Is there something I should know?

What have we learned from the PhD so far? Plus, the Music Highlight

Photo by Héctor J. Rivas on Unsplash

If I have learned one thing from my PhD so far, it is that I do not know A LOT. And that is great! It can sometimes be challenging, but we should always remember that one of the reasons we are doing a PhD is to learn.

Yesterday was another example. Here is the story: I am going to be a speaker at a conference at the end of April, The American Association of Applied Linguistics Conference 2026 - I have wanted to present there forever!

They have not asked me to do this, but I feel that when we see something great, it is good to let other people know too. This conference is one of the most inclusive I have ever seen: they have an in-person version in March, a Virtual Day in April (a super option for people like me who cannot travel due to family reasons) and they have asked us virtual presenters to record our talks (we will be present in April and everyone will watch our talk - then we will do a live Q&A). We also had to add captions to our videos and use inclusive formats of PowerPoint for the visually impaired.

The truth is, I had never done a lot of these things before, for instance, I had to attach two parts of video together (it took me ages) and the captioning took me a long time to understand and do too. Plus, I had to go through the captions to correct some things (AI you are great, but not perfect) that it had picked up wrongly.

I worked so hard on it and am very happy with the final result - even though it took almost seven hours from planning the little office I teach in (thank you mom and dad for giving me this room in your apartment; I live with them to take care of dad with my mom and I can also work in there) where I had to set up lights, my laptop, check the conference guidelines one last time, watch the informative videos one last time, do the recording, attach the two parts (but first find the right software for it), caption it (but first find the right software once again; I should have done it days before but I honestly was pressed for time because of my teaching and consulting job), correct them, check the video and upload it to the conference platform.

I was so happy with the following (super exhausted but happy!):

• I learned a lot of new tools - I am positive I will need them again.

• I think I did a good job with the video and I hope the conference organisers and people who willl attend will like it too.

• I am happy I am not just uploading the video and leaving it at that, but will be there on the day via video call, so I can get feedback and questions from anyone who will come and is interested. Which means I will be learning again on the day of the conference!

Is there something I should know? Oh yeah, a LOT! Are there things I do not know? Oh yeah, a LOT!!! And that is SUPER!

The Music Highlight

Have you ever been to a Duran Duran concert? I have not and I REAAAALLY want to! If you have, let me know how it was! So far, I have heard exeperinces from my friends James and Teresa! (If you don’t know me, or haven’t been reading the newsletter for long, I am a HUGE fan of Duran Duran!!! A megafan? A superfan? I don’t know what it’s called : )