{"id":2680,"date":"2019-05-21T04:36:22","date_gmt":"2019-05-21T04:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/freedom-isnt-always-free\/"},"modified":"2025-04-04T12:06:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T12:06:09","slug":"freedom-isnt-always-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/freedom-isnt-always-free","title":{"rendered":"Freedom isn’t always free"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a Radiolab\u00a0episode\u00a0concerned with the physics of falling cats. If a cat falls out of a high-rise apartment, it reconfigures itself mid-flight into a \u201cflying squirrel\/parachute\u201d pose to, allowing it to land on its feet with minimal injuries. Cats have been known to survive falling from 30-storey buildings; however, a fall between 5-9 storeys can kill them, because they\u2019re in the process of acceleration and reconfiguration during that time window.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This is a metaphor. I\u2019ll be leaving university with a PhD by December, and right now I feel like a falling cat. I\u2019m hurtling towards the defense date trying to reconfigure myself in mid-air, hoping I can manage\u00a0before\u00a0impact.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had interviews. I\u2019ve had rejections. I\u2019ve had interviews followed by rejections. On the horizon, it looks like more of the same. Keeping my own spirits up is hard. I have to balance relentless optimism (don\u2019t worry about the rejections \u2013\u00a0just<\/i>\u00a0keep<\/i>\u00a0trying!<\/i>) with reflection (well, something is going wrong here and you need to fix it<\/i>). I have to acknowledge my flaws without succumbing to despair about them. I have to be flexible in the kinds of opportunities I apply for\u2026 but not set myself up for years of misery because I walked into something I knew would be a bad fit.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

What I really have in spades is freedom. Honestly, I\u2019m back to early-2013 levels of freedom when I was a \u201ccoffeeshop<\/a>\u00a0hobo\u201d who lived in an apartment where mushrooms grew in the shower. Back when I had the freedom to waste hours in a coffeeshop writing freelance articles (8am weekdays, whenever), but didn\u2019t necessarily have the freedom to eat more than \u00a32 worth of bread rolls for lunch. Freedom can be a brutal thing.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

My finances will be better for the rest of this semester, but oversight and regulation have vanished from my professional life. I\u2019ve basically finished my research (Goodbye weekends in lab! I can get home every day in time to hear\u00a0Marketplace<\/a>!); there isn\u2019t an equivalent time-sink to replace it. Nor is there a crazy rush to finish my thesis writing. I have time\u00a0and income.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s too late to add anything meaningful to my CV that could help me change my career trajectory. I have a whole semester of university, and that\u2019s the best place you can go to get random snippets of \u201cexperience\u201d in new things. I have ideas, and will force myself to act upon them in the next week or two.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The worst-case scenario would be that I\u2019m forced to return to Scotland, unemployed. Visions of the future see me stuck in minimum wage non-science jobs for decades to come, stuck in the small towns I thought I\u2019d grown out of. I feel like I have to accept that as an option, and think about ways I could mitigate that. I\u2019m not just thinking about firing-off job applications right now\u2026 but how I can prepare myself for returning to the UK\u00a0with<\/i>\u00a0nothing<\/i>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Time keeps moving. I keep twisting in the air.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Dr. Claire Jarvis (<\/i>@StAndrewsLynx<\/i><\/a>) is a Science and Medical Writer at Covance. This story was published on September 3, 2017, on Dr. Jarvis\u2019 blog, <\/i>St Andrews Lynx\u2019s Blog<\/i><\/a> (available <\/i>here<\/i><\/a>), and has been republished her with her permission.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a Radiolab\u00a0episode\u00a0concerned with the physics of falling cats. If a cat falls out of a high-rise apartment, it reconfigures itself mid-flight into a \u201cflying squirrel\/parachute\u201d pose to, allowing it to land on its feet with minimal injuries. Cats have been known to survive falling from 30-storey buildings; however, a fall between 5-9 storeys can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1448,"featured_media":33313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2414],"tags":[2670,2666,2454],"new_categories":[],"new_tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-2680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiring-researcher-stories","tag-life-changes-and-transitions","tag-phd-life","tag-researcher-stories"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFreedom isn't always free<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I\u2019ll be leaving university with a PhD by December, and right now I feel like a falling cat. I\u2019m hurtling towards the defense date trying to reconfigure myself in mid-air, hoping I can manage to land\u00a0before\u00a0impact. 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