Welcome to Academic Tensegrity. A spoonie’s* perspective on the multi-directional tensions of academia, early career researcher life, and work and life goals.
The goal of this blog is to think and reflect on personal experiences of academic life in today’s world, and to try to draw lessons and tools from those experiences. Mostly the blog will share my own experiences, but if you have a story you want to tell, or something you’d like the blog to cover, send an email through our Contact Us page. You can read more about the goals of this blog on the About the Blog page.
Some of the topics that this blog will cover include: grants and funding, writing, publishing, career development, teaching, course design, research design, time management, work/life balance, job applications, reviewing, and who knows what else which is relevant over the course of a career.
While this blog is focussed on personal experiences, it is not intended to be about complaining. Each post will have some reflection and discussion of strategies which have helped, or ideas that are yet to be tried. These are topics which are ongoing and have no immediate solution, so I will revisit them time and again.
So here we begin. Welcome, and happy reading.
*spoonie: someone who suffers from a chronic illness, using spoons to illustrate fluctuating energy levels – in my case it’s migraines. If you want to know more, Google “spoon theory of chronic illness”.