Today was my first Monday back after a semi-enforced holiday. I cannot remember the last time that I was able to not be on campus during the recess. And actually make a holiday out of it. We often joke in the lab that recess is the best time to be on campus for the post-grads – after all, there are no undergrads underfoot, clogging the walkways, queuing in the various food-dispensing establishments, and most important of all, there is parking available. The downside is that you never really get time to shut down, recharge, and just be human for a while.
Before I left, I think was a bit of a mess. I explained to a fellow PhD-sufferer today, that as much as I respect and appreciate the people around me – supervisors, fellow students, support staff – at that point I just could not stand the sight of them any longer. And until I got my nihilistic tendencies under control, I thought it might be better to keep my distance for a while. So before I left I made a rather big issue of the fact that I was going to be unavailable. And travelling. And in areas without internet or cellphone signal. And be unavailable. That part is very important in context – it had been known to happen that emails arrive at midnight, containing sentences that start with “I have an idea…”.
A policy of “a lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine” is only really enforceable once you are higher up in the food chain.
So warnings duly doled out and the out-of-office email notifications switched-on, off we went on a road trip across the country to attend my brother-in-law’s wedding. For the first three or four hours on the road, we barely said a word to each other (OK, admittedly, the first hour was spent getting through some very hairy traffic, so more concentrating and less talking was called for). Despite my very thorough precautions, I kept worrying about not being at work, kept checking emails in case something was needed back on campus… you get the drift. Then at some point I realized that even IF something went wrong, there was not much I could do about it. So I stopped, put the phone down, and started enjoying the ride and the company.
Somewhere on the day’s drive we decided to take a detour to another town (we did budget an extra day on the drive down). And we fell into the terrible habit we developed on another road trip – namely not planning and booking a place to stay until we realize that not much more driving will be done for the day. There have been some interesting results using this method. In this case though, it transpired that a music festival was due in this town – and that accommodation was at a 98% capacity. Oops. Luckily, though the first place we called was fully booked, the owner kindly hopped across the street to another Bed and Breakfast and found us a bed for the night. Bonus was that it was clean and comfortable, with friendly cats. This habit would nearly bite us in the ass several times on this trip.
Humanizing the PhD student does not occur completely without creaks or pains, or even overnight. So eventually when we hit the road again after the wedding, a little more human, we also used a completely different route and several days to get home. We saw some amazing scenery, marveled at the serenity of some of the towns, and kept on practicing the terrible habit of not knowing where we’ll sleep the night until we are there. In such a way we found ourselves in a self-catering unit in the north, with its own braai facilities, and settled down for the night.
And this is where I found one of the strongest moments for a Patronus during this trip, and the first one detailed in this blog. In this moment, where the town is quiet, the frogs are chorusing in the background and someone is playing Simon & Garfunkel’s Mother and Child Reunion and Call me Al quietly. The meat is gently sizzling, and my husband is sitting next to me, as we goes through the photos of the day together on his camera. This is a moment that I would love to have over and over again. And that is just a bit more motivation to finish the PhD.
A Patronus for my PhD 