I have lots to say

I've just attended the annual HELTASA conference in Stellenbosch and I have this overwhelming desire to write, write, write about my experience and how it reflects my ongoing thoughts and struggles associated with being a PhD student. I wish I had taken the time to write in reflection on each day I attended the conference. Writing now feels almost contrived - retrospectively censored. Also because I have so much to say I'm going to have to say things over a couple of posts so the distance from the actual event will become more marked. But hey I can only work with what I have.

Day One - Wednesday

I presented my first PhD related work within a formal academic conference environment on Wednesday. As I got closer to the day I become more anxious. My usual anxiety I guess especially since I only started working on the main focus and thrust of the argument little over a week before the conference. So I didn't really have time to consider other ways of thinking about the presentation. As usual I probably spent more than 8 hours working on a 15 minute presentation. I felt anxious that I needed to get the whole thing right. I saw myself as an outsider and in a way I played on this by deciding not to signal my affiliation to my local institution on my presentation slides. Initial I wanted to say something cheeky about my OU affiliation and my South African accent and how this might have puzzled people in the audience hoping to hear a British academic speak. But I abandoned this little comic interlude on the last minute because I thought it would be too cheesy. I decided I would simply present and allow people to draw their own conclusions about who I was and why I was there. In the end I didn't even introduce myself to the audience...talk about performance anxiety. At the back of mind I kept thinking - I have to be good, I can't give people any doubts about the quality of my educational experience in the UK. I'll always stand in judgement somewhat unfairly because I've gone outside the country. I feel like I need to try harder just to get to the level where the other South Africans are.

Generally, except for keynote speaker, most presenters at academic conferences do a sort of 'off the cuff' presentation. I remember a time when I did this too relying mainly on memory joggers - little bullet points to reminder me of what I wanted to say. But since being in the UK I have completely abandoned this approach and now only use a full script. I'm really conscious that by doing this I don't completely 'conform' to the 'perceived' way of doing things at such events. But I've grown confident in an 'I don't care' attitude about this practice I have. Interestingly, talking to colleague who I really respect at a cocktail function later that evening, she commented that she only presents using a full script - she always has and won't do it any other way. I felt a found a little kindred spirit and it was rather reassuring that I'm not on my own. We both felt confident and assured  - because it works for us it had own internal validity - it doesn't need anything else. YAY!

Back to the presentation - well 15 minutes came and went, rather quickly actually. And then NO questions. That awkward silence when the audience stares back at you, some with a glazed over look in their eyes and you wonder 'Why the hell did I put so much effort into this?' Seasoned academics often mention that they are very selective about which conferences they attend, choosing only to go to the conference that best match up with their research interest and where they feel they will get the best response from their engagement. Novice, wann-a-be's like me take what I can get and therefore the response I got can be seen almost as an occupational hazard. The consolation - and yes there was a consolidation - preparing for the presentation has helped me to think more clearly about the main point my analysis was trying to make about the particular case I was talking about. The presentation is definitely the first step I want to take in crafting a paper about this case study analysis. So what I'm taking away from the somewhat deflated experience is that it had less to do with the specific performance and more about the hidden gains derived from the experience - but then I would say that wouldn't I!

addicted to tea

I can't stop drinking tea. I sit on my backside, staring at a computer screen for most of the day and all I want to do is drink tea. I had all the tea stains scraped off my teeth today and wonder how long it will take before they reappear. The warm Cape Town weather hasn't made any impact on dissuading me from drinking my beverage of choice. Maybe it's my little secret writing comfort.
Looking back at some photos from the study years in MK...seems like the tea addiction might have been cultivated there.

I make progress everyday - the progress doesn't always correspond with my work plans and schedules which are now stuck up on the wall just above my computer screen - so always in focus, always on my mind.
I'm determined though - determined to get that first draft done - before Xmas. I've promised myself that I can consider getting a TV if I meet this deadline...a pretty motivating incentive for someone who is probably addicted to TV too.

good intentions

What is that saying 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'? No sooner did I make my good intentions known when they were challenged. I had to go to work yesterday to attend a very important and interesting meeting that brought together the schooling, FET and UoT sectors to talk about the provisioning of ICT education. But my plan, what about my plan to conclude the editing of my analysis and research methodology chapters on THURSDAY? So I'm already behind as I step into my new work scheme...how utterly frustrating.

But it's not all bad - I also made the decision to leave or temporarily abandon my social media profile. I de-activated my Facebook account in a bid to focus, focus, focus on my writing. Now I can't randomly click, click, click on Facebook, not so much to genuinely find out what my 'friends' on the other side of the world or the city are doing, but in response to some nervous tick that you know you don't want to do, but do anyway. Yes I miss knowing whether someone, somewhere is enjoying the sunshine or the miserable weather but it is also an energy sapping activity when it takes you away from doing the 'real' and 'meaningful' stuff you should really be doing.

