I wrote...yes indeed. The Introduction has officially been launched. At the moment the writing is a bit romantic and sentimental but I'll whip its butt into shape by the end of the weekend.
Mentally I'm preparing myself for supervision on Wednesday - record the conversation and listen more than you talk. And if all else fails I'll fall back on my new mantra 'It's my story and I'm sticking to it!' In a very strange way I want to say that I don't care what will be said and discussed on Wednesday, because inside me I'm starting to feel that I can do this thing anyway. Although that might be the vodka/tonic whispering to me.
Thursday 31 January 2013
Tuesday 29 January 2013
'It's my story and I'm sticking to it'
This is my new thesis writing mantra - thanks to LT who pointed me in the right direction today.
I'm 'writing' my Introduction chapter. Well technical I haven't really written a single word for the actual chapter but I've been reading, thinking, mind mapping, pondering, contemplating, scratching my head in anticipation of officially writing this chapter. It's not going to be a long chapter, I'm hoping 3000-4000 words. But this is where I introduce my story and create the path for the journey I want to take the reader on. It locates me, my study, my argument, the purpose of this whole freaking three years plus process. Without it I can't really get to the conclusion or start to integrate and connect all the bits of the thesis together in a cohesive whole.
Lot's of things are bubbling away in my head - unfortunately I've been reading as a delaying strategy so I'm being torn in many different directions and I need to find my grounding. It's coming though, I can feel it and my mind maps are becoming more specific and focuses on the point I want to make. I'm also aware that I'm dragging my baggage with me and ,as was highlighted to me today, my baggage might not be appreciated by my examiners. But I need to write what I have to write in this first iteration of the chapter and then I can become more sensitive to the reader. It will all come together. I can feel it.
Reminds me of something else which has annoyed me this past week. Writing a PhD thesis is more than a list of freaking 10 essential 'things to do' (or something one can accomplish in three months) stripped of all its complexity, contestations, struggles, complexity and contextual life... unfortunately this quick fix, easy-does-it approach is being promoted by the OU - probably to justify it's strong push to get students to finish their degrees in three years and not accepting any excuse (save near-death) when this ideal is not met. A blatant promotion of a deficit discourse of student writing if ever I saw it. Who the hell can live up to this unrealistic ideal?
I'm 'writing' my Introduction chapter. Well technical I haven't really written a single word for the actual chapter but I've been reading, thinking, mind mapping, pondering, contemplating, scratching my head in anticipation of officially writing this chapter. It's not going to be a long chapter, I'm hoping 3000-4000 words. But this is where I introduce my story and create the path for the journey I want to take the reader on. It locates me, my study, my argument, the purpose of this whole freaking three years plus process. Without it I can't really get to the conclusion or start to integrate and connect all the bits of the thesis together in a cohesive whole.
Lot's of things are bubbling away in my head - unfortunately I've been reading as a delaying strategy so I'm being torn in many different directions and I need to find my grounding. It's coming though, I can feel it and my mind maps are becoming more specific and focuses on the point I want to make. I'm also aware that I'm dragging my baggage with me and ,as was highlighted to me today, my baggage might not be appreciated by my examiners. But I need to write what I have to write in this first iteration of the chapter and then I can become more sensitive to the reader. It will all come together. I can feel it.
Reminds me of something else which has annoyed me this past week. Writing a PhD thesis is more than a list of freaking 10 essential 'things to do' (or something one can accomplish in three months) stripped of all its complexity, contestations, struggles, complexity and contextual life... unfortunately this quick fix, easy-does-it approach is being promoted by the OU - probably to justify it's strong push to get students to finish their degrees in three years and not accepting any excuse (save near-death) when this ideal is not met. A blatant promotion of a deficit discourse of student writing if ever I saw it. Who the hell can live up to this unrealistic ideal?
Sunday 27 January 2013
missing the OU
The OU can't be faulted for providing students with the kind of resources they need to complete their studies. This past week I've really been missing having access to these taken-for-granted neccessities. Whenever I need to print long documents (like any chapter in my thesis) I have to trek all the way to Bellville and squat with my colleagues in the GD department to print out my documents. When I need access to a book - well that's almost impossible to get hold of. The library at my institution is so under resourced I don't even bother to check if they have a copy of the book. At the moment I can't get access to the borrowing facilities at UCT because I haven't registered with my institution and then gone to UCT to activate my account. At least UCT generally has copies of some of the books I need - but then I have to lean very firmly on colleagues and friends who work at UCT. But all around this is a very convoluted process. I miss just walking to the OU sitting at my desk printing whatever I need, placing a hold on any book I need from the OU library then collecting it at my leisure and if the book isn't there I can simply request the book from the British Libary and when it's available the library sends me a notification and it is kept in a special place where I can collect it at my leisure. With all this missing of the OU the need to have access to these fundamental resources that are crucial to completing a PhD has been brought into sharp focus for me. Thank goodness I still have access to all the electronic resources provided by the OU. Yeah I miss my desk at the OU, especially at times like these.
