We often play with the idea of getting rid of the T.V particularly after visiting my relatives in France, who don't have T.Vs. We arrive home full of good intentions about limiting the amount of T.V we watch, but we quickly find ourselves returning to the old routine.
Well ,today we had a taste of what it would be like if we were to take the plunge. This morning the eldest child lost the T.V remote, after switching to childrens T.V (so at least we had the option of them watching during the day when they get to much)
The day was just awful, truly horrible, it turns out that it is us adults that rely on the T.V, to distract the kids while we are doing those neccessary weekend jobs like Sunday lunch, but also to distract ourselves when they have been to much and we are trying to recover in their quiet moments. We have freeview and normally when the little one naps, the big one has to amuse himself in his room for a short time, we drink tea and watch a Friends or Scrubs re-run. Without it we talk - about work. I feel like I can not relax. We have resorted to a film tonight, I can not cope with the idea of a whole evening without the television, I need the anaesthetic escape, especially today, I do not want to read or play chess or talk, I need to be entirely insular, vegetative, quiet, passive.
Today was a bad day for it to go, yesterday we spent in Ikea (yes the entire day) spent £300 on flooring and finishing touches for the house, and today, to keep on schedule, we had to work on the house. We are finishing the bathroom at the moment, my job was plastering the gash in the ceiling where the wall that separated the W.C was. His job was wiring in the new lights.
Added to this I have a deadline, which has already been extended twice, for the latest chapter of my thesis and the code which was running to make the plots...crashed, of course.
Add to this two almost hyperactive children and thanksgiving preparations and you have the worst possible day.
How I wish I could put this into perspective, but I can not, it is frightening to realise that I am totally dependent on the T.V
Sunday, 18 November 2007
Sunday, 11 November 2007
The future?
I have been thinking about my future a lot lately. I will soon come to the end of my PhD and that is as far as I had ever planned. I seem to have been following a plan, until now. I suppose I just assumed that I would love my PhD excel at it and continue on in Physics, but I decided against that months ago. I made the decision when I was pregnant though and when I returned to work I started to enjoy what I was doing again, and started looking for post-doc positions, but I am just not sure. When I think about what I do now, and consider continuing with it, but without the freedoms I have as a student, the thought is unbearable. I don't want to commute into an office everyday and share my space with uninspiring people. I don't want to be away from my family for most of the day, seeing them only for a few hours each evening , if at all. I don't want to travel all over the world, spending days or weeks away at a time. I don't want all my time accounted for so that I have no time to read and write, and experience things other than work. Most worryingly of all I don't want to do the work I have been doing in my PhD, I have not found it fulfilling enough to overide all the other problems.
I'm still trying to understand this, I still get a thrill when I learn new physics, when I go to talks and read books and research papers, but my day to day work, even the more exciting parts, I just can not be interested enough to want to spend anymore time doing it.
This blog has told me something too, I expected it to lean more towards physics and less towards my family, but it leans the other way, does that tell me where my interest lies at the moment?
So I need to think of something that I am interested in, that fits in well with family life and, hopefully, has something to do with physics. I have joined prospects and other career websites and I recently went to a recruitment fair. It was awful, truly, truly horrible, the people were all carbon copies of each other, speaking commitee speak, all trying to show they have the same 'skills set' of leadership, team playing blah blah, Oh my god how could I ever think that I could have anything to do with that world. The only people who didn't speak like that were the teachers, so we spent a long time at the teaching stand and I think we will do some taster sessions, both of us, my partner and I.
Then yesterday morning I woke up thinking that I couldn't do it. I was so promising as a physicist, and I still love it surely somewhere there is something I can do?
I need to check the Aber Uni website, I just can't make this decision, it is so hard. Maybe I need to speak to somebody, but who?
I'm still trying to understand this, I still get a thrill when I learn new physics, when I go to talks and read books and research papers, but my day to day work, even the more exciting parts, I just can not be interested enough to want to spend anymore time doing it.
This blog has told me something too, I expected it to lean more towards physics and less towards my family, but it leans the other way, does that tell me where my interest lies at the moment?
So I need to think of something that I am interested in, that fits in well with family life and, hopefully, has something to do with physics. I have joined prospects and other career websites and I recently went to a recruitment fair. It was awful, truly, truly horrible, the people were all carbon copies of each other, speaking commitee speak, all trying to show they have the same 'skills set' of leadership, team playing blah blah, Oh my god how could I ever think that I could have anything to do with that world. The only people who didn't speak like that were the teachers, so we spent a long time at the teaching stand and I think we will do some taster sessions, both of us, my partner and I.
Then yesterday morning I woke up thinking that I couldn't do it. I was so promising as a physicist, and I still love it surely somewhere there is something I can do?
I need to check the Aber Uni website, I just can't make this decision, it is so hard. Maybe I need to speak to somebody, but who?
