[Sorry for posting this almost a year late – it was in my drafts for ages and I didn’t realise I never actually posted it!]
Today is Monday, 20 May 2019.
I am an Edinburgh-Zhejiang lecturer at the University of Edinburgh (UK).
This is a day in my life.
It’s the first week of semester 1 of our new Biomedical Sciences degree programme, and the first cohort of students have been through their first few lectures and tutorials. They are wonderful young people, bright, optimistic, maybe a bit anxious, but nonetheless ready to throw themselves into this new adventure. These days, I think a lot of what it was like for me when I was in my first year of undergraduate. And about what I was like.
Now that I have my own lab, the topic of students writing stuff comes up a lot. It seems like everybody writes to a universal time plan, which is the following: If you have n days to produce a report, or a thesis chapter, or an abstract, then do absolutely nothing for n-2 days, scramble to produce something on day n-1, send it to your supervisor and ask them to provide feedback within the next hour or so, because after all, the deadline is tomorrow! I know this time plan well, because I have followed it myself for years. But it’s not great. And while I’m at it, let me dispense some other sage writing advice …
Today is Friday, 20 May 2016
I am an Edinburgh-Zhejiang lecturer at the University of Edinburgh (UK).
This is a day in my life.
In a recent football conversation with my boyfriend, the question came up how much it cost to build the Emirates Stadium. I realised that I did not have the faintest idea. “I wish I was a physicist,” I said, “they are so good at putting numbers on things.”
“Excellent”, said an e-mail I received recently from a collaborator, “talk to you soon, Stephanie!” This happens to me a lot, in professional contexts. I have been called Stephanie by colleagues and teachers, bosses and students. I have been introduced to a full lecture theatre as Stephanie, I have been invited for job interviews as Stephanie.
I don’t like it.
life and learning 