 |
| My old stomping ground covered in the January snow. |
Saturday 26 January 2013
looking back some more, grounded in the present
I've been working at the UCT library since the end of last year. I've always found comfort in that library and it's become a place that gives me a sense of discipline and calm as I try to wrestle with the becoming of my thesis.
I like being on Upper Campus, you get to look down on the world below you, marvel at the space in front of you (the whole of the Cape Flats right until the Hottentots Holland mountains), but feel a sense of safety that you are so far removed from that reality figuratively and rather literally too.
It's 'Orientation Week' at UCT, so there are loads of somewhat bewildered, somewhat bored 18-20 year olds walking around with an orientation leader across the campus. Most often the pack of young beings come into the library, taking in the space, as best they kind while being overloaded with useful'ish information about where the audio-visual viewing area of the library is. I was having my lunch in the open air food court close to the library the other day and just taking in all the new students and their orientation leaders. This group of students are so diverse in relation to the obvious demographic categories and the less obvious aspects of clothing style, sexual orientation, religion, accent, you name it. The level of diversity is certainly more obvious than you would find at CPUT for instance. Somehow I felt good, warm about this. From what I could tell Black students get involve in their university - they are orientation leaders, members of the SRC, RAG, Faculty Student Councils.
I thought back to my first few days as a students at UCT 24 years ago (and I had to count on my fingers to establish how long ago it actually was since I came to UCT). I also did a Orientation tour, I was lead around the campus by some hippie White guy who was a member of the SRC - I don't remember what he looked like but I remember him. It wasn't something the cool students did - by going on the tour you sort of signaled you were new and didn't know things. And in terms of gaining any 'street -cred' you couldn't really advertise your novice identity. I don't ever remember feeling like anybody wanted me to be part of the university or wanted to make me feel at home, or comfortable in that space, or develop a sense of belonging. In fact as I moved through my undergraduate years this feeling of disconnection and alienation intensified. I had no intention of fraternising with my oppressors - I was there to get my degree and piss off, I wasn't interested in speaking to some White person up at UCT who would then politely ignore me if they saw me down in Rondebosch, at the foot of the mountain. In the dying days of Apartheid my time at UCT was not about getting cozy with the oppressors, it was about getting a good education and taking it back to my own community.
Those were such different times, but even then I sought solace in the library. It was a different library then, not the modern, open space environment I often find myself sitting in these days. Back in my day it was a musty, wood-panelled, almost claustrophobic place. Back then, like today, I had my special spaces to sit and would always retreat to little hidden away areas to read and study. And in that way the UCT library symbolises my success, my academic success.
I've been reading again about the higher education sector in South Africa - a system in crisis - and one that can only ensure that less than 40% of the students who enter its doors leave with a degree after five years of undergraduate study. And while that statistic might sound marginally ok, when you disaggregate it for race then only about 5% of the Black student population are successful in obtaining a degree after five years of study. Bottom-line most Black students therefore aren't successful in finishing their course within the stipulated period.
Again I'm taken back +- 24 years ago - I finished my degree in the stipulated period - I am a stark exception. I also know that if I had been in the schooling system today I would never have seen the UCT light of day - it just would not have happened, all sorts of circumstances would have acted against me I think. I can't explain why I was successful with my studies. I just did all my assignments, went to most of my lecturers and tutorials and sat in the library studying (probably the hard, inefficient way). The courses I took didn't always make sense to me, in fact I don't particularly remember feeling a real sense that I understood the discipline I was learning about. I seem to recall that all I ever got access too was a surface level understanding of things. But I passed within the recommended time frame and didn't do too badly (I didn't do well by a long stretch of the imagination, but I didn't scrape through either).
