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.