PANIC

I just received some positive, albeit, conflicting feedback on my article submission for the Higher Education Research and Development Journal. 2 out for the 3 reviewers where pleased with my article, although they suggested some thoughtful reconsiderations of the argument and overall focus of the article. Of course this is all great - but the timing sucks. They want a resubmission ASAP and I can't do that! It's Christmas for heaven sakes and my life is somewhere in-between three countries and two continents at the moment. Give me a break!

I need at least 3 weeks to attempt any of the suggestions made. So I'm rather ambivalent to put it mildly and underlying that I'm completely panicked, my heart is racing and I wonder if I can actually pull the whole thing off. But the prospect of getting published - well that is of course very exciting, but with it comes the hard work, anguish and of course self doubt (as usual, my 'lingering friend'). I need at least three weeks to make the publication a reality. I also need another set of eyes to provide a fresh perspective and interpretation of the comments. Lets hope the editor has a generous view of what a reasonable time frame is. Focus on the positive - I need to keep reminding myself - focus on the positive and this is a positive event!

how warm does it need to be for your brain to function?

The temperature here has plummeted. I thought I could handle -7 - 8, but as the temperature has slipped further down the thermometer it's become more difficult for me to even contemplate sticking my head out the window for some fresh air. I was out today - some Christmas shopping - but with the thermometer at -15, I've decided - 'I'm not going out any more' , that's where my bravery ends.

I've been trying to keep my brain functioning but this has become increasingly challenging, not least because of the decreasing temperatures. Today I wanted to download some very interesting South African academic literacies materials and just hit a brick wall. Because I'm not accessing the databases from my OU networked computer or using Internet Explorer this seemingly simple task took me hours. I cant explain it! I gave up mid way through the whole process, being tempted by the prospect of warming my cold feet and watching some incomprehensible Swedish TV. But I need to get all these readings before I head for SA when I wont have unlimited broadband. I'm also rather excited by having 'discovered' these articles, with their potential to open up a wealth of theorisation around my core theoretical area and being located specifically within the SA context. This will go a long way in helping to tip the balance away from my current reliance on the UK literature.

a box of maltesers

It's been a while since I sat down to write my blog. Its been a tough two weeks. I've moved out my home of just over two years in Milton Keynes on Saturday. The run up to that final event was really exhausting. I was up and down the stairs more than 50 times in any given day and filled with frustration as I tried to organise my life into three neat 'stuff'categories - one for storage, one for Sweden and one for my trip back to SA. So instead of moving all my stuff from one location to the next, as one would commonly do when you move house, I had to organise them into three separate bundles. It was equally frustrating to realise just how much 'stuff' I had accumulated and how I hate to let things go, even the most insignificant things. And having the space to store these insignificant stuff , means you do: The line between storage and hoarding is a fine one indeed.

So I was not a happy camper by the time Saturday rolled along and in the end I just put everything into large bags and took them with me, to a friend's large spare room, for sorting through at a later stage! I just needed a break from figuring out what needed to go into what pile of stuff. Of course I did all of this in my head as soon as put my head on the pillow at 11:30pm on Saturday night - so much for leaving it until later.

My fieldwork schedule all bright and purposeful!

Needless to say I didn't do much academic work for most of last week. I just about managed to organise my fieldwork schedule into a more aesthetically pleasing and digitally constructed artefact and then talk about it with my supervisors at our last supervision meeting on Thursday.

I also managed to find some interesting and hopefully useful articles about the disciplinary environments I will be researching. I'm taking Jan Blommaert and Dong Jie's advice about preparations for fieldwork seriously; by trying to find out as much about the contextual realities of my research site as possible.






I've also started reading about the university of technology sector in SA - a received a special report written by a well respected SA academic analysing  teaching and learning approaches at these institutions. What is particularly interesting for me is the academic's use of Bhaskar's critical realism ontology and Archer's social realist methodology to structure her analysis. While I don't understand this particular philosophical tradition in sociology, I'm interested in how it differs from my particular view point and what it can possibly add and why I haven't considered using it to frame my own research.


Other than that, I'm back in Uppsala, currently watching the snow fall outside, but suitably snug inside. I've realised that in my rush to get my life organised I left all my discipline related readings on my external hard drive in Milton Keynes. So I wont be doing that in the run up to Christmas as planned. I do however have a paper to write for a French journal based on my conference presentation at Lille in September - at least I have all the material on my laptop to do that. I've also polished off a entire box of Maltesers in the past couple of days, in between watching the snow fall and drinking tea that is!

Xmas star in Uppsala

More Xmas lights in the window

things to do people

I've been down with a nasty chest cold that has forced me to rearrange my plans. I'm not very happy about this, but hell; how much control do we have over germs once that are inside us? And if you have a cold or flu all you can do is wait patiently by the sidelines until your body can sort out the germs causing the mayhem. Luckily the temperature has been steadily rising so the snow has melted, making travel easier, and just lightening the mood.

It seems I have so many things to do and I'm almost frantic about getting the number of to-do items on my list reduced - unfortunately because of the cold I've been doing all of this in my mind, rather than physically getting it done. So no change to the length of the list. Its my last Sunday at No 21 and I wonder if I will miss it. Probably I will, especially the trees outside my window. But new things await me, and it is time to move on hopefully I will be better prepared to deal with all the change I will encounter as this new part of my journey starts, hopefully I will have learnt from my past experiences.

and then it snowed

Britain is in the middle of a severe cold snap. For the past week we've experienced temperatures milling around 0, but mostly below. Really weird for this time of year and also because it has lasted for such a long time i.e. more than a week. Its also started snowing- like really snowing, again most of the country has been severely affected by this, however MK had been sheltered from the worse of it more or less. But this morning I woke up to see falling snow outside my window. Lovely, beautifully light fluffy stuff that came consistently down until about 10am when it just stopped.  I probably had about 3-4cm of it on my car. By that time I had also received e-mails from practically everyone excepted to come to the Ac lit meeting @12:30pm saying that the snow was keeping them from getting to the OU. So all my preparation for the session came to nought. Who cares that I crafted a beautiful diagram to simplify, but also accurately explain the pedagogic device, or that I had re-read various articles on Bernstein's various theoretical constructs and that I fought off this rather insidious but malformed throat/chest 'thing' to keep my eye on the prize, when I probably could have been resting my whole bed in a warm bed. Not to mention that I bought some lunchtime treats to share with my colleagues, by way of a little goodbye before my 6 month fieldwork trip.

