Two for two (and nought for four)

A flying visit to a Nordic country was very much welcomed this week. Although the freezing cold wind wasn't...

I am just back from a Victimology conference where I presented my very first paper as an "academic", if you can really call me that (I still think I'm a secretary pretending to be an academic!). It was well received and there was a little bit of interest from a notable Irish representative, so fingers crossed something comes of that.

I also managed to complete my first ever lecture, by coincidence also on Victims of Crime, so all in all it's been a good week for me work-wise. Although I'm completely knackered from travelling, sitting in lectures and generally hob-nobbing with our Nordic cousins.

Speaking of work, it's still hectic and continues to be so with little room for rest and recuperation. The last few weeks I've been involved in my usual day-to-day responsibilities (obviously), organising a student conference, writing a lecture, writing and presenting a paper, and marking students work... Plus, we're trying to get this paper published so need to complete writing it up. I think I can safely say, it's only about half-way there right now.

However, I finally set myself a few days off to just generally chill out and catch up with the ever-increasing amount of housework that needs doing, but then I received details on a possible phd and decided to bite the bullet and put a phd application together. Nothing to it really, I've just got to write a few pages of proposal, including literature review, by next week... eeeeeekkkk..... No, I'm refusing to panic, at least not til tomorrow...

Despite all of the stress, my career, still in it's infancy, is taking it's first few wobbly steps and will hopefully be walking and running in no time. Feedback has been great and I'm working with a really interesting group of people. I'm enjoying it as much now as I did a year ago, even more so really...

On top of all of this, we had our fourth and last cycle of fertility treatment and that again failed. So we scored zero from four months of trying (and the odds were so good, I really thought it was all we needed). So no more clomid for me - which I have to say, I am actually quite happy about - and now we are waiting for a laparoscopy before I can move on to the dreaded iui and ivf. The jury is still out on it all right now, I guess I am just hoping, somewhere deep in the back of my mind, that it won't come to that. That we won't have to make that decision, but we are getting ever closer and have talked lots about it.

As my mother used to say when I asked for something she really didn't want to give me, We Will See.