making meaning of 'sabbatical'

I've been in Sweden for a month and I'm starting to wonder more seriously about what it means to be on sabbatical. As part of my leave application I had to list all the expected outcomes for this period. They were all written artefacts - publications in accredited journals, editorial activities for the edited collection I'm working on. All writing tasks. So it would seem my sabbatical is all about writing. But what about just reading (anything), just thinking, just walking, just doing 'stuff' I wouldnt normally do back at my desk, in Cape Town? How do these activities fit into my sabbatical plan?

I've been writing, making slow, but I would also say, stead progress on that highly prized 'journal publication'. Most mornings I get up around 7 and I'm at my desk at Blåsenhus or the sunny dinning-room table at the flat by around 9:30am. I have that same anxiety and then guilt that I had for much of my PhD about not writing enough, not writing fast enough, not doing more. On Thursday a colleague back home said to me jokingly, when I mentioned I had a hard, long day, 'Are you working? Aren't you on sabbatical?' Made me think! In no time I will have been here for two, three months and all I will have to show are those written (incomplete?) artefacts. My neck and shoulders will still be rock-hard and sore, my body will continue to be stiff and inflexible, the sadness, worry and displacement I've been feeling for months before arriving in Uppsala will still be warmly nestled in my being.  I will also berate myself for my inability to calmly respond to the workplace stress that will surely greet me on my return.

So what is this sabbatical about then? Yes it's about writing - it's about finding the joy, and not only fixating on the terror, and weight of writing. But it's mostly about me, Lynn, the academic writer, the academic and teacher. It's about valuing and accepting how I am as an academic writer, how I write academically, what kind of academic writing I do and why I write the 'stuff' I do. It's also about me, Lynn. Just me, Lynn.

relationships in academia

Relationships of any kind can be tricky and complex at the best of times. In the university and academia more generally, the structural and organisational systems, that give life to ego-saturated status and rank  differentials, over and above the complexities of interpersonal interactions, make for a difficult terrain to navigate. I've learnt a number of hard lessons, bruising lessons about how this can play out over the last six months or so. And while living through this period, I suspect my immersion in the day-to-day specifics of 'who said what', and 'who did what to whom', and 'what does this mean' and 'how shall I respond', left me a bit blindsided and unable to appreciate a more helicopter-inspired perspective on - relationships in academia. Yesterday in some sort of strange way (no such thing as coincidence) I 'suddenly' caught a glimpse of this enriched vantage.

Two things happened - interlinked, implicated - at the level of both the concrete, the visceral. A reflective piece I co-wrote with LT was published and we decided to share it. So I was copied into an email that saw this piece travel across distant lands. I also heard of the death of a well respected, admired and beloved academic. We interacted with each other on many occasions in very collegial ways, and I am very familiar with, and have at times, extensively use her scholarship, but ours was never more than a professional relationship. I am however, privy, through my connections with colleagues who were very close to her, to their hugely meaningful and deep interpersonal relationships. And, yesterday to some of their heartfelt sadness and devastation because of their loss. Both these examples made me think anew about the relationships within the academy that I have been able to forge or those that have floundered or more dramatically, exploded. I wondered about the degree to which the academic setting acted against or contrived to scupper the chances of meaningful personal connection as we race to 'put ourselves out there' and gain academic recognition through primarily, the high stakes activities of publication and research outputs.

The reflective piece, which in many ways details an evolving friendship birthed in and through the university, and my second-hand insights into the multiple ways in which BL transcended the academic setting to nurture deeply meaningful and authentic interpersonal connections with many of her colleagues, draws attention to how relationships can be different in academia. Maybe I haven't realised it before, but these are the only kinds of relationships within academia I am keen to foster and give attention. It means that I have to personally act against the structural mechanism that pull me into viewing colleagues as adversaries or using my rank and status to undermine opportunities for meaningful connection with others. It also means I have to avoid situations and people who cant appreciate this way of doing relationships in the academy. Where I cant carefully avoid this (at least 60-70% of the time), I have to see it for what it is, disconnect and tell myself, 'this isn't for you Lynn, just try to be respectful and keep it strictly professional'. To Brenda, Hamba Kakuhle!

