Closing the circle (again), taming demons

Almost three weeks ago I spent time at the Open University. I went back as Visiting Fellow and to present research work completed with my OU friend and colleague JT. It was wonderful being back. While I spent most of my time in The Hub, just being on the campus in Summer brought back so many warm and familiar memories. Five years definitely gives you perspective. I always loved being within the OU space. I 'took' to the physical environment almost immediately and always enjoyed the campus - I think it had a lot to do with my comparative review of subtle values communicated through the buildings and infrastructural resources. As a PhD student at the OU we were 'showered' with the kinds of material resources and respect I hadn't until then encountered in the professional work spaces I inhabited before. At the OU I always felt welcome and materially 'cared for'. I had more trouble adapting to the intellectual and learning environment and feeling at ease there. Partly this was just because of the PhD experience and the at times 'foreign' learning space of British higher education. My blog posts during that time bear testament to those struggles and contestations. Learning involves change, and change is often hard and painful. It's just the way it is.
During my visit I had dinner with my supervisors. As I was nearing the end of my PhD we had one or two dinners together, but I would never have guessed that a gap of five years should allow new light and wonderment to enter our engagements and shift our relationship. We debated calling each other 'supervisors' and 'student' and how far away from these role differentiations and identities we are allowed to slip irrespective of time (the matter was left unresolved - the role identities, albeit so strongly framed and instructed by external forces, are too hard wired, especially in my psyche). We spoke about post-PhD career pathways, post-retirement activities, new learning joys and about life and living. We laughed a lot, eat good food, drank wine, coffee. My stories were affirmed and validated and I was offered practical and insightful advice that recognised my intellectual worth,  perspectives and the contribution my academic work does and continues to make. Five years definitely gives you perspective. Coming back to the OU as a researcher and academic rather than a student felt like I was closing the circle. More significantly, it felt like finally my PhD demons were tamed.

is this it?

I've been contemplating writing this mail for the past two months. I haven't been able to bring myself to sit down and type my thoughts into the white block the blogger interface assigns to the task of writing/typing  blog posts. In order to blog regularly you need to constantly bring to the surface your reflective thoughts and ideas. You need to want to make these thoughts 'public' or at least visible to an audience - however small you might imagine that audience to be.

Most of my contemplations have been about whether I want to continue to make these thoughts I have, which have recently been about my now post-PhD life at a university in CT, visible, public. I just have too many doubts about the utility of it all. Of using this space to do what I've been doing since 2009? I think it served a purpose while I was in the UK, while I was doing the PhD - when I used the platform as a reflective space, a way to step back from the isolation and introversion that characterises the PhD. During that time it's so helpful to find some way of trying to make sense of the complex, contradictory, conflicting, shifting feelings that accompany and infect that special journey. But what happens when that journey ends? What happens when you move on, but continue to carry all that contradictory, critical and increasingly cynical feelings about academia (and your place in it), thrown about and exposed by the PhD experience? Can you continue to pour out, albeit carefully typed-out black text on this white-blocked background, stories of confusion, negativity, uncertainly, rejection and critique? Does it make sense to be that awkward bugger who just won't / can't fit in? I'm not sure. So it feels better to just stop. Maybe for a little while, maybe forever. Maybe the blog will be resurrected during a more grounded, happier time in my professional and personal live(s) or when I need this space again so I can make visible the unsaid observations, thoughts, impressions, contemplations, insights, views and opinions without fear that these reflections only reinforce a negative narrative.

