Dries @dries@social.roeckoe.be

In hindsight, I totally understand the local people's reaction. Everyone is, probably, concerned about getting their children to school on time. Yet, I have the choice to take the motorbike and drive my daughter to school. By doing so, I only confirmed white privilege ... which I'm really regretting now. It feels like reality just slapped me in the face with a concrete brick.

I once again made a fool of myself, as I probably should just have left my daughter waiting for the bus with the other children.
Obviously the bus arrived 5 minutes after we left with the motorbike.

It really touched me that they called me out like that, I even proposed to do a few runs back and forth with the motorbike to take more children to school ... yet the damage was already done.

A few weeks remain of our stay in Senegal. Unexpectedly I was once again confronted with white privilege this morning.
Every morning my daughter takes the bus to school, today the bus was late ... so late that school had already started. I decided to walk home and take her to school using the motorbike. When picking her up at the bus stop, I got called out for not respecting solidarity.

For context : we're living in Senegal with our family for a couple of months. At the moment "the new" is starting to wear off and it's not always easy ... learning as we go.

After almost 3 months taking my children to school every day and being treated as a museum exhibit while doing so, today it was just too much.
I really couldn't cope anymore with being called out with the same questions, every, single day. Obviously I made an utter fool of myself while getting caught up in the moment ... and probably just made it worse now.
Is this what they call reverse racism?

The PhD aftermath is starting to sink in. It feels liberating and I'm ready to embrace uncertainty.
During the next few months I'm exploring future steps and directions, let's see what's on the horizon.

I've been a bit absent, lured into the birdsite too much the past months. Nevertheless, looking forward to defend my PhD on October 21st! https://www.kuleuven.be/doctoraatsverdediging/fiches/3H15/3H150669.htm

Meanwhile, the phd manuscript is submitted. It still feels odd that the thing it out of the door, but not out of the mind (yet).

9 days before I'm supposed to be submitting my phd manuscript and I'm on the verge of pulling all the plugs.

Over the past week I've been sharing some parts of my phd thesis with peers. Getting some strong comments regarding my writing style, English grammar and vocabulary. So strange that no-one told me this before, I'd really like to figure out how I can improve my writing - yet suggesting what I could do to write better is something people have difficulties with.

Meandering towards the end.

As I'm editing through my thesis, I sometimes think "ow, did I really write this? cool!" to "wtf is this, this section needs to be changed entirely!"

When your PhD commission starts to comment that subtitles could be changed to reflect the content better ... I tend to conclude the text is ready to be submitted.

It was quite a mental leap for me to pick up on the pre-covid ritual of making packed lunches. In all honesty, I don't want "it" to start weaning off.

Sounds that remind me of my childhood to wind down today. I still have the vinyl single my mum used to play.
https://youtu.be/OrbuDWit1Co