My contract at work ends 31st March 2024. As with a lot of university roles, both academic and professional services, my role was project funded so when the project ends so does the funding to pay my wages. It is not truly a pleasant working environment in that respect, many […]
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What you find when you clean up
Yes, yes, it’s a procrastination too, but I did need to clean up my office over the holiday break. Going through all the papers I’ve printed off, deciding what is still relevant, what I need to read, what I can discard. Found a whole sheaf of papers I wrote while […]
The boundary gap: some thoughts
Engagement, and the role of ‘boundary spanners’*, exists on some levels to close the gap between academia and community, and here I use community in its widest sense, any person or organisation working or involved with the university. That gap, I believe, is a gap of knowledge and trust, caused […]
The result of speaking up
In my previous post I shared that I was giving my first public presentation about my PhD research, it was to a group (small group) of colleagues from across campus. Most of whom I didn’t know. Reader, I was nervous. To mitigate my anxiety, and menopause memory challenges I decided […]
My first presentation
On Thursday 23rd November 2023 I am going to speak in public about my research for the very first time … to say I am nervous would be a vast understatement. Anyway, this is the gist of my speech tomorrow. Hello, I am Sharon Summers, Engagement and Knowledge Exchange Manager […]
You’re stronger than you think
This phrase is on a sticker at the top of today’s page of my TN daily journal. I need to remember it, daily. Remember it when I look at my lit review and wonder what to write next. Remember when I think of my upcoming Confirmation Panel and the butterflies […]
Fuelled by Coffee
A little explanation … When I was dreaming up a name for this blog I decided on ‘fuelled by coffee’ as basically that is what keeps me going sometimes. I never drank coffee until I was pregnant with my first new life form, and then, for some reason, as my […]
Organising my workflow
One of my many challenges has been how to keep track of everything, my thoughts, my readings, my to-do list … if it’s not written down or noted in some form then I forget (yay for menopause brain). I have toyed with soooo many different apps and analogue methods but […]
Coping with Fears and Uncertainty
I had a supervision meeting last week, the topics of appraisals, conferences, and vivas came up … and my squirrel brain went into immediate chase-the-tail mode. Breathe. I am so lucky to have supervisors I can share my fears with, although I could feel the tears prickling the far recesses […]
Engaging with Tales from Imagination
Once upon a time … this phrase echoes across aeons and landscapes, bringing butterflies in the stomach, curiosity in the mind, excitement in the soul. Storytelling has been part of human civilisation before marks on stone or ink on paper, oral traditions passed down the generations sharing knowledge and wisdom […]