Tuesday, 6 November 2007
Fireworks and food
I have been working at home this week for several reasons; since my office mate moved to work in Paris I now share my office with some rather boring people(and one of them is a complete idiot), my younger son has been a bit poorly with a cold, and finally, I am writing, which I always prefer to do at home.
In the past it has not been very particularly sucessful, I find it hard to concentrate and don't really get much done, but this time it has been great. I doubt I will meet my deadline, but that is entirely due to other factors. I have spent more time with my children, I help with the house-work, and by that I mean real work, tiling the kitchen and bathroom and painting my youngest sons bedroom.
I think my favourite thing has been being able to help more with the cooking and eating together properly, without being rushed, as a family.
We have just started using our slow-cooker properly, it was a Christmas gift and when we first tried it we couldn't get it right, everything was too watery, but now we have really cracked it. The trick is to add very little liquid, so basically, ignore the instructions.
Our first success, last week, was a chicken, we just threw it in on a bed of stewing vegetable and added a scant cup of stock made with Marigold organic swiss boullion. It was so nice. I thicked the gravy with Bisto (a bit of a cheat that I always have in the cupboard, reminds me of when I was young) and there was plenty, much more than when you roast, but just as tasty. The only negative was the skin which doesn't crisp up. The next day was Guy Fawkes night and I had the cheapest stewing lamb in the fridge, so we decided on a hotpot, again in the slow-cooker. It was even better. I just browned the lamb and some onions in a frying pan, threw it in the pot and deglazed with the left over chicken gravy. A layer of sliced potatoes on the top and that was it. Again the top was not crisp, but I may try popping it under the grill next time (or using a blow-torch!).
We ate early, about 4 and then went to the fireworks at the pub down the road, HJ was really over-excited, and we let him have candy-floss, so he was really buzzing, but he saw some friends from school and played the planets game (where someone stands in the middle and he pretends to be each of the planets in order, spinning and running around you) so he ran off most of the sugar and flaked out as soon as we got home.
Today we are continuing the slow-cooker theme with slow cooked ragu Bolognese, by Delia Smith, with pork, beef and chicken livers, mmmmm. Partners brother and his wife are coming over so we are tryin the coolest sounding recipe from my sister too. It's simply a hollowed out pumpkin filled to a third with gruyere and topped up with cream (!!!!) and baked till the outside is black. I can't wait to try it. I'm following it with brioche and butter pudding, the brioche is baking now, I make it with a ready blended bag of dry ingredients I get from france.
After all that rich food we're planning fish for tomorrow, however, there is some chuck steak lurking in the freezer and plenty of red wine in the pantry...
In the past it has not been very particularly sucessful, I find it hard to concentrate and don't really get much done, but this time it has been great. I doubt I will meet my deadline, but that is entirely due to other factors. I have spent more time with my children, I help with the house-work, and by that I mean real work, tiling the kitchen and bathroom and painting my youngest sons bedroom.
I think my favourite thing has been being able to help more with the cooking and eating together properly, without being rushed, as a family.
We have just started using our slow-cooker properly, it was a Christmas gift and when we first tried it we couldn't get it right, everything was too watery, but now we have really cracked it. The trick is to add very little liquid, so basically, ignore the instructions.
Our first success, last week, was a chicken, we just threw it in on a bed of stewing vegetable and added a scant cup of stock made with Marigold organic swiss boullion. It was so nice. I thicked the gravy with Bisto (a bit of a cheat that I always have in the cupboard, reminds me of when I was young) and there was plenty, much more than when you roast, but just as tasty. The only negative was the skin which doesn't crisp up. The next day was Guy Fawkes night and I had the cheapest stewing lamb in the fridge, so we decided on a hotpot, again in the slow-cooker. It was even better. I just browned the lamb and some onions in a frying pan, threw it in the pot and deglazed with the left over chicken gravy. A layer of sliced potatoes on the top and that was it. Again the top was not crisp, but I may try popping it under the grill next time (or using a blow-torch!).
We ate early, about 4 and then went to the fireworks at the pub down the road, HJ was really over-excited, and we let him have candy-floss, so he was really buzzing, but he saw some friends from school and played the planets game (where someone stands in the middle and he pretends to be each of the planets in order, spinning and running around you) so he ran off most of the sugar and flaked out as soon as we got home.
Today we are continuing the slow-cooker theme with slow cooked ragu Bolognese, by Delia Smith, with pork, beef and chicken livers, mmmmm. Partners brother and his wife are coming over so we are tryin the coolest sounding recipe from my sister too. It's simply a hollowed out pumpkin filled to a third with gruyere and topped up with cream (!!!!) and baked till the outside is black. I can't wait to try it. I'm following it with brioche and butter pudding, the brioche is baking now, I make it with a ready blended bag of dry ingredients I get from france.
After all that rich food we're planning fish for tomorrow, however, there is some chuck steak lurking in the freezer and plenty of red wine in the pantry...
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