My research, my work, my identity as a teacher are all wrapped up in finding ways to improve student learning. At the moment I'm drawn to uncovering and understanding my own undergraduate learning experience within its specific historical moment within the larger HE project at the time (yes I was a ASP student too, but really didn't understand what that meant, I signed up for the course because I had to - I wanted to do Psychology and couldn't get into the mainstream course without taking the ASP supplementary tutorials) and mapping it onto the research that exposed the realities of South African's current higher education system. In some ways my own learning experience is a helpful reflective lens, and in other ways the contextual realities of contemporary South Africa are so fundamentally different that trying to bring the two experiences together feels to me like a ridiculous proposition.
I like what I see around me when I sit in the library though - students getting to know their institution and feeling a part of it (these are my perceptions and I know they don't necessarily match the realities that students experience and I know, from the research (and anecdotal evidence), that Black students at UCT are still marginalized and alienated by what they find) - even though my undergraduate experiences at UCT weren't always positive or inviting, and even though I'm critical and cynical about the grand ideals that institutions like UCT project into the world, at a very basic level I have a strong affection for, maybe a kind of loyalty to UCT and am surprised by the degree to which I have internalised and taken on so much of its values and symbolic capital. Especially at postgraduate level UCT has been the site of much of my academic success. In a way I am because of it and I think I came to it at just the right times in my life so that I have been fundamentally shaped by all that is good about the institution and all that is/was bad.
It's 'Orientation Week' at UCT, so there are loads of somewhat bewildered, somewhat bored 18-20 year olds walking around with an orientation leader across the campus. Most often the pack of young beings come into the library, taking in the space, as best they kind while being overloaded with useful'ish information about where the audio-visual viewing area of the library is. I was having my lunch in the open air food court close to the library the other day and just taking in all the new students and their orientation leaders. This group of students are so diverse in relation to the obvious demographic categories and the less obvious aspects of clothing style, sexual orientation, religion, accent, you name it. The level of diversity is certainly more obvious than you would find at CPUT for instance. Somehow I felt good, warm about this. From what I could tell Black students get involve in their university - they are orientation leaders, members of the SRC, RAG, Faculty Student Councils.
I thought back to my first few days as a students at UCT 24 years ago (and I had to count on my fingers to establish how long ago it actually was since I came to UCT). I also did a Orientation tour, I was lead around the campus by some hippie White guy who was a member of the SRC - I don't remember what he looked like but I remember him. It wasn't something the cool students did - by going on the tour you sort of signaled you were new and didn't know things. And in terms of gaining any 'street -cred' you couldn't really advertise your novice identity. I don't ever remember feeling like anybody wanted me to be part of the university or wanted to make me feel at home, or comfortable in that space, or develop a sense of belonging. In fact as I moved through my undergraduate years this feeling of disconnection and alienation intensified. I had no intention of fraternising with my oppressors - I was there to get my degree and piss off, I wasn't interested in speaking to some White person up at UCT who would then politely ignore me if they saw me down in Rondebosch, at the foot of the mountain. In the dying days of Apartheid my time at UCT was not about getting cozy with the oppressors, it was about getting a good education and taking it back to my own community.
Those were such different times, but even then I sought solace in the library. It was a different library then, not the modern, open space environment I often find myself sitting in these days. Back in my day it was a musty, wood-panelled, almost claustrophobic place. Back then, like today, I had my special spaces to sit and would always retreat to little hidden away areas to read and study. And in that way the UCT library symbolises my success, my academic success.
I've been reading again about the higher education sector in South Africa - a system in crisis - and one that can only ensure that less than 40% of the students who enter its doors leave with a degree after five years of undergraduate study. And while that statistic might sound marginally ok, when you disaggregate it for race then only about 5% of the Black student population are successful in obtaining a degree after five years of study. Bottom-line most Black students therefore aren't successful in finishing their course within the stipulated period.
Again I'm taken back +- 24 years ago - I finished my degree in the stipulated period - I am a stark exception. I also know that if I had been in the schooling system today I would never have seen the UCT light of day - it just would not have happened, all sorts of circumstances would have acted against me I think. I can't explain why I was successful with my studies. I just did all my assignments, went to most of my lecturers and tutorials and sat in the library studying (probably the hard, inefficient way). The courses I took didn't always make sense to me, in fact I don't particularly remember feeling a real sense that I understood the discipline I was learning about. I seem to recall that all I ever got access too was a surface level understanding of things. But I passed within the recommended time frame and didn't do too badly (I didn't do well by a long stretch of the imagination, but I didn't scrape through either).
