Unpaid sabbaticals

I have a lot coming up in the next few months. I've applied for a leave of absence for April-June, no word yet but I am already planning as if it has been accepted. I'm calling it an unpaid sabbatical.

Before then I would like to get in another field trip and start on some new measurements and finish up some of the previous ones. I did some practice runs with two of my species that grow in the Blue Mountains and it looks like I will need to do all of the measurements immediately in the field, and that they will take a few hours! I'm hoping to create some stomatal closure curves, assuming my species don't fuse their stomata shut as soon as I harvest a branch. 

I got Chat GPT to summarise what I'm looking at in layman's terms because I am lazy and forget most people don't know what stomata are:

"A stomatal closure curve is a graph that shows how plant leaf openings, called stomata, respond to changes in water availability. It demonstrates how tightly the stomata close at different levels of water supply. Stomatal conductance, which measures how gases pass through the stomata, decreases as the stomata close in response to lower water availability, reflected in the curve. This curve helps researchers understand how plants regulate water loss through transpiration under varying environmental conditions."

Prior to my break I am also hoping to get to Adelaide to finally see The Dark Room live. I started following Robbotron on Twitch during covid. He and a few other people really helped me and kept me going during that time, and the communities were also great and oh-so wholesome, but not in a sickening way, in a totally awesome way that I could relate to. Here are a few other important communities I was a part of: RandomBritishDude, MitchBruzzese, RustyQuill (specifically Mike and Anil), and an honorable mention to Monkeeeyboi whom I found through RandomBritishDude. If you know these people or clicked on the hyperlinks you may have noticed they are all UK citizens, except for Mitch who is an Aussie. Robbotron is also Aussie, but resides in the UK.  As you might have guessed I was living my best life as a nocturnal during lockdown :)

Anyway, I will also be starting a 10-week DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) program, that will conclude about halfway through my sabbatical. My uni counselor got me on to it and is part of organising it. She has been bringing it up for a little while now, and my psychologist has mentioned it and group therapies a couple of times too. So when she offered me a spot in the program, I pretty much jumped on it. I am a bit nervous of course, group therapy - "what the hell? I hate humans", but I am also excited and hoping it will help me to function better. 

I will not only be taking a sabbatical from my PhD though, but also my psychologist. We discussed it today, it came up naturally and we were both kind of on the same page (or close enough). Since I'm doing this course and will be receiving support from it I should focus on that, and then soon after that ends my psychologist is going overseas for a bit. So essentially we won't see each other for about 6 months. This saddens me as I enjoy talking with them, however, talking to them today it looks like we have been having similar thoughts about things and that a break could benefit us. When we do meet up again we will reassess the situation and see if I will even need their continued support or if the counsellors through uni will be enough. 

So overall these next few months could turn out to be quite interesting and potentially life-changing? It's scary but exciting. I'm just so confused about some things, and unhappy or apathetic about others. I'm really hoping for a bit more clarity on things and to be able to acknowledge and express myself better. Yes, I'm doing this all to better my life, but it could also lead to big challenging changes in my life. These changes are going to affect those around me, and that's what scares me most,  upsetting other people.  

To end on a different note (purposeful pun) recently Sheldon Riley's Eurovison song "Not the same" has really resonated with me and made me feel stronger. I could always somewhat relate, and of course, I love his voice, but only recently has it really gone deep for me. I just love Eurovision so much, I get to discover so many new styles of music and artists and get all the feels! Here is their performance at the Eurovision finals, enjoy!

Stretching borrowed time

 Oh my goodness, I am so tired. Even after the long weekend I am not yet recovered from my fieldtrip.

I didn't make it to uni yesterday, I was super tired and had a headache. managed to get here today, but I have noticed the increasingly common behaviour that as soon as I park the car I need to sit in it for about half an hour just to get over the drive. I just don't have the spoons to deal with work and socialising.

I mentioned earlier this year, that I was on borrowed time, I am definitely stretching that borrowed time to the very max now. Just two more months, that's all I need to push through. Today I submitted my request for a leave of absence starting in April. The way the system works it will go until almost the end of June. Three months is more than I initially planned and wanted to take off, but considering how broken I feel most of the time, it is probably very much needed.

During that time I plan on trying to rest and recover, see a new migraine specialist, trial at least one new medication, and have a couple of short holidays away. My GP prescribed a new medication to help with my sleep and possibly my migraine, but I am yet to start it as they said it will make me extra sleepy the first few days of taking it. I certainly don't need extra sleepiness right now. I am hoping to somewhat recover a bit more from my field trip and then start taking it at the end of a working week. 