me and mendeley

During my PhD, especially when I had to write the twice yearly progress reports, I would proudly boast that I had a 'good information management system for my expanding research resources and [was] maintaining my electronic bibliography via Endnote or Mendeley'.  And as I recall it took some discipline on my part to keep this 'dream alive'. I remember using my Fridays' to sit diligently and clean up my bibliography either in Endnote or in Mendeley, which I switched to in the first year of my PhD. But since submitting my thesis I haven't even clicked on the Mendeley icon on my desk top. I feel a bit guilty because this tardy behaviour highlights the lack of discipline and interest I have in doing all the good things, that good, publishable academics are meant to do. In fact the reason I'm been drawn to writing this blog, is the fact that I've resisted clicking on that icon for the past three or four days. I need to compile a reference list for something I'm writing. I know I should do it all in Mendeley. I know this is a good period to spend some quality time with the bibliography. To give it the love and attention it deserves. But. I also know it's in a mess and I will need to deal with that mess. Apparently the PhD process was meant to instill all these wonderful ways of doing things, that should set you up as a good, solid, independent researcher - the kinds of things that make for good academics in the long run. I used to take pride in, at least, partaking in these activities and rituals - signalling my immersion into this way of being. Now I just keep putting it off, discarding my old ways - almost in defiance. Knowing full well, that this superficial act of defiance, is like pissing in the wind. All the piss eventually ends up in your face.

learning spaces

I've always imaged studying at university was about learning new things, being challenged to consider differently, to shift and change how you think and act. This drive to learn more, understand better, became the impetus, driving my pursuit of learning until I got to the PhD - the pinnacle of academic learning. A year after been deemed successful at achieving this learning 'outcome' I wonder where the true learning spaces are in academia. Are they created in the conferences, symposia, colloquiums and seminars we are encouraged to attend and participate in? Are they found in the classrooms we facilitate and manage? Or maybe they are lurking in the corridors, staff common rooms, colleagues' offices or noisy coffee shops - the informal spaces were fellow academics, researchers or teachers combine personal catch-up stories with reflections and ideas about theories new and old. Increasingly I'm finding the formal university space rather barren and void of learning. While the informal, entanglements of the unlikely, often peripheral spaces where those imagined notions of learning, that brought me to where I now find myself, are becoming the real, the authentic sites.

wasted

Its getting close to that time of the year when things start to slow down - students are finishing off their final lectures and the department shifts into final exam mode. The final push to mark and submit marks and then, the academics in my department relax and wait for the year to pass. For me, this period is increasingly representing a time when I write in the open. When no one is watching me. When no one in very interested in doing anything much and I sneak-in my writing. Make it mainstream, instead of that thing I try to do on a Thursday away from the office or on Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons. But, unsettlingly, in plotting forward towards this period, I've had to take stock of the past year. It's depressing as I feel I've done so little intellectually engaging work. I have so little to show for the year past. My first post-PhD year. On my desk sits some of the books I bought over the past 10 or so months. Many haven't been touched, thumbed through. Some I've only managed to read a few pages, maybe a chapter. Reading is meant to be the lifeblood of what I do as an academic, what defines me, what I actually enjoy. And yet I feel as if I haven't even succeeded at it. It's easier to justify not having any writing outcomes, but no reading? Well that's another matter.

the trouble with a PhD

Doing a PhD changes you. You never come out of the process the same person who went into it. The trouble though, is that the 'change' is unknown or unpredictable. Most universities, like the OU, outline their expectations for the type of PhD graduate they hope the process will produce. So it's fairly reasonable to assume that 'out there' are a 'standard' set of characteristics or dispositions, which a fairly large group of interested people, expect someone with a PhD to possess. Now some can embrace all these changes and in fact, they change in ways that almost map on directly to these expected characteristics deemed important. They meet their own expectations and those of others, of the person you're meant to become as a result of the PhD. And I think when that happens, it's great, because of course it validates the process and makes all the sacrifices,one invariably makes when embarking on such an intense learning process, worthwhile. There is a sense of achievement and personal reward and fulfillment. I'm glad to say I know a few people who have experienced the PhD in this way, and have revelled in the many positive and validating outcomes of the PhD experience in both their personal and professional lives. The positive personal impact of the PhD is undeniable.

