It’s the start of a new year! Here is hoping that 2021 marks the start of a better year for us all.
The good news though is that we don’t need to placidly wait for things to happen, we can all take action to influence how the year goes. This monthly series charts my own efforts and goes over what I’ve been doing since finishing my PhD last March.
For previous monthly updates see here: Beyond the PhD Series.
How I spent my time in December
I’m pleased to say that I took a decent chunk of time off in December, almost two weeks in total. I did do a little work over Christmas but had eleven days in a row where I did nothing, including this blog, which was lovely.
There is some tentative personal news which kept me a little busy between work, and meant that I fell behind on this blog, but I’ll leave discussing that until things are confirmed.
Academic work
Publications
I finally had a response from a journal for a paper we submitted in July (Paper A, from this list). This paper is the main one from my PhD so I’m eager to see it published. Anyhow, they’ve come back asking for minor corrections. Success isn’t guaranteed, but it is a positive result.
Unlike the last few papers which had crazy short deadlines, this one gave us about two months to respond. Although we’ve got until February to reply, the efficient part of my brain wants to get them done as soon as possible. Nevertheless, I had fully intended to make the changes over Christmas but couldn’t face doing it. I feel a bit bad but also know that it’s important to have a break. I’ll do them soon!
A nice email landed in my inbox in early December, saying that a recent paper we published was in the top 10 “most notable articles” over a five month period. I’m skeptical about these things but for vanity I couldn’t help but work out roughly how many were published over the period and it came out to be in the thousands. No idea how, maybe sharing it on this blog helped a little?!
Postdoc
I’m now just over half way through my six month contract as a post-doc. We were able to get a small no-cost extension to the grant which now means I’m employed until the end of March rather than… 21st March woo.
The uncertainly and temporary nature of postdoc positions can certainly be challenging, and a six month contract pushes this to the extreme. Nevertheless I remain so happy to have got the position, I’m learning loads and working closely with the clinicians is fun. I’m starting to consider what I’ll do about this, since there is a chance my contact will get extended by a month but anything more than that looks to be unrealistic.
If there is any content that you’d like to see relating to being a postdoc, please let me know!
The Savvy Scientist website
New posts
I was bad in December and became a bit disorganised with the website. For the first time since finishing the PhD, I missed out weekly posts twice in a row. Plus I’ve not yet lined up any PhD profiles for the new year yet. I think I have a pretty good excuse for dropping the ball on this all, which’ll become clear next month if everything works out!
Anyhow, three new posts went live:
- Beyond the PhD: December 2020
- Peer-Reviewing Journal Articles: Should You Do It? Sharing What I Learned From My First Experiences
- PhD Profiles: End of Year Update (2020)
Website traffic
My expectation was for traffic to drop a little over Christmas but the opposite happened and it seems to be on the rise again. 3498 users (+16% compared to November) and 5030 page views (+13%), both up about 400% compared to the previous December. Certainly a bit of motivation to keep at it.
Learning new skills
Spanish
I’ve been loving learning Spanish with Duolingo, and recently passed 75 continous days of practice. It’s amazing how little things like keeping a streak going can influence me to practice every day. I’m now starting to learn a bit of Mandarin too.
If you’ve not given it a go, I’d strongly encourage you to. It’s great fun, plus a nice break from work!
Chin-ups
My aim had been to manage 10 chinups in a row by the end of 2020.
Using outdoor equipment has made it a bit challenging to find times that it is both dry and that the bar isn’t freezing cold (+ with condensation). I’m very happy to share though that midway through December I managed 3 sets of 10 chinups with hammer grip. I want to do it a few more times with a proper chinup grip (hands facing me: supinated grip) before I feel I’ve nailed it fully, but a goal ticked off is a goal ticked off!
This coming year I’d like to start doing them with extra weights attached plus adding in some pullups (hands facing away from me).
Time off
Baking
During the Christmas break we baked these gingerbread…creatures. Following this recipe.
They did start off with a human form but it turns out I’m not great at icing so this batch look turned out more like extraterrestrial beings!
Media I’ve consumed
Books
I finished just one book in December:
- A Short History of Nearly Everything. So many amazing facts, many of which have sadly already left my brain!
Articles
- This article by Vivienne. I learned a lot about the virus and how the different vaccines work. I’d recommend giving it a read.
- Do Not Disturb: How I Ditched My Phone and Unbroke My Brain | NYTimes. Spending less time starting at a screen of any type is a constant aim of mine!
- The Children of Pornhub |NYTimes Opinion (huge trigger warning). Depressing doesn’t come close to how this makes me feel. I’m very pleased to share though that on the back of the attention this article gave the issue, there seems to be some positive change:
I sometimes have aspirations of trying to use technology to solve everything, including striving for justice and saving people from situations such as this (go back to this post). There is no denying though that for a lot of things we already have the mechanisms available as a society which can go a long way to curbing these kinds of problems in the first place. Which can be great, but also depressing that this means loads of current issues exist completely unnecessarily. Anyhow, it is nice to see positive things happening every so often, though not often enough.
Films
I watched loads of films over Christmas! Some were old favourites (such as It’s a Wonderful Life and La La Land) and some I’d not watched before but enjoyed a lot such as The Peanut Butter Falcon, Adaptation and somehow I’d never before watched Ghostbusters! I’d recommend them all.
Monthly finances
Income
Postdoc +£1951.96
I love getting paid to learn and work on a project which could have a positive impact on many lives! The postdoc is only until the end of March so I’m starting to have a think about what else I could be doing next which is exciting.
Other + £33.09
I did about an hour of Prolific in December and made £18.09. Although it isn’t the fastest way to make money (for that I suggest matched betting), I do find it pretty fun and rewarding to take part in studies for other researchers.
Talking of research, I did a market research session in December: £15 for 10 minutes of my time discussing shoes. I’m registered with lots of market research agencies and this one was via Take Part in Research. For more details, see what I’ve written here about making money with market research sessions.
Savings
Investments
Big big self-inflicted changes came about in December. I effectively sold off almost all of my shares in everything to free up some cash. It really isn’t ideal to have dumped so much so quickly but all will become clear. This included selling the last six of my Tesla shares ($675, over 1000% returns!): I’m consciously not looking at the share price now but am very content with when I sold no matter how it goes from now on.
I’ll start reinvesting in funds again shortly.
December Summary
It was lovely having a few weeks off in December, I’m actually pleased that I didn’t spend much time on anything including this blog. Since I wasn’t able to go away travelling after my PhD (see here), and have been pretty constantly productive since finishing the PhD (even before I started this job), I hadn’t really had much of a break all year.
I see a lot of comments on social media about needing to work loads in academia, but this hasn’t been my experience at all. Finding the right supervisor and having a positive working environment where you can work efficiently (read: not necessarily long hours!) is far far more productive that needlessly doing 50,60,70+ hours a week regularly. See here for a post on how many hours I worked during my PhD and maybe I’ll do another post about how I spend my time as a post-doc.
January Plan
There is quite a big potential thing happening in my life which is exciting if all goes to plan so expect an update about that next month! Besides that, I want to spend some time in January getting back up to speed with this website and must submit the minor corrections for this main paper from my PhD!
Thanks for reading, I’d like to keep these posts open and honest. If there is anything you’d like to know, please just ask! Any suggestions for content are always warmly received. 🙂
