Starting again

Have you ever left anything and then taken it up again? Plus, the Music Highlight

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

Podcast Restart

About four years ago, I was talking to my very good friend/podcaster extraordinaire James Taylor about a phonetics/phonology podcast not existing and how I was kind of thinking of starting my own. He told me to go for it and one podcast became three: The PhonPod, Linguistics Now and Meet the PhDs (which is also the name of this newsletter) : )

However, last year life really got in the way and I was on a hiatus with all of them. This really disappointed me but there was nothing I could do about it. This year though with this reset and great mood I am in with everything, we have started again!

Learning Alongside the PhD

Last year I could only concentrate on the PhD and my work with all the other stuff going on. I felt as though I wasn’t learning anything else, however. I wasn’t reading any books, I wasn’t doing any courses. That is not like me, I was thinking; but I told myself, don’t pressure yourself, and whenever you are ready, you can start again.

Once a month I have a meeting with my spectacular boss, Dr Roland von Euw (whose podcast episode you can listen to below - the logo is the first one I had created) and he mentioned something about a certification I could get if I wanted to (more details in the future). Immediately it clicked! I wanted to do it and now I am in the midst of it - it is challenging but soooo interesting. I am learning so much and I love doing it! With work and the PhD, it needs a lot of planning but so far, so good! Plus, I have a fantastic mentor who is guiding me along the way.

The school I work at (with the spectacular boss) asked us to do another certification any time we like in the next five years - so I decided to start it in the late summer (more details on that in the future as well), when I will have finished with the first certification and I thought, it is better to do it this year; the next is pretty challenging for my PhD and I’d like to concentrate on that exclusively next year.

The Music Highlight

I know, I know…but what can I do? Duran Duran are my favourite! However, there is a reason for the specific song.

2024 and the last three months were so hectic, crazy, I felt like I was at a standstill with everything - but a lot of people from my environment and students told me the same.

However, I took 5 days off over the Christmas holidays and had a great time with my family, trackpant days and lots of good food and sweets. It’s like I had a total reset and now I feel so ready (and hungry, see what I did there ; ) to learn more things this year and do lots of new things, professionally and educationally.

What are you hungry for this year?