Posted on by ijeomaopara · 4 Comments

The Visceral Humility of Showing Up

I can’t lie – showing up is hard. Most quotes to do with success have the same thread running throughout – to achieve your goals, being consistent is the best thing you can do. This applies across the board, regardless of what field you’re in. As a postgraduate researcher, this is the lesson that heavily underpins the degrees we pursue. Getting your Masters or PhD has less to do with whether you are the smartest in the room and far more to do with whether you embody the characteristics of perseverance, diligence and consistency in finishing what needs to be done (among other attributes). It seems pretty straightforward, right? Except anyone who is a researcher will tell you that it is never a linear journey, but the little progress that you make every day could look like this:

In my vlog, I only show the aesthetic parts of what makes up a day in my life.

Although I take everyone through my typical day as a postgrad researcher, there are still some ups and downs. Sometimes, I wake up at 8 am, and other times I wake up at 11 am (depending on my sleeping schedule). Some days I do my entire morning routine, and other days just brushing my teeth and moisturizing is all I can muster.

The full breakfast or fruit and coffee on the go.

Productive writing session or procrastination station.

Feelings of joy or feelings of being overwhelmed and frustrated.

Viewing the ‘bad’ days as an indicator of where we will end up only sets us up for failure, as there is nothing inherently wrong with them. It is part of our inch-by-inch work to strive towards the future. But on a larger scale, there are still some challenges. A quantitative research article by Boone, Vander Elst, Vandenbroeck and Godderis (2022) cites a high workload, work-life interference, continuous publication pressure and job insecurity as the main reasons young researchers reach burnout quickly. Although the study was conducted in Finland, within our context in South Africa, I can say through anecdotal experience that young researchers are struggling to find balance with the demands and pressure of being in academia, on top of other socio-economic related issues that pertain to being a young person in Africa. What will it take for things to change?

On the one hand, pursuing postgraduate studies is a highly privileged position. Yet, on the other hand, there are unique challenges prevalent in academia that rely on overworking young researchers. But unfortunately, this article alone cannot posit the solutions to these more significant structural problems. A beautiful tweet from 2016 by singer Mitski captures my everyday approach to research life:

Being radical in choosing to rest amongst the productivity-industrial complex is essential and part of why it is necessary to be vigilant in protecting one’s peace of mind. This is especially true when trying to carve out a somewhat impossible nexus between progressive politics and wanting a successful career.  The prolific black feminist writer audre lorde said in her essay Uses of Anger in Sister Outsider:

“…change is not just about a simple switch of positions or temporary lessening of tensions, nor the ability to smile or feel good… (it is) a basic and radical alteration in those assumptions underlining our lives.”

The visceral humility required to show up authentically in our everyday lives requires us to remove the ego in our everyday decisions. As I enter the second year of my PhD, I choose to remember the value of choosing radical peace amongst the chaos of academia.

While in the pursuit of excellence, we deserve joy.

Posted on by MukhtaarWaja · 1 Comment

A Glimpse into the Life of Academia’s Favourite Bad Boy

To say my life is not full of action and adventure would be a bald-faced lie, and I would never dream of lying to you, dear reader. People are always asking me what a day in my life is like – “people” meaning my relatives, who are concerned and confused by my life choices. I doubt my vlog will alleviate their concerns, but I’m sure it could help their confusion! I can confidently say that my vlog is highly representative of most days in my life – as most days in my life are more or less identical… which sounds so much sadder than I realised. Anyway, click on my face to watch a day in my life!

My day begins when I wake up, usually to the sound of my younger brother singing Taylor Swift songs at the top of his lungs. I lay in bed, hoping that today will be the day I meet a rich widow who will take me into her home and ensure I never have to work again. It’s a great way to ensure that every day is disappointing! While most days I spend my mornings running errands for my family, there are some mornings where I go to campus for meetings with my supervisor and her other postgrad students. These meetings sometimes become therapy sessions – desperately needed therapy sessions – which manage to be both cathartic and informative. Aside from meetings, I also go to campus to tutor, which involves me forcing the students to call me Captain, and telling them to stand on their desks. There have been a lot of injuries but I think it’s worth it. Just kidding!

Once home from the morning’s errands, I immediately start procrastinating working hard. I don’t grab my guitar and attempt to learn a song that is far beyond my skill level; I don’t watch YouTube videos about topics I have never once considered in my life; and I definitely do not scroll mindlessly through Instagram, forgetting each post the second it leaves my sight. Perhaps a less committed student may indulge in such behaviour, but I would never!

So, what work do I do when I’m not doing all of the above? Well, most of my time is spent writing and reading, working on specific chapters for my research paper – like my methodology, my literature review, or my study site. Writing is not always the easiest thing to do. Some days the words flow with ease, but other days the words give you the cold shoulder and refuse to explain what you did to upset them, which makes it impossible to make up for it! Currently, I am doing data analysis, which means I am going through the interviews I conducted, and searching for themes and patterns in the participants’ answers. It is a truly exciting stage in my research, and I cannot wait to share my findings with the world!

Loadshedding plays a key role in how I structure the work in my day, with the threat of loadshedding pushing me to work quicker so that my day doesn’t end with me working in total darkness. That said, my day usually ends with me working in total darkness. The stress of an upcoming deadline pairs wonderfully with the paranoid thoughts the darkness causes. Finally, exhausted from a hard day of stressing about work – which then prevents me from actually working – I get in bed and am suddenly wide awake and unable to fall asleep.

This happens every night.

Send help.