Others, struggle more with the changes that have occurred and even more importantly, with the expectations of change and types of changes, others expect. I've always been wary of the changes that might happen to me as a result of the PhD, and in many ways this is what kept me from embarking on the process sooner than I did. I was scared that I would change in particular ways - not that I knew exactly how these changes might manifest - I was just apprehensive. And while you can sometimes see or experience how you are changing, while in the middle of the whole thing, I think the full extent of your metamorphosis is only fully realised when you have to re-immerse yourself into 'normal' life and start to bump up against your own new view of the world and the reconfigured expectations of others. I'm feeling this conflict and discomfort profoundly at the moment. I'm trying to work through my own internal conflicts about the changes that I've undergone, but find I'm also confronted by having to negotiate and mediate other people's expectations of me, Lynn with the PhD.

I had an e-mail just yesterday from a friend of mine in England - we did our PhD's together at the OU. He never went back into higher education after he completed his doctorate and is now working voluntarily for an archeological society. He too spoke about the trouble the changes that the PhD demands and is responsible for, and the difficulty with settling back into old environments post-PhD. It's reassuring to know, one can just cut-out your own pathway and that all those letters 'behind your name' don't need to prescribe or determine who you are, what you do and who you want to become.

elephants in the room

The elephants in the room today were race and power. But aren't they always,...in the room? The workshop focus of the symposium today was really a stroke of genius and a wonderful attempt to invite conversation and dialogue. But the elephants were having none of it. None of the conversation and none of the dialogue. My head was dull from not having slept last night. I couldn't shut my brain down and I knew I would suffer in the morning and so I did. As a result I couldn't see and I couldn't really anticipate the movements of the agitated elephants in the room. I noticed them but couldn't make sense of their behaviour. 

Academic spaces, like the one I was in today, are fertile grounds for power struggles. People parade and stake out their intellectual space. I am a Bernsteinian. I'm an academic literacies person. I am female. I have a PhD. I am a practitioner. I'm interested in the student. I'm interested in the curriculum. I'm using LCT. I dislike Karl Maton. I am black (or coloured, or white, or indian). In these uber-polite environments it's the person who wields their power through the eloquence of their words and the conquering up of theory to support their position that gets to dominant. Better still if they are able to evoke ontological debate and philosophy. Those unable to engage in this manner are simply present in the room, but definitely not guest of the party. That's the power first and foremost and how it is exercised. 

So what about race? Did my silence today have anything to do with my race? Or did it have more to day with my inability to communicate (or let me be frank, my intellectual incapacity to take up the debates)? To say that my perceived inability to engage in the conversation in the ways necessary to be recognised as a 'guest', is because I was denied the privileged of good schooling and opportunities because I'm black and grew up in apartheid South Africa, is condescending and deeply offensive and suggests a clear lack of understanding of the multiple factors that act to silence or amplify peoples' voices in any given situation. Such a view while tinged with the realities of being black, is limited and simply airbrushes, me Lynn, and all my agency (and that of my family) out of the picture. Yes I always mentally count how many black academics are in the room and my observations suggest that both in SA and aboard, typically, we are in the minority. But I'm not convinced that how we behave in these sittings are only determined by the colour of our skin. But I can understand and recognise that power evoked around race is still contentious and needs to be brought to the surface. I don't have the answers and feel that I might be 'outting' a somewhat assimilationist or dare I say 'colonised' view on race in SA through my articulations here. What I do wonder is how the symposium space could have been reconstructed in such a way to ensure that everyone felt more equal (on whatever grounds) and more comfortable to speak and voice their ideas. But maybe seeking equality in academia is an elusive notion and that's why the elephants in the room will always be allowed to go 'bos'.

walk like an egyptian

Today I attended a symposium organised by colleagues at UCT. I did a short presentation focusing on how my PhD research incorporated the academic literacies and Bernsteinian perspectives. Surprisingly for me, the presentation itself was well received. I got some really complimentary comments, mostly about the research approach I used and how I was able to articulate what I'd done. Thankfully no real questions about the specifics. Although at the end of the day someone did 'corner me' and ask a question about the very specifics I was hoping would be overlooked. And I did struggle to provide a coherent, intelligent response, because as I realised, when mumbling through bits and pieces of what I did almost three years ago, I actually don't remember. No, maybe this is an unfair portrayal for my intelligence (and memory). What actually happened here is that I haven't yet considered how to mediate or translate the specifics of what I did during my fieldwork, or how I came to the interpretive stance I took to my analysis work, outside of what I wrote in the thesis. Without the steady, slow progress of the argument constructed by the structure of the thesis I was a bit lost.

