How to become a SUCCESSFUL academic: a guide 1/n

The most interesting people defy categorization

Live an interesting enough life, and you’ll never be easy to describe

I'm married to an Australian. I returned to Australia from the UK in October.

This is my experience of what happened to me when I arrived in the country during COVID.

I think it will help people understand how criminally bad our government's response has been. (a thread).

On arrival, passengers were escorted from the plane by armed police.

We were allocated a government-mandated hotel, and told to wait in a holding area.

Once processed we were led to a coach. Members of the Australian army lined the route to make sure no one tried to escape.

Once at the hotel we were taken off the coach one by one

An Australian police officer escorted me to my room, telling me in no uncertain terms that if I left it in any unauthorised circumstances for the next two weeks, I would be spending up to two years in an Australian prison.

During the next two weeks I was fed three times a day in polystyrene and with plastic cutlery. Below are some examples of the food. It was fine, but there was no control or choice.

After about eight days I was tested for COVID.

This was mandatory, and the first time I’d seen another human since the quarantine started.

Even though I was negative, I was told I could leave only once my 14 days of isolation were over.

A frequent question I get when talking with senior designers: Will my growth as a designer stall if I start managing?

There is often a second question underneath that, which is:
Will I no longer be respected as a design leader if I can't keep up as a designer?

Thread below👇

My short answer to "Will my growth as a designer stall if I manage?" is yes, absolutely, if "designer" is someone who produces design work.

Managing a 5-8 ppl team does not leave you time to design. When you don't practice a craft, you should not expect to get better at it.

However... (and this is a BIG however)...

What you *can* continue to grow (as both a design manager and a designer) is the following:

1) Your design eye
2) Your design voice

A strong design eye means that others trust you to know what is good.

It means your taste is well-honed through extensive study of an area.

It means your sense for usability, simplicity and aesthetics is well-developed even at subtle or fine granularities.

Very early in my design career, my manager asked me to review some design portfolios. I sat there, petrified, clicking through dozens of links. I could tell which ones were really bad, but many of the portfolios seemed good! I could not really distinguish between them on quality!

Y’all... please check on your kids, they might not be okay.

My husband and I had no clue that a major crisis was coming for our 14 year old. She was so good at faking “okay” that we were totally blindsided.

I’m apprehensive about sharing all of this, but other parents

1/15

might need to see this and talk to their kids.

To make a long story as short as possible:

On Jan 13th, I came home from work to find my 14 yr old unconscious in a pile of vomit. Thought maybe it was the flu or something at first.

I got her into a bath to clean up and

2/15

she was incoherent, slurring her speech, and not really in control of her body. I put it together and realized she was drunk.

She had never done anything like that. Ever. She then started babbling about being so lonely and wanting to go to sleep and not wake up.

3/15

My heart and stomach dropped.

We took her to the ER for alcohol poisoning and told the triage nurse what she’d been drunkenly mumbling about.

It took almost 24 hours to get her BAL back to normal, then she was transferred to a psychiatric hospital.

4/15

They kept her for 6 days, and we weren’t allowed to see her. Just one 10 minute phone call per day.

They started her on two medications for depression, anxiety, and sleep. She seems to be feeling a bit better since coming home, and now knows that she needs to talk

5/15