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some notes on my academic status (?) and reflections regarding its relationship with compudanzas.
I'm currently an academic researcher: a PhD student and predoctoral researcher in a Computer Science and Technology program. In there, my work can be classified under the terms of Human-computer interaction (HCI), interaction design, embodied/soma design, and wearable electronics.
My PhD project was handed down to me, as it seems to be the custom around here. In principle it's expected I develop it and not pivot to something entirely different, especially because my income and immigration status depend on it. That might be read as dire, but so far it's been alright. I have learned a lot and I have enjoyed the experience. I feel I've grown as a person by encountering and overcoming situations I'd have thought were above me.
Although there are many possible intersections between the PhD project and compudanzas, I decided to maintain them at a relatively safe distance. It seemed I didn't want to sacrifice the autonomy that I felt regarding compudanzas. Additionally, I wanted to advance my PhD project as it is, for practical reasons and also allowing myself some naïveté. This has implied I've spent a considerable amount of energy trying to keep the projects apart, mostly in the form of "not doing a lot with compudanzas". I realize that to some extent I wanted to keep compudanzas as something existing by itself, in the dualist world of the Ideas (?). Because of the recent research I've been doing, I can see the paradox now: I wanted to keep compudanzas "disembodied"!
After a year-long (or more) struggle I can see that it makes more sense (for everyone, myself very included), to not deny my current context, and to actually embrace it and share it. There are many ways that my PhD research can inform compudanzas but I blocked them before because I considered the projects as "something different".
I'm curious to see what happens when I let myself flow with acceptance. So far, starting the section on thoughts was an effect of this realization.