Where Have I Been?!

Gabrielle Birchak/ June 8, 2023/ Uncategorized

So, I have a big announcement!

It has been quite a while since I popped up on Math! Sci­ence! His­to­ry!! Sooooo, what have I been up to? My book on Hypa­tia is done! It will be pub­lished at the end of June!

In oth­er news, in case you haven’t been fol­low­ing me on Insta­gram, here is the low-down: I put my pod­cast, my blog, my teach­ing, and my tutor­ing on hold. The mon­ey I was earn­ing was insuf­fi­cient to main­tain a sus­tain­able lifestyle in Los Ange­les and put my kids through col­lege. As a result, I became my own career coach and assessed every sin­gle one of my skill sets.

As some of you know, I am also an actress and a come­di­an. In addi­tion to study­ing math, physics, and jour­nal­ism, I also worked on stage as an actress, vocal­ist and come­di­an. I have prob­a­bly put as much effort into study­ing act­ing and writ­ing com­e­dy as I did in col­lege, study­ing math, physics, and jour­nal­ism. It’s true!

The thing is, I knew I could make a bit more mon­ey as an actress, even doing non-union work. For me, this was a hard pill to swal­low because I always con­sid­ered acad­e­mia to be my high­est lev­el of work. And every time I would leave acad­e­mia, I felt like I was set­tling for less. Of course, my advi­sors would often imply the same thing. But I was so over­whelmed with grad school that I just want­ed to free myself from the expec­ta­tions of who I thought I should be. Then it occurred to me that though I am proud of my degrees and aca­d­e­m­ic acco­lades, I don’t need a piece of paper mount­ed on my wall to empow­er me with a sense of self-worth. I real­ized that the only way I could find my self-con­fi­dence and per­son­al val­ue was by just being myself and appre­ci­at­ing who I am, right where I am, at each moment.

In releas­ing my expec­ta­tions, I took on a trust­ed skillset that I knew could help pay the bills. And, so, I embraced my age and got back into the game, nev­er expect­ing that I would find a new­found love for the enter­tain­ment indus­try. And while work­ing as an actress, I actu­al­ly found a work-life bal­ance that allowed me to fin­ish my book on Hypatia!

It was awe­some because I was able to empow­er my ambidex­trous brain. I spent a por­tion of my day act­ing on set only to come home and then focus on the research of Hypa­tia, includ­ing her math­e­mat­ics, her phi­los­o­phy, and the over­all sto­ry of this remark­able woman.

So, stay tuned here at Math! Sci­ence! His­to­ry!, where I will post links and infor­ma­tion on where you can buy my book. And in the mean­time, I will post por­tions of a cou­ple of chap­ters with­in my pod­cast. And yes, the pod­cast is com­ing back! How­ev­er, it will have to be at a dif­fer­ent pace while I focus on my new (old) job.

I will keep you all updat­ed on Hypa­ti­a’s release and will post links and but­tons and stuff!

Gabrielle