What can I say, I can't control the weather or people's responses to it. What I did do was drive my car (against all the good advice I got) to the OU, loaded with files that I'm transferring from my study to their new home while I'm in SA, and eat the special gluten free cake I bought while filling up on social vitamins I need to keep me sane. I just sat in one spot for 2 - 2 and a half glorious hours, drinking tea, eating sausage rolls and cake, talking about life after the PhD, supervisor whims and fancies, Bernstein's theories of curriculum and knowledge production, the weather troubles in Britain and other less interesting stuff. It was a good reminder  that I actually have developed a good, solid and interesting social network at the OU. I have some good friends here too.

oh for an error free day

Just read through my previous blog posted about 1-2 hours ago and found a typo...of course I screamed inside. I never seem to spot them all, no matter how diligently I trawl through the posts I write - its such a freaking annoying thing about me. It makes writing, anything, take 1 hour instead of 20 minutes, as I check, double check and then still get it wrong. I need an in-built but independent editor living in another side of my brain, who is kind and gentle and picks up all the grammatical and writing mistakes I make. More cloud cuckoo land thinking from me today - I blame it on the cold weather!

Monday's down - Thursday on its way

My presentation went well, even by my own standards - and I think I'm my own worse critic. It was an odd forum - people presenting on really different topics all seemingly pulled together by the term 'multimodal'  represented somewhere in their title or abstract. My presentation was probably mostly aligned to Stephen's as we were both grappling with analytical frameworks and how to accommodate for the visual and multimodal in our data. But whereas his was more focused on the actually data, mine was a conceptual exploration of how important the epistemological stance underpinning your theoretical, methodological and analytical frameworks is. An important point I raised was how difficult it actually is put into practice what you say conceptually - so while I say I'm doing ethnographic research, am I really taking on board what that means in relation to my data?

As I said it was an odd forum - usually its a space for students to present their work-in-progress but this time around an academic was asked to present. Most academics who come to these presentation are the supervisors of the students presenting, so it mostly feels like a safe, try-out space to present your work. With the academic presenter presence, it changed the dynamic as more academics were present who don't really have a direct connection to your work, so the stakes are increased. I was left wondering, especially after my supervision last week - 'Where is the safe space to express your understanding, your thinking, where you are allowed to not get it right without fear of being overtly judged, but rather guided gently down a more appropriate path?' Or I'm I just living in cloud cuckoo land, expecting too much and not accepting my responsibility as a PhD student?

I'm still battling the 'practice' of academic presentations, but realised more than ever yesterday that to be an academic today means communicating your work, in a particular way, in both the written and the spoken - and with predominance of new digital technologies - all of this needs to be executed with the savy use of the right technological resources.

Thursday brings new challenges in the form of the Ac lits forum where I am leading the discussion on the use of Bernstein in my research and in academic literacies research in general. The setting is more intimate, and maybe its less performance based and so in 'theory' we can ask stupid questions - well that's the theory anyway. But I guess I will get more challenging questions and really have to know my curriculum from my codes in Bernstein speak!. So I'm putting my head down over the next couple of days, which isn't too bad a prospect taking into the account that the ground outside is covered in fluffy white stuff and I seem to be developing a bit of a chesty 'something'.

fieldwork is coming

I cant seem to get over this unsettled feeling following my supervision on Monday. Its just something about the process that disrupts me. But I'm also worried, as I am sure countless PhD students are, about how I don't seem to be able to connect all the dots from one moment to the next. I don't have this continuous, coherent narrative in my head about my research, about this field of study I'm suppose to becoming an expert in. It worries me that I can't come up with good, solid arguments supported by my understanding. Maybe I'm not moving forward with this PhD - I recall a time when I could articulate significant insights about what I knew - maybe this was around 2006. Seems I've been going backwards since then.

On a more positive and encouraging note - fieldwork is coming - yes, just like Christmas, and I've plotted out my schedule and spoke to my contact at the research site, and they are eagerly awaiting my arrival. I'm pinning all my hopes on this fieldwork - it's my salvation from the boredom and abstract, theoretical abyss I currently find myself in. Lets hope it can live up to all these lofty expectations.

A multimodal masterpiece: with the power of  lines, stars, arrows and highlighters

on supervision

Had me supervision today
Don't know why it did my head in
Can't understand why I can't settle into it
Why I always leave with such a bitter...sweet? taste
Why it always makes me wonder,
what I'm doing
why I'm doing it
what I'm meant to learn

Distractions abound

I'm in the middle of writing up a review of possible analytical approaches specifically aimed at the texts I will collect in my research (just writing this make me realise how redundant this whole exercise is - by searching of a suitable analytical frame for texts - I am contradiction the whole epistemological position my research is taking).
Unfortunately I am just so distracted. As a result I cant seem to think clearly or string sentences together in any coherent manner, well so that it would be recognised as academically appropriate anyway. My mind is just too full. I have 4 weeks left before I move out of my house, so that is effectively 4 weeks to get all of my life in order before my 6 month stint in Cape Town. So I need to consider all the logistics for the move, where my car will live, what forwarding address I might use, how I will get to the airport, what I will pack first, what furniture will be sold, where to sell it, how to manage relations with the research site before I arrive in Cape Town, when I will contact who at CPUT, which department I will work in first, where I might live, who I might ask about possible places to live, what about a car and the various options for securing one, xmas presents, going to London, preparing for supervision, thinking about my analytical framework, organising my electronic resources, how much stuff I can take with me to Cape Town and how much that might cost, doing two presentations four days apart from each other, arranging a farewell lunch for my friends and another one for colleagues in the Ac Lits forum...and of course there are a million other less significant things I haven't  put on the list but still swirling around in my head. I just cant focus and get things done quickly. I have three days to edit my review before sending it off to my supervision team on Thursday morning. I'm hoping all this time will help the panel-beating exercise needed to forge a coherent academic position.

Data workshop

'Images are everywhere' (Sarah Pink, 2007)

This was the title of a presentation I did today. Well it wasn't really a presentation as such - rather an opportunity to share and explore analytical frames for data. So I took along some 'imagined' visual and multimodal data for comment and exploration. I think I'm the only person really working with such visual data in the group, so people didn't really have much to say about the images and artefacts I presented. There comments were around issues I wasn't that worried about anyway - like pointing out how I could pick up literacy practice constructs in assessment briefs or suggesting how I might want to order the different types of data I collected into some sort of hierarchical structure (typical of Linguists and Linguistic Ethnographers) - interactional data takes precedence and then other data like fieldnotes, curriculum documents , photographs have a secondary role in helping to provide background or contextual information about the spoken data. Hmm, No I say - I'm interested in practices, texts produced as part of practice cannot be seen as separate or subordinated to practice - I don't see a distinction between the two. Well why not try 'talk-around-text' they said - but that's still suggesting that texts are foregrounded above the context within which it was created and that the practice to produce it is separate from the textual product. Nobody said much about the actually images, I would have liked to hear them comment about that. 

