I said it, and I meant it

So I deleted my academia.edu account.

I've been perturbed by academia.edu for some time now. I couldn't quite put my finger on what I disliked about the site- but I think it was probably a nagging question of why embrace a series of unforced performance metrics when your life is already filled by the damn things? Sure, it's fun to see how many views a paper gets, and how many your profile gets (wow, someone in Argentina looked at my profile etc) but do you really need to know this? How much is vanity, and how much is career obsession? Are either of those two things healthy?

I still did it though. The old (and deep) fear of your career suffering as a result of not playing the game won out.

But the recent revelations that academia.edu staff have been contacting scholars and asking them to consider paying for their papers to be promoted by senior staff has revealed a lot about the site, in my eyes at least.

And, in common with lots of other scholars, I'm no longer happy to affiliate with the site. So, I've pulled my profile down.

If you want to read my work, go for it! If you want to get in touch, please do. I'd love to hear from anyone about collaboration or feedback or anything. I just don't want to have those conversations through a medium that seeks to profit from a desperate desire for career progression, and that is willing to swap endorsements for cash.

Grand Challenges Part II: This time, it's personal

Yes, I'll be back, Clonmacnoise.

 
So, as promised, here is the second half of my little chunk of the wonderful Doug's Archaeology 2016 blogging carnival.

First, some news: I have resigned from my job at Andante Travels- yes, the dream job designing wonderful archaeological holidays. In so many ways it was perfect, supportive company, great colleagues, opening up the past to the general public. But I couldn't make it work with a 10 month old and a 90 minute commute. So, that's that.


What happens now?* Well, I'm delighted to say I've been offered a Moore Institute Visiting Fellowship at National University of Ireland, Galway. I'll be there from late March to mid-April, made possible by my parents and husband taking time out to look after Silvia. I'm excited about it, and about the work I'll be doing, as well as the people I'll be working with. Any suggestions for cool things to do in Galway with a toddler much appreciated.

I hope the weather in Galway is this good again, or husband will suffer with a cooped up Silvia!

Apart from that, 2016 is looking like a blur of writing and childcare, with some conferences and talks thrown in. Sometimes the two go together well, sometimes they don't. So that's one challenge: finish the book (halfway through the second draft people!), get half done articles out of my brain and onto some poor reviewer's desk, and keep a demanding young lady happy.

Her challenge is to walk under the Boccanera Plaques, not crawl. FYI, the Etruscan gallery of the British Museum is an excellent place for your baby- the case arrangements are a perfect crawling speedway.

The day-to-day of this is not a problem, keeping the balls in the air- you just do it. She wouldn't sleep last night, so instead of doing my usual 8-11 writing stint, it was 10-1. Then she woke at 3. And 5. Not great, but fine. I'm awake and alert. Just.

Coming to the point at last, my own grand challenge is to carve out a meaningful space for this new woman-in-archaeology-but-also-in-motherhood self. It would be wonderful to be able to link this with a formal position, but if the applications gods are unkind, I need to find a way to be ok with that. To write, to think, to be an archaeologist. Inside or outside the academy**. And I need to fit that with my family.

Doddle, right?

Ha.

Disclaimer: I AM INCREDIBLY AWARE OF HOW PRIVILEGED I AM TO BE ABLE TO TAKE THIS TIME AND HAVE THIS SPACE TO THINK AT ALL. Just saying. Also, it's a neat little feminist juxtaposition that embracing total dependence on my husband (and the vast majority of housework/childcare) allows me to think and work, albeit not for pay. Hmmm.

*Well, my first commitment that I'm so pleased to be doing is at the Institute of Classical Studies in London on the 9th February. Come along for some Derrida, some Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, and to hear the results of that survey I've been plugging on Twitter. What's not to like?

**Another post needed here on the new independent scholar, I think. With the current over-production of PhDs, we could be a veritable army.

Place: in the workplace!

The only way is up!

I have some news. Some flipping, effing awesome news. I came back from Italy on Monday of last week, and headed into my NEW JOB on Wednesday morning.

So yes, I'm employed. And, best of all, it isn't in a supermarket or fast food joint (not that that would be bad- it would probably be fun, but it's not archaeology, unless you're scooping up chicken bones off the floor). A job, a real job, in archaeology. I've done three days of it so far, and it still feels like a dream.

I didn't blog about this before, and I kept it more or less off social media, as I didn't want to jinx things- from the minute I saw the advert, I was desperate for this role. I honestly don't think I've wanted something so much since I was waiting to hear about PhD funding.