I also realised, yet again, how invaluable Dropbox is to the PhD student. For some unexplained reason I messed up the Word 'Styles' configuration for my thesis yesterday. Suddenly I no longer had a 2nd level of headings. Anybody who knows what I've just described will probably be breaking out in a cold sweat at this point. Dropbox came to my rescue - I could find an earlier version of the document where the formatting was still maintained and 'go back' to that version. I had to do some minor cut 'n paste work but the integrity of the Style configuration was maintained. Massive sjoe!

So as the weekend rolls on and the blue skies and sun make their appearance I know what I'll be doing and where I'll be doing it. Oh happy days.

breaking the narrative of mediocrity

For a while now my story has been one of missed deadlines, struggles with my writing, struggles with my supervisors, struggles with the PhD. Overall just a total mediocre showing on my part - everything that could,  did go wrong. In a way I accepted the missed deadlines and all the other struggles and problems - I accepted them and readjusted my plans and continued on, only to miss the next deadline or fail to deliver the standard of work I wanted at the next deadline. It just seemed so easy to give in and not to push myself a little bit more. Recently, I asked myself  'Where is the Lynn of the past? The Lynn who wouldn't settled for anything but the best effort?' She is gone and only a shadow remains in her place. If there is one positive thing my ex-students seem to remember me by is that I did not accept mediocre efforts - I always pushed them to deliver their best. 'Where is that Lynn?'

I'm going to try again. Yes, yet again because what else is there to do except to try again. I'm not ready to give up that much I know. I've got about five weeks to construct Draft 1 on my new timetable and I need to deliver it. I need to detach from all the specific 'issues' and focus on the global - the general theme for the thesis, the overall argument, making the argument visible throughout the thesis, getting a basic but coherent general story running through the entire thesis. This is the task at hand. I have to put aside 'Life' happening all around me and push forward - what a bumpy four years I've had - but five immediate weeks to try again.

Where I currently am - What I've done to date

Where I need to get to and what I need to do to get there

how to define a successful week

I'm sitting in my lounge on my brother's huge leather sofa (the only furniture in this room that I can claim as my own - is a super cheap plastic table) with a huge vodka at hand. I'm not working tonight.

In making the decision not to work tonight I've decided that I've been sufficiently productive to take a night off. So how am I defining that productivity - by the amount of words added to my thesis? Throughout my time at the OU word count seemed to be the only way success was defined. I remember right at the start of my studies there I found this obsession with the word count a difficult thing to get my head around. Over the years however, I've learnt how to take on that discourse myself. But I'm still not convinced it's the only way one can define your success in this PhD game.

This week I went to a really interesting and stimulating symposium - where I realised that Basil Bernstein is very much alive and kicking...kicking arse actually if the intellectual scholarship of the papers presented over the last three days is anything to go by. I had a Skype supervision, a productive critical conversation with a mentor and friend and just about finalised my second analysis chapter...and it's only Thursday. So does this constitute a successful week? Oh and how many words did I write this week...maybe 1500 - 2000?

I don't think I'm ever going to get away from this 'what constitutes success' dilemma while I'm working on my PhD - if I've learnt one thing about this process it's that you're always in deficit. So even if I finished the freaking thesis this week I would still list at least 10 things I should or could have done.

a space of your own

This might sound trivial but it's almost the most joyful thing to have a dedicated work space where you can leave your papers just as you want and when returning to your desk, a few hours later, find everything is exactly as you left it and your are ready to pick up where you left off. This feels like such a luxury after having to share work space with my bedroom for such a long time. I feel totally privileged.

oh analysis...

I've been working on one of my analysis chapters. It's the one I like best, the one I was most confident about. Anyway I'm like five pages away from the end of the chapter - I've worked through the whole chapter and re-shaped and re-crafted the whole thing to bring it in-line with the analysis framework - and the final bit doesn't work any more. In fact it's just wrong - no participant voices, no comments on how they completed or marked the assignment, just wrong. I'm sitting here wanting to pull my hair out because I know what I need to do. Back to Atlas, back to coding the interviews specifically related to this assignment and rewrite the section. I can't do a patch-job, it just won't do justice to the analytic framework and the argument that is starting to emerge. I don't mind doing the work, I just have the word 'DEADLINE' blasting in my head. Oh and of course I need to go to work in about 1 hour and for the next three days I'll be locked away in a workshop and planned to attend a two-day symposium on Knowledge and Curriculum next week. Oh happy days :-)