Monday, October 30, 2006

If I were....

Maybe it's a little early in my life to be doing this meme, but, inspired by my new found fellow higher education policy blog acquaintance Rand, I decided that maybe tonight is a good night for a little self-reflection. Husband is sat watching you-know-who playing a Premiership football match and I've had a wonderfully crappy day at home feeling very ill and unable to go to work. So, anyway, I feel the need for a little self-reflection.

If I were rich...

I would quit my job, have Husband quit his job and we'd buy a big house somewhere remote - Northumberland probably - and just chill out for a few years. Then we'd have a couple of kiddies and a little Scottie dog and spend our time growing vegetables; maybe I'd be able to do a PhD in blissful isolation from stress and strain. I'd give my mother-in-law and her partner enough money to not have to worry ever again and convert a few farm buildings so that family and friends could come and stay and share our happy existence.

If I were smarter...

I would have been able to make it back to school at 17 and take Maths and Physics at A-level to go and study astronomy at university. I'd have got a first in that and got a scholarship to do an MSc and PhD. Right now I'd be a post-doc researcher looking into the influence of dark matter on the visible universe. Even ignoring fantasy life, at the moment I just wished that I'd had the foresight to figure out that I wanted to do a PhD and check that my MA entitled me to Research Council funding for said PhD.

If I were a more disciplined writer...

I wouldn't have written my MA thesis in 4 weeks flat and maybe I'd be happier with it than I am. I'd also have started this blog and my book blog a while ago so that I had a better record of my life and so fill in the holes that my swiss cheese memory leaves behind. I think I probably might have carried on doing creative writing as well - might have a few published short stories under my belt and a novel on the way. Maybe I should try that novel in a month thing...

If I were more ambitious...

I would have applied to Cambridge for my undergraduate degree not to Leeds. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I'm the person that I became because of going there; I think I would have been very different now if I had attended Cambridge. I guess maybe my problem wasn't lack of ambition but lack of vision.... maybe they would have accepted someone with as rocky an educational history as me.... well Oxford is on my research list for PhD supervisors maybe I'll be a Oxbridge girl one day soon.

If I were better organised...

I would always have my work clothes ironed and packed lunch made the night before. There wouldn't be a stack of un-filed bills and other various paper based detritus constantly lurking on the dining room table. The two bags of clothes for the charity shop that have been in the understairs cupboard since we moved would have made it back into circulation. I would already be reading higher education policy stuff now and not reminiscing about 'Landscape and Memory' by Simon Schama.

If I were not a complete idiot in my (early) twenties...

I would have made more of my time as an undergraduate - debating society, yoga classes and student representative - rather than just lots of studying and a fair few men. I would have a had a brief fling with a certain someone not got engaged and had to leg it 3 months before I was due to marry him! But then without those things I wouldn't have been brought to the point where I met my husband; so as idiotic as they were I wouldn't take them back..... but I might have amended them a little.

I think I need to do this again in a few years.... actually doing this every few years might keep me on the right track.

2 comments:

Rand said...

Bravo! I wish I could take credit for this exercise, but I was just the conduit. Actually typing all the words made me feel a little more pulled-together (at least for that day.)

I'm more employee than student this week, but I have several higher ed policy blog posts in the wings that should see the light of day by the weekend. Stay tuned...

AdventuringJen said...

Lovely post to read my lovely! :) nice to know you aren't always super-organised! ;) If my brain could handle any additional self-analysis at the moment, I'd give it a whirl! Remind me of it in a few weeks time...xxx