weighed down by family ties

These last few weeks have been even more busy than usual for me. My experimental load is increasing all the time, especially since I'm now moving into my last few months in the lab. I don't imagine that I'll be able to do all the loose ends up in time, but at the very least I'm trying to identify which are the structural threads of my project and finish the framework for a model. Add to that presentations that need writing, and experiments that have to jump the priority list queue for impending papers. Add to that lots of lion-dancing again, moving house, and various weddings and celebrations that need to be slotted into my schedule.

So I'm very thankful that my friends and family have been so understanding about the way I've been neglecting them lately. It's been several weeks since I've rung my parents in Hong Kong. Every two weeks my poor mother gets three lines of e-mail telling her that her only daughter is too busy to ring her and that she'll try and do it NEXT weekend instead. Having said that, my parents were supposed to come back to the UK at the end of July. They're now contemplating a holiday to Korea and so may not be back til the end of August. Suddenly I've become our family's 'official representative', as my brother puts it, at various family weddings this summer.

But when you're working to deadlines and have a long list of things to do, it's a massive relief not to have to worry about other people as well. In that respect, I feel very very lucky. Last weekend, one of my friends came very close to breaking down. She's also a final-year PhD student with similar deadlines to mine to meet, so I know how stressful the workload is. But in addition, at the moment her mother and family are going through a rough time and she's holding her mother together both financially and emotionally. She and I both want to continue in academia, but whereas I have the freedom to look for a research job in the country of my choice, she will be unable to do that. She can't afford the uncertainty of being on a three-year contract with no guarantee of a job after that, especially with the low salaries that post-doctoral researchers get. But whilst she's holding her mother together, who's holding HER together?

Over the last few years, several of my friends have essentially had to give up their freedom and independence either to look after their families or in deference to family pressure, or both. It makes me very sad to see them have to put their dreams and hopes on hold, maybe giving them up completely. Perhaps that's why I've become increasingly impatient and less sympathetic with friends who have drifted along for a long time, with no apparent pressing commitments. Although I understand how easy it is to lose direction, I find it hard to offer as much support and sympathy as they seem to ask of me.

Oddly, or so it seems, the friends who are most supportive and considerate to me are those who have the most on their plate. Or maybe it just feels that way. But I'm very thankful that I don't have to feel weighed down by my responsibilities anymore, as they've been lifted off me one by one over the past year. In fact, I feel obliged to spread my wings and aim as high as I can, because there's nothing stopping me from trying. Maybe that is also a burden, but at the moment it's a very light pack to carry.