Hi everyone, I hope you’re doing well and if not I hope you’re taking care of yourself.

I’ve taken a little less than half the month off thanks to easter holidays, and this was a desperately needed and welcomed reset, but this month where I’ve personally decided to begin writing up my thesis.

Now, as I stated in many places prior to this, i’m still doing research and working part time, so unfortunately I cannot dedicate all of my energy to this one task, but it’s not all bad. Writing in the background to ease my load later on is always a good thing, additionally I like swapping between tasks when something isn’t working. So when paper writing or code is driving me mad i’ve now got another thing to cycle to.

---

What I am making sure to do here is plan. Writing is not my forté, and everything I have ever read that has anything to do with special learning difficulties (I have ADHD and dyslexia 💁🏿‍♀️) or writing a thesis in general says the same thing. Plan. So this works excellently for me in that I can use the rest of April to get a general structure and hopefully know what i’m doing. This is no easy task though, since i’m not in the “normal” place of having research projects completed I can’t simply go in and string an introduction and conclusion around the work i’ve done.

To remedy this I want to make a general timeline, and maybe this can include my best guess at what I want my other projects to contain, as we as tackle my introduction, as the ratio of reading to words written here will be the highest (I hope) compared to anywhere else in my thesis. I’ve already done a brief structure study of some previous PhD students’ theses introduction, which will be helpful in knowing some of the bigger themes I should include in my work (though of course they won’t all be the same, we are doing different research projects after all). In addition to this I have I have a few books, borrowed from a mix of my local and university libraries 😎, some help from an ADHD mentor (I need external deadlines to do anything apparently) as well as advice on managing my time when I have non-consecutive work and rest days. (More below)!

---

In terms of managing rest on a variable schedule, I’ve managed to get some advice on this and work out a routine for myself. Much of my paid work now takes place on the weekend, and to be able to survive/keep going i’m going to need to take breaks. Managing my ADHD properly has really helped me deal with plans being cancelled or modified, which is a lovely result to see after all the hard work, but like many I already don’t think the weekends are long enough, so not being able to have an “end of the week” probably isn’t the best idea for me.

I’ve grappled with it but i’ve decided to take the bank holidays off instead of working (or at least I hope to) in May in regards to this, as well as using half days throughout the week to get life admin done so I can live without going insane.

I’ll finish with my best so far: search for paid work before your funding runs out. I know this sounds obvious but it would be functionally impossible to research, write, work and job hunt. This is already a difficult position to be in make it as easy on yourself as possible.

In solidarity – Karel (on behalf of the POC² team)

Discoveries ✨

📺 – Shadow and Bone (on netflix). Read the books a few years back and loved them. Enjoying the TV series just as much. Done really well with representation such as making hinted LGBT+ characters actually be fully shown in their story and making sure mixed race characters are played by mixed race actors. Great fantasy story!

📓 – Six of Crows duology. Speaking of shadow and bone, the six of crows duology is the books I read and really enjoyed! Not exactly the same story as the netflix show (you would need to read shadow and bone for that!) but it follows on from it for an even crazier heist. A lot of fun, would recommend.

The POC² newsletter, The POC² Post 💌, is written by Karel Green. Find her published work + guest appearances on BBC radio here or follow her on Twitter @thisismeonline

Photo by Marten Bjork on Unsplash