I also still need to go get my blood tests and a CT scan. I was going to get my blood tests this week but then my uterus decided to punish me for not making a baby, so I should probably wait before I get more blood removed from my body, especially considering my current exhaustion. 

On a completely different note, I am already getting excited for Eurovision! I rarely get excited for things, but Eurovision is a constant good thing in my life. I'm semi-following Norway's 'Melodi Grand Prix', Ukraine's 'Vidbir', and Lithuania's 'Eurovizja'. I have never really followed the Eurovision selection process in other countries before, but several artists I follow are competing in the aforementioned contests; Keiino, Melovin, and The Roop, respectively. 

Aw, my partner just sent me the best message regarding my taking leave: "it sucks that it has come to that", the exact acknowledgement that I need 💓

What a week

Last week was all over the place. I did not take sick leave as I only get 10 days per year. I stayed home all week though, and barely did any work. Here's how the following days played out.

Monday

I woke up at 4.30 am and decided to feed my cat. She ate her food like a good girl, then around 5 am she had a heart attack and passed in my arms. Following that event, my migraine came back. There was no way I was going to uni. Around 8.30 am I finally was able to get back to sleep. I woke up around 1 pm and don't know what I did for the rest of the day. I did take some of my new migraine meds and the pain went away :). No work was achieved this day. 

Tuesday

I was not going into uni today either as we scheduled to bury my cat when Mum, me, and our partners were all available that afternoon. I had my counseling appointment via Zoom. I  started to organise some of my calendars, but no other work was achieved this day. I also was not up to going to the gym even.

Wednesday

I woke up to my 5 am alarm to watch Eurovision Semi-final 1. This is good, I will talk about Eurovision more later though. Once it finished around 7 am, I went back to bed. I probably woke around 12 or 1 pm and by now I was thinking "There is no point in going to uni this week is there?" I was still working through my grief, the exhaustion, and pain from having a migraine the past 10 days added to the exhaustion of worrying and caring for my cat. I had no ability to focus and no motivation. I did manage to get to the gym in the evening though :)

Thursday

My body and head were in pain, but nowhere near as much as the previous week or Monday. No uni work was done today but I met up with my Supervisor for my casual job for a couple of hours and worked through what we needed to. I did also send a couple of emails to my uni supervisors. In the evening I took my to a comedy event. The event was good, I just wish I didn't have to drive as I noticed a did a few things I would not normally have done if I were functioning properly. 

Friday

I had my alarms set for 5 am to watch Eurovision semi-final 2. Unfortunately, I didn't get up until 5.15 am so I missed the first 2 and a half performances :(. Thankfully, Australia was the final performance so I didn't miss them. Once this finished at 7 am I went back to bed, but only for a couple of hours, as I had scheduled things for the day. I met with my main supervisor over Zoom to catch up. Then I finally had my remedial massage, I had been waiting all week for this appointment with all my aches and pains. Despite the pain, my body isn't as bad as it used to be when I first started treatment a couple of years ago. My superficial muscles are still moveable! The reason I am feeling pain in new places is because my nerves now have access to blood flow. When I first went she could not get into my deep muscles as my superficial muscles were so bad, and also my muscles were cold with a lack of blood flow.  I also managed to do about an hour of uni work, reading, and a little bit of writing :).

Eurovision

The Grand final was 5 am - 9.15 am Sunday morning, and luckily I woke up in time to watch the entire thing live and vote :D.

Now Eurovision is very important for my mental health. You may be thinking "Why would you wake up at 5 am if you don't need to? Especially when you are exhausted and in physical pain!", but I need to for my own happiness. Eurovision is one of the few things I actually look forward to, I generally don't look forward to much in life as I end up getting let down a lot, but Eurovision has never failed me. 

I also much prefer to watch things live, or when they are first released if they are important to me. With the internet these days it is almost impossible to avoid spoilers! Also, I get to vote if I want to. It feels better when I watch it live than as a repeat, I just don't get the same serotonin from repeats. I did the same for Doctor Who's 50th anniversary special, that is wake up at 4 or 5 am to watch it. 

What made this year even better was the fact a band I knew and liked was Australia's representative this year! I only discovered them a bit over a year ago, but I've already seen them live once and will be again next month :D. 

Now - Monday again 

I dropped my youngest cat off at the vet this morning as she has gum and bone disease at only about 11 months old. She has had her teeth cleaned, some removed, xrays, and blood tests. Luckily she does not have FIV! I then drove all the way out to uni, which was quite exhausting being an hour-long trip (with tolls). I have done some work today, not a lot, but I'm trying. I have a bit of a headache and will probably head home in less than an hour, picking my cat up on the way of course!