Sunday Salon: A bit of Sharing

I was going to post today about how tired I am of winter…but then, as you probably know, there has been a huge conversation around book bloggers starting with plagiarism and now going to the fact of unrealistic expectations. The thought that we are Super Women (or Men) and can do 5 posts a week, not just reviews, do great at work, have a Pinterest worthy house…is just too much! On this I would suggest you read Andi’s post (she is great by the way) on how this is just not right.

As I mentioned on Twitter, I feel very lucky as a relative young blogger to see examples like Andi or Trish (visit her here)  Examples of wonderful bloggers that are witty, entertaining, share a bit of their lives and are perfectly ok with saying: you know what? I am not perfect. But still, the pressure can add up. You want to have more readers and more page views and more galleys and be able to say that you read that book before it was officially out…so you strain yourself and post, and post…and then life catches up, you can’t post for a while and for sure, your next post will be: I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a while, but you know, life. We shouldn’t be sorry about this, and yet we are. I think we feel guilty mostly with ourselves and then a crazy circle starts.

Today a lot of my favorite bloggers are talking truths, about themselves and about book blogging life. And so I figure I would add some of mine too.

1.  I don’t do a lot of personal posts. For a while it was because I felt I had nothing “interesting” to say and because in general I am a bit hesitant to open up. Now I am wondering more and more often about doing so.
2.  I did open a new blog about PhD life, but I am trying very hard for it not to become a venting site, since there are already a lot of them. I want it to be a place where people thinking of doing a science PhD can get a bit more ideas of what it can be.
3. That being said, I am happy with my life outside the lab, but in the past months I have cried so much due to the lab. Project has hit some walls, and the PI is not happy and hence…I am getting frustrated.
4. I come from a country that has so many beauty pageants it would be an understatement to say that image is quite important…and so I have huge image issues. I still have some stress acne and since my body doesn’t fit a mold, it is very often that I feel simply ugly. Oh Trish had the most wonderful post about this and I want to take a moment to thank her for that. I try hard to improve my self-image every day, but it is a struggle.
5. Besides my figure I doubt myself about my usage of English (or French since my institute is francophone). I started my blogs in English because I wanted to reach a wider audience, but you have no idea the amount of time it takes me to write a single post, and to check it over and over…and when I miss a mistake it can haunt me for days.
6. I am addicted to checking my stats, even when I keep telling myself is not productive…I still do it.
7. I don’t have kids yet…but I will be honest with you, I am terrified about being pregnant. Not being a mom, I had to raise my brothers when my mom died…no, the pregnancy is what scares me the most.
8. While I try to act like I don’t care, it does affect me a lot the fact that a lot of people don’t like me at my lab...I know I am not easy to like, and I am happy for the people who have taken the time to know me, but in IRL, these “colleagues” just find me annoying and to tell you the truth, it hurts.
9. Very often I feel that all the work I do at the lab passes unappreciated by my boss.
10. I hate people seeing me cry because I don’t want them to think I am not strong enough…even though that is exactly why I am crying.

I am going to stop there. In part because it is getting harder to write this stuff and in part because I am sure you get the point. We are all humans, we are all fragile and we all have things going on besides our blogs. We cannot nor should we be perfect as bloggers or as humans. Let’s keep blogging because we like it, because it is a fun community to be part of. Let’s reach for help when we need it and let’s not forget to give credit where credit is due.

Have a lovely week!