Career Break Day 1 (Spoiler: I April-Fool’s-joked myself by working a lot.)
Today is the first day of my break! KW (my husband) walked Poppy (my Pomeranian) in the morning so I could sleep in and enjoy a leisurely, restful day. Only KW held up his end of the bargain. Not only did I get up early (8:30 am), but I also worked a lot.
(Insert appropriate sad-faced meme here.)
As you may know, I am dedicating part of my break to applying to PhD programs. Since that blog post, I have been completely consumed by my desire to be a PhD student. I have dedicated entire afternoons to cataloging schools, programs, and faculties of interest in Notion. In the evenings, I read papers to find my research niche. I have also gone down the rabbit hole of PhD content on YouTube (shoutout to Dr. Andy Stapleton), Apple Podcasts (shoutout to How to PhD), and StackExchange.
At this point calling me obsessed would not be an overstatement. It is all I do and think about.
Yesterday, after four straight hours of staring at admissions pages, I decided to nap and, you know, actually take a break during my break. I made the couch cozy and put in my earplugs. As I tucked myself in, a powerfully poignant sentence entered my brain. It felt like being visited by the Muses.
Obviously, I had to get up and write it down. Obviously, I had to keep going. Who knows how long the Muses will keep their hands on my shoulder? I have to take advantage of this opportunity!
And so one sentence became four, then ten, then sixty, until a 350-word personal statement was completed.
Did I go back to my intended nap? Nope. Instead, I
Discovered my research niche (“How do emerging technologies like AI affect human-to-human and human-to-tool interaction and relationships?”)
Updated my CV
Completed the “3 Papers I Wish I’d Written” exercise
Debated whether I should respond to a call for committee members for the Society of Women Engineers (I chose not to)
Started my application for CSGrad4US
The only thing that got me to stop working on PhD- related things was my friend’s birthday celebration. (Happy birthday again, Saumya!)
In hindsight, with a Sunday spent like that, I was a fool to expect a Monday would be any different, especially since most of my Mondays have been filled with work for the past seven years.
But there I was anyway — getting up at 8:30 am and patting myself on the back for at least sleeping in one extra hour than usual, believing that today would be a day of relaxation.
April Fool’s! I got myself good.
Giving myself some credit though, today is more relaxed than yesterday. I napped (a whopping 90 minutes!), watched several episodes of Abbott Elementary, and indulged in homemade 6-layer bean dip and chips.
Granted, today is still probably far from what my friends imagined it would be when they texted me, “Happy Day 1 of your break!”
Good thing I have many more Mondays and tomorrows to try again. :)
