Do you like to write? I do. Dusty bookshelves and corners of the internet are littered with my old blog posts and half-finished journals. I was a teenage bookworm who would happily spend hours wriggling through the twists of fiction, poetry, and travel memoirs. When I started my PhD, I made the acquaintance of academic … Continue reading Twists and turning points
Below is the “turning points” exercise I completed at a workshop I attended in April 2020, "Finding Your Voice As An Academic Writer". The point of the exercise is to rewrite an aspect of one's chosen subject through a series of "turning points", just like twists in a work of fiction. I study Volcán de … Continue reading Nine turning points: a writing exercise
As a belated celebration of International Day of Women and Girls in Science, I wrote about some scientists I had the pleasure of meeting last October in Bogotá #WomenInSTEM #MujeresEnCiencia
Good afternoon! This post is the second of a trilogy of entries inspired by my recent visit to Colombia. In this piece, I reflect on my visit to the town of Armero, a site well-known to volcanologists worldwide for the tragedy that befell it in 1985. In the picturesque town of Honda, elegant bridges span … Continue reading Armero
Find my research inside in the form of a fun poster!
I'm really proud to say that I recently had a blog post published on another site. The site, DoctoralWriting SIG, is a forum for discussion of higher education writing. It's not only for PhD students and researchers, but anyone interested in sharing knowledge and talking about issues associated with academic writing. Recent blog posts have … Continue reading I was featured on another blog!
"It came to me in a dream." This sentence has been the explanation given by visionaries throughout history for their inspiration: religious mystics, Frank Ocean, this amazing footnote. But as the rudder that steers the passage of a career in an ordinary life? That seems foolhardy. And yet ... such dreams can clarify subconscious desires. … Continue reading When to weigh anchor
Regresé de Guatemala el lunes pasado, y desde luego no he hablado español por mas que 15 minutos. ¡Como lo extraño! Un cambio dramático desde el sábado pasado, cuando pasé una cena muy feliz con mis amigo-compañeros de INSIVUMEH y CONRED en la Ciudad [de Guatemala], platicando sobre todo desde cumpleaños hasta nuevas estaciones sísmicas. … Continue reading Hasta la proxima vez
I first thought of writing this post in late March. I was then in the thick of my research, and had just experienced a couple of examples of the phenomenon that I outline below. I imagine that what I write will feel familiar to others who have undertaken ethnographic research in less economically developed countries. … Continue reading Just Say No
Week Five was an incredibly long and dispiriting week, in which I hung around, failed to do interviews, and was generally hard on myself. I started to write a blog post about my largest bugbear, which was my continuing difficulty in communicating in Spanish to the level I’d like, and then – the post felt … Continue reading Picture The Scene