My research, my work, my identity as a teacher are all wrapped up in finding ways to improve student learning. At the moment I'm drawn to uncovering and understanding my own undergraduate learning experience within its specific historical moment within the larger HE project at the time (yes I was a ASP student too, but really didn't understand what that meant, I signed up for the course because I had to - I wanted to do Psychology and couldn't get into the mainstream course without taking the ASP supplementary tutorials) and mapping it onto the research that exposed the realities of South African's current higher education system. In some ways my own learning experience is a helpful reflective lens, and in other ways the contextual realities of contemporary South Africa are so fundamentally different that trying to bring the two experiences together feels to me like a ridiculous proposition.
I like what I see around me when I sit in the library though - students getting to know their institution and feeling a part of it (these are my perceptions and I know they don't necessarily match the realities that students experience and I know, from the research (and anecdotal evidence), that Black students at UCT are still marginalized and alienated by what they find) - even though my undergraduate experiences at UCT weren't always positive or inviting, and even though I'm critical and cynical about the grand ideals that institutions like UCT project into the world, at a very basic level I have a strong affection for, maybe a kind of loyalty to UCT and am surprised by the degree to which I have internalised and taken on so much of its values and symbolic capital. Especially at postgraduate level UCT has been the site of much of my academic success. In a way I am because of it and I think I came to it at just the right times in my life so that I have been fundamentally shaped by all that is good about the institution and all that is/was bad.
Monday 21 January 2013
looking back looking forward
I happened to be in the old building where I used to work on Friday. I went to get some bulk printing done and ask advice about image files, scans and retaining image quality after transferring the files into Word. I got all the help I needed, but unexpectantly also got access to my old office. The one I was using before I left for the OU in September 2008. I used the office previously when conducting research at the institution in 2011 so it still have a vaguely familiar feel of it. The office will be changing hands soon and everything in it will be 'trashed' (or so I was told) and I was afforded an opportunity to remove whatever I wanted before this 'trashing' happened. So I went in - not sure why, but I went in nonetheless. The place itself had been neglected. I don't think anyone had used the office regularly for more than 2-3 years. Most of what I had left in the cupboards, desk and draws were exactly where I had left them except now they were covered in years of dust. My filing cabinet probably never opened, but filled with my orderly and neatly arranged teaching resources, class notes and handouts, interesting articles and readings - all in the same place I had left them, like some ode to me and my life as a teacher - the dust and stuffiness giving it some sense of authenticity and credibility. I had forgotten that part of me, but immediately on seeing a particular hand out or note could remember when I used it, why I used it and even how I had compiled the resource. I also found all my Academic Staff Development resources. This had been my life.
I decided to clear out some of the files and rescue the books still in the cupboard from an uncertain future, probably the rubbish dump. I returned the keys to an old colleague who went on to wax lyrically about my contribution to the programme I had worked on and how my approach to my work was impeccable and how they had never really been able to find a suitable replacement. First time I really got this affirmation and recognition. I had always seen myself as a thorn in their sides (and I probably was at the time - distance makes the heart grow fonder and all that...) pushing for new ways to do things, pushing my students, being so overtly different from my colleagues in my philosophy and methods. Finally some recognition when it was obviously too late.
Looking forward...indeed but at this point I don't see too much. All I see is the finishing line of the PhD. Career-wise I don't really know. On Friday I got a glimpse of what I was, a reflection of someone who +-80% of the time knew what she was doing and where she wanted to go. Now I'm a shadow of that person.
Today a colleague of mine in another faculty informed me that her application for get full-time leave to finish her PhD was turned down. I'm lucky , with all my complaining I at least have the support of my immediate line manager and faculty management. I am lucky.
I decided to clear out some of the files and rescue the books still in the cupboard from an uncertain future, probably the rubbish dump. I returned the keys to an old colleague who went on to wax lyrically about my contribution to the programme I had worked on and how my approach to my work was impeccable and how they had never really been able to find a suitable replacement. First time I really got this affirmation and recognition. I had always seen myself as a thorn in their sides (and I probably was at the time - distance makes the heart grow fonder and all that...) pushing for new ways to do things, pushing my students, being so overtly different from my colleagues in my philosophy and methods. Finally some recognition when it was obviously too late.
Looking forward...indeed but at this point I don't see too much. All I see is the finishing line of the PhD. Career-wise I don't really know. On Friday I got a glimpse of what I was, a reflection of someone who +-80% of the time knew what she was doing and where she wanted to go. Now I'm a shadow of that person.
Today a colleague of mine in another faculty informed me that her application for get full-time leave to finish her PhD was turned down. I'm lucky , with all my complaining I at least have the support of my immediate line manager and faculty management. I am lucky.