I've been coming to these workshops for the past year and its meant to be a space where you can bring data in any stage of analytical processing and hear what other people have to say about it. I prepared some slides and didn't really put much effort into it because I thought - hell I really just want to hear what other people to have say about this data. However when I stepped into the room and realised that it was filled with roughly more academics than students - I was a bit thrown. The feedback was 'Great! that was really interesting' but that's what everybody says about presentation here anyway so how the hell do you know whether they actually think its a good one or not. Listening to myself speak or rather mumble/fumble my way through the slides and then deal with the questions thrown at me - I wasn't really impressed. Not very polished to say the least. I wish I could be more articulate, use the right words and in the right order and sound as intelligent as I know I am.

Reflecting on these past two days - the seminar yesterday and the workshop today - there is a clear way of doing academic presentations and engaging in academic conversations here. Its a certain kind of literacy practice, that relies very heavily on vocabulary, logic in the construction of your argument, succinct analytical descriptions, all mixed in a with particular kind of English humour that borders on self deprecation. I struggle with the vocabulary and the succinct analytical description - the two feed off each other anyway - and lack cultural familiarity to pull it off anyway. This of course is my interpretation of my academic presence, which might not be how others view me - but how they view me isn't half as important as how I view myself. I don't know whether this 'microscopic' inspection of myself is helpful, it more likely has had the opposite effect - making me more self conscious and more reliant on various crutches, like full presentation scripts, rather than intuitively expressing myself as best I can. I did a little recording of the presentation so when I have a listen to it again, I'll have to consider whether any perspective on my own performance can be gained or not.

Aluta continua mense!

perspective, perspective, perspective

I think I've sounding a bit pessimistic these past couple of weeks leading some (me included) to think that all I'm doing is sitting around sulking about my current life and harking back to the good ole days. I suspect its rather hard to capture fully in this communicative environment how I really feel. Maybe its hard to do that in any environment. Its so easy to be misunderstood and even if you say, write or express your thoughts and feelings in the most coherent manner there will always be miscommunication. Now I'm no linguists or communication expert so I cant really explain how the 'miscommunication' happens - I just know it does. We all bring our own ideas, thoughts, interpretations, assumptions, prejudices to any communication event, so what we take away can never be exactly as the person telling the story intended or wished for. I realised almost immediately after I wrote my last blog entry that maybe I wasn't telling the full story, thinking maybe I didn't have perspective, or rather maybe I wasn't communicating my sense of perspective about my PhD experience.

I'm really grateful I have this opportunity, in a number of ways I am happy to be in England, and I am open to many of the changes that have come my way. Most days, including weekends I will do academic work and I do consider myself productive. But my world is textured, fluid, complex - with contradictory and coherent layers of experiences, feelings and insights operating side by side. I go through happy and sad phrases, positive and negative ones, sometimes I am reluctant, other times enthusiastic, but I never stand still for too long. I accept this as part of who I am and as part of the life I am living. Perspective and acceptance, now there's a thing!

There have been better days

Its Monday, outside it's raining, grey and cold and I'm willing myself to feel enthusiastic about my work. I sit down at my desk with stacks of 'readings' to get through, I carefully work out my schedule with activities to complete and various deadline to meet, but...I feel like I'm trudging along in cement boots.

Sometimes I have these little 'glimmers of hope' like little rays of sunshine through grey clouds - where I feel like I am connecting with my work and experience a sense of interest in developing my understanding and importantly, want to write about my ideas, position and argument. I know that writing is the most valuable output/commodity in this whole exercise - if I don't write I might as well go home now! At the moment there just seem to be a series of short circuits in the process, derailing my best intentions. I'm in another tussle with this PhD and this bleak weather is not helping me at all. Although in my defence - I will plod along, cement boots and all. I have accepted my fate - I will finish this PhD.

Memories and change

This is a picture of me and Melissa taken in July 2005. It was a lovely, sunny winter's day and we went walking from Muizenberg to St James, where this photo was taken. I remember the day vividly and have a copy of this photo on the bookshelf in my room - so I look at it everyday. It was a happy day, just like the weather. My Dad was still alive, although most of us knew he was moving towards the end of his life. I was also in the middle of my MPhil at UCT getting ready to interview my student participants.

Looking at this picture yesterday I realised - that I am no longer that person in the photo any more. I have changed. I have been changed. My first thought after that realisation was that this PhD has changed me. This process has to change you - you are never the same person you were at the start of it all. One could argue that life, time changes you - sure I would agree with that, but in many ways placing yourself into a process like a PhD accentuates change, brings it up for microscopic investigation. And at that moment, conscious of the transformation(s) taking hold of me, I am aware of what went before. Of the person in this photo, of the life depicted in this photo that isn't any long in the way it was at the time and place the photo was taken - that sunny day in July 2005 on St James beach, Cape Town. I miss that alive person, with responsibilities and interest in family, friends, students. Who had at that time a fulfilling job and was hungry to learn more about how my students were learning. I'm not so sure I have retained all that enthusiasm to learning more about my students' learning (well I don't have any students to start with). The abstract, decontextualised posturing I've been engaged with for the past year...well enough said.

The old, well worn cliche that the only constant in life is change is so damningly true. And in a very strange but reassuring way I want to go back to being that woman on the beach captured perfectly in this photo - just for a moment, maybe 10 minutes, so I can feel that sun, hold my niece and feel my place in the world.

feeling sorry for myself

Its Saturday morning, the sky is blue, the sun is out and the trees outside look an inviting burnt orange and yellow. But I'm feeling oh so sorry for myself. I've had some dental surgery done - an apicoectomy to be precise, but I wont share a link on this because you need a good constitution to bear looking at the images or reading about the procedure. I had one done when I was like 22, but I don't remember it being eventful at all. I suspect when we are younger, we deal with pain and minor irritations in a different way. The recovery isn't that bad, I have some swelling in my face and lots of irritation inside my mouth, but no pain to speak of. But eating and talking seems to make things worse. So overall its not that painful. However in a strange way I keep tracing the roots of all this trouble - my desire to improve the aesthetics of my smile. I lay in bed at  3am last night thinking, why the hell did I make those (now seemingly) stupid, shallow decisions that has brought me to the place where I am now - irritated by the discomfort, wondering if the procedure will work and if it doesn't, what I might do if I lose the tooth. A tooth that was perfectly normal, healthy a mere 3 years ago when I started to disturb its finely balanced equilibrium. The price we pay for dabbling in the material and aesthetic. Of course my rational and spiritually connected self (does this imply a contradiction here!) keeps saying - it will work out, and if it doesn't its not the end of the world, there will be a solution and in the grand scheme of things its only a freaking front tooth. So I'm trying to allow my ego to gain some perspective. 


