Who?

I’ve always felt a bit like my life and me are split in two – the Australia part, and the Norway part. That distinction has become less and less important over the past few years though, and just the other day I realised that I now divide my life along different axes. (Not the chopping kind.) Before I tell you something about each of them though, I just want to note that even though I’m using words like “divide”, “split”, and “distinction”, there is actually a lot of overlap between all of these. Although juggling divergent roles and working out a coherent “identity” can at times be challenging, I don’t actually have multiple personality disorder or anything of the sort. And, there are roles – like “friend”, “daughter”, “sister”, – that I’ve chosen to leave off this blog, more or less. If you want to know about that stuff, let’s catch up for a coffee.

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So. Role number 1: Masters Student (Clinical Psychology) at the University of Melbourne
When people ask me what I’m studying, this is what I say. It is true of course, but “studying” in this context at the moment means turning up to classes, drinking coffee, being absolutely thrilled by roleplays and workshops, being curious about the other people in the course, absorbing as much information as possible, trying to work out my motivation for doing this course, and avoiding the thought of myself as an actual clinician. I’m not getting many readings done (though there’s heaps of them), which makes me feel like I’m bludging – a completely misplaced feeling, since I’m learning new things every single day.

Number 2: Researcher, tutor
“Researcher” is kind of the wrong title. What I’m doing is more like a kind of “leftovers” of Honours last year – but remember, leftovers are nice! I’m partly involved in running another experiment (more words and primes and nonwords, yay!), partly writing up the results from last year as a paper so it can get published (this is taking me forever, but I’ll get there eventually)… the difference from Honours is that now I’m getting paid for it. This is also my first semester tutoring (Mind, Brain and Behaviour, a first year subject), which I’m sure will be interesting.

#3: Volunteer for Right Now
This is another rather vaguely defined role. Up until mid-March, I was helping organise the launch party for the new webpage. This was a lot more difficult than I expected, but also a lot of fun at unexpected times – so I guess it all evens out. From now on though, I’ll be mostly building contacts, networks, partnerships, bridges – between Right Now Inc and other organisations with human rights or other good causes as their focus. I predict that it will involve a lot of emailing… and also, to use a rather hackneyed phrase, a lot of personal growth.

#4: PhD student
The PhD hasn’t officially started yet, but already it feels like “me” in a way that…  requires a blog of its own. Check it out?

#5: Housewife
Again, “housewife” isn’t really the right word. Still, it’s the word I tend to use for all that “personal” stuff that isn’t too intimate to be written about here, but that at the same time is kind of superfluous (while essential) to the other things I do. Being a housewife to me means doing dishes, going grocery shopping, putting on a cd and tidying my room, baking, being thrilled at the new shoots in the vegie garden, mowing the lawn in the sun, washing clothes, making dinner and eating it, having a cuppa on the back step. It even in a way includes going to gym, because that is another important factor contributing to my general health and wellbeing.

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There you go. That’s a bit about “me”, arbitrarily categorised in a way that I hope may provide a helpful background. Although, I doubt any single post on this blog can be said to be written from the perspective of any one of these roles. So… mix and match and create your own ideas of me?