Eating the Frog.

Some great PhD advice I got early on was to always Eat the Frog. It means to start off your day with the biggest and most daunting task and work back from there. I’ve never taken this advice. I’m a self-professed potter around until mid-afternoon type person, then panic, spend hours into the evening on it.

However, 2022 New Year, New Me. Kind of. I’ve finally decided it’s time to write up all the thoughts, notes and posts I’ve built up over the years. I would quite like to document this stage of my academic journey for myself. Something to look back on. I’m finally going to start The Blog.

Blogs seem very 2012. Even Vlogs are so 2020 (see my first attempts here - chronicling my slow demise into field work based exhaustion and insanity). But this is my frog. The thing is, I don’t do well with writing. I’ve lost the enjoyment in it. This seems like a funny thing for a student to say but we all have our strengths and weaknesses. And I class writing up there with the thing I don’t particularly enjoy. Which is handy when I have a 5-chapter thesis to write this year. It seems the future ahead will involve a lot of writing, so it is somewhat unfortunate that I’ve fallen out of love with the process. Don’t get me wrong once I’m in the flow of it, I can spend hours typing away. But sitting down to start writing. Now there’s the challenge.

Over the years, I’ve discussed the ins and outs of the world of science with interns, in lab meetings and put the world to rights with colleagues at office pub meetings. I’ve always thought why I haven’t summarised these experiences somewhere. A written account of my time as a PhD student, a lab member and ‘science attempter’. Not particularly for anyone else (although I am excited at the prospect of sharing ideas and new discussions), but more so for myself. To document this experience. To share all the things I’ve learnt or encountered over this period in my life.

But this would involve eating the frog regularly. It requires a monthly commitment to collate my thoughts on page on top of my academic writing. Over the coming months I will be writing up results and finishing off papers. I already struggle with enjoying the writing process, so this is my attempt to shake it up and to make writing fun for myself again. The more time I devote to honing my writing skills on papers, twitter, blogs and social media, hopefully I will fall in love with writing all over again.

So this first post is for me. To hold myself accountable. It won't win the next Pulitzer prize but hopefully it will turn into a space where I can document my tales from this wild science journey that I’m on.

Happy 2022 and here’s to the year where I finish my PhD (Ha!)

Ps. Of course expect a few spelling and grammatical errors. These will lesson over the months. Hopefully. Apologies in advance.

My ideal writing location. Outside, next to the ocean, sunset, palm trees, perhaps even a sundowner in hand to get the creative juices flowing.

This photo was taken from one of the more beautiful study locations I’ve worked in. Richards Bay Yacht Club, March 2020. Weeks before the national lockdown. Funny to look back at this period of intense fieldwork at the start of 2020 - not knowing we were moments away from global pandemonium. Perhaps a good idea for a future blog...