Wednesday 22 February 2017

Waiting waiting

Still patiently awaiting the arrival of Bab. It feels like every time I speak to a midwife, or any other human really, they ask me about 'pain' and feeling scared or worried. Since the beginning of human life, women have been birthing babies, without epidurals, pitocin or episiotimies. I'm really glad we have wonderful advances in medicine that mean there are only 10 maternal deaths per 100,000  in our part of the world (source), but I don't for a second believe that the regularity with which interventions are undertaken for routine and low-risk births are helpful for anyone. Nor that the fear, uncertainty and lack of education around what happens during pregnancy, labour and the post-natal period is helpful at all, in the slightest, for any of us. It's incredibly dis-empowering. I'm sure the birth will be fine, in fact I'm looking forward to it a lot. A test of mental and physical strength, with a great present at the end, what could be better?

We've received so many flowers, cards and gifts to welcome us into our new home and for our impending arrival, it's really sweet and a little overwhelming, but in a good way. So many changes this year, it's so lovely to see how much people care. 





Until our arrival...arrives, you'll find me in the kitchen sitting on my exercise ball, editing my PhD, cooking, hoovering, reading Nordic crime fiction, and generally being super chill. 

Saturday 4 February 2017

Hello February - the final weeks of being two

If I'm being honest, I'm writing this post in a much grumpier frame of mind than when I intended to begin it several days ago. Today, house things are just being too much. But, look, I have a lasagne in the oven and some cookie dough prepared, so it ain't all that bad, folks.

2016 was a dream. Really. Finding out the amazing news that we would become parents, moving back to Ireland, continuing my wonderful PhD that I love, getting to speak at conferences all over the UK, really, I've been beyond lucky. Coming back to Ireland and picking up the roots of an old life has been strange, and living with housemates trying at times, but on the whole everything's working out really well.

Unlike, it seems, the entirety of the left-leaning world, I am choosing to focus on the positives in 2017. In 2016 Brexit and Trump happened, and more than one of our favourite celebrities kicked the bucket. There's been a lot to be devastated about, but I chose to not wallow, or become vitriolic, like too many people in the media or on Twitter, or around academia. 

I chose to be proactive in my own way. To organise collections of sanitary products for refugees in the local area (https://thnkngnrth.wordpress.com/2015/12/07/its-important-to-share/), to be kinder to everyone around me, to organise anti-austerity events, to continue to improve myself and my environment. I don't want be sad and angricey because a bunch of people don't like the EU. Hell, I don't even like the EU. And we could all use this opportunity to learn a little bit about those who are socially, politically and economically very far away from us. In the meantime, there's too much in the world to be joyful about.

Rant over, back to my very small little world, and the great things in it. Leo and I have moved into a home that is all our own, and are getting ready to share it with a small human in a couple of weeks. Life is about to change, forever, in ways I can't begin to imagine. We're both so full of expectation and excited.

Here's to 2017, to a new bab, to maybe getting this PhD finished or nearly finished, to living in a shiny new place, learning new things, and cooking in a kitchen belonging all to oneself. 

Skål!!



Friday 30 December 2016

My smartphone is making me sad

In the past year or so I've tried to embrace better habits. A huge part of that has been learning what makes me happier, what makes me not-happy (sad, stressed out, anxious), what motivates me, and how I best interact with others. Central to this is understanding that fostering good habits leads to a happier self. One of my bad habits is definitely my over-reliance on my smartphone.


[My Christmas didn't look like this, it was really nice, but here's a helpful article: http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2015/12/15/resisting-reaching-for-the-smartphone-temptation-this-holiday-season/]

Ironically, my PhD is involved in directly challenging the individualised and individual-centric nature of our society. I argue on a regular basis that it is the political and economic determinants of the social structures we operate within that really have a lasting and often damaging impact upon our health, and not our individual practices. At the time same time I've found myself being drawn to strands of medicine, healing, health practices and philosophy that place our habits and practices at the centre of their modus operandi. I've found them incredibly useful, life-changing even. 

To be honest, I've found that these modes of thinking don't really contradict my political and intellectual beliefs, but reinforce them. For example, there is no doubt that for most individuals, late-(or post- or whatever we're calling it these days) capitalism is an overwhelmingly negative thing, feeding us the idea that consumer culture and cheap airfare can compensate for insecure work, fragmented family lives and disrupted lifecourses. Having an ideological standpoint about how to oppose this process helps in some way, particularly if we surround ourselves with a confirmation-bias bubble of those who believe the same as we do. 

But at the same time, I've actually found this has made me more unhappy rather than more able to challenge the system I find myself wrapped up in. 'The left' is an angry and disillusioned place in many ways, and I've found more often than not I agree on certain issues but disagree on even more (there's more than one way to skin a cat, and I probably have less in common with conventional male 'Marxists' than I would ever have imagined a few years ago) and that leads to further feelings of isolation, when the people you're supposed to be on-side with are actually coming from a very different set of experiences, and seem unreflexive about this.