So, what's this job? Where did I hear about it? What am I actually doing now?

I'm now working as a researcher and archaeologist-in-residence at the amazing Andante Travels. They are a specialist company who put together archaeological holidays- all over the world! Yes, we (ahem) cover the big name places- Rome, Peru, Turkey, Etruria (!)- but we also cover all sorts of exciting archaeology that's more off the beaten track. Even in three days I have learnt so much- about rockhewn churches in Ethiopia, about incredible sites in Israel, even about the National Archives at Kew. My job is to design and research tours, and seek out the right people to lead them.

I'm still hoping to keep up with the academic world, and will be working on getting my thesis published over the next few months- but in the meantime, if it seems like I've fallen off the edge of the social media/blogging planet, it's because I'm too busy being overexcited about a new destination, or teasing out the best place to fly into to explore the archaeology of the Wild West! I will try not to be too rubbish though- promise!

And please, have a look at our website- it's amazing to be working in such an exciting, ethical and decent company that really cares about helping people enjoy the past, and putting a big fat grin on their faces while they do it. 

PS- If you feel like doing me a MAHOOSIVE favour, I'd be really grateful if you could vote for Andante in the British Travel Awards.We're nominated for three different awards- Best Special Interest Holiday Company; Best Escorted Tour Company and Best Holiday Company for Customer Services. You can win all sorts of prizes for voting- so please, if you have a minute and would like to help out, give us your vote!

PPS- I promise I won't get corporate in future- but Andante work bloody hard to ensure all their customers have a fabulous time, and put a lot of effort into keeping their tours archaeologically relevant, as well as accessible. Thank you so very much.

Stone: Failure Festival

Last week I read a fantastic post by the brilliant Matt Law, on his blog. You can read it here if you'd like- and I recommend that you do! He wrote about what he called a carnival of failure- people being honest about things that have gone wrong for them in digital scholarship and public engagement. Matt talks about failure as a positive, learning experience and then bravely goes on to analyse a sticky patch in his own work. A wonderful friend and teacher, Sara Perry, has also been incredibly brave in talking on her blog about the ups and downs of her first year in academe- a real inspiration of honesty.

Matt points out that, as academics, we don't often talk about failure. I think you could extend that to most jobs. Our professional personae do not have room for messing up, for things going wrong, for the days when you just want to hide under the bed curled in a ball crying. My twitter feed and this blog are always relentlessly positive: even when I'm grumpy, they are (or try to be) constructive and analytical rather than down and sad and whinging. You just can't fail publicly and get away with it, it seems. Failing is one thing, but fail behind closed doors- perhaps this is why people are negative on Facebook, where only "friends" will see us.

Stormy weather

But what is failure? What does it mean to you? Failure for me is a thousand different things. At the moment, I'm about to finish writing up the first draft of my PhD thesis (last but one chapter in process). My AHRC funding runs out in September. Then I'm on my own. Every day is dogged by fear of a different type of failure: that my supervisor will hate my work (I know she doesn't and would NEVER make me feel like that), that my viva will be a disaster (I had a nightmare that I had to walk into my own viva party and tell them I'd been recommended for an MPhil). Those are just the thesis related failures! I'm scared I will never get anything from the thesis past peer review, and fail to get my research out there. I'm scared stiff of what will happen to me in September- or what I make happen to me. All those academic job apps that I posted about so chirpily a few months ago? Great learning experience, but they were rejections, every one of them. What if I have to leave the academy? Is that failure? What if I can't get a job in archaeology at all? Will I have failed in a dream I had since the age of 3? What if I can't transfer my skills to the non-academic workplace? What if I have no skills? What if I can't get any job, any job at all?

Those are just the job failure fears. And they are ugly. They do not make for good CV material. They do not make for good Lucy PR. But they are real, and they are honest. I suppose they tell you that at least I care about these things. Or do I? Looking at that list of potential failures with a hard eye, they are ridiculous. Why? I'm sure each of those things would make me sad, and very downtrodden for a while. But they would pass. I have failed before, although not on such a grand scale. I would cry, I would hide, I would probably cancel this blog for a while and put my face away from the world. But, in the end, as long as I get to be happy again, I won't have failed. There is never only one path to happiness and to success. The negativity of failure cannot win unless we let it.

How can I be afraid to fail? There are lambs in the world, for goodness sake.

