The one and only

I have read in the news that Miss Ireland is black. I think it's wonderful to celebrate diversity. However, after a long day of doing paperwork and of achieving nothing, I am so very tired of being "the one and only" -- that I find difficult to appreciate that I stand out. If I had a good sense of direction things would be better. But I don't, and tomorrow morning I still have to go all the way accross Barcelona to submit an electronic signature that our secretary has printed off. The bureaucrats here don´t have the concept of electronic, and I don't mean our secretaries. They are wonderful. They are the backbone of every institute and the ICC is no exception. But here I go again tomorrow with an unvaccinated one year old to submit an electronic signature on a piece of paper, ie., a paper that should have been sent as an email.

While I do this I am being helpfully reminded by my colleagues here that everyone goes through this. It takes about a month they say. A month of going back and forth and achieving nothing. Will this mean it will take three months for me since I have three children or four if I count myself? why can't this be automated? why are we risking sanity and lives while doing things like it's the 18 century? Because the society likes to sabotage those who work, and to particulaly sabotage those who stand out. Women should be able to do it all. The temporary positions and the lack of rights are just part of the package. Oh, and each child needs a different appointment and a different set of papers. My one year old can't get his special NIE number in the same time as me even though he is present, and getting an appointement takes at least a week. Why do they do this in person? Why? because they like to torture people, and people submit to this type of torture, and nobody screeams at them loud enough to get them to change things.

When I decided to have my first child, it was late 2009. This was more than ten years ago. I remember being four or five months pregnant with Edward (my pregnancy was evident, it must have been 2010), and attending a meeting by a panel of our faculty on how to succeed as a scientist. I was told I had no chance -- that no woman they have ever met who has chosen to have a child before getting a tenure-track position has suceeded. Where they right? They just said what they thought. And perhaps they were correct! Here I am more than 10 years later dragging a child with me and leaving two other behind for a position similar to what I had back then. That I've started dragging them one at a time is due to my mother who looks after the other two at the age of 74 with some unkown heart issue. I do know some talented women who have had children before having tenure. They had very supportive partners who made plenty of sacrificies in their place. However, by now, most colleagues from my year either made it to the permanent realm or quit.

In 2010, I remember being told I was the first woman in the building to have a child. I heard the same comment today from our secretary. I am the first woman with a child the university has ever done paperwork for, and so they did not know how to proceed. I asked if they just meant the physics department and not the whole university, and it seems the university lacks the expertise, but maybe I misheard. However, I do need a "Miss one and only" crown.

I sometimes wonder if I know when it's time to quit. Perhaps I don't and I keep persevering in lost causes with few other survivors. No survivors are to be reported locally as of today.