Feeling sorry for myself, I haven't looked at work since lunch time Thursday, choosing instead to stay rooted to the couch in front of the telly, but feeling somewhat uneasy about it. Anyway life is a strange, but equally wonderful experience and sometimes I think our brains and certainly our egos don't allow us to fully enjoy and appreciate its wonders (good and bad); All we do is worry, be hard on ourselves, stress disproportionately about tomorrow and focus on the negative and surface level issues that cross our paths. Ok this is my philosophical reflection for the month, maybe it will help me get over feeling sorry for myself and go outside into the sun.

I don't want a blank page

For the past three weeks I have been exploring ethnography as it relates to my research. I'm not doing an ethnography in the anthropological sense, of trying to immerse myself in a community for a couple of months/years in the hope of understanding and documenting their cultural practices. I am however trying to use ethnographic principles to inform my research methodology. Over these past three weeks I've been trying to establish to what extent I want to embrace this notion of ethnographic. I've discovered it's a rather complex thing, because, ethnographic, if you are really serious about it, implies taking a very specific ontological and epistemological position about the nature of the world and how we construct understandings about it. And forgive me here because I do struggle with what exactly ontological means - I can use it in a sentence, but don't ask me to explain it.
The major issue of course is that ethnographic, particularly in contemporary anthropological and sociological terms, requires the researcher to abandon the notion of objective research and embrace a subjective, interpretative realm of knowledge construction, along considering the researcher as integral part of research. In many respects such interpretative views embrace a post modern epistemological positioning, clearly distancing itself from its methodological roots in naturalism and positivism that sought to accurately capture true 'reality' through observation. Anyway all of this philosophical posturing has done my head in, and even though I'm not completely confident about my ability to articulate the strengths and weakness of the approach, I'm fairly confident now in making a decision about how much of the ethnographic I want to embrace. Careful of course not to see my methodological standpoint (flirting seriously in realivist territory ) clash with my theoretical frameworks i.e. my structuralists leanings -  via Bernstein (suggesting a post realist inclination). My supervisor in her infinite wisdom said to me last week when I was rambling on about this - 'Don't worry Lynn, your'e not doing an ethnography, wont be expected to account for all this philosophical distinctions, so don't have to concern yourself about this too much.'

But, but, but...I don't want to start with a blank page, so I've been trying to capture at this time and place (i.e. context) my understandings of the ethnographic perspective I want to use in my research.  I have about 1700 words and as I typed it up over the past two days I realised its a bit crap, needing some serious reworking. But at least its not a blank page - its a spring board to a more coherent, thoughtful, considered understanding of how I hope to incorporate the ethnographic into my research methodology. An understanding that will only be enhanced once I get my hands dirty in the field. This is my plan, anyway.

life on a mission

Its official - 7 weeks to go before I move out of 21 Bardsey Court. Well maybe it will be 5 weeks before I move out of 21 Bardsey Court - depends on my landlord and whether he needs me to be out by December 1. Either way I'm getting my arse into gear to make this transition as smooth as possible. Hopefully nothing as traumatic as my move from Hilchama.

I have a lot to do - need to pack up here in England, prepare for fieldwork and make plans and firm up arrangements for my 6 month stay in Cape Town. Started a de-clutter today and need to organise myself so that I can start selling off stuff via the OU intranet. Unfortunately there isn't a very robust second hand furniture market here - people just go to Ikea and get whatever they want new. If you sell anything second hand you have to sell it cheap, cheap. But I'm positive that I can recoup some of the money I spent to get this place furnished. In a strange way I feel positive about all these arrangements - I'm moving forward, being proactive, so its all good.

reflection on teaching and learning

Yesterday I participated in the OU academic literacies forum. Basically a discussion group for students and their supervisors who are working in the general area of academic literacies research. We were discussing the Lea and Street(1998, 2006) models of writing in higher education. A lot of the time we were discussing its implications for pedagogy and its incorporation into teaching and learning practices. Then later in the evening I was chatting online to a really old student of mine. His promotional video for Cape Town is a finalist in The My Cape Town competition. He was sort of crediting me for developing his script writing ability, way back in 2001 when I first starting teaching on the Multimedia technology course. My only reaction was embarrassment, because honestly I really didn't know what the hell I was doing then. Through the years I have seen my ex-student excel in their professional lives and really become experts in their field. Of course this makes me very proud, but I do wonder if this was through any help from me.

I don't remember being a very humanist lecturer and teacher - yes I professed to be this kind of teacher, and took my teaching very seriously. I was committed to being accountable, professional, always seeking new ways to enhance the learning experience, always challenging my student to do more, be more, think me and never accept second best for their work. But I was hard, really hard - in my critique of their work, in the expectations I set for them, and not tolerating anything but their best effort in everything they submitted for assessment. My main motivation for such behaviour was my own interpretation of how I could challenge deficit discourses about students, especially 'disadvantaged' students in higher education. I always saw all my students, anyone who gained entry into the course, as being able to succeed in the course and succeed in industry. I was my responsibly to help them succeed.  But my drive was also to ensure that they were tough and could withstand any assault from anyone who looked down at them because they chose to come to Pentech or couldn't get into a 'proper' university or simply because they were black. I wanted them to feel self assure, confident that they were worthy and could match anyone out there - that their background would not determine their future. So I was hard and expected nothing but excellent work from them.

My reflections on my own teaching practice yesterday made me think how I could have done it better - how I would never want to do what I did over those 8 years at Multimedia (and especially those first 3 years) AGAIN. I mentioned at the meeting yesterday a point which I firmly believe - any golden ideals about being a teacher that encourages students to learn are thrown out the window, when you make that same teacher assess that learning against criteria that can never really accurately capture the complexity of learning. And here I am talking about all the things that have almost nothing to do with a person's cognitive ability to learn something new. I'm talking about issues of epistemology; i.e. notions of what counts as knowledge within the discipline, within the profession, within the department, within a particular subject area, for the lecturer, for the student, for the student's family etc... - all the social, power and ideological processes that impact, shape and contort what is meant by knowledge and how it is meant to be demonstrated. I think my heart was in the right place - I saw in each of my students the possibly to learn something new and for that learning to act as a catalyst for new, positive things, as they determined it. But...somehow I wish, now, I could have been more mindful of all the obstacles they would need to overcome in order to make such an ideal a reality and I wish I could have fulfilled a more supportive role - rather than being so driven by my own ambitions to prove society wrong.

The old and the new

I moved office about a month ago and I'm starting to feel the slight dislocation from my previous practically perfect 'official' working space. I was very 'open' to the move even though I knew it would be to a larger more open-plan working space (housing 15 students). In the old 'office' 6 of us actually did share an office with a door that closed and everything. Our comings and goings were more predicable and there were times when I could be all alone in the office for days on end. Also I had a view - I could watch the comings and goings of the university as they went to and from The Hub (the biggest staff diner on campus).
But the cracks in our new little space are beginning to show - a clash of practices between those of us used to a more carefree and accommodating stance on noise levels and movement and who generally use our official working desk as a secondary location for our academic activities, and those who use the space as their primary working area and are more used to whispering and hushed tones. I think it will work itself out - eventually.

