Last year I wont the RTP scholarship but after all the crazy stuff going on in my personal life I took 6 months leave from my PhD. When I got the scholarship I had to be doing my PhD full time to receive the payment (which significantly reduced my financial stress). But when my 6 months off from study was nearing the end I didn’t feel like I could go back full time. For self-care reasons I felt really anxious about being a full time student with a 0.5 FTE job on top of that. I had managed it for a few months but it was not easy and I really felt that I was not up to it. So I made the decision to go back to study part time instead of full time.

That would mean that I wasn’t going to get my payments from the scholarship BUT I thought it would be less stressful overall and I was also comforted by knowing that I had won that scholarship already – it was already on my resume and whether or not I actually received the money didn’t matter – it only mattered that I was awarded it from a CV point of view. So I officially started back on my PhD on the 18th of September and I put in for it to be only part time. Then… much to my surprise… the policy has changed and I am now getting partial payments!!!!

I really DID get to have my cake and eat it too. I feel like God was rewarding me for not being greedy and pushing myself just to get extra money. I am very thankful. No one has confirmed this but I think it has to do with the Universities Accord which (the final report) came out while I was on leave. The Accord highlighted that students from equity groups are more likely to NEED to study part time because of their other commitments (work, caring duties etc.) and it essentially said that offering part time study was important for equity.

In other news I have 5 presentations plus a poster accepted for NAEEA in December and I’ve started preparing slides for a couple of those. I still have a fair bit to do before the first week in December. I have re-written my whiteboard to include conference presentations as well as just journal articles and book chapters. Because conference PAPERS are better but a presentation is still an academic output. I have 22 outputs once presentations and posters are included. My original goal was 25 so yes, happy with that!

Not sure what else to include in this update. I wanted to share the good news but also write down that I am still struggling with personal issues and it is impacting my work, well my research and my motivation at least. I have done absolutely everything I can to make sure it does not impact my students and I am satisfied that so far it has not. I have finished my marking for the year – I am not teaching into the Enabling (Preparatory) program (STEPS) until term 1 next year now.