A Room Of My Own
The renovations are pretty much finished. I don't have to be cleaning anything, or paint anything, or dealing with real estate agents. My only household chore for the day is wait around for the air conditioning guy-- and maybe do some grocery shopping. I am not as sick as I have been for the last week. The Monster is out, meaning I don't have to be engaged in conversation or helping her with anything.
And so I decide that maybe NOW I can get some work done.
The cats run across my keyboard whilst I type. I can't get away from the cats, 'cos I need the internet to do catalogue searches and there in no wireless so I can't use it in another room. And yes, the cats have to be able to walk through here. The printer is producing blurry smudged text where my next crisp clean journal articles should be-- barely legible. The internet crunches and wheezes along, taking ridiculous amounts of time to download articles or even move between pages. I sit and fume and plot and dream of having a suitable working space.
All I want is a safe, clean, quiet study, with a big desk and bookshelves, a comfortable chair, a window, working wireless broadband and a functional printer. I WRITE A PHD. This is not some sort of hobby that I can just faff about with when not playing housewife or kitten-stepmother. IT'S ACTUALLY MY JOB. And I deserve to have a chance to do it well, without having to fight for every hour of uninterrupted work time or be forever traipsing the four corners of the city looking for printing facilities or a quiet library space that might have wireless I can access or staying up into the middle of the night in order to grab a few hours of uninterrupted EndNoting.
When I get back to Sydney I intend to get it. And I don't really care how. I'm in the last year of this project and don't have the time to play around any more.
(And yes, I do sort of feel like the uptight office freak sitting at my desk jealously defending my stack of rubber bands and staples, but so be it.)
And so I decide that maybe NOW I can get some work done.
The cats run across my keyboard whilst I type. I can't get away from the cats, 'cos I need the internet to do catalogue searches and there in no wireless so I can't use it in another room. And yes, the cats have to be able to walk through here. The printer is producing blurry smudged text where my next crisp clean journal articles should be-- barely legible. The internet crunches and wheezes along, taking ridiculous amounts of time to download articles or even move between pages. I sit and fume and plot and dream of having a suitable working space.
All I want is a safe, clean, quiet study, with a big desk and bookshelves, a comfortable chair, a window, working wireless broadband and a functional printer. I WRITE A PHD. This is not some sort of hobby that I can just faff about with when not playing housewife or kitten-stepmother. IT'S ACTUALLY MY JOB. And I deserve to have a chance to do it well, without having to fight for every hour of uninterrupted work time or be forever traipsing the four corners of the city looking for printing facilities or a quiet library space that might have wireless I can access or staying up into the middle of the night in order to grab a few hours of uninterrupted EndNoting.
When I get back to Sydney I intend to get it. And I don't really care how. I'm in the last year of this project and don't have the time to play around any more.
(And yes, I do sort of feel like the uptight office freak sitting at my desk jealously defending my stack of rubber bands and staples, but so be it.)
Labels: academia
posted by Zoo at 12:21 pm
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