It has been such a long time between blog posts for me and I feel really down about it. But there is a good reason and I am being gentle about letting myself down – thinking that I will get back on track soon. I started at the Melbourne Dental School in January 2018 and I pretty much worked non-stop for all three year levels for three years – making sure dental hygiene and perio were at the level they needed to be. When I reflect back – it was like completing three degrees all at once. And then there was 2020… the Covid year. A year where I thrived, where I achieved success and where I worked harder than I ever have before. Something had to give… This year with a slight restructure in BOH 1 and BOH 3 and with Bree taking over OHP2, for the very first time in 3 years I didn’t have to teach. I finally had the chance to stop and I literally physically and mentally shut down. For most of April I was unable to drag myself out of a beanbag… I barely kept up with emails and I let so many things go. It was awful…
At the same time, I really wanted to apply for promotion and confirmation. Some of you will know that I was rejected for confirmation the first time I applied for lots of reasons – mostly out of my control. It was devastating. And many of you helped me with my award applications last year… so I want to continue that momentum and drive myself forward to try and succeed this year. As part of the process I looked back through my calendar to see whether I was missing anything. This is January 2018. I had been at the School for 1 week… this is all new teaching, I had to prepare the day it was due. I committed to being in everything clinic and I was writing up my PhD. Behind work I had a 1 year old and a 3 year old and a husband who thankfully could run the house.
This is totally unsustainable. But if you look through my calendar it was like this for three years, until April this year. No wonder I broke down… no wonder it has taken me four weeks to recover.
On Friday I attended the funeral for the mother of a third year student. It was an emotional, but loving funeral and it generated a lot of emotions for me – about my own life and the fragility of it, not wanting to waste a second. And it also made me feel such a sense of community – several students and teachers also attended with me. And I felt a real bond between us all. This is one of the best things about our course – that we are a community, that we can lean on each other and support each other.
This morning I listened to a podcast about What Gives Your Meaning Life. This is from the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast and is usually pitched at the Lecturer level rather than the student level and given the path I have been on over the past month it truly resonated with me. They discuss palliative care and end of life wishes, but it is more about making sure we are open and honest and talking about these things.
So I got to thinking – What Gives My Life Meaning, if it were my funeral what would people remember most and would there be the love that I felt surrounded by on Friday. My family feeds me of course, I was very lucky to have children – it wasn’t expected that I would. But my work also feeds me – and that means all of you give me meaning. I feel proud to be an educator and to have my dream job here at Melbourne. So whilst I started to shutdown and couldn’t see the light for a few weeks my mojo is coming back and I cannot wait to get back into teaching again – maybe I am just a sucker for performing.
I also wanted to write this blog because I recognise that you are all busy, that you all have lives outside of here that feed you and that you need to keep perspective. Make sure you recognise the signs of burnout and try to intervene and get help before you reach the burnout zone – because it is not a great place to be. We are here for you if you need and you are part of a large University community who can support you.
These blogs really make me so happy – to see our student community sharing and contributing and helping each other along makes me so proud so keep contributing, feel safe to share what you want and hopefully you will feel as supported as I do when I read through them. The 2021 BOH 2 students are going to start writing theirs soon and I cannot wait to follow their stories and see how they grow through this process of reflection.
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