my youngest child going to school next year I feel the need to get back into it again. Trouble is, Im not sure what "it" is.  I now live in a big country town and there are few positions for an architect and/or academic.  I realise its been 10 years since I have worked, proper like, for an architecture firm. Ive had a bit of a look at the architectural practices here, and there are only one or two that do the kind of work that id enjoy, and they are, I am told, pretty blokey offices. Im just not sure I can handle the posturing egos that these kind of firms seem to foster. Its just all so tiresome and unnecessary. So, what to do????????? Ive looked at changing fields, becoming a secondary school teacher, studying yoga seriously, but neither option really grabs me as a something I want to do as a JOB.

So, the option of a PhD seems to  be a good one in many ways. If I want to get back into being an academic, its vital to have one of 'em. And if I dont, well, its not time wasted, its something of value that might even contribute to the well of knowledge....who knows?

So here are the reasons I can think of NOT to do one:

1. Isolation. Immeasurable hours of solo researching, reading, writing.
   
2. Stipend pretty pathetic, really.
3. Three year target for completion impossible
4. Another slab of my life within the institution (and not in the real world ?)
5. The pain of completion....having seen someone I love go through this, im not so sure I would wish this on myself.
   
   And on the positive side:
   

1. The luxury of time to read, consider, write in an area of interest.
   
2. Hey, its money to do the above. And its tax free. And my time would be (largely) self directed.
   
3.  I could construct ways of trying to keep the scope bounded, limit the topic, early.
4. A PhD provides a direction, a sense of purpose and it has some value. Not exactly sure if it will make me more, or less empolyable in a professional sense, but the opportunity to reflect on and maybe even refigure the 'real world' is a fine thing.
5. All things worth doing have a certain amount of pain attached, certainly at the 'delivery end. (Note not so subtle analogy with childbirth...haha!)
   

Anything Ive missed here guys?

Living a rich life

Staying in a friend's house is always fascinating. you get to see inside their life, whats important to them, what isnt, as well as just enjoy another’s idea of how to array objects in the home. The flotsam and jetsam of their existence gives you a kind of hieroglyphic of who they are and what they value.Their patterns and routines take over from your own (after all you're a guest in their space). You eat what they eat. Its great! Its a holiday from your own routines.

I love staying in this house in Taroona as it has 3 generations of creative people's stuff everywhere: books, paintings, posters photos and cards, objects, more books.In fact Ive already posted about this elsewhere.My favourite thing this time? To treat the dishes in the sink as foreign objects. Like rock stars, we all neglected their presence in the hope that someone else might do them. (This is definitely taking a holiday from our own routines). We sat in the sun and read books, painted, walked on the beach instead. It was like living in a share house all over again. Fun wins out over fastidiousness. I wish I had a photo of the mountain of dishes at the end of 3 days. Not pretty. But a sign of us all being relaxed in each other's company.

Fear not, S and I did clean up at the end of our visit. We are decent house guests afterall.

A hypersexualised world

Yesterday we had a couple of tradesman come over to fix the gasline on the stove - they went outside to check the gas bottles. Miss S was fascinated by their work , and followed their progress. Then she shocked me with this question:

Miss S:  (peering out the window to the two plumbers) : 'So Mum, which one do you think is hot?'
Me: Well, ummmmm, what do you mean by 'hot' ?
Miss S: well, you know, sexy and cool
Me: So, if someone is 'hot' means that they are 'cool'? (steering away from discussing the nature of sexiness with her 5 year old daughter). Thats a bit strange, dont you think?
Miss S: Well I like the one thats not fat. He's hot.

Oh GAWD. Two things get me concerned here. One, she has learnt that to be 'fat' makes you somehow unattractive. (Just for the record, he was only a little overweight). And second, where the hell did she get the words 'sexy' and in this context 'hot' in her vocabulary?
So, we talked about how a kind and loving person is the kind of person that you want to have around you. That what I see and like in a person is not just about how they look. I asked a few more questions to find out where she got this idea of 'hotness' from? But she didnt really know.

Yes, sexualised images of women pervade the media, and the pornification of young girls toys, clothes, videos etc is as insidious as it is well documented. . But i try and steer my girls away from commercial TV, and limit some of the toys they have. ( Barbies, yes but Brats, no) Hmmm....its not enough, methinks.
So this is the thing: I feel I havent done enough to protect my 5 year old from this kind of sexual language, plus she has already been sucked into the idea of objectifying the (in this case, male) body. And so I worry. What can we do as parents to keep children's play and language and way of looking at the world, childlike?

Id also like to add that it makes me bloody furious that this should be an issue at all!

Bottled water?

Hilarious that they need to go to so much trouble to sell bottled water these days.

Spring planting

Its only just the beginning of Spring, but it feels like an excellent opportunity to get busy planting. Especially as the sun is shining today! We have seen so little of the sun here in Launceston, with grey skies and torrential rains and even flooding being the norm of late.

Miss S loves snow peas, and its always her job to plant them, so today we hauled out the dry plants from the frame, and potted up some new seeds.

The chocolate crackle was a little celebration in the sun afterwards!

10 things in 101 days

Ive been intrigued to find a couple of landscape architects on blogger, who have set themselves the task of completing a list of things, a long LONG list of things! These are, I gather, things they aspire to, that they have always wanted to do, things perhaps that inspire them. Katrine, of 'My Feet Move Forwards', and Victoria, 'Being Me' both  have these interesting lists in the margins of their blogs, and I wonder how they go about squeezing these things into the margins of their lives. It hard sometimes to maintain enthiusiasm in the face of a list, but it looks like they are doing bloody well so far.  It appeals to my sense of order to catalogue the things I'd like to do. But to be honest, it also wearies me somewhat to imagine 101 things! It must be the difference between being 24 and 40!

Reading their lists leaves me wondering what it is that inspires me now? What is there that I aspire to? As I review their lists, these are things that I have been doing, and loved doing over the last 10 years combining motherhood with old and new careers, and a reignited interest in the making things with my hands, and a new keen interest in gardening, bushwalking and yoga.

I love the idea of joining the 101 things crusade, but I guess I want a mini list, with more immediate results!
So I will make a list of 10 things, in 101 days. But I will consider these things most carefully and borrow one idea from each of their lists, as a thank you!

1. Walk the Overland Track (Thank you Katrine!... I havent walked the whole thing yet, and am now confirming plans to do this in November)

2. Cook something new once per month (I might make this once per week) Thanks Victoria!

3. Continue the pilates training, daily. Focusing on core strength and begining to re-integrate my yoga routine.

4. Start my weekly walking once again.

5. Floss (lol! I always seem to rush my teeth, but I really want to avoid expensive dental visits)

6. Laugh more

7. Be open to new friendships, and try not to worry too much if they all dont quite work out the way you imagine they may 

8. Be open to the idea of a whole new career!

9. Listen to my students...actively listen.

10. Plant some seeds for summer veggie crops

I might even revise my list tomorrow, before putting it in the margin to keep my mind on the things im working towards, but this is a start. Oh, and I guess I made the executive decision to count laughter, listening and preparedness as a 'thing': a thing need not be a physical outcome I reckon...