My old desk with view of the staff diner in distance.

My new desk - with view of the wall, and two people on either side of me. Luckily I have one friendly neighbour who enjoys being a great distraction engaging me in long chats about English history, the HE system and whatever else takes our fancy .

I'm back on a mission (thankfully getting some enthusiasm back) - reading around the notion of ethnography (yes, again) and had this brilliant idea just as I got out of bed this morning - wouldnt it be cool to be a PhD student doing an autoethnography on my own PhD? Ouch! maybe not - too much self reflection and reflexivity, but a cool idea nonetheless. Any takers?

seminars and things

The Literacy in the Digital University seminar thing happened on Thursday and Friday. Some general impressions:

1) When you give people internet access at a conference they are going to use it - I was amazed or rather shall I say disgusted that so many participants (even on of the keynoters) were answering e-mails, checking Facebook, tweeting, checking the London underground maps etc...while presenters were up there trying to tell us about their worthy research. What does it really mean to be a participant at a conference?
2) I am just amazed at the opportunities I've been given to be part of really interesting debates about research methodologies - I just find here in the UK that people are so attuned to unpacking their methodologies and searching for ways to do things better. And Ethics...I don't think I even knew what this word meant in relation to research until I got here. A big issue at the seminar was the extent to which the researcher is responsible for consent issues in internet/online based research, especially when participants say they aren't really bothered about consent for example.  Another issue is how traditional principles of research are being challenged within the digital environment, with traditional methodologies (especially on the issue of ethics) struggling to keep up with the pace of change. We seems to be applying traditional approaches to these digital environments with an obvious gap developing.
3) I just find it fascinating that I can sit in a room with Mary Hamilton, David Barton, Candice Satchwell, Carey Jewitt etc...and engage in a conversation about research in and with the digital. This seminar was very inclusive as they ran parallel workshop sessions that everyone got to attend and this allowed me to discuss my research inadvertently with Mary Hamilton. I didn't want to appear like a groupie and say "Oh I love your work, its so great to finally see you in person". Although I did take on 'the groupie' persona yesterday when I was asked to escort some participants to their taxi pick-up-spot and found myself walking alongside David Barton. Restoring my faith in all things human, Mary Hamilton said a personalised goodbye to me, meaning that she had actually registered me and my presence.
4) I'm not that great at doing the conference small-talk-networking thing (I've said this before). Although when I'm by myself - i.e. without colleagues I know, I tend to push myself a bit more to engage with people and strike up conversations.


ON THE PRESENTATION
I was surprised at how calm I was about the whole presentation thing on Thursday - right up until I had to do the darn thing. But it went down well - I however worried about my accent, my vocabulary, my pronunciation, about the fact that I had scripted the whole thing and so it might not sound fluid and spontaneous, and that I was marking myself as South African and therefore deserving of some special treatment or 'uniqueness' factor (ironic since my presentation was struggling over this very idea).

My presentation was a joint bill with a colleague of mine SB, who is using facebook as a research tool. I went first and she followed, with the question and answer session happening right at the end of both our presentations. So I was slightly nervous when during the Q&A session nobody asked me any questions - sure your rational mind reassures you that people only remember what they last heard and that's why they aren't asking you questions, and its not because they found your ideas completely ludicrous and cant possibly find anything intelligent to say to you - but of course life isnt all about being rational. HOWEVER after a dry 5 minutes I got some really interesting and challenging questions which I answered in a sort-of-ok way. Overall the feedback was positive - colleagues (and supervisor) saying the presentation was good, that I was coherent and clear, although TL hit the hammer on the nail by saying I was incorporating many layers of issues that weren't always clear all the time. This I know - but I was glad I was able to articulate my idea, even though they are still rather rough and in need refinement.

in images not words

Maybe these images will tell you more about my Swedish visit than my words

Stockholm castle from one of the little islands in its archipelago 

outside the museum of modern art

on a bright autumn day in Stockholm

upside down view of autumn in uppsala from the comfort of a warm home

the current state of play

This is what it currently comes down to...A little e-mail I wrote to my supervisors yesterday sums it all up

I’m about 3 weeks behind in my schedule and won’t be able to meet the deadline I set for next week i.e. a written review of ethnographic methodologies as they apply to my study. I don’t think I can do it justice in the time I have available. I would like to suggest that at our meeting next week I provide a very rough overview of what I’ve been reading, highlighting salient areas that might be interesting/useful for my research, while suggesting areas that require further attention.

I’m sure that I’ll be able to make up this lost time over the next couple of months running up to the December break.

I havent had a response yet...BUT today its day one of the LiDU seminar and my presentation.

what can one say in 12 minutes?

I've just found out that I will only have 12 minutes for my presentation next week. What the hell am I meant to say in 12 minutes? It doesn't help that I haven't done much by the way of preparation for this presentation - I have a mind map that outlines my ideas, but that's it at this point. Knowing that I will hardly have any time to explain anything meaningful or develop my argument is certainly putting a damper on my enthusiasm and inclination put my mind to this task...shame!

so distracted

I'm trying to formulate my ideas for a presentation I have to do next week. I suspect that the conception of my initially ideas for the presentation were 'fragmented' at best (and here I'm being kind). As a result I can't find the common thread holding my ideas together. To help me I started reading some theorisation around discourses of the African self (thanks LT for engaging me in some mental gymnastics where my brain is screaming "ouch! man I cant freaking do this"). Goodness me - what a distraction - I am being challenging to rethink 1)notions of race, especially the notion of black as being different or in opposition to white, 2)notions of 'African' as being victimized, a wounded subject and culturally unique, 3) how discourses of Africa have always attempted to preserve notions of difference and 4) importantly how the idea of Africaness defined as anything other than black is almost unthinkable. Of course too much of the argument is way above my intellectual ability to understand - although I am imagining a space where I could be part of a reading group debating the arguments being outlined in this paper by Achille Mbembe. How cool would that be?

Anyway onto issues that relate directly to me - well the reason I read the paper in the first place was because I was trying to understand this idea of representation in ethnographic research (again another idea planted in my head by LT - I went to see Inception last night and am now imagining that my brain must have implanted with these crazy ideas because I certainly couldn't have come up with them myself ).

So my thinking about representation in research writing goes - Is there is a way to ensure that the writers meaning is maintained when a text travels from one context to another? How to avoid a decontextualised reading of ones research without 'othering' the context i.e. thus not buying into the idea that research about Africa has to capitalise on its difference to the West to make it interesting or valuable ? Anyway - the idea has been planted, it hasn't come to fruition yet - I suspect it will be one of those ideas that are best left to developed over time - a long time. And still I haven't gotten any closer to resolving my distractions.

