When REALITY hits!

I was cleaning up my e-mail draft when I found the following rant of mine. I wrote this quite a while ago.

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It was 5.30 in the evening. I was on my way to the toilet to clean up my coffee mug so that I have a clean mug to make coffee for tomorrow. At the landing of the staircase, I ran into Dr. Katarina, a previous ‘officemate’ of mine. She is a post-doc at our department in the university. We talked for few minutes mostly about how am I coping with work (and life!) after having a baby.

The conversation got me thinking of several things. Among others are:
· period of maternity leave
· quality time with my daughter
· bringing work back home

Most companies in the UK allows a maternity leave of 26 weeks of Ordinary Maternity Leave and 26 weeks of Additional Maternity Leave making that 52 weeks ( 1 year!) in total. It is a paid leave albeit not in full as is your salary. OK, enough about maternity leave.

I still remember my disbelief when a friend of mine who have two kids told me that she did not have time to watch any TV programme. By the way, she is working on her PhD too. I was pregnant at that time and I said,

“I’m busy too but I manage to fit in watching TV while folding my laundry.”

Now is when the reality hits me HARD.

I am a big fan of the Desperate Housewives series. I never missed an episode and I can never miss an episode. But now, it takes me like five sits to actually finish an episode. I’ve already mention it in my previous post, once I am home, my focus is my daughter until her bedtime is up. Once I put her to sleep, I am too tired to watch anything, sleeping is much more inviting.

I am pretty sure part of this is because of I am working on my PhD now. I am not one who likes to compare myself to others but I cannot help if some of my friends put up their facebook status as ‘… watching bla bla bla…” I do envy them.

I know some of you who read this up until this point will think that I am boasting. The thought “As if she’s the only one who is doing Phd” probably run through your head. Truth is I am not. This is my reality. Yours is probably different than mine, either its worse or better. I hope yours is the latter.

Bringing work back home is not something alien to me even during those days when I was still single. So when Dr. Katarina said she stayed up at night to finish her work, I totally understand that. The only difference is, I hardly stay up but I wake up early. Sometimes I do wonder how it feels to have a job where you do not have to physically bring home any work. Again I am by no means saying that my job is greater or better than others. And by no means I am whining. I am just wondering...