This brings me to walking like an egyptian or rather walking, talking and behaving like a PhD academic. These events that bring together academics to discuss and debate a scholarly issue are very much like a particular kind of performance. You have to walk like an egyptian and my nervousness and anxiety before such events is usually because I'm never really sure whether I'll be recognised or perform appropriately as 'that' egyptian. Or indeed if I want to be a darn egyptian in the first place. When I was a masters student (and to a lesser degree a PhD student) or when I went to conferences as a 'practitioner' I felt less pressure to try to be the 'academic', 'scholar', 'Dr' - the egyptian in Egypt. In this early post-PhD phase I've become increasingly conscious of my identity and the identity projections of everyone else in the room. And so the mumblings I described above bother me even though I have a reasonable explanation for my response. Your thesis always needs mediation and translation especially when you are presenting it, or parts of it, to an audience not made up of your supervisors or examiners. A lesson I'm learning slowly and sometimes a bit painfully. But when in Egypt you have do what the egyptians do, no? The trouble though is that it's not always clear what that actually means, and to construct your own path through this environment, no matter how many times you've visited before, can be a risky business. But never fear, for now at least I'm an academic with a PhD and tomorrow I get another chance to trying out my own special walk, talk and way of being.

nothing will work unless you do

I read a lot of Maya Angelou in my early and mid-twenties. I was going through a 'feminist' phase, although saying this now sounds so wrong, implying that I'm no longer a feminist. Well it was a phase where I took a more hardline approach to all things gender related. In retrospect I was simply working out who I was and how I, as a black woman related to the rest of the world.

In the last two days I've been lucky to spend some time with two good friends/colleagues talking about me and my professional life post-PhD in direct and indirect ways. Reading some of the many obituaries and famous quotes from Maya Angelou I was drawn to this one 'nothing will work unless you do'. In both these chats the issue of writing as a survival and personal affirmation strategy came up, again in direct and indirect ways. I've put serious academic writing off for too long, citing all sorts of reasons not to make it a priority. I have to do the work to solve the problems I encounter, even if that work isn't what I initially expected it to be.

I like this image.
She looks directly into the camera,
open, unassuming, comfortable.

Maya Angelou to the rescue once again? Which makes me wonder if I've already figured out all I need to about how as a black woman I relate to the rest of the world.

doing it on the fly

As a PhD graduate I'm meant to take a scholarly, systematic and structured approach to all my academic related activities. I'm suppose to think carefully about my pedagogic or research practices and approach them in ways that are befitting of the knowledge and skills I developed as a PhD student in the UK. Instead I've embarked on two 'on the fly' projects. One, a pseudo mini-research project exploring student transition and another, an ad-hoc 1st year writers' circle support group. One could see these activities in one of two ways; a) I'm completely arrogant, highly confident and self-assured so therefore dismissive of the need to follow procedures, structures, scholarship - I know what the problems are, I know how to fix it and the literature can't tell me, anything I don't already know; b) I'm a practitioner confronted by a concern, a problem and I've acted in a responsive manner. I, however, think there is a third way. I'm a practitioner with a deep scholarly disposition, very aware of the 'shortcomings' of my hastily prepared research and pedagogic projects, trying desperately to find the time needed, to give both my projects the kind of academic and intellectual 'thinking' time they need, they deserve. I'm an aware practitioner and I know how these projects can be strengthened to fulfill all the rigours demanded by a critical scholarly community, of which I am also a participant. But needs must. And this is a way for me to feed my intellectual curiosity and keep my teacher identity alive and kicking in an otherwise barren environment.

