Maynooth among the ravens
Aug. 23rd, 2011 12:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12I have been peripatetic for the past month or so. I was in Dublin for two weeks doing a summer course at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Then I was in Maynooth for the International Celtic Studies Congress, where I presented a paper. After that I returned briefly to Cambridge, before heading off with my mother for a hiking adventure in north Cornwall (we walked from Tintagel to Padstow). After that M and I went on holiday to Norfolk. I feel like I haven't rested for years, despite the fact that many parts of these wanderings were incredibly relaxing.
But it's Maynooth that I want to speak about.
It was my first big conference, and my first time presenting a paper in front of actual specialists in my field. (My previous two conferences were a postgrad student conference held in my department at Cambridge, which was multidisciplinary, and a smallish conference at my old university, so both of them were on home territory, as it were.) I was terrified, and it certainly wasn't my best ever paper presentation. My nervousness showed, and some of the questions were, to put it mildly, irrelevant. I felt so ill after my session finished that I thought I was going to be sick.
I felt, truth be told, as if I'd had my bones picked over until I was dissected. Hence the ravens. But perception is a funny thing, and two members of the audience told me later that they'd enjoyed the paper, and the session chair later told my supervisor that I'd done a good job. That left me feeling a bit better.
But the whole conference did give me pause. I have intermittent periods of self-doubt.* I believe every grad student does. But it was nothing like I felt during the conference. The sheer scale of it (there were twelve parallel sessions) left me overwhelmed. The need to constantly make small-talk, and the brazenness with which some of my friends were 'networking' made me exhausted. On some days, I was so tired that I would skip sessions and go back to my room and sleep. I am an introvert in the sense that although I enjoy the company of others, I find socialising draining rather than energising.
And so much of an academic career must be spent at conferences like this one, until you are old enough to have nothing left to prove. And I don't know if I can keep momentum up for that long. I did enjoy parts of the conference, but I dreaded the tea-breaks. In the end, I did leave with my resolution to at least try to work in academia restored, but it wavered at many points during the conference and there were times when I felt truly crushed and demoralised.
I do enjoy smaller conferences, so I suspect it was mainly the sheer size of Maynooth that I found challenging, and I do recognise that I will have these bursts of self-doubt throughout the course of my PhD. I welcome them, because I think that pursuing one future singlemindedly can lead to heartbreak and a lack of flexibility. I like being a postgrad student. I may like being an academic, but if I become one, I will become one on my own terms or try something different.
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*I actually think that self-doubt is a worthwhile and healthy emotion. Over the years I've become less and less tolerant of confidence, because there is such a fine line between true confidence, and arrogance. A bit of doubt, when kept in proportion, seems to me an indication that one is constantly reflecting on, and reevaluating, his or her aspirations and intentions.
But it's Maynooth that I want to speak about.
It was my first big conference, and my first time presenting a paper in front of actual specialists in my field. (My previous two conferences were a postgrad student conference held in my department at Cambridge, which was multidisciplinary, and a smallish conference at my old university, so both of them were on home territory, as it were.) I was terrified, and it certainly wasn't my best ever paper presentation. My nervousness showed, and some of the questions were, to put it mildly, irrelevant. I felt so ill after my session finished that I thought I was going to be sick.
I felt, truth be told, as if I'd had my bones picked over until I was dissected. Hence the ravens. But perception is a funny thing, and two members of the audience told me later that they'd enjoyed the paper, and the session chair later told my supervisor that I'd done a good job. That left me feeling a bit better.
But the whole conference did give me pause. I have intermittent periods of self-doubt.* I believe every grad student does. But it was nothing like I felt during the conference. The sheer scale of it (there were twelve parallel sessions) left me overwhelmed. The need to constantly make small-talk, and the brazenness with which some of my friends were 'networking' made me exhausted. On some days, I was so tired that I would skip sessions and go back to my room and sleep. I am an introvert in the sense that although I enjoy the company of others, I find socialising draining rather than energising.
And so much of an academic career must be spent at conferences like this one, until you are old enough to have nothing left to prove. And I don't know if I can keep momentum up for that long. I did enjoy parts of the conference, but I dreaded the tea-breaks. In the end, I did leave with my resolution to at least try to work in academia restored, but it wavered at many points during the conference and there were times when I felt truly crushed and demoralised.
I do enjoy smaller conferences, so I suspect it was mainly the sheer size of Maynooth that I found challenging, and I do recognise that I will have these bursts of self-doubt throughout the course of my PhD. I welcome them, because I think that pursuing one future singlemindedly can lead to heartbreak and a lack of flexibility. I like being a postgrad student. I may like being an academic, but if I become one, I will become one on my own terms or try something different.
_________________________________
*I actually think that self-doubt is a worthwhile and healthy emotion. Over the years I've become less and less tolerant of confidence, because there is such a fine line between true confidence, and arrogance. A bit of doubt, when kept in proportion, seems to me an indication that one is constantly reflecting on, and reevaluating, his or her aspirations and intentions.
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no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 08:07 pm (UTC)Welcome back!
no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 09:28 pm (UTC)Welcome back!
Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2011-08-24 09:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-24 03:56 pm (UTC)But yeah, LCW. You get a lot of those types at academic conferences.