I bloody hope that all the silly failures above don't happen, but what are they compared with, say, losing someone you love? Making the right decisions for a terminally ill child? Battling cancer? At the end of the day, those are all things that are too sad and too deep for the word failure to be anywhere near them. Failure can be turned to success, or at least to a new chance and a learning experience. Painful, gut wrenchingly awful circumstances cannot be anything but lived through. Yes, lets be open and honest about our petty day to day failures, our fears and troubles. Let's celebrate them, share them, laugh at them. It takes the fear away. Most of all, I will try to remember that these little failures will pass and that I am fortunate to be able to fuss about them at all. Compared to the real tragedies of life, they are nothing.

Everything's going to be alright?

Stones: Academic Job Applications

This is my first "Stones" post, and it's on a subject that everyone who works in academia has to deal with at one time or another. Just how can you squash all your passion and ideas onto a few sheets of paper, or into a 1000 word research proposal? How can you express your own brilliance without sounding too cocksure? How many publications is "enough" for the post you are applying for? Sometimes it feels like the answers to these questions are "You can't" or "More than you've got." I meet a lot of fellow early career scholars and postgraduate students who are wrestling with applications, or who have come up against them in the past. The response seems to be generally negative, until suddenly someone gets a position, and is then a source of unbridled joy- until the short term contract runs out, and the process starts all over again.

As you might be able to tell, I have started to submit applications for positions starting after my PhD is completed. So, I thought it would be a good time to think about the positive aspects of academic job applications- what the experience of putting them together over the past few weeks has taught me. Yes, they were sometimes sticky to work on, and the guilt over pestering referees is still lying heavy on my subconscious, but they've actually been a fantastic exercise, for the following reasons.

1) Applications teach you to be concise. Less is often more. If you can't point out the key components of a project which make it uniquely perfect for support in 1000 words, who's to say you can in 2000? I found one application particularly difficult as it asked for 600 words of research proposal. Accustomed to 1000, I struggled, but I did it. And I think the 600 word version is actually better in some ways. Applications are a chance to hone your "elevator pitch," shaping and clarifying your research plan. This type of writing style is also an asset in other areas- who wants to read a 50 page journal article that could have been 30 pages if the waffle was cut out? Playing cat and mouse with delete can be fun, and it's good practice for editing.

2) Research proposals make you full of excitement about your own research! I am planning a post-doctoral project that I can't wait to begin. Each job application reminds me how strong this piece of work could be, and how keen I am to start working on it. The research proposal maps out the next three years of my academic life- what I will be doing each summer, the journal articles and monographs that I want to produce. Writing this down formally and seriously considering how I will spend my time gives me a blueprint for the future, for what I want to do and where I want to be- and that's pretty damn exciting.

3) While filling you with excitement about post-docs, job applications make you feel pretty blimmin strongly about finishing your PhD. It needs to be done before any of these fabulous new projects can start, and in applying for post-doc (clue's in the name) jobs, you need to be certain that that thesis is going to be in on time. I am full of determination to get my PhD done and dusted before my funding runs out, so I can start a new job straight away. When I go back to writing up after a job app hiatus of a couple of days, I find myself writing better, and staying motivated for longer.

4) Motivation isn't just about gritting your teeth and getting on with things. I want to blog about this another day, but for now, I want to focus on the importance of self-esteem. You have to believe in yourself to get anything done in academe or any other job you care to name. Of course, you don't want to be an over-bearing, arrogant twit. But you need to believe in yourself and your research, believe that you honestly are a strong candidate and good researcher. Seeing your achievements written down, publications, awards, presentations and all, is a lovely moment of self-recognition. Yes, you did that. All of it.

5) Finally, the process teaches you who your friends are. The support and companionship of colleagues, the willingness of referees. It's amazing how much people are willing to give of their time and effort to help you earn a crust. To me, at any rate, that's pretty special. Especially when you haven't got any of the posts you apply for after six months and you feel rotten, the people who are there to pick you back up again are those you need in your life. They are wonderful.

If and when the rejection letters come, I'm going to make myself look back at this post. It's full of optimism. I'll probably be grumpy, hurt and frustrated, and the words I wrote will feel stupid and irrelevant. In the meantime, every crossable part of my body is crossed.

How have you approached academic job applications? Any strategies to share? Horror stories to tell? I'd love to hear.

(Apologies for the lack of piccies in this post, but I did NOT want to photocopy my application forms. Look, here's a snapshot of the Acropolis instead. It's made of hard stones put together into something incredible).