I've been thinking

Yes, actually I have been thinking. I've come through a couple of frustrating and angry days, with the burden of the PhD and all its complex 'nonsense' weighing heavily on my shoulders. But I've been thinking.

When one thinks of a romantic relationship a common position to take is the acknowledgement that your partner can't possibly provide, give you everything you need. They often give you a lot of the 'things' you need, but not everything. For those 'other' things you go elsewhere, friends, family, zumba, yoga. Why then was I expecting to get everything I needed to complete this PhD from my supervision team? Having this expectation has simply set up the whole ecosystem for failure and unfortunately disappointment on my side. That's my thought - my big and profound thought. I'm hoping this insight will help me move my whole PhD experience into a more healthy, productive and, may I say, happy space. We'll see!

breaking the silence

I've heard this phrase before - usually preceding other words like rape, child abuse, domestic violence, HIV - it's associated with calls for justice, bravery, doing the right thing, not being complicit to injustice and an acknowledgement that the victim should not be ashamed of the wrong doing done to her/him.

I want to break the silence, really break the silence on my consistently difficult and at times down right negative and soul destroying learning experiences associated with my PhD. It's a very risky thing to do I know, I'm really nervous and I worry about the consequences but this shame I carry is not mine.

first over the finish line

What a freaking day, what a freaking week. But before I say much about my own troubles...The first of the 2008 1+3 OU cohort crossed over the finish line today and with flying colours. Dr SP take a bow! May your success be all of ours.

My day unlike SP's was filled with frustration and incomprehension...another supervision unfulfilled. What do I need to do to make it come out differently? Will I ever know before I cross that converted finish line? I wonder if I care that much - but obviously I do. The lesson learnt - you miss the deadlines you face the consequences. But I think I'll die another day, I've come to far to give up just yet.

just a little thought

a crap picture of my window view from UCT library

Yesterday while sitting in the UCT's library and watching students gather for their graduation ceremony outside Jameson Hall I had this thought. I had been reading through and reflecting on the comments I received from a really insightful 'reading' of my methodology and data chapters. I felt like I finally knew what this thesis was about and in that moment I felt so powerful, so in control and in charge. It made me wonder why this feeling was so silent from the rest of my experiences of the PhD. It reminded me of something I was taught as a really young person while grappling with the ideology of apartheid. I came to understand that it is in the oppressor's interest never to allow, or to severely restrict the oppressed's realisation of the power they have to change the situation and this mechanism functions to keeps them in continual oppression - I've often heard Bantu Education explained using this analogy. But it rang true for me too.
I thought 'Imagine if I realised or was constantly encouraged to see my power throughout the PhD experience? Just imagine!'

That glimmer of the power of my insight and developing understanding of my thesis now needs to be cultivated - I must never lose sight of it, in fact it must be nurtured and allowed to blossom. Therein lies the possibility for turning things around.

stuck and getting unstuck

I've been stuck...since Tuesday I would say, trying to write or make some progress on the all important Interpretation and Discussion chapter. When I last wrote I said I would sit down and write...I tried this on Thursday and came up with a blank page - well I did lots of brainstorming but everything seemed so lame, so unbelievable, lacking plausibility. The problem plaguing my writing of this thesis all along reared it's very ugly and destructive head! I want everything to be worked out in my head before I write and because it isn't this major blockage occurs. Also I want my writing to be perfect the first time even though I know this is an impossibility (as the many, many draft versions of everything I've written so far suggests). So instead of committing to paper my thoughts and ideas no matter how rough, I spend all my energy fretting about all the gaps in my argument and how R & M and anyone for that matter, will see all the obvious holes in my discussion. 

In desperation I turned to the supervisors - as you do in such times. Besides the very helpful practical suggestion offered, especially to counter the negative writing pattern that seems to overwhelm me, I got this little gem...and it is a gem because I think it so beautifully captures where I need to get to and how I need to trust myself

I think, in the end, it will be about you coming to a stronger sense of what/who you have actually been studying and why - this sense will belong to you and no-one else will be in a position to gainsay it on either methodological or conceptual grounds simply because they won't own it like you do. Trust yourself on this.

I have become a bit unstuck (wrote 1000 words yesterday) and think as I head into the new week it will get better and I might have an 'goodish' Draft 1 of the Interpretation and Discussion chapter come Friday/Saturday. 

interpretation and discussion

I've been delaying, putting off and avoiding. I'm resisting sitting down to write this something that will eventually morph into a chapter that outlines my interpretation and discussion of my research analysis. Should this be called findings? I guess that is what it is. My chapter titles at the moment are not sexy, they aren't personal - they are very formulaic and follow the prescriptions set out in any 'how-to' books on doing a PhD. Maybe the sexiness will still come...we will see.

But my main problem has been this inability to want to deal with the interpretations - in effect tying down the crux of the thesis and really saying what the research is all about. Thoughts about this have been drifting in and out of my mind for weeks now, especially as I've been writing and rewriting my analysis chapters. Just yesterday I tidied my study, as my niece has become the temporary tenant of this room in my flat, and I found version upon version of my analysis chapters. I think it would be underestimation if I said I've rewritten those chapter more than 10 times over the past 12 months. But the key issue now is to decide what the hell I do with everything written in those cases.