taking the weekend off

The PhD experience instills a strange discipline or guilt  - depending on how you want to view it. Your work is a constant feature of your life, and if you are doing a full-time PhD the days of the week are practically indistinguishable from each other. Basically, weekends don't exist. I had a rule of working a six-day week. Since I was relieved of my teaching responsibilities my weekends have pretty much become weekends. Unless I've been working on some or other writing project, my weekends have become a time when I do the things normal people do on a weekend. I was surprised to acknowledge last week, that I did not check my e-mail for practically most of the weekend. More surprising is that it didnt really bother me. Of course there is that niggly bit of something I feel, a slight discomfort at doing 'nothing' or having 'nothing' of value to do (reframed this means that only real academic work - aka, writing or research - is of value). Last time I wrote about how writing and identity are two sides of the same coin, a similar claim could be made that academic work and identity are two sides of the same coin. So is it any wonder that my work, or guilt, or discipline associated with my work follows me into the weekend?

hello my name is Dr Lynn Coleman and I'm your lecturer

Is lecturing just like riding a bike - you never forgot how to do it? I felt completely self conscious about myself and what I was saying today. I met my students today - well they met me. I remember doing similar introductions to first years, in particular, in the course where I taught before the PhD but I don't remember feeling this self conscious about myself. I think the less than positive self awareness stems from the fact that I feel very much like a newbie myself. I've never taught in this course before, nor have I taught most of the content. Of course I know I CAN teach the content, it's just five years outside of the classroom (and deeply immersed in the role of a student) can alter your self confidence about your teaching.

Being a PhD student heightened my awareness of the student experience and I during my time as a student I was able to really reflect on some of my not so positive behaviours as a teacher. I'm determined not to make the same mistakes again and so I'm very mindful of my responsibility to be a good, positive teacher and role model. It did feel good to be in the company of young people again, even though I really struggle to identify with their taste in music, movies or having watching TV as a hobby. But hey ho! I suspect they might find it hard to identify with my lifestyle choices too.

new focus

Seems it didn't take too long to come up with an idea of how to take my blog forward. How to make it accommodate the new (old) things and activities I'm engaging in and the identities that are becoming part of me in the post-PhD phase of my life. Post-PhD being the operative phrase that is all important. I'm going to blog about what it means to be in this post-PhD phase, how the PhD is shaping, influencing, directing, contorting how I see myself and my work within the specific vocational higher education institution where I work and the broader local and international higher education context that I am also part of. So I'll be rambling on about my new teaching role (in the disturbingly titled 'Academic and Professional Literacies' arena) and all the other activities and tasks wonderfully assigned to the very non-descript 'Academic Support' job title I currently have. A taster of the open-endedness of this title, today the first day of the academic year I had two random (and I mean random) students find their way into my office (I've decided that for the next two week my door will remain closed at all times) and ask me for advice about their continued studies in my department or how they might get into the course even though their application had already been rejected. Now of course I realise these students probably come into my office because mine was the only door open in the corridor and they needed their questions answered, but maybe, just maybe they saw the name tag and underlying title on my door and thought - 'I have a concern that needs some academic support, and the person inside this office should be able to answer it'.

And so the post-PhD phase of my life and this blog begins and to celebrate I've given the blog a bit of a face-lift. I quite like it!

what now?

The corrections are with the Research School and I guess it's practically over - the PhD that is. So I've been wondering what to do with this blog. I'm not sure  - I started the blog as a way of reflecting on my PhD journey and now that I've reached my final destination I'm not what function the blog might fulfill. I don't want to stop blogging but I'm not 100% sure how to make the blog-transition from the PhD to my next journey. At this point I'm not exactly sure what they next journey will be or rather what story I want to tell about my life post-PhD. I'm gonna have to think about this a little bit more and possibility use the blog as a canvas for my explorations. The blog, my blog, I think is robust, it can deal with some eclectic meanderings - a little bit of this, a tiny bit of that and viola! Hopefully something new, yet familiar.
 