time to write

Finding the time to write or working out how to be most productive at my writing tasks has always been a tricky aspect for me. My general sense, gathered from the fellow players I've encountered in the academic writing game, is that the more time and effort devoted to the task the better the result. Specifically the more time devoted to the task in a single day / sitting the better. So you can't have a productive writing day without being dent over your desk or your laptop from 6am to 6pm. It's almost the equivalent of the 'no pain, no gain' mantra used by gym fanatics and the like. That approach never really worked for me and I remember that at the height of my PhD writing only being able to manage, at best, maybe 4-5 hours of sustained and hard intellectual graft on any give day. And now given all the other things competing for my time and draining my energy (especially intellectually) the idea of sitting down for a full five hours on any given day simply to write feels both a luxury and an impossibility. So I'm rather excited and encouraged by the advice offered by Tanya Golash-Boza. Maybe her approach just fits into my yoga-induced philosophy of ahimsa which I've tried to apply to all aspects of my life, with varying degrees of success (as much of my blog writing suggests). But I also appreciate the importance of building in and acknowledging the thinking time so vital to writing. For some all of this mumbo-jumbo might just be a cop-out for laziness or signal a poor work ethic. And this kind of moralistically-infused argument always leads to second-guessing and worse still, self-doubt. But, if I've learnt anything from my four decades on this planet, it's to carve out your own path, to be confident in the choice you've made and also the manner in which you choose to navigate that path.

balance?

Eventually equilibrium comes. At the start of the last week I decided I would write. I resolved to set aside whatever was happening at work and focus on my writing. And just after lunchtime on Monday, I was in my happy place at UCT and I think that set the tone for how I approached the rest of the week. I soon forgot the intensity of the feelings resulting from the events that caused my wobble. The issues -  gender discrimination, feeling undermined, disregarded in my professional space - have not gone away, and neither has my anger about how it insidiously creeps in and infects the 'ways things are done' in my department and institution. If anything I have resolved to consciously keep it on my agenda, to be vigilant and to be challenging. Sometimes people need to know that they have to display an appropriate degree of sensitivity to issues of diversity and discrimination and that not everyone buys in to a Victorian value system. And so it continues and in the continuing, often with the mundane and the everyday, that the humanity returns and in this I found that my validation (the validation and affirmation I seek) can come from many places. Often times there is enough elsewhere (like with  my friends, mentors, at conferences, seminars or research presentations) to go around to support and sustain me as I engage with those less engaging and enabling environments and/ or personalities.

wobble

At the beginning of the semester I was determined that my new positive attitude would rise above all the crappy institutional, departmental, personality-defined politics and culture I encountered. This past week threatened to seriously derail my plans. While I'm not 100% sure why this week, in particular, so threatened my new-found positive attitude, as the week unfolded, a series of events all conspired and quietly coalesced to once again force me to question why I work where I do, whether I want to continue to be there and why, in certain instances, I react so poorly at what I get confronted with.

Fortunately, I can answer the first two questions without flinching, but unfortunately, the answers will reveal a less than honourable or principled side to me. In many ways it was a slow build-up - little bits of things, possibly over many months, that unfortunately, depleted my tolerance levels. To my credit and maybe a testament to how my new positive attitude has actually changed how I deal with things, instead of highlighting my inadequacies or suggesting that somehow I'm at fault - the past week saw me confront, and challenge face on (sometimes), the insidious, patriarchal, sexist underbelly of the department and institution. Some examples from the past week to illustrate exactly how this plays itself out in my work space: Seeing myself and other female colleagues being relegated to the ones who arrange the catering and venues; Being summoned into a management meeting to 'recount' the logistical arrangements for a curriculum development workshop - even though the programme leader, for whom the workshop was devised and who was present in the meeting, was fully briefed on the what's and how's of the workshop; Witnessing how a senior female colleague was jokingly, invited to 'strut her stuff' on a imagined runway in a formal workshop venue; Then the final straw - when a member of the institutional executive management, with all seriousness, challenged an all women audience, at a women leadership in higher education meeting to interrogate 'What was wrong with women?' Would anyone challenge black academics to question 'What is wrong with black academics?' I wonder? I'm depleted, really. The fact that I was able to challenge and raised my voice to counter some of these viewpoints, almost feels insignificant.  I think the extent of discrimination, of all kinds, but especially towards women (both students and staff) within my working space and so reflecting the higher education sector in Cape Town (dare I say South Africa) and the arrogance of those who perpetuate it cannot be underestimated. But, I won't take it laying down and I won't be polite and intellectual about it either. So as we say here on the Cape Flats their 'ma se p$%*!

