Where there's Muck, there's Brass

Hi I'm Phil, a PhD student at Durham University, although you'll probably have worked that out already if you're half as nosey as me. I'm in my fourth year, squeaky bum time, which goes some way towards explaining why it has taken me so long to get round to writing this blog. At least that's my excuse. In my defence I have been quite busy recently juggling the demands of a full-time research degree and the not entirely dissimilar demands of playing in and/or conducting three separate brass bands. Both are occupations that become all-consuming, preying on your every waking thought, lurking in the dark recesses of your mind waiting to pounce at the most inopportune moment. They are also, ultimately, things that we choose to do for fun.

You see, all the real world talk that's been flying around got me thinking about my own relationship with the world outside the rarefied atmosphere of the research laboratory. I consider myself to be relatively fortunate, possibly even slightly unusual, to have a hobby that allows me to sit down twice a week (in fact every day for the last fortnight) with an assortment of teachers, councillors, policemen, retirees, mechanics, civil servants, lawyers, coal miners, nurses, pharmacists, architects, bus drivers, cricketers, town planners and other bona fide tax-paying members of the big wide non-academic world. This to me is the main difference between the "real" world inhabited by our parents and the PhD "experience" we have subjected ourselves to. Within the university we are largely self-contained both socially and intellectually, preserved in a bubble of simillarity (of age, knowledge etc.) that distorts our view of what is average, normal and (at times, let's be honest) important. With the bands, however, I am surrounded by diversity- of backgrounds, interests and opinions- and individuality- the array of life stories and tall tales is at times bewildering- on a far greater scale. In this sense my two alter-egos are entirely complimentary. The stressed fourth year gets to challenge himself intellectually amongst his peers, the slightly overweight tuba player is afforded a change of scenery and the chance to unwind, and in doing so both are successfully avoiding growing up.

In its own way brass banding has taught me just as much about life as my time at university has about Chemistry, and I think that the value of such "real world" experiences are all too often forgotten amidst the myopic charge toward intellectual progress.

This leads to the obvious question- what on Earth am I talking about? I suppose I chose to write about this for two reasons. The first is to share my belief in the value of the non-academic world to the research student. The second is to convince myself that a trip to Pontin's this weekend is a good idea.

Happy researching,

Phil.

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