To feel like I'm doing something about this issue - even though I'm not writing (but we all know writing is the only thing that counts) - I've been reading what other people say and do about this section of their thesis. So I consulted Kamler and Thomson and attempted what they call 'conversational moves' which is essentially where you set out the argument you are trying to make in each chapter. So my argument is a weak and convoluted one at the moment, and I actually think this exercise will be more helpful once I actually have the two ends of the thesis i.e. the introduction and interpretation/discussion, worked out. I've also been reading other people's theses - but we all structure our work so differently - so none of the theses I've read have presented their analysis as two separate case studies. Most people have identified specific themes and construct their analysis around these themes. Another common strategy is to draw together some analytical and interpretative insights at the end of each of such thematic chapters. My themes have become embedded in each case study presentation. I have also kept my case study analysis 'clean' and uncontaminated with theoretical interpretation. I was hoping that the interpretation and discussion chapter would attempt to lift out the themes from both cases and then subject them to theoretical scrutiny.

So this weekend, starting today, I will just sit down and freaking write!
- How is the theory helping me to explain and understand the case studies?
- What are the answers to my research questions?
- Do the case studies actually relate or touch on the research questions?

Let's see how this goes - I need to be brave, like a warrior or something and just face this thing head on.

a final something about HELTASA

The last day of the conference was possibly the best for me. I didn't expect it, it just happened. I was late - very late and rushed to the final session of the day before the keynote. A session on post-graduate writing. LT spoke about trying to understand and make sense of student writing through the concept of risk. A little pedagogic intervention of a writer's circle that was not an overtly framed pedagogic intervention. The stories of the students - not the simplified, washed out and heard-it all before writing journey - but a deeply situated, personal-contextual insight. Nothing you could possible get from a 'how-to' book. And I sat there and thought - this is why I can't give up 'the student'. In fact this final session probably came to symbolise, and dramatically so, much of my conference experience where I had subconsciously sought out presentations that addressed the theme of the student. Why, because I know that my PhD does not, wasn't able to attend to the student voice in the way that I probably would have liked. It's always been a tension in my work, acknowledged by myself but always under the surface. What this final presentation brought home was the fact that I want to address this tension in my thesis. I decided right there that it will have to be an issue that I give prominence to. The student has to be central to what I do - and my professional life after my PhD will have to be framed with this position in mind.

I thought of the very first HELTASA conference I attended at the end of 2003 I think - it had been a tough year for me professionally and personally and I stood in the midst of all the conference goers and thought to myself - This is where I belong. Walking out of the presentation I felt a similar buzz, a similar sense of excitement, a feeling of being in the right place, being pointed in the right direction and of coming home.

PhD narratives

You can't go to a conference like HELTASA as a PhD students and not get into a conversation about your PhD. Either it's with people who have finished their PhD's and then offer commiserations on your experience saying how hard it is and that only by going through the whole thing do you fully understand exactly how hard it really is. Or it's fellow PhD students wondering how far along you are and then you sort of huddle together offering kind words, advice, sympathy and support but deep inside you're vexed by the underlying competitive tone and degree to which you have to save face by telling distorted stories about the reality of your progress. Three years full time and still not done? I hear them say to themselves and even though I don't want to, I feel somewhat obliged to offer some plausible - meaning outside of my control -explanation for why I'm 'so behind', like I had to wait six months before coming to SA to collect my data.

Most of the PhD narratives that I've heard  from people here though have been positive ones - they love their supervisors, love their topics, love the whole experience save for the odd frustration here and there and the 'hard work' it takes. In such an environment I shut up, smile politely and accept that I'm not the post-girl for the PhD, while trying hard not to feel resentment that their experience appears infinitely more positive than mine. I try in those quick moments to simply accept that everyone is entitled to their experience and I don't have to spoil it by pissing on their parade by telling my story. I have come to realise that it's not important to tell my story anyway or rather that I don't have to tell the real story to everyone. In any case if I did tell the 'real' story is such a fleeting way the reasons for my experience would never be revealed - I could never capture of the complexities and multivariate explanations for why things have come to be the way they are. It's not simply because of my supervisors, because it's at the OU, because it's in the UK, because of the cultural differences, because of language and writing expectations, because I lack confidence or don't have the intellectual ability, because the writing rules are different, because I need different things to learn effectively, because, because, because... How do you explain such complexity to an distant acquaintance  in 10 minutes without compromising yourself and your supervision team. I've also become conscious that even though it has been my experience I don't want to be complicit in these general PhD narratives of doom and gloom. Especially the stereotypical rendition of these narratives. I don't think it should be this way in fact I guess deep inside I believe one should love your PhD in all it's fascinating aspects.
So it's better to smile politely, express genuine interest and enthusiasm for the story being expressed, show empathy when required, but keep my mouth shut about my own experiences except to say how interesting but challenging the journey has been so far.