Monthly Archives: July 2019

Mandalas

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I have rejected routines all my life. Perhaps because of a rebellious teen hood, it took me way too many years to get used to even the most benign routines, such as having a blissful breakfast every morning. The thing is, I was not exactly changing the world by not imitating the rules of my upbringing. I was only short-changing myself, especially by not enjoying a latte and croissant in the morning or the necessary coffee break in the afternoon…

What I find funny is that most of my hobbies have a heavy dose of routine in them. For example, I love completing the daily solitaire challenge. I also love filling up the World Cup sticker album every four years. I enjoy immensely exchanging stickers with friends and online, and filling and reviewing my list of missing and extra stickers.

As you can see, the pleasure of checking to-do lists is very close to my heart. This is not to say that I haven’t had more creative hobbies. One Christmas I made colorful necklaces for all my girlfriends. I think I may try that again soon, and this time with my daughter.

I also love coloring Mandalas, as you may have noticed. My beloved gave me a coloring book, way before coloring became such a frenzy. He just knew that I would be into it, and he was right. In addition, my job back then was quite stressful, so having a meditative outlet was crucial to my sanity. It still is.

As I think I have mentioned here before, it was coloring one evening that I decided to drop a dissertation topic that was clearly never going to get done. It came to me like an epiphany that unless I worked on something I was interested in or knew about, I would never finish my studies.

The next day I wrote to my advisor and set up a meeting. I was all excited, even considering writing a general book on primary commodities. My advisor gently brought me back to reality by noting that for a few years already, every December, I had come to him with a new big idea that unfortunately had yet to materialize. Smaller ideas would be more feasible, perhaps.

He also reminded me that I needed to follow the academic requirements of the dissertation. I could write a general book… any time… after graduation. I guess we will see about that.

Staycations

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I love British TV. Initially it was the occasional pbs or bbc america show. “Coupled” is easily one of my all time favorites. “As time goes by” and even “keeping up appearances” accompanied me many Friday nights in the 2000s. Now that subscription TV has become ubiquitous, I found Acorn. I am addicted.

I am not sure what it is about British TV but I can’t get enough of it. It is cynical, funny, macabre, interesting and mostly witty. To make things more difficult, and immensely more enjoyable, Santa brought me a bigger TV.

So last winter I had the best staycations ever! I binged into so many comedies, mysteries and dramas that I felt I traveled away, not only to blissfully cynical England but to Australia and New Zealand too. So much fun!

Before that, I had realized that I needed to read much more to advance in my dissertation. So, in between shows and hanging out with my daughter, I decided to read at least one paper a day since January 1st. To my surprise I did it! Some days I even read more than one.

And this discipline continued when I got back to work. I then decided to extend it to work topics, reading minimum one of each per day. Of course some days I only read half of each, but I certainly made a big dent into the piles I had printed. And it was enjoyable!

But as with any topic in a dissertation, chances are you can always find another strand of literature or more recent papers and never have enough.

I then met with my advisor and, serendipitously, he said that the best advice his committee chair had given him at the time was… guess what: to stop reading and begin to write! You know how that went. It was a struggle to start and go on. But it has been getting done somehow.

I have given up many things to finish this academic work. But I certainly believe that you can’t give up everything, at least not for an extended period of time. Fad diets are the perfect example of that. And there are many others. I never gave up TV.

Many of my friends can live without TV. I just can’t… especially when it gets as good as “Black books, “Crownies”, “Rake”, “Ackley bridge”, Striking out” and “Love, lies and records”.