cape flats' mothers and new year's eve

I called a friend of mine who like me has long since escaped the physical and other confines of the Cape Flats. What was she doing on New Year's Eve? Well before anything could be done the house had to be cleaned. A lesson from her mother - you can't greet the new year with last year's dirt. We laughed to how successful our mother's indoctrination had been. This was a lesson I had also learnt from my mother. And over the years I've always adhered in varying degrees to this once strictly enforced doctrine. So as I sit down to write my final blog post for 2013, my washing is drying in the hot summer sun and the vacuum cleaner is on the ready to suck up the last of 2013's dirt.

Next to my cup of tea, my beautifully annotated examination-copy thesis sits. I was determined to finish off 2013 properly - yes I've completed all the corrections and produced a cover sheet detailing how I attended to them. This will accompany the final, revised version of the thesis when I send it along to the Research School at the very start of 2014. So it's finally over; the PhD.

This holiday period felt so light, I felt so light without the worry of the PhD (save for the corrections of course). Thinking back to last year this time, I was in such a different emotional space - I could taste the heaviness that enveloped me. I'm grateful to be able to see things differently now and tell a different story about 2013 - the year I finished my PhD. Reflection involves confronting and acknowledging the happy and sad, the good and the bad - these two elements are always present, they just take up different amounts of space at different times. So my PhD and the year I finished it, has been beautifully fashioned by both the good and bad, happy and sad. And I'm very content with that realisation, outcome, narrative.

Part of my pre-2014 cleaning will involve clearing up all the now superfluous papers and notes that represented that final push before the viva. My study must be ready to embrace all that 2014 has to throw at it and I think my mother, if she could comprehend it all, would be particularly proud of my cleaning efforts on this hot and windy new year's eve.

crap at writing

I've been crap at writing about my post-viva misadventures. I've been caught like a rabbit in headlights as I stumble around dealing with the mundane minutiae of the administrative side of academic life. This has left me little time to ponder what it means to be Dr Coleman. In fact when people comment or use the Dr title to grab my attention I typically dismiss it and say 'It's not official yet' in the hope that this liminal space - between submitting the corrections and getting the official documentation/certificate -  can buy me some time to work out what it actually mean to be Dr Lynn Coleman. Never mind!

I did engage in some fairly enjoyable academic activity last week when I went to HELTASA - the one stop shop for all things Academic Development in South Africa. Lots of congratulatory wishes, hints at possible job offers (although I'm not convinced), some genuine networking opportunities, and general socialising of the academic and not so academic kind (aka lots of dancing to old 80s music). Unfortunately the buzz around the conference subsided rather abruptly - I find myself juggling the 'mundane minutiae' and the more serious need to complete my preparations for the SRHE conference next week. I'm not winning the battle!

happiness in bitter sweetness

I feel a deep regret at not having written this post a week ago, for now all the happiness and elation I felt last week at having finally reached the end of that rocky journey, has dissipated. I passed my PhD with minor corrections after an intense viva experience that I don't think I could have prepared for in a 100 years. I still need to tell that story but it won't be right now.

Tonight sitting here in my warm lounge working on eliminating all the typos in the thesis and fretting at the thought of having to reformat the page numbering and once again do all the Image and Figure cross-referencing - I've been disturbingly reminded how uncertain the PhD journey, and in particular how fragile the supervisory relationship, can be. It does feel right to be waxing lyrically about my achievement while a friend of mine is battling some of the same demons I did just a few months ago. Bitter, sweet; always bitter, sweet.

on my way to the UK

Indeed the time has arrived and by 10pm tonight I will be on a plane heading to the UK to attend my viva. The final little piece to the puzzle that soon will be 'my PhD'. So much has been happening in my personal life these past few weeks, that in certain ways the viva and its preparations have had to take a back seat. And now as I'm always fond of saying - the process is just carrying me on. A sense that it's all outside of my control and all I can do is 'go with the flow' as my Mom is fond of saying. But I have been practicing and thanks to some coaching from a colleague and long lost friend MSJ, I feel ok about what I might encounter next Wednesday. I'll have some time over the next few days to put the finishing touches to my notes and rehearse some of the more standard responses to standard-type questions. But I also feel very supported. I've received well wishes and sweet, kind thoughts from so many people and my thinking is, with all this positive energy around me, a positive result is inevitable. I'm open, realistic but very aware of the work I've put in and I don't have to guess that the thesis is of passable quality. And all I want is to pass.

