Wellbeing
How do you keep a balance in your PhD (and overall) life? Additionally, the Saturday Scholar and Music Highlight
Take good care
During the pandemic, I noticed that I ended most emails (to my students, my supervisors, almost everyone) in the same way:
Take good care,
Vicky
Emails had become of way of telling each other how we were feeling during this new and difficult situation, after we had said what we want to say professionally. And we all noticed that we had started new hobbies, watching new series, doing new things: I realized I was also trying to keep well mentally and physically as much as I could, and so was everyone else - and it kind of came to me that I should end like that: Take care.
There is still so much discussion about taking care of ourselves and I’m really glad it’s happening - what do you do to keep your balance in your life?
What do you do at the beginning of your day, or at the end of it to help yourself get through a day of work/study or prepare for the next one?
I could share some of the things I do:
I take two walks with my parents every day, one before lunchtime and one in the evening after I’m done with work. It really helps, we get fresh air and we talk a lot.
Before I sleep, I read a few pages of a book (always a physical one before sleep). Sometimes I read only a couple of pages, sometimes more - depending on the day I’ve had 📚I’ve had this habit since I was very little.
I eat well and especially now that I’m in Greece, cooking is fun because my mom and I plan together what we are going to eat. We try to come up with dishes we have not eaten for quite a while, and sometimes we try new things.
I know it’s a daily expense, but I allow myself (and I love that my dad loves this as well) our morning coffee from a great cafe here, which we order home and we get some things for breakfast too. We order through a Greek version of UberEats or DoorDash.
What do you do every day to be happy and healthy?
The Saturday Scholar
My scholar for this week is one of my favourite linguists - William Labov!
He is amazing and still active at almost 97 years old - he speaks at conferences, writes and shares his work. He’s amazing!
He is known as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of the methodology" of sociolinguistics (Trask, 1997).
If you are interested in Linguistics, you most probably know his work. If you don’t, I highly recommend you read it - he’s so great at clarifying concepts and his work is a tremendous contribution to Linguistics!
Saturday’s Music Highlight
This week’s singer is a spectacular young lady I found out a few years ago - Dua Lipa! Apart from being a great performer, she is an activist and philanthropist, with origins from Kosovo, which she always honours.
She is also an avid reader with a great book club and newsletter, Service 95. How can I not love her? 📚
Here she is, singing Levitating, which is my favourite!