Academia

A friend of mine posted the following two articles from The Guardian on Facebook recently and I found I could relate to what they said.
There is a culture of acceptance around mental health issues in academia
and
Dark thoughts: why mental illness is on the rise in academia

Whilst many people are able to successfully go through university and many do not experience depression, despite the high stress involved in research, I was not one of them. I did have bipolar depression and the highly competitive, highly stressful environment exacerbated it and took me to the point of wanting to commit suicide. I experienced my first bout of severe depression at the end of my Honours year in Cape Town. I didn't tell anyone, but my supervisor noticed I was not myself and at the final dinner when we were given our results he did say he had at one point wondered if I was going to make it to the end of the year. What he and noone else knew was that I had indeed come very close to not just failing to finish my degree, but also nearly ended my life. I had in fact taken all the medication I had in my cupboard at one point and if I hadn't vomited it back up, might indeed have not been at the farewell dinner.

Over the course of my Masters I had major mood swings and some depression. I think I had more extreme mainc phases though over that period. The political unrest in Zim didn't make it easy either and I had bouts of psychosis when my mind went into over drive due to my worrying about things back home. My doctor in Cape Town did suggest I might have depression but it cleared up and I didn't get help. Knowing my Dad had been manic depressive or bipolar meant I was aware I could possibly be too, but it terrified me that I was and knowing that my Dad had refused lithium as it he felt the side effects were unbearable made me reluctant to want to explore if I had it too and I was scared I might be put on lithium.

Academia was probably not the wisest career choice for me as its high stress levels and isolation were not a healthy combo for me. I am a bit of perfectionist and never felt what I wrote or thought was good enough or enough to make me graduate. I have always been a high achiever and I drove myself to keep getting good grades and feeling I owed it to my family to do well. I constantly felt inadequate though and out of my depth.

Finishing my Masters I returned to Zim. I had been trying to sort out getting work or a PhD in Cape Town but nothing came through and my study visa expired. Edinburgh had offered me a place to pursue a PhD looking at miombo woodlands in Mozambique but I lacked the funding to take up the position. Back home I kept trying to find the elusive money to pursue this but there was limited funding for African students and I was not successful with the scholarship applications I sent off.

Instead, what seemed like an amazing opportunity to study in Switzerland opened up and I seized the offer gratefully with both hands. In hindsight I bit off more than I could chew though as not only was the PhD requiring me to do most of my work in computer programming and code but also was going to require me to understand French. It was not a wasted experience as I made good contacts through it and experienced a new life in Europe, but when depression hit me again I went even closer to the brink of suicide and my complete nervous break down and disillusion took more than three years for me to recover from.

I also signed up to go to a country where I only knew one other person and although my church was supportive, before my break down I spent many lonely weekends and evenings slaving over an overwhelming thesis. I pushed myself extremely hard but no matter how much work I put in, I didn't seem to make progress and although I was often the last person to leave the lab at night (often taking the last train home) it didn't get me to where I had to be. I said yes too easily and went off on all sorts of tangents in my research questions.

Just before I finally cracked I took time out and started being more social, but the whole time I felt guilty that I wasn't working none stop and my supervisor started to put pressure on. I ultimately just couldn't cope and after not sleeping for several nights in a row I handed in my resignation and ended up in a mental hospital. Even being admitted to hospital though did not remove the stress and I prematurely tried to go back to work. Knowing I was on a scholarship for a joint research project I felt insurmountable pressure to live up to expectations and felt I had failed everyone. The university gave me five months leave to try pull myself back together but I just couldn't do it and it has taken a good three years.

Illustrating

Had the second part of the book illustrating course I signed up for yesterday in Glen Lorne with Jacqui Taylor and Vanessa Hounsell. I have really enjoyed it and am inspired to have a go. Dug out my water colour brushes and paint today and am going to get going. There are possibly going to be artist retreats led by Jacqui in the future up in Chimanimani. I am very keen to go on one.

Here are some notes I made on illustrating for those interested. Take a read.
To start off you need to carefully look at the text you are going to illustrate. You can then start making thumbnail sketches and doodles. Carry a note pad with you.

The three C's are
1. Content of the book
2. Context - is it now or the future? Where? Who? What is it relating to?
Reference your work and look up images.
3. Continuity - characters should be the same in each illustration and in proportion. You should know the character so you can embellish the story.

When illustrating you should identify who you are targeting and the amount of text that is appropriate to your audience and ratio of text to pictures. If for children (especially those who cannot read yet), it should be as visual as possible so the child can tell the story from the pictures and you can add things to entertain the adults reading the story.

You should keep theme colours and develop a story board with your sketches, noting how you mixed the particular colours with which paints. This is again important for continuity. The characters should have features that continue too and you should explore your characters in developing your story board. Do lots of sketches of your characters. Use photographs and sketches from life.

Be careful about composition and perspective and think about your view point and what to include. Think about the different planes and bear in mind what makes your foreground, middle ground and back ground. Keep it simple with these three.

Start your drawings in a free style with lots of sketching. Use this as the foundation. Then develop cameos. Go from general to particular.

When drawing adults, their features are higher up their faces, whereas children have eyes and noses lower down.

Make sure you have a focal point. Everything in illustrations respond to everything else and need to link with other pictures in a logical progression. Facial expressions of characters are everything!

Unrequited (for writing group)

You left a message saying you were madly in love with me and I blew it in my response.
I did not know if you were sincere, I did not know my innermost self.
What would I do if I were to go back, how would I now react?
Where would we be now? The past will never tell.

I was young,
I was naive,
I was unsure,
I was insecure.

If I were given the chance now, but time you have moved on.
We are separated by time and place, our lives apart by circumstance.
Yet still I wonder and can't help but think
what if?

Life is short, focus on what's important

Went to a funeral today for a girl only 5 years older than me who died of cancer, leaving a husband and baby girl. Although a tragedy, the service focused on the eternal and reminded the mourners that none of us can be guaranteed of a tomorrow. James 4:14 of "¹⁴ whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. " rang true.

The person leading spoke of how the CEO of Cocacola had given the picture of us juggling five balls in life: work, family, friends, spirituality and health. If we drop work it can bounce back, but it is as if the other four are made of glass and could shatter and be none redeemable if we drop them. Definitely something to think about.

Otherwise, have had another busy weekend. I helped waitress at the BirdLife Zimbabwe website launch on Friday evening before going on to a farewell for one of the US marines based here. At the website launch a video was aired on activities on Marlborough Vlei on World Wetlands Day. A friend and I still plan on making our own video on the plight of Harare's wetlands. The one lady I work with had been filmed speaking on World Wetlands Day but unfortunately for her, she hadn't realized her blouse was open, oops. Going on to the marines' base I watched as others played beer pong - a tradition at functions at the marines'.

Saturday morning I went to the first session of the book illustrating course with Jacqui Taylor and Vanessa Hounsell. I loved it and it has inspired me to really get going. We were shown a bit of how to use our own drawings with photoshop which opens up so many options for multimedia. I am working on something for next week and will be digging out my water colours and sketches. (For those interested I'll post my notes from yesterday).

My friend Marian was worried we might have had trouble getting to the course as it was Mugabe's Daughter Bona's wedding. We did see militia and vehicles of cavalcade police along the way but luckily no roads were closed and we could proceed to Glen Lorne unhindered.

Finished yesterday with tea at a friend's and then dinner to discuss a presentation I'm to give on wetlands this coming week. I was shown a new range of herbal teas with indigenous Zimbabwean plants such as resurrection plant among others. They were really good and I am hooked.