Sunday 13 January 2013
I could punch WORD in the @#$!.. face
I'm working to a deadline for tomorrow (no today) and Word is messing with my brain. Thankfully Dropbox came to my rescue yet again. How will I survive this PhD without Dropbox? I still want to punch Word.
The weekend wasn't all bad though.
The weekend wasn't all bad though.
Friday 11 January 2013
where has all the time gone?
It must be a sign of getting old, but a week seems to flash past, in what feels like, a blink of an eye. I have a deadline on Monday. A deadline set at my last supervision meeting. A watered-down deadline that I was really upset about at the time. Now as I approach it, I still have so much to do even to meet the stripped down parameters of the writing I have to submit.
At the beginning of the week I made some very rough plans about deliverables. I can't bring myself to construct those elaborate, detailed and aesthetically pleasing workplans I did throughout my time at the OU. Particularly as all through my 3rd year I kept failing to meet the deadlines I set for myself. Now a very rough, mind-map-like outline drawn on the back of some printed paper will have to suffice as the main guide to my work activities over the next 6 weeks. I make some tentative weekly plans that I scribble on my calendar and that is how I proceed.
This past week has been a mixed-bag. Days when I'm really productive and other's where my engagement is lackluster at best. I've been tired a lot - just this week. I need a better routine really. Something more varied and one that accommodates some form of physical activity and engagement with other people, not only sitting at my desk in the flat. When I'm away from my desk during the day I'm usually more productive. UCT library currently being my favorite other place to be and work. And let's not forget or discard Cocoa Cha Chi in Observatory. I'm only productive at my desk at night.
That was the week that was - I now need to make the weekend matter and meet my deadline on Monday with a piece of writing that shows a meaningful move forward.
At the beginning of the week I made some very rough plans about deliverables. I can't bring myself to construct those elaborate, detailed and aesthetically pleasing workplans I did throughout my time at the OU. Particularly as all through my 3rd year I kept failing to meet the deadlines I set for myself. Now a very rough, mind-map-like outline drawn on the back of some printed paper will have to suffice as the main guide to my work activities over the next 6 weeks. I make some tentative weekly plans that I scribble on my calendar and that is how I proceed.
This past week has been a mixed-bag. Days when I'm really productive and other's where my engagement is lackluster at best. I've been tired a lot - just this week. I need a better routine really. Something more varied and one that accommodates some form of physical activity and engagement with other people, not only sitting at my desk in the flat. When I'm away from my desk during the day I'm usually more productive. UCT library currently being my favorite other place to be and work. And let's not forget or discard Cocoa Cha Chi in Observatory. I'm only productive at my desk at night.
That was the week that was - I now need to make the weekend matter and meet my deadline on Monday with a piece of writing that shows a meaningful move forward.
Sunday 6 January 2013
trying to take the edge off and failing
Wednesday 2 January 2013
a slow belaboured start to the working year
This is probably the first time in my life that I start working on Tweede Nuwe Jaar. Guess my cultural heritage in some way or another has ingrained an inherent averse reaction to working on January 2.
So it was a very slow move out of the starting blocks this morning. And this pattern marked the way I dealt with the rest of the day too. I kept thinking about what I was doing last year and the year before that - remembering times when I didn't feel so stressed or panicked about this PhD (or so I now lead myself to believe).
A slow start, but a start nonetheless and my fellow Capetonians would probably hand me a medal for being so disciplined and dedicated. And to start the year some utterly peripheral but, psychologically, important paraphernalia - a new wireless keyboard to help offset wrist strain and a new smaller and compact mint green diary. I haven't been able to shed my reliance on paper-based means of recording my day-to-day activities and I'm hoping this smart and sophisticated appendix will help me feel better about planning my life in this FINAL year of my PhD.
Unfortunately, the week ahead is filled with equally pressing family concerns and responsibilities and I will have to juggle my time as I try again to make a concrete stab at the first draft of the Interpretation chapter - that will finally allow me to say 'I have six written chapters'.
So it was a very slow move out of the starting blocks this morning. And this pattern marked the way I dealt with the rest of the day too. I kept thinking about what I was doing last year and the year before that - remembering times when I didn't feel so stressed or panicked about this PhD (or so I now lead myself to believe).
A slow start, but a start nonetheless and my fellow Capetonians would probably hand me a medal for being so disciplined and dedicated. And to start the year some utterly peripheral but, psychologically, important paraphernalia - a new wireless keyboard to help offset wrist strain and a new smaller and compact mint green diary. I haven't been able to shed my reliance on paper-based means of recording my day-to-day activities and I'm hoping this smart and sophisticated appendix will help me feel better about planning my life in this FINAL year of my PhD.