So, I've found that being introspective is one way of dealing with this and with all the negative feelings that can stem from it. That's very much in keeping with the idea of 'insulating' the self, of doing what you can to mediate your relationship with external factors you have very little control over to ensure the extent to which they can pollute your health and wellbeing is limited. In a lot of ways, that's a very neoliberal thought.

Unfortunately, there's one element of my life that feels like it is often outside of my control. That is, the little terror in my pocket-the smartphone. It got especially stressful in the run-up to Christmas, trying to negotiate who wanted to bring what to Christmas lunch, and planning the timing of lots of different lives coming together from a smartphone screen.

I'd love to open up a dialogue where we can honestly talk about how technology makes us feel, and by that I mean the bad as well as the good. So here you go, I've made a short list of why my smartphone is bad for me.

Being always on is terrifying 

When I was younger, the dial-up internet connection opened up a world of forums, of MSN, of all these different people and concepts I'd had zero exposure to before. It was life-changing. But if someone had to use the phone, and intermittently for absolutely no reason, I got disconnected. If someone else wanted to use the computer, that was it. My connection to the internet existed solely on this desktop computer, mediated by an impossibly slow dial-up modem. Now, the internet lives in my pocket. I used to find this totally overwhelming when I had apps like Facebook and Gmail send me notifications. I've since turned off every single push notification on my phone, but that doesn't stop me from sometimes having to turn off my phone or put it in flight mode so I can just listen to music without the compulsive need to check Instagram or Whatsapp. And I am convinced Facebook Messenger is the single worst thing to happen to our mental health in the past few years. That, and the double-tick on Whatsapp that lets you know when someone has read your message.

Being contactable at all times has removed the sanctity of 'hometime', 'the weekend' and taken away some of our agency

My supervisor is an absolute legend at work-life balance, and she taught me early on to take my weekends off and to not work in the evening. But there have been instances, for example when doing the admin role I had in addition to my PhD in 1st and 2nd year, when tutoring, and when planning fieldwork, conference papers etc. that its impossible to shut off, either because of the people you're working in conjunction with are slaves to their emails, or because of looming deadlines. I've found that trying to switch off at reasonable junctures is the only way to keep sane, but I can only imagine this will get harder when I am no longer only answerable to myself (i.e. employed by somebody) and when I have to juggle baby and work. Setting good habits now is how I'm saving my sanity for later. Furthermore, communicating primarily by text or instant message is incredibly stressful for me. It leads to an eternal lack of clarity, and it's so easy to spout off negative nonsense. If we could just pick up the phone and talk to the people we want to make plans with instead of the drip-drip of texts, wouldn't we all be happier?

It's bad for our sleep cycles and our eyes

I can be pretty compulsive (sure, aren't we all), so I am quite bad at checking something on my phone in the middle of the night. Although, to be honest, I've pretty much stopped doing this now. Especially when I lived between two countries, the urge to stay up late in the dark staring at a tiny screen, or replying to a message in the middle of the night, was intense. You know what's bad for our natural circadian pattern? The light from smartphones. Do you know what's bad for getting into a deep sleep? Thinking about a message, waiting for someone to reply to a message, mindlessly refreshing the Guardian website (pathetic, I know), or reading passive-aggressive forums. Just go to sleep. Sleep is good for you, makes you healthy, get enough sleep.

By way of conclusion

I actually started writing this post about two weeks ago when I was getting majorly stressed out about organising Christmas (there were 9 people for dinner in total, it was very stressful, and now I am sick). I've since then calmed down a little bit, although my basic gripes with smartphones remain. They are a great resource for travelling, living in a new place, and being flexible. Google Maps, internet banking, email and video chat can be amazing resources, when you're in control of them. But the internet has shifted a gear in the past few years, and we need to be honest with ourselves about that. It now feels, to me anyway, that social media and other online tools for enhancing our lives are actually more about shilling products, selling services, making us narcissistic and insecure, and developing and encouraging addictive tendencies. That's a topic I could talk about all day, so I'll leave it for now. I'm not sure where I'm going with this post, other than we need to start being honest with ourselves about smartphone use and how it makes us feel.

***I've been listening to this podcast called Note to Self (http://www.wnyc.org/shows/notetoself) lately and they have some really good episodes on these topics. The recent episodes 'Go Ahead, Miss Out' and 'Distracted is the New Drunk' were excellent. 

Tuesday 13 December 2016

Birthday celebrations in Budapest and Vienna

For my birthday, Leo and I took a trip to Budapest and Vienna. It was a really memorable week, very relaxing, and we experienced a lot of new things.

Budapest

Budapest was reasonably priced, historical, had good food and great cake, lovely people, fantastic thermal baths, and felt like going back in time a few years. We had a relaxing few days, celebrated my birthday and other nice things happening in our lives, ate lovely food, visited the Christmas market, and were enchanted at a street where a book binder, a cobbler and an old book seller were plying their trades. It's not often you see such authenticity anymore. 













