Reflections

Weekends are busier than weekdays:

This is a typical problem I face whenever I opt for full time work. Weekdays get very organised, predictable and sometimes boring. If I feel like watching movie, I don't watch as next day I need to get up early, 'J' gets exactly half an hour of pampering and 3 and 1/2 hours of instructions, orders or scoldings. Yes I have counted it, that a full time working mother (9 hours + 1 hour commute) gets 6 hours of parenting plus housekeeping time and that is if her sleeping time is 7 hours. So that boils down to 2-3 hour of parenting and 2-3 hour of housekeeping plus entertainment (entertainment for me means; one cooking/travel show on TV, two cups of relaxed tea drinking in morning and evening and little chit chat with neighbours/phone or husband).
So all my quality parenting desires (baking, art and craft, playing cards, cosy afternoon nap or story telling) needs to wait for the weekend. I am a lazy woman and so all my not to be disturbed laziness also needs to wait till weekends. Grocery and other shopping and socialising also get cramped in the weekend. We need to do our weekly cleaning up  of the place we live in and then we crave for small outings which again needs to be done in weekend. I yearn to do some freelance writing and that too get snuggled in the weekends.

So although friday evening I feel very elevated about the weekend but by end of Saturday I start looking for calm, quiet and boring weekdays!

November - Month for looking back

One more year is slowly passing by. In November every year it strikes to me that the year is soon going to be past. In this month I keep thinking about the last 10 months that has passed by and how they passed, and mostly I find that there are so many more things to do but may be they will remain undone this year. It is funny that these feelings don't arise anymore once December is reached, may be because then new hope and and sweet dreams for the new year starts building up.
So although I don't know from when but certainly since many years November has become a month of "looking back" for me.
This year I continued with some extreme decisions of my life that I made last year. This year I could finish my PhD story. It was a relief. In this year I learned how does it feel to have both wings and roots. I learned the meaning of independence and responsibilities in true sense. Independence in terms of making decisions, leading day to day life, life style, buying gadgets, spending time, paying bills. Responsibilities in terms of work, child, time, finances, household, socialising, shopping, transport. This year was like a test for me to understand how good or bad I can cope all alone. It is funny that although I have left my parents house at the age of 17 to study in university but I never had faced the world alone. I was always backed up by some one or other from my family. I never had to start all by myself in a new place even after finishing university. I have always followed my husband after he already had created cushion layers in a new place. But this time I had to do that. Although my husband was there in the beginning to settle us down but then we had to continue by ourselves. I was afraid but I took the plunge with a thought that I can always leave if things get too sour. I must accept that it is difficult and very tiring at times, specially the burden that the tasks will remain incomplete if I myself don't do them. It is also sometimes hard to keep going equally in work and home front. Most of the time I find it hard to give equal attention in both places. There are times when I need to finish my office work at home or vice - versa. There are times when I don't know what is going on in my child's mind and try not to think much about that as I need to meet deadlines at work. Many times I avoid looking around at the messy rooms as I need to do something else at that moment. At work also I cut out myself sharp at 5.30 p.m in the evening although many days I feel the need to stay little longer. I cannot afford that because there is no one else to pick up my little one from after school club. Many mornings I hear the plea from my daughter that mama can you please pick me just after the school (at 3 pm) and not at after school club (at 6 pm). I try convincing her that I will pick her up at 5.30 without showing her those silly guilt clouds hovering over me. Maximum challenge in this one year of single dwelling was when both of us got sick.
Among all these difficulties I will be lying if I say I have not enjoyed being my own. There were few holidays for family reunion, they were short but very colourful. I have enjoyed most bits of those constrained 8 hours I give to my work everyday. I have learned a lot of time management and of course what to mention about the new technical and scientific skills. I have been able to pursue more on my hobby i.e. reading and my daughter has been able to grasp over a new language this year. Travelling my another hobby, was also taken care of very well this year. Throughout this year I and my daughter have made many new friends and acquaintances in this new place. Now in November when I look into my yearly planner I find many of the weekends of this year are red coloured meaning party, picnic, outing or get together with one or some of these new found friends. So above all, last 10 months of this test year was just a mix and match of personal yearnings and learnings like all other years of my life.

Trying to blow those guilt clouds away

Any experimentalist will know what does it mean to work on a shared instrumental facility. It means you cannot even die if you have a measuring or beam time and if you do that luxury than you need to wait for one whole month (in most cases even more) for your next measurement time, that means you samples can die by then and you might need to prepare them again, that means no data production for next many days which is not a good feeling in the life of a budding research scientists. It happened with me last week as my daughter got very ill due to viral infection, I needed to let go my measuring week. Luckily my colleague swapped on my place last week and provided me this week for the measurement. But the problem now is that my daughter's school and holiday club is closed for three days in this week. As I am a single parent at this moment so I need to face the problem all alone. One month ago I had planned for three days leave on this week but now I cannot follow that. I need to bring full use to the measurement time. So one day I stayed at home, one day I requested one of her friends mother to take care for her and for the third day I phoned 5 other mothers but all of them have some other commitments, I called a child minder but she said she has no seat. Then I called one another friend of mine who is also a full time researcher but luckily for this one day she has some free time. After getting assurance from her, my next challenge was to explain my daughter about the situation. She has accepted the fact but she murmured slowly "Why my mum needs to work all the time and why my dad cannot stay with us?" Normally I am a guilt ridden person for all the decisions I take about my career and about my family and now this situation triggered those guilt clouds again. Only assurance at this moment is that these situation does not arise everyday and that at least on a day of such a situational crisis I have more than seven phone numbers to cry for help!

L'oreal award for Women in Science

Found this very inspiring booklet called "L'Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science Booklet" in Science.
The booklet contains stories of several successful women scientists from all around the world and specially of those who are working from or for developing countries like Pakistan, Jordan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Romania.
The scientists have shared their science and their happiness on being able to pursue the career they had dreamt for. Many prize recipient are also mothers of young children and accepted the fact that there are times when balancing between scientific career and family becomes extremely challenging as both demands equal attention at same time window. But all of them insisted that strong will power, hard work, proper time management, social support and persistence can help young women to move forward and get success in their endeavour. They also mention the benefit after receiving the award on their career through international collaborations.
The booklet includes a list of helpful resources at the end for women who are looking for a career in science or engineering.
"L'oreal award for women in science" undoubtedly encourages women scientist all over the world to open up their scientific achievements to the world.
More booklets like this are welcome which can be very interesting read for all struggling women scientists.

Simple time management tips

Although being very casual about my approach towards life I do believe that time is the most precious property of our life and as we cannot regain it we need to manage it at its utmost whenever possible.
I have developed my own methods on my way to manage time in everyday life and also in our beloved kitchen.
Today being in a Friday evening mood I was planning what to do in the weekend at home and how to organise my work in the week ahead. It helped me to get an idea of the coming deadlines and reschedule some activities properly. While doing all these I also googled to know how others are managing their time bank.
I liked one working mothers idea of hanging the wrinkled clothes on the back of the bathroom door while taking evening shower as it usually flattens the wrinkles well enough. Every working mom knows that those days of wearing crisply ironed clothes everyday are gone and will come back after many years. Check more.
Another idea of "clean as you go" whether it is to do the dishes or to pick up toys from the floor is something which can help to gain few expensive family moments on the weekends. Read more.