Openness

I'm sitting in a flat in Uppsala Sweden working on a paper for journal submission. It seems I've been working on this paper forever and I guess I have. I cut it down by 300-400 words on Friday. I enlisted the help of my good friend and colleague who is obviously the master of writing short concise direct academic prose (can one say prose?!). I suspect if he had a look at what I considered a cut down version of my paper he would see loads of potential for even more succinct phrases and sentences. But I'm happy anyway. 

I've been experiencing the 'open learning' philosophy espoused by my current university - you don't need a classroom to learn. No all you need is a computer and internet connection and the world is your learning oyster. So for the next week it will be Uppsala - a renowned academic or university town. I've also celebrated (wrong word really because it just passed almost unnoticed except for the 2.5% or so increase in my salary on 1 October) the half way mark of my current academic journey. In a strange way I'm preparing for the beginning of the end and realise that until my fieldwork starts things will pretty much be rather 'easy' and 'relaxed'. 

But the beginning of the end has also brought up thoughts about...so what then? What will happen when I finish this thing? Where will I be and who will I be? At the moment I feel as if I have no identify - everyone around seems so clear about who they are and what they are doing. Me...well its seems I am just open, open to whatever might come my way. Really? No, not really.

a good conference?

Yes it was a good conference, an eventful conference especially the finally plenary where I saw a rather renowned academic act like a stupid, spoilt, paternalistic child. What bothered me most is that all of us in the audience put up with his egotistically-inspired tirade - a reflection of the hierarchical nature of academia?; the ideological power of compliance that made us all responsible for ensuring the careful maintenance of 'appropriate' literacy practice?; being polite or simply realising that there was no point in trying to fight fire with fire

Other than the last 30 minutes, the conference was a resounding success for me. I enjoyed Carey Jewitt's keynote although I was hoping she would say more about multimodality theory. I felt she had tempered her arguments to accommodate the linguistic focus of the conference. In many respect her presentation left me wanting more - more of the theoretical insights I found in her papers and especially her recent book. I guess this is always the case - we have such high expectations of the experts or gurus in the field and then feel really disappointed when they seemingly don't deliver against these (maybe unrealistic?) expectations. But I was glad I got to hear her and of course I will be able to recognise her when  she comes to the LiDU seminar series where my colleague and I will be presentation a paper in October.

The conference theme on ways of looking at data meant that I was challenged to think about my own approaches to the data for my research. I found the attention to detail or how Angela Creese puts it, the need to be 'systematic and rigorous' how we go about collecting and analysing data - almost a revelation. Sure I've heard it said before, but if I took anything away from this conference it was the value of being clear about how I want to deal with data.

I'm not a linguistic and I don't intend to do linguistically framed research but I can now appreciate the value of how their approaches simply because I have a better understanding of what they do. I always had this very one-sided view of linguistic-type research (applied linguistics, sociolinguistics and linguistic ethnography) and this conference has helped to shift some of my misunderstandings. I was preoccupied with staking out my claim to 'my own field' and distinguishing it from everyone else that I wasn't aware that this practice was also closing down any opportunities to see the possibilities for connections and synergies. Adrian Blackledge's short input on Bourdieu's notion of distinction and its relation to language provided a serious 'Ah ha!' moment, making it clear how language is a major way in which inequalities are constituted and reinforced.
So my conference experience could certainly be characterized giving me much needed positive exposure to the 'other'. A healthy requirement for any researcher, for anyone, really. Anyone wanting to understand the full complexities of life.

But it wasn't just about the experts - I went to a presentation on the implications of using photography as data by someone who had recently completed her PhD (Olga Solovona). I asked a question about her analysis process, wondering if she had considered multimodality as a way of unpacking the images, rather than foregrounding the interpretations of the image makers as her main analysis strategy. I was really just trying to see if she could offer me some advice about dealing with non-written text and documents - and secondly Carey Jewitt was sitting behind me and I wanted to impress her with my use of the term multimodality...ha ha ha (yeah right!). The presenter found me during the tea break and wanted to know from me if I could offer her any advice as I had sounded so knowledgeable about the possibly analysis processes. How do you like that...the blind being asked to lead the sighted.

Explorations in Ethnography

I'm off to a conference at Ashton University in Birmingham today - in the next hour or so actually. I'm really looking forward to it for some strange reason. Somehow I feel I will be 'entertained' with great and innovative ideas and insights. Feel that is what I need for myself at the moment. Also Carey Jewitt (no photo so how will I recognise her in the crowd?) is the key note speaker today. Anybody, who is anybody working with multimodal data will know who she is. I feel so privileged to be able to see these great scholars - to have almost ready access to them. ML said to me yesterday - oh you must introduce yourself to this one and that one - tell them that you are working with RG and me. I thought yeah right, I'll just walk up to these famous scholars and say - "Hello I'm Lynn from the OU and ML and RG are my supervisors. I find your work really interesting and helpful in helping me understand my research". Not bad for a little girlie from Bridgetown ne!

Well maybe I will - I learn again from Stephen who sees all these events as a step closer to making the right connection that will lead to his dream job. But at a more fundamental level and possibly even more important its just a good opportunity to make valuable personal connections with real people in a very abstracted, almost detached from reality world.

Making assumptions about what might be understood

I've been rewriting my paper so I can send it in for its re-review and part of the process means I need to cut out about 300-500 words (I've managed about 300-400 so far). I was reading through I section where I try to explain how knowledge and practices from the professional domain of web design becomes integrated or recontextualised into the academic environment of the multimedia course. I've been writing about this, in some way or another, since 2006 and used a particular diagram to explain my interpretation of the recontextualisation process. Previously one of my supervisors noted that the diagram was complex, but because I understood it and I had some positive feedback about it from another researcher I didn't think much about it. I used the diagram at Lancaster and struggled to explain it. In Lille I used a much amended version which I felt made a lot more sense and better helped to explain the relationship between the professional field and the academic curriculum of the course. Yesterday I realised again that the diagram needed to be changed and my explanation of this process needed clarification.

I guess I  realised AGAIN (I suspect this will always be part of the writing and learning process) that I make so many assumptions about my explanations about things - I just assume that it makes sense and that others will understand it just like I do. Writing is a process - linked irrevocably to the process of learning, knowledge and trying to make sense of what you are writing about. So it will always be changing and developing as your ideas and thoughts about that 'something' changes.