Vienna

Vienna was cosy, affluent, comfortable. We bought Christmas presents, visited Karl Marx Hof, met friends for dinner, ate in an overpriced but luxurious cafe every morning, and visited a gorgeous healthfood store. Oh, we also visited a couple of their amazing Christmas markets and had mulled wine, hot chocolate and other good things.










Getting ready for Christmas

Did I ever mention how much I truly live for Christmas? Christmas FM playing every day, baking cookies, decorating the house with loads of fairy lights (no tree this year, as we're living in a temporary situation and it doesn't feel right), hot chocolate, and telling everyone constantly how Christmas is my favourite time of the year.

I've been hoarding every item I've bought myself since about October, got the food shopping list ready to go, and booked tickets for a screening of It's a Wonderful Life on the 21st. Yep, pretty excited over here. 




Tuesday 1 November 2016

Rosehip syrup



Leo's Aunt gave us some of her rosehip syrup at Easter time, and since then I've been waiting impatiently to collect my own rosehips so I could get on it. Rosehip syrup is rich in Vitamins C, D and A and it tastes incredible, subtle and not so sweet at all. Go out and make your own, don't bother spending a fortune on buying something that grows in the park!

Here's the recipe I loosely followed, one of those hilariously vague things you could only find in an Irish newspaper. Enjoy! 



Monday 10 October 2016

10th day of autumn

This picture doesn't look like much. And really it's not. It's just a gal, eating a danish on a lunchroom plate. But it's more than that. It is a visual representation of utter satisfaction and contentment. Really, I swear. Because the weather is perfect, I have a lovely bike, and I'm entering a truly exciting phase of my PhD: the writing-up stage. I'm back in Dublin, where I feel completely at home, and good things are happening. This danish says all that. If you don't see it, you just aren't looking hard enough.




Monday 3 October 2016

A wee update

It's been a while since I've written here. The truth is, I've been busy. Very busy. We're in the midst of planning for one major life-altering event, and several smaller life-altering events.

First, I am expecting a baba. This first-time, mind blowing event took over my entire being for about four and a half months, and it's only in the last week or so that I've begun to feel like an independent entity again. Aside from the emotional preparation and shift in thinking that had to take place, physically it took a huge toll on me. Round the clock nausea in the first 12 weeks were later replaced by gastro-intestinal issues I don't need to go into here. I was so tired for the first few months I was worried I'd never manage to do anything PhD related again. But I'm slowly and determinedly getting back to my old self, or as much of that old self as I can get back. Accepting changes, adapting and embracing all the new, wonderful things happening to me has been an incredible process. 

Secondly, I'm moving back to Ireland. Well, I'm in Ireland right now, but I'm renting out my room  in Durham soon and moving back officially at the end of October. Doubling up on hospital appointments and ante-natal care, and flying back and forth for me and Leo is no longer practical. I want us to enjoy this experience together, in one place, our home, so that means I'll be working from my desk in UCD from now on. It also means finding a new home for the three of us, good things in the works in that respect. 

We're getting into the throes of autumn now, and I'm enjoying the cooler temperatures (I sweat a LOT in Summer) and abundance of produce. Long walks in Durham led to blackberry eating, and apples and plums have been made into crumbles and stewed with yoghurt. 

Now that I have an appetite again, I am vigorously spending as much time cooking, savouring those hours spent in the kitchen. And of course, eating a varied and healthy died is much better for me and the baba than spaghetti hoops and tinned rice pudding (don't judge me til you've been there, folks). In Durham I've been enjoying a lot of smoothies, and porridge is making a comeback. I'm also embracing pizza making, with Leo teaching me the ways of yeast, which I've never used before.




I'm cycling as much as humanly possible, my preferred mode of transport and exercise. Leo got me this gorgeous bike which is sturdy and fast, and I am looking forward to the many thousands of kilometers I will travel on it. I intend to cycle for as long in the pregnancy as is physically possible (heavily pregnant Danish cyclists are my inspiration here) and will start back with baby in tow as soon as is safe.



 Life is very good, have a good autumn!

Monday 8 August 2016

Durham Miner's Gala

This year I got a chance to attend the Miner's Gala in Durham (I missed it last year), and I walked with the City of Durham Labour party banner. To see so many people with similar values all coming together in one place was really special. After the gala, there was a session at the Elm Tree with loads of lovely Geordies playing Irish music. It felt like home.

To support the gala and find out more information: http://www.durhamminers.org/gala 









Back in Ireland: family and friends

I've been so lucky to get to spend so much time in Ireland this year. I just spent three weeks at home, and had so many catch ups with old friends (some visiting from literally the other side of the world), and lots of special family events.

I'm determined to make more of an effort to be present at special events; I've been away for too long.