Listening to Myself

 I finally bit the bullet and listened to the video recording of my lecture. It turns out I don't sound half as articulate as I thought I did. Other things I picked up is I speak very slowly, I say "right?" a lot, taking after my Dad. But, the most surprising thing was that I sound half as energetic as I thought I did. My grandmother says I am a bumbler, and I have never believed her until yesterday, which was possibly the first time I listened to myself speak at length. Now, I know what Adrienne meant when she says she works a lot on her voice. Her voice is the perfect blend of calmness, enthusiasm, and energy and I try to channel my inner Adrienne while teaching, but I sound nothing like her. I suddenly have a newfound appreciation for voice training and voice-coaching. One thing that I am gong to try to do is consciously put more effort in talking. On the other hand, I don't want to obsess about it to the point that I am distracted from the content of my speech. 

Teaching Goes Smoothly

My first day of lecturing went off quite smoothly, although towards the end of my third hour of lecturing, I was croaking because I was so hoarse. I wonder how Fidel Castro gave speeches that lasted hours. Vocal cords are not muscles that you can keep strengthening, right? Or, are  they? My throat was a little soar the next day too, and at time like these, a sore throat is a bigger bother than usual. But, at least I am done with lecturing for the week, and it all went smoothly. My non-lecturing hours were occupied by watching coverage of the fallout of Harry and Meghan's interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which they claimed the palace refused to help Meghan when she was suicidal. Why was I so interested? It is not like I am enamoured with the British monarchy. Some leftists have criticised Meghan for marrying into an institution that is racist to the core and that she would be okay with it if they had treated her well. Other leftists said that how the tabloids cover Meghan is representative of how minorities, and minority women in particular, are viewed in British society. Which is why the media coverage of this issue is so triggering even for staunch non-monarchists. I suppose you have to live in Britain for a while to understand the role of the Royal Family and of the press in perpetuating racism  and the legacy of empire in British society. Both institutions feed of each other in vicious ways.

First Time Lecturing

 Tomorrow, will be first time lecturing, the first of many if I manage to stay in academia. I spent most of yesterday and a bit of today preparing. I also spent a few hours in panic that I just didn't have enough stuff to occupy the time. That has always been my biggest fear about lecturing--that I will run out of material within 20-25 minutes and wouldn't know what to do for the rest of the hour. I am supposed to give two lectures tomorrow, with the second repeated for a new batch of students. I practiced the first lecture to time and am confident that I won't finish in less than half an hour. But, I didn't practice the second one to time. It started to feel like I was rehearsing for a play. A lecture is supposed to be an active intellectual activity and I may find something new to say at the spur of the moment. If I am too preoccupied with remembering my lines during the lecture. I will not be fully present. A lecture is a conversation after all, even if it will mostly be me talking. Of course, one should prepare well so that students are able to follow the train of thought. I don't think I will ever rock up to a class and give an extempore lecture, and definitely not for my first time lecturing. But, over-preparation can also kill your enthusiasm for the topic. 

Working In Tense Environments

Since being added to the department mailing list, I have realised that faculty is perpetually at war with management. Some of the emails flying around have been very prickly, and going by their content, it seems like this is not a new state of affairs. Does this make the department a less attractive place to work in if the opportunity arises? Not in the least. I know enough about UK higher education to know that it is rife with managerialism, so any other uni would possibly be as bad, if not worse. I have also worked in difficult environments such as a news bureau which saw its strength half in less than a year, and which was, during that time, led by petty and incompetent bosses. A job is a job, and if you are an employee it is advisable to ration the headspace to provide it. And after going through the pandemic tense work environments don't seem like a big deal. 

Complicated

 Today, while slogging over my thesis in the evening, I was struck by the thought that its just too complicated. For one, it is a sea of neologisms. Academics love to put old wine in new bottles. They come up with concepts that are too vaguely defined so they could apply to literally any phenomena. Or they are annoyingly close to well-recognized concepts. Am i guilty of the same/ Apoart from the neologisms, I just feel like I am engaging superficially with too many heavy concepts. Anyone well-versed in one of these concepts would find a lot of problems with my perfunctory treatment of them. The bottomline is I feel like the story I am telling is too complicated. And, that it has too many dense strands that I haven't been able to weave together in a coherent whole. I can't possibly imagine anyone apart from my supervisor and examiners (hopefully) taking the time and effort to understand what positon-making is and why it matters. Ah well, I guess a lot of people write PhDs containing concepts and ideas that remained sealed in the bowels of academia forever. 

Twitter Beefs

 Can an INFJ ever be an active Twitter user? Twitter is not for the think-skinned, and us INFJs are notoriously sensitive. In the past few days, I have seen a couple of takedowns on Twitter that left me smarting on behalf of the targets. And, the targets were not even acquaintances, just people whom I follow and who follow me. Even publicizing your work on Twitter exposes you to the risk of barbs thrown from people who have zero incentive to be collegiate or civil to you. And, people can got to great lengths to come across as witty. For now, I am very much a lurker on Twitter, who barely even retweets stuff, forget tweeting. Twitter is a great knowledge and meta-knowledge/trivia resource. But, I don't know how long I can be a lurker. After I receive my PhD, and can share my opinions with some confidence won't I ahve to wade into the swamp? But, I will cross that bridge (or not) when I come to it. 

Shiny New Gadgets

 Its ages since I got a shiny new gadget. It has been even longer since I got a shiny new gadget that I didn't pay for. The last such thing I can remember was the company-issued Blackberry, which at the time seemed really cool. I am quite used to touchscreen phones now, but  Blackberry had a charm of its own. And, I remember that the company rule was if your phone was lost or stolen, you couldn't pay for a replacement from your own pocket. For IT security reasons the company would replace it for you. Fine by me, but I found out the hard by buying a phone I didn't need and then struggling to resell it. But, the gadgets I got today were not as fancy--a headset and a webcam. But, it is not simply what you get that matters for satisfaction, but what you get compared to your expectations. And, my expectations from the IT department at uni were pretty low. I had requested these products more than two weeks ago, and till this morning, I had no indication that their arrival was imminent. And, then, in a matter of a few hours I was holding them in my hand. I had expected something crummy, but they seemed almost brand-new. I looked up their prices on amazon and they are together worth almost 175 pounds. When I tried them, they worked smoothly.