So here goes - and when I get back to Cape Town I'll have achieved this 'thing' and be recognised by a little precursor to my name (I can't get to the correct naming convention) that can mean so many things to different people. I'll have to work out what it means to me. But that's a story for another day and another blog post. Besides thinking about the moments immediately after the viva I'm also thinking about having some beach sand between my toes this Christmas, without any guilt associated with having chosen the beach instead of working on the PhD.

change is inevitable

I'm trying to maintain a brave face as I tackle the working week. I have good days, when I feel like I've achieved something or I don't feel too disheartened by the mundane tasks I've done all day. The bad days, well...I have bad days.

The most striking thing about being back at work is noticing how much I've changed. It's not only that I have changed, because change is bound to happen over time. It's when I focus on the how that reveals the most significant insights. I feel as if I view my new/old surroundings from OU tinted lenses. I don't think that I'm overtly comparing practices, I'm just acutely aware of how strongly my time at the OU has come to influence and shape my sense of academia. The academic practices I now foreground have a clear OU flavour. I find myself evaluating the saying, doings, valuing around me from an OU position. I say OU but of course it has more to do with my disciplinary alignments, forged very strongly during my time at the OU and the specificities of my supervisors' ways of talking, thinking, doing and valuing. I'm shocked at how much of it I've internalised. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it just creates particular challenges as I find myself operating in a environment where my ways of being bump against the institutional and departmental ways of being. Sometimes I manage these challenges and tensions, other times they send me reeling and seriously doubting myself. I did a bit of English-style whinging yesterday  to my dear friend SB about my re-immersion into working life at a UoT and she gave me some firm advice - Suck it up, buttercup - she said. I think there is something pure and unpretentious about the advice which I can only appreciate. Things will get better and who knows I might even re-acclimatize and change my wayward tendencies.

transitioning 'Groundhog day'

No I'm not Bill Murray - but I am referencing his experiences from the movie of the same name. I can't seem to move beyond a transitioning state of being. I feel like I'm trapped in some liminal space never able to leave. Just when I feel some stability is finally approaching, I'm thrown back into an in-between space never able to build, develop or establish an identity beyond one transition to something else. So what the hell am I? What purpose do I serve? And what the hell does it mean to have a PhD in Higher Education Studies? (and I should add within a university of technology setting!). Having just submitted the thesis I feel myself holding onto the 'PhD student' experience and identity. Well it took me practically four years to cultivate. It was such a certain thing and being at the OU provided the necessary social and cultural 'props' required to take on that identity. Now back at work, I'm not sure what I am. I'm out of touch with the realities of my institution, the teaching context, the people, the politics. I appear to be floating from one area of 'work' activity to another. I say yes to almost everything people place in front of me because I don't want to appear as if I'm trying to lighten my load, I want to fit in, and I don't want to seem like I'm above 'certain' kinds of tasks.

Recently I've been asked to do two presentation based on my research - not that anyone is really interested in my research - simply because I have done 'the research'. You've done a PhD now talk about it - I feel is the main motivation behind these requests. You've done a PhD now sit on our committee dealing with postgraduates in the department. I work in an IT department - what the hell do I know about IT of any sort. I can see myself being roped in to 'supervise' students doing Btech and Mtech degrees in IT because as someone put it, when I remonstrated that I'm not sure what I can contribute 'All research is the same'. I wonder if it's worth arguing against such a statement. On the somewhat bright side of things, working means a proper salary or maybe more appropriately for me at the moment 'danger pay'.