It has preyed heavily on my mind over the last year - every time a colleague or a student has asked me about my PhD I have felt like more and more of a fraud. Because the truth is, I have done absolutely no work save for the reading of a few papers here and there. It seems almost every waking hour has been, since August 2009, devoted to the service of my students, with a slight detour to do the part-time teaching qualification expected of me. So entirely have I engrossed myself in my students' welfare and education that I spent some of my holiday last week (my wedding anniversary in fact) writing a desperately-needed reference for a needy teenager.
My students and some of my friends are aware that Paul was made redundant in February of this year. This has been particularly devastating all round, along with other aspects of my life that are too personal to share. I had promised myself that I would use the holidays for fieldwork and research, but half-terms and holidays were eaten into with revision sessions and course planning. I didn't resent this, by any means, but the fact remains that I did not have holidays available as planned. A retired colleague told me yesterday that anyone who does find themselves with full holidays as a teacher probably teaches in a private school!
So it has been with a heavy heart that I, prompted by my supervisors, have withdrawn from the MPhil/PhD programme at Birkbeck, University of London. I have exhausted all options for leaves of absence. There will be no returning to any PhD programme. To paraphrase Lady Bracknell, to quit one PhD may be regarded as a misfortune; to quit both looks like carelessness.
I now have to figure out where I stand in the vertebrate palaeontology community. There are some at SVP who regard me as a little kid trying to sit at the grown-ups' table, to be ignored and talked over. I anticipate that these will continue to do so, but at least now they have reason to ignore me. There are plenty of members of SVP who do not think that anyone outside of an academic or museum institution deserves to be at SVP, and that non-professionals constitute everything that is wrong with the community. And there will be the ones who will want to hang out as though nothing has happened.
I just hope I am able to work out who is who before I upset myself.
In and around this, I had to work out what to do with my blog. I probably cannot get away with calling myself the Ethical Palaeontologist anymore, as while I still think I am the former, I am not really the latter. So this blog will no longer be updated. In and around the enormous fallout from "Pepsigate" on Scienceblogs, I imagine this will pass unnoticed, but I hope that by submitting it to the August Scientiae carnival it will be picked up - after all, it is about reflecting on the past year and looking forward to the next.
What does the future bring? Mixed with the sadness of leaving my PhD programme is the joy of having been awarded a full-time position lecturing biology at the college I have been teaching at since this time last year. My parents are bursting with pride. My husband confesses to being "hot for teacher". My students think I'm pretty damn good too, although I'm not sure that newly-discovered gem from one of my A2s is something I should necessarily put down on my CV.
To complement the change of scene, you can find me and my blog over at Stages Of Succession. Any of my incoming A2 Biology students who have already finished their leaf margin analysis of the local parks can now go away and research what succession is.
Edit: Oh yes, you'll need to update your feeds too... The new feed is .
My students and some of my friends are aware that Paul was made redundant in February of this year. This has been particularly devastating all round, along with other aspects of my life that are too personal to share. I had promised myself that I would use the holidays for fieldwork and research, but half-terms and holidays were eaten into with revision sessions and course planning. I didn't resent this, by any means, but the fact remains that I did not have holidays available as planned. A retired colleague told me yesterday that anyone who does find themselves with full holidays as a teacher probably teaches in a private school!
So it has been with a heavy heart that I, prompted by my supervisors, have withdrawn from the MPhil/PhD programme at Birkbeck, University of London. I have exhausted all options for leaves of absence. There will be no returning to any PhD programme. To paraphrase Lady Bracknell, to quit one PhD may be regarded as a misfortune; to quit both looks like carelessness.
I now have to figure out where I stand in the vertebrate palaeontology community. There are some at SVP who regard me as a little kid trying to sit at the grown-ups' table, to be ignored and talked over. I anticipate that these will continue to do so, but at least now they have reason to ignore me. There are plenty of members of SVP who do not think that anyone outside of an academic or museum institution deserves to be at SVP, and that non-professionals constitute everything that is wrong with the community. And there will be the ones who will want to hang out as though nothing has happened.
I just hope I am able to work out who is who before I upset myself.
In and around this, I had to work out what to do with my blog. I probably cannot get away with calling myself the Ethical Palaeontologist anymore, as while I still think I am the former, I am not really the latter. So this blog will no longer be updated. In and around the enormous fallout from "Pepsigate" on Scienceblogs, I imagine this will pass unnoticed, but I hope that by submitting it to the August Scientiae carnival it will be picked up - after all, it is about reflecting on the past year and looking forward to the next.
What does the future bring? Mixed with the sadness of leaving my PhD programme is the joy of having been awarded a full-time position lecturing biology at the college I have been teaching at since this time last year. My parents are bursting with pride. My husband confesses to being "hot for teacher". My students think I'm pretty damn good too, although I'm not sure that newly-discovered gem from one of my A2s is something I should necessarily put down on my CV.
To complement the change of scene, you can find me and my blog over at Stages Of Succession. Any of my incoming A2 Biology students who have already finished their leaf margin analysis of the local parks can now go away and research what succession is.
Edit: Oh yes, you'll need to update your feeds too... The new feed is .