discernment

Earlier this week I was once again surprised by my poor level of discernment. I had signed-up for a ‘writing for publication’ training workshop run by our Research ‘promotion’ Department. Knowing who was running this course should already have kick-in my internal early warning system. But I wanted to challenge my own prejudices and remain open to the idea that I could learn from such an engagement even if the underpinning philosophy or pedagogy, guiding these types of skills & support courses, did not sit comfortably with my own views. Second warning bell sounded very loudly when I entered the workshop venue and found that the physical arrangements of the furniture and the state of the furniture itself was so poorly suited to ensuring that the budding academic writers would be able to sit comfortably and write for more than 10 minutes at a time. The final straw come after I had subjected myself to the first hours of the work and the facilitator started to ask different participants to read her slides aloud as a way of bringing some variation to the presentation.

To be fair – this kind of thing, where you get a generic, one-size fits all, laundry list of rules/conventions associated with being successful with your academic writing endeavours or journal writing, can be (is) beneficial to certain people. But, I need something more. My understanding of writing (all writing) as a deeply embedded social practice, means that I want an opportunity to discussion and share how issues of context, power, status, ideology, identity become infused, influence and shape the activities of trying to write an article for a journal. Instead of rules and regulations, there are principles and practices that have worked well for those more experiences. Sharing these, alongside the difficulties, challenges and pitfall can be a valuable way of building the confidence of the novice writer. Then, just creating a really comfortable, conducive space to simply write is equally beneficial. So this little event didn’t work for me, but I really should have shown better judgement in deciding to attend the event in the first place and trusted myself more. Yes discernment – I really should exercise some more of discernment, especially in the work context where it would definitely go along way in saving me some unnecessary irritation and precious time.

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.

will it be better?

I'm back at my desk after a four week absence. A European summer, it appears, is very good for me. I've embraced the prospect of the next five or so months, at this desk, from a position of calm and determination to ensure that  my agenda becomes the priority. But this doesn't meant that I will relinquish my responsibilities to my employer, just that I will work smarter to ensure that those responsibilities don't overwhelm me with feelings of guilt or sap all my time. A week in and I think it's okay. I'm not sure if my outwardly projections give any indication that I have a new attitude, but it's more my internal talk that has registered the shift. A main priority is to write - to get an article ready for journal submission come the end of the year. Then I have another collaborative writing project that will culminate in a chapter submission in December and three conference presentations between September and December. So it's pretty busy but my aim is to keep my focus, energy and organisational management strategies squarely on ensuring that these my priority tasks take centre-stage, while I also making sure that my routine institutional work also gets done. Can I get sufficiently organised and 'selfish' about integrating my research and writing aspiration with my institutional obligations? Can I become more efficient and not get sucked into the malaise that envelopes me at work? Only time will tell.

sleeping on the job

I'm on a 'summer' holiday in winter. Summer because I'm currently writing this in the Northern Hemisphere, looking out at the green trees and blue skies outside. When thinking about my holiday away from the 'chilly' institutional context down South, I fantasised about writing each morning and making some headway with my plan to use writing to effectively pull me out of the soul sapping downward spiral I found myself in. As I head into the final five days of my Swedish Summer, I've have to acknowledge, yet again, how distant a fantasy is from reality. To date I've spent maybe three mornings doing anything remotely academic or writing inspired. Lots of ideas, sans action. Of course I'm disappointed. An OU friend who came to visit, reminded me of how lucky I am to have 'free' moments for writing during my normal 'working' time. I felt a tinge of guilt at not fully exploiting that time. Free time without motivation or inspiration is thus a sad thing.


I have another friend who is truly connected to what she needs at a very intuitive level, looking at my summer experience through her eyes, I've