Original diagram and explanation

I have used recontextualisation theoretically to uncover how knowledge and practices located in the web design field’s professional domain are appropriated into the course curriculum and illustrate this in Figure 1 (above). In the web design field, website production is commonly referred to as web design, although a ubiquitous distinction made in this broad and fluid professional environment by the professional community and the literature in the field, is to differentiate between technical and visual components involved in the production of a website (Nelson, 2009; Krunic et al., 2006; Krug, 2000 and Lynch and Horton, 2001). The visual component involves the framework for the ‘look and feel’ of the website and includes consideration of all graphic and visual elements that make up a website including page layout, navigation, visual hierarchy and colour scheme. Professionals tasked with this component are called ‘web designers’. Web developers on the other hand, work with programming and technical components required to build a functional website. This might include the use of specialist dynamic scripting languages and database programming like PHP, MySQL, Flash, Java and JavaScript. The epistemological differences which underlie the distinctions in the professional environment between web design and development are, I believe, appropriated or recontextualised in particular ways in the course as illustrated in Figure 1. I want to suggest further that how this epistemological distinction is taken up in the course influences how the academic environment is physically and organisational constructed and which academic literacy practices are privileged.

Through the recontextualisation process, the course curriculum reproduces the design/development divide through its subject allocations and content. Considering the subject content of the course, it would appear that, the course is geared towards the development of graduates with more web design competencies, albeit with a strong programming focus. The course therefore inhibits the hybrid space where the two areas overlap. The course further recognises academic success predominantly through the design and production of functional and visually pleasing websites. Described in Bernstein’s terms, the web design field is the field of knowledge production where different kinds of knowledge are produced in professional practice, namely design knowledge and development knowledge. The overlap between the two types of knowledge illustrated in Figure 1 suggests that in the professional practice there is more scope for permeable boundaries to exist. However when recontextualised into the course curriculum, stronger boundaries are set up between these knowledge types. While not subject to empirical evaluation in the research, the professional field of web design can still be seen as performing a regulatory function informing the particular character of the course curriculum.

New version written just yesterday 

I have used recontextualisation theoretically to uncover how knowledge and practices located in the web design field’s professional domain are appropriated and transformed into the course curriculum and illustrate this in Figure 1. In the web design field, website production is commonly referred to as web design, although a ubiquitous distinction made in this broad and fluid professional environment by the professional community and the literature in the field, is to differentiate between technical and visual components involved in the production of a website (Nelson, 2009; Krunic et al., 2006; Krug, 2000 and Lynch and Horton, 2001). The broad field is therefore constituted by two main areas of knowledge and practice, web design and web development, that sit in an uneasy dichotomous relationship with each other. Each component of this relationship is made up of a set of sub-specialist areas; the web design component delineates the tasks associated with the visual aspects of a building a basic website using HTML and style sheets, including the ‘look and feel’ of the site, all the graphic and visual elements including page layout, navigation, visual hierarchy and colour scheme. Typically a professional web designer would inhabit the hybrid space where the two knowledge areas intersect, suggesting basic competency in both the visual and technical components required to produce a functional website. Web developers are defined by their work with complex programming languages (for example specialist dynamic scripting languages and database programming like PHP, MySQL, Flash, Java and JavaScript) and the creation of data bases linked to interactive websites. The epistemological differences which underlie the distinctions in the professional environment between web design and development are, I believe, appropriated and recontextualised in particular ways in the course. I want to suggest further that how this epistemological distinction is taken up in the course influences how the academic environment is physically and organisational constructed and which academic literacy practices are privileged.

Through the recontextualisation process, the course curriculum reproduces the design/development divide in how the subjects are epistemologically differentiated from each other i.e. as either having a design or development focus. This differentiation is further extended with the bulk of the subject content in the four course subjects devoted to technical and programming knowledge. Design based knowledge is only allocated to one subject in the course and when applied to this subject, all technical knowledge and practices evident in the professional domain is removed and allocated to the programming subjects. The course it would appear is geared towards the development of graduates with web design competencies, albeit with a strong programming focus. Academic success in this course recognises academic primarily through the design and production of technically functional and visually pleasing websites. Described in Bernstein’s terms, the web design field is the field of knowledge production where different kinds of knowledge are produced in professional practice, namely design knowledge and development knowledge. The overlap between the two types of knowledge illustrated in Figure 1 suggests that in the professional practice there is more scope for permeable boundaries to exist. However when recontextualised into the course curriculum, stronger boundaries are set up between these knowledge types.

Sunshine (Vitamin D) and human interaction (Social Vitamins)

Sunshine and people seem to make my world go round. I've had two really great uplifting days. All because the sun was out and I had some meaningful human interaction. Maybe that is what I miss most about my 'old' life back home; the sun and the easy access to meaningful human engagement.

Stephen (he signed the consent form and is happy to be 'outed' on this blog) reminded me today that its been two years since he arrived with his family in England. I forgot which day I arrived - think is was around September 22. I do remember leaving my flat in a state - boxes everywhere, the bed still in its place, all my plants on the stoep at front door. I also remember driving back to my flat, from Bridgetown just hours before I got on the plane to London, on the pretence that I have forgotten something, just so I could feel my presence there for the last time. Thinking back to that first year in the UK - on the personal front everything just seemed to go wrong. I just didn't fit, I just couldn't fit, but in a strange way I almost can't remember those really dark times. But I know I've experienced it because I am fundamentally different today because of it.

In a couple of weeks the amount of time I have left in the UK will get progressively shorter than the time already spent here. I would have tipped the balance in favour of a return back to Cape Town. This makes me happy, but also contemplative about my time here. The move to the UK has been such a fundamental event in my life with the impact and consequence having this almost constant rippling effect on how I see the world and my becoming in the world.

Wow - I only wanted to say how good the sun and contact with my friends and colleagues was over these past few days.

kinda melancholy feeling

Its drifting over me and I cant shake it. Its just the abstract nature of this 'thing' I'm doing. I just wish I had somewhere to go everyday where my 'work', my level of productivity could be measured in some tangible way. A place where I didn't always have to think in this concentrated abstract way. Its not that I don't like what I'm doing, but in the absence of anything else, another aspect of life, love, family this seems at times practically meaningless.

I've been thinking today I wish I could blame this melancholy on something - but there isn't anything. It just is and I suspect it will pass.

So I keep myself busy, forcing myself to:- read, tidy my papers, books and files, experiment with data analysis software, make list of things to do, clean the house, cut the grass, make endless cups of tea, try to stay away from Facebook and hope that tomorrow will be better. Hope that once I have data to work with the complexity, challenge and intrigue associated with finding out what is going on in the data will restore my enthusiasm and interest in this thing called research.

Time

Sitting at the window on my flight to Rome I saw all these white fluffy clouds. The wonderfully, big, white puffed out clouds you see in children's animated stories. I imagined myself floating on these white, weightless beauties, and all my troubles and thoughts becoming white, light and weightless just like the clouds.

