Louise

My mum and dad are both working class, my dad works in a factory and my mum was a housewife till about five years ago when she accidentally came upon a job. I have never felt limited by my background, I think it has made me the person I am, since I appreciate what I have to a greater extent than some people around me. I feel like I have experienced enough things to allow me to make a choice about what I want to do. I have had my times of working in Burger King and packing meat at the meat factory, now it’s my time of doing something worthwhile.

Like most people, when I am on my own for extended periods of time, I feel lonely. I especially feel lonely when I am working late in the lab and it seems no one else is working. It often feels like I am doing twice as much work as everyone else just to stay afloat. I do like being on my own occasionally since it gives me time to reflect.

I think that as I have got older, and I am able to try out new things, my tastes have changed. I no longer rely on my mum’s repertoire of recipes, and I’m able to try new foods out! In a city of culture like Oxford, one gets the chance to experience concerts and museums, back five years ago, I would never have gone to a classical concert, but now I love going, mainly because I wish I could play like that!

As a child, I thought that the dad of the family had to go to work, and the mum had to stay at home and look after the children all day. As I have got older and experienced women in roles other than motherhood (like lecturers etc.), I have come to appreciate that I could do something like that too. At the moment I am working in a very male-dominated field, and if I stay in this field then I think it will always be male dominated because of the physics and maths. Being a woman, in this field you do get treated differently by men. Sometimes they respect you for being in such as position and others lack respect, assuming that you have used your femininity to get where you are. I guess this must be true of some women but not me!

As a Christian, I have never really been motivated by power or money in how I live my life. I have always tried to gain respect which is why I think I always tried hard (and still do) in whatever I do. I always felt that I have to prove to other people (and myself) that I can do what they do. I guess this comes from being a woman, and also coming from a working-class background. I would like to have a highly paid job, but at the moment the money I have is sufficient.

I would not like to lead in the public eye, but I would like people to view me as being able to lead. I would like to be able to run my own research group at some point, and when it comes to meetings etc. I always prefer someone to go first, as I feel that they are going to be much better than me. At church I tend to do a lot of things behind the scenes, such as making sure that everything is organised, rather than standing up in front of people talking. Recently I have had the chance at playing boss in our lab whilst my supervisor is away on maternity leave. I have been the day-to-day manager of the research group, and have had to deal with all the things I would have to deal with if I was in charge for real. This has actually made me realise how hard it is heading a group, but you have to work hard to achieve what you want.

In some respects, as I have got older, my fears have diminished; my fears especially, about not being good enough, for example. As a school pupil, I was never the star pupil, I had to work extra hard to get that B+! Then I got through my GCSEs and the same fears cropped up during my A-Levels and then again during my degree. I guess achieving something that I know no one has done, such as getting an Oxbridge D.Phil. really has put those fears of not being good enough to rest. However, I also face other fears, such as whenever I come to the end of something, for example, my degree, or my PhD, I do often face fears about what am I going to do next, then things fall into place and I know everything is going to be alright for the next three years. Of course I know that I cannot go on for the rest of my life feeling like that, but I believe, as a Christian, that God will provide everything that we need, and he has a specific plan for each and every one of us.

I like to learn. That is part of the reason why I am continuing to stay in academic research. The whole aim of doing research is to learn and discover new things. I hate learning about maths and physics, though, part of my job relies quite heavily on physics and maths and at times I do find it difficult, but I’ll get there in the end!

I feel that I don’t really have enemies, I try to be nice to everyone I meet and encounter. Of course there are people I don’t like, but as it says in the Bible we must love one another, and I feel that my allies are those that have done through similar things to what I have, or people that understand exactly what I am going through.

At work I feel like I do too much for other people and am often taken advantage of. In other situations such as at home, or at church, I am not taken advantage of so much, but often I feel like I am doing more for other people than what they would do for me.

I feel at home in company where I can be myself. I hate pretending to be someone I’m not, and this often occurs at scientific conferences or meetings, where I have to pretend I am full of confidence and bold, when in reality I am quaking in my boots! It is like this too, when meeting new people.

As part of my research career, I have had the opportunity to go travelling to some countries; I have been to Hawaii, Canada, Japan and various European countries. I have not been to anywhere in the developing world; I would like to have that opportunity. Of the countries I have been to, I have found that being able to see and experience other cultures is amazing. It makes you appreciate what you have in your own country where you are used to certain things. I guess Japan taught me about some of these things.

My spending habits are terrible. I will not buy something when I see something I like. This characteristic stems from my childhood where we never had what we wanted as children; as a young student I worked in the summers in a meat factory or Burger King to get as much cash as I could. I always look around to get the cheapest deal I can for something which often annoys my friends and certain members of my family. Even now, when I am earning a salary (albeit not a huge salary), I am still the same. People tell me that if I see something that I like then I should buy it! I’m sorry but I actually get a thrill knowing that I can buy a loaf of bread at a rock bottom price if I wait until the end of the day to go shopping!

I sometimes find it difficult to make friends. Sometimes it takes me a while to be able to trust someone, and I often feel like people judge me too much before they really know me. I would like to have more friends; I have a lot of acquaintances that I see frequently, but I can’t talk about my problems to them. Although if I had more friends, it would mean that I would have less time to spend with my close friends that I have already. My friends have to understand who I am and what I am. They have to be able to support me when I am in times of crisis, and to be fair, my friends do just that. If I want to talk then, there is someone there to talk to.

I don’t feel as if I have wasted any time in my life as a whole. I go through some days thinking, ‘Oh I wish I had not spent so long doing something,’ like most people. But that time is not wasted; whatever you spend the time doing, you always achieve something, even if you have spent 30 minutes surfing the web when you should have been writing a report!

The work that I have chosen to do now comes from my early desire to ‘help people’. I always wanted to be a doctor and unfortunately my school grades were not quite good enough. The next best thing was to do something medically orientated such as Medical Biology and the plan was to do medicine afterwards, only I did some work in research labs as part of my degree. It became clear that I could also make a difference to someone’s life by doing medical research. Now I have made a choice to stay in the academic environment to continue to carry out medical research. As a side issue, at some point I would like to pass on my knowledge to others by teaching, so I am trying to get involved in teaching. I am already involved in the day-to-day supervision of D.Phil. students in the lab, but that’s not enough! At the moment I am happy chasing a hypothesis in the lab, and everything is as I hoped it would be, although currently I have far more responsibilities than what I had ever hoped for, since my supervisor is away on maternity leave, leaving me to fill her shoes! I may get disillusioned by the academic world at some point; people I know have felt let down by their colleagues and have left academia to pursue research in an industrial setting where the money is better. I know people that have left science altogether and have become teachers, so it is not too late for me to change my mind in the work that I do.

At some point in my life I would like to settle down with a man, get married, buy a house and have children. At the moment, I can’t foresee any of those things happening, but I am still young, so I guess there is still time for these things to come along! The man I would like to marry will have to understand exactly who and what I am, where I have come from, and what my life is like. He would have to have Christian beliefs, a good sense of humour, and an intelligent enquiring mind. He could also be tall dark and handsome, but I think that might be too much to ask on top of everything else!

February 2005
* Louise is not her real name.