Overheard in York.

I overheard a conversation on the bus the other day. No, I wasn't eavesdropping: they were so bloody loud I couldn't have stopped listening if I wanted to. And no, I didn't want to. But that's besides the point.

Two girls, PhD students as it later transpired were discussing the woes of not getting published and not being able to get jobs. They were claiming that you cannot get an article published unless you know *someone*. Now from my (fairly limited, it has to be said) experience of the academic publishing world there seems to be something to this. But it's not strictly true. You may have a greater chance of getting your work in a big journal if you know the panel, or rather if they know you. And you may have a greater chance of getting to present at international (or national, for that matter) conferences if you know the panel, or, again, if they know you. But these girls were so incredibly defeatist about it, that's what annoyed me. Hell, if my undergrad dissertation got me a slot at a large conference surely a decent PhD student would have a shot.

As for the jobs thing... well, it was the usual 'I'm so overqualified for all jobs cos I have an masters/PhD/whatever'. Yeah. Sure you are. I hear that a lot - but I'm not overqualified for my job at all; I have no letters after my name attesting to my ability to do student admin, website maintenance or whatever the hell it is I do. Ergo, not overqualified. It's a completely different kettle of fish - being good at phonetics/maths/history/whatever your degrees may have been in doesn't (over-) qualify you for anything other than that. And I know, I know, there are transferrable skills in all these things, blablabla. But I resent insinuations that I'm somehow wasting my life because my job happens to involve filing. Because believe me, I've had them - both from colleages and others.

Anyway, I've gone slightly off tangent here. I realise now that the last little rant sounds like I'm defending my choice of job. Who knows, maybe one day I'll do a PhD or get a job I'm not overqualified to do (HA!) but that day is not coming up soon. What I'm doing isn't a second choice to me at the moment - I wouldn't be doing something I wasn't happy to do.

Wow, tangent again! Back to the girls. The tale sadly doesn't tell us what their PhDs topics are. And I don't know that knowing would make any difference. But I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I'm sick of this elitism, this notion that adding some letters and years of debts to your name makes you somehow superior to someone else.

To quote a brilliant man: 'It takes all sorts to make a world.'

Poorly, bus travels.

I'm ill again. Suddenly started feeling ill about mid day yesterday, thought I was going to be sick at work... So I went home. Was going to walk but couldn't face it so got on the bus. I was alright for the first bus. But on the second I was feeling worse so had to get off and be sick :( It was terribly embarrassing. Not a very busy area but there were a good few people around, all looking at me like I was drunk in the middle of the day? I was saying to Mike that if someone was being sick in the street in the middle of the day, obviously unwell and alone I would at least see if there was anything I could do to help. He didn't seem convinced I actually would... Would you? I'd like to think I would anyway!

So I went home and straight to bed. Slept all afternoon and all night. Am trying to stay up now, maybe I'll even do something constructive...

Not been sick since yesterday which is good. But decided to stay home today, still not feeling very good.

On the bus right before I got off a lady started talking to me. It started with something about York traffic being bad, but somehow she moved seamlessly onto job interviews, and why don't the adverts say there's a minimum height/driving licence required? If I understood her right she'd just been to an interview where they told her she was too short to waitress?? If I hadn't been forced to get off the bus I would've chatted more to her, cos that sounds shocking... Hopefully I misunderstood...


 We've started watching the Wire by the way - it's looking promising! Only seen 3 episodes so far bur I'm enjoying it... Have you seen it?













Right, I'm going to have a shower and try to eat something. And maybe do something productive...

xx

I've always relied on the kindness of strangers.

The other day I was waiting for the bus up to uni. It was one of those crisp, amazingly sunny September mornings. This man kept looking over at me. I didn't think much of it, but after a while he was just staring... So I looked back at him, you know the way you do when you really just want to say 'what the hell are you staring at?!'

He came over, and said 'I'm sorry - you have a bee on your head'

Eek! Instinct tells me to run squeaking away from bees. Or freeze. I froze.

He said 'Can I.. do you mind if I touch your head?'

I said of course not. He proceeded to waft it from one side of my head, over across the top and near my ear on the other side, and then give it a little slap so it fell to the floor. He then said 'it's there, can you see it? I'm really sorry, I don't like killing living things.' I said that's fine, and we concluded that it was probably too cold for the bee to start flying around any time soon.

It strikes me how you can jump to conclusions about people like that. He was only trying to stop me getting stung by this bee, and I'd already started to conclude he was a weirdo, and wondering why on earth he kept looking at me.

I don't like judging on first glance. But I know I do it. I'm not the worst kind though; I'm open to having my mind changed radically.

I'm actually not sure if it was a bee or a wasp. Either way - I didn't like it sitting on my head. And I would've liked getting stung even less. So thank you, nice man.


I wanted to share this photo I took on campus that same morning. Lovely, I thought.

Cold thoughts and cigarettes burn.

It's so cold. I'm sat with heating blasting and my coat on. Am in the lab so of course there are no blankets, no duvets and no cups of tea to warm me. Stupid autumn.

When I was waiting for my bus this morning a lady sat down in the bus shelter and lit a cigarette. Fairly rude to start with, enclosed space etc. But it gets worse. She flicked her cig and some glowing ash flew at me, landed on my sleeve. I had to brush it off quickly to make sure it didn't ignite my jumper. She was looking at me, fully aware of what had happened but said nothing. Had that been me I would've jumped up to make sure I hadn't burnt the poor girl or the poor girl's sleeve.

Oh well.

Bus thoughts.

I seem to be spending a lot of my times on buses. A few... stories - though not all that interesting I'm afraid.

#1 but nearly ran over an elderly lady the other day. Granted, she shouldn't have tried to run across the road when the light was red, but the bus didn't slow down at all. It's not like he didn't see her - it was on a looong stretch of road with no traffic, and he found the time to beep his horn for about 10 seconds before getting to the stop.

#2 since the bus has rerouted due to roadworks, it seems men on the buses are even friendlier than normal. In the past week I've been chatted up - or well, something to that effect anyway - twice. Don't get me wrong - I like that Brits are friendly and chatty. But it gets a bit much sometimes. If I have a book in my hand, only reply to you in single syllables and keep looking back down at my book - then I don't want to talk to you.

#3 whilst waiting for the bus the other day I made a new friend. This lady was chatting to me about all sorts of things - mainly her grievances and complaints. But I enjoy complaining so I joined in (damn council! I didn't tell her she was talking to a council employee...). She was telling me how she had been owed some money back (from overpaying council tax, I think it was) so she went to the council and refused to leave until she got her cheque. Sounds like a lot of effort.

#4 we already knew that York traffic is bad. But yesterday afternoon was awful. First bus - roadworks. Second bus was very late. Then it took 20 minutes to get out of town. Then the bus stood still 20 metres from my house for at least 10 minutes because some genius had decided the whold road needed closing because of a bust pipe. And bus driver couldn't let us off cos of 'health and safety'. Love it.

On the bus this morning a little old man was studying his shopping list. I had a glance (as you do), and it said:

YORK

1. Pen refills
2. Matches

...

I just wanted to hug him. Things like that make me happy - I want to be that organised. I love lists.