Unfortunately, the week ahead is filled with equally pressing family concerns and responsibilities and I will have to juggle my time as I try again to make a concrete stab at the first draft of the Interpretation chapter - that will finally allow me to say 'I have six written chapters'.
Tuesday 1 January 2013
a year in review
It's 2013 baby! I feel like my feet are stuck in cement - grounded in one place. The positive aspect is that I'm grounded.
This is what people tend to do at this point in the year - reflect on the past year and look forward to the new one with high expectations. I've been thinking about 2012 for the past few days and had this real sinking feeling. It hasn't been great for my PhD. For one thing, I didn't finish the PhD as I had hoped in 2012 - I didn't even get close to finishing the PhD in 2012 which was the plan B. In fact when I left the UK in September I had five written chapters, at the end of 2012 I have five written chapters. It doesn't really matter that I have five marginally better written chapters than I had in September, I still only have five after three months in Cape Town. While returning to Cape Town has been in many ways a frustrating experience in relation to the PhD - as I struggled to make the transition back to my life here and then encountered one problem, challenge, set-back, distraction after the other which rendered me almost paralysed - I started to 'get' the PhD, I discovered some joy and positivity in the whole experience, I like what I'm doing and even with all the dark clouds looming, as I hint at above, I know what the PhD is actually about and I know it will make a plausible contribution to the field. I freaking have a contribution to make and it isn't 'mickey mouse' either.
But the year has left me shell-shocked, my confidence is at its lowest, I don't know where I belong and who or what I am - a lecturer? but in what?, a curriculum specialist who hasn't been working at a SA institution in four years?, an academic development practitioner out-of-touch with the realities of academic life and students learning within the SA higher education context?, a colleague but with what affiliation? and with what authority do I make all these claims and professional identity statements? The only thing I know and what feels most real is that I'm now a fourth year, unfunded PhD student at the Open University - but that is so disconnected from my current context and reality and buys me so little except maybe sympathy or disdain (depending on whose looking in)
I have to start chopping away at the cement that covers my feet and restricts my movement. I have no resolutions for the new year, except a deep desire to finish my PhD before I go into the second half of the year. I have no choice, I can only hope that all the bits that make up who I am can come together and pull in unison to help make this desire a reality. At the moment I feel like I have no choice but also no control and I need to wrestle back control in order to stand any chance of making 2013 a lot brighter than 2012.
This is what people tend to do at this point in the year - reflect on the past year and look forward to the new one with high expectations. I've been thinking about 2012 for the past few days and had this real sinking feeling. It hasn't been great for my PhD. For one thing, I didn't finish the PhD as I had hoped in 2012 - I didn't even get close to finishing the PhD in 2012 which was the plan B. In fact when I left the UK in September I had five written chapters, at the end of 2012 I have five written chapters. It doesn't really matter that I have five marginally better written chapters than I had in September, I still only have five after three months in Cape Town. While returning to Cape Town has been in many ways a frustrating experience in relation to the PhD - as I struggled to make the transition back to my life here and then encountered one problem, challenge, set-back, distraction after the other which rendered me almost paralysed - I started to 'get' the PhD, I discovered some joy and positivity in the whole experience, I like what I'm doing and even with all the dark clouds looming, as I hint at above, I know what the PhD is actually about and I know it will make a plausible contribution to the field. I freaking have a contribution to make and it isn't 'mickey mouse' either.
But the year has left me shell-shocked, my confidence is at its lowest, I don't know where I belong and who or what I am - a lecturer? but in what?, a curriculum specialist who hasn't been working at a SA institution in four years?, an academic development practitioner out-of-touch with the realities of academic life and students learning within the SA higher education context?, a colleague but with what affiliation? and with what authority do I make all these claims and professional identity statements? The only thing I know and what feels most real is that I'm now a fourth year, unfunded PhD student at the Open University - but that is so disconnected from my current context and reality and buys me so little except maybe sympathy or disdain (depending on whose looking in)
I have to start chopping away at the cement that covers my feet and restricts my movement. I have no resolutions for the new year, except a deep desire to finish my PhD before I go into the second half of the year. I have no choice, I can only hope that all the bits that make up who I am can come together and pull in unison to help make this desire a reality. At the moment I feel like I have no choice but also no control and I need to wrestle back control in order to stand any chance of making 2013 a lot brighter than 2012.
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