My trip was beautiful in many ways and equally sad. I felt as if time were this tangible yet intangible thing all at the same time. Amongst the wonders of Rome where the ancient and contemporary sit next to each other like old lovers, deeply comfortable, I allowed time to wash over me. Everything passes - all the joy, happiness, anger, sorrow and hurt - slowly or quickly. Time whether you want it to or not washes over you

I spent Friday night in Sorrento at the birthday party of my oldest friend. Besides my family he is probably the only other person I know that I have had a tangible relationship with for more than 30 years. Reflecting on that now, it's amazing who we once were 32 or so years ago, and what we have become. Could we ever have imagined celebrating a birthday together in Sorrento, Italy? Who we once were and who we have become, who we are becoming...

I decided to take few photographs and just take in the moments, the sights, smells, thoughts and feelings, the time in this country were allowing me to experience and if I forgot them later it would be ok.

Twilight descending on the road towards the Colosseum. The Santi Cosma d Damiano is on the right

Some local children drinking water in the main street of Sorrento

a reassuring supervision

I had a good supervision yesterday. Both my supervisors were able to reassure me that spending 16-20 hours on a 20 minute conference presentation is not an indication that I'm thick and don't know what I am doing; rather it's an indication that I'm working at ensuring that the points I want to make gets across in the most effective way. We also agreed that as you become aware of the social practice of conference presentations the personal stakes become higher - both ML and I were finding that the more we do such presentations, the more anxious we have become about doing them. It was good to know I'm not the only one feeling the pressure of the 'performance' and that all the work I do on my presentations isn't an oddity, it just my unique way of managing this particular social practice.

We also chatted about the work load for the next few months leading up to December. Its going to be busy. I designed a special calendar marking off specific days to do particular tasks...otherwise these activities seem to slide into oblivion. I'm hoping my fancy calendar will help to make concrete all the 'little' tasks I need to do. I also got my grant form signed for my fieldwork in Cape Town - need to book that flight soon!


Writing has come back on the agenda - my plan is to focus on Research Methodology in general and write reviews associated with doing ethnography and approaches to textual analysis. I was somewhat enthused by ML's comment that thematic analysis can be applied to textual artefacts and that because I was collecting texts, this doesn't necessarily mean that I needed to do a particular form of textual analysis. We will have to see how this idea develops over the next couple of months.

Then some good news: 

Thank you for submitting your paper for consideration in the special issue of Higher Education Research and Development (HERD).

I am writing to inform you that J.... C... and I would like you to submit your paper to HERD as part of the special issue.

Isn't this great - I'm still in shock of course as I thought I would be rejected in this first round of selection and review. Now to work on my paper and make the submission. Thanks to SP and his die hard attitude of simply submitting papers that provided the bits of inspiration to just do it! My next submission will go through another blind review process...so we will see, but hell, I'm happy with getting this far.

some retrospective thoughts on Lille

I think the best blogging happens when you record your thoughts as close to an event as possible. Then you get your raw, almost unmediated thoughts and feelings. So many thoughts, insights and ideas have passed through my head since my last entry in Lille but unfortunately they have either drifted away, morphed into something completely different or been replaced by something I now deem more relevant - like the supervision I had today, for example.

Its Monday evening, I'm sitting in bed and I have a serious cold (no temperature thankfully). But I am keen to note down at least a couple of things that still seem to have some currency in my thinking about the conference.

• I liked being in France - even though I don't speak or understand the language. There is something about how people engage with each other on the streets and across class lines, how they talk to each other, make eye contact on the Metro, how they buy bread and smoke in public that is just appealing. Nothing scientific about my observations here - its just how I feel about it. 

Trying to look super chic in Lille

• But I also experienced a sense of real marginalisation during a bilingual session on Friday that had a rather negative impact on my willingness to attend other bilingual sessions. Basically, the presenters didn't provide any English translation for their presentation and continued to speak predominantly in French even when I noted that I needed to have some translation. I experienced first hand how not speaking a language can be a factor that can lead to serious exclusion. It was not a nice feeling.
• My presentation went well, I finished within the prescribed time and my supervisor, who also presented in the same session, was suitably impressed with the progression in my focus since my HECU attempt in July. I got some interesting comments and questions - and an American professor was really bowled over by my accent and kept telling me this whenever she saw me again. Of course she also wanted to know if mine was a 'normal' South African accent, as the South Africans she came across in the States certainly didn't sound like me and I sounded a lot better than they did. Needless to say I didn't bore her with an explanation of how South African accents are markers of race, class, geographical location in the country etc...
• I had some really good, thoughtful and provocative discussions with people working in the general field of academic literacies in the UK. This certainly was the highlight of the conference for me. It allowed me to build relationships with my fellow student colleagues, while engaging with my supervisor and her peers at a really human level. At one point as we were walking back to the metro after the Friday sessions were over, one of us 'students' commented "Half of my bibliography is walking just ahead of us'.
• I also realised AGAIN that things are never what it seems - and gained some insider insight into how one expert views another's work - certainly something you would not catch a glimpse of just by reading their work. I was challenged not to take anything at face value - hard to do when as a student you are exposed to the experts in the field first hand and are just overwhelmed by being able to hear them speak, see them  face-to-face or get introduced to them as a colleague.

Sally, Lynn and Jackie - The OU's 'star' Academic Literacies PhD students - enjoying a small taste of French culture in the streets of Lille.

in a little 'English' bubble

Everyone talks French here and I feel like I'm in a little bubble oblivious of the world outside. Lille seems like a nice town, although haven't seen enough of it - only ventured out for dinner last night.

 Unfortunately I'm staying in student accommodation about 15 minutes from the city and about 3 train stops from where the conference is located. I think I like this idea of not know what everyone else is saying - Its almost like I am being sheltered from the world in a way. Makes me think of all the people coming to a new country where they don't speak the language or all the isiXhosa speakers in Cape Town trying to engage with the dominant and dismissive English world. Now in this situation my English doesn't buy me any power - how sobering!

disproportionate presentation preparation

Hey look at all the 'p's in my blog title.

I think I've probably spent about 10-16 hours on the 20minute presentation I will make at Lille on Thursday. And this doesn't take into account the time it took for someone else to do the French translation. I'm still working on the presentation and need to do a few time trials, so the hours keep stacking up.

I don't think its right to spend such a disproportionate amount of time on such a short presentation. Everytime I go through the presentation I find 'something' that just doesn't sound right and I cant seem to stop myself from continually tweaking the freaking thing.

 I wish I were more confident about what I want to say and simply have a couple of rough notes that accompany each slide and then just wing-it. This would certainly reduce the amount of preparation time. Will this approach change the overall message of the presentation, does all this preparation substantially add value to the final performance? I know what I would have told my students - practice makes perfect, the more time you put into it, the more reward you will reap. But personally I don't see a correlation in my recent presentation experiences. 

Last night it dawned on me that I have 2 years left to complete this PhD and I was filled with a sense of urgency and respect for time. I hope this respect for time becomes a more engrained feature of my daily practices because I do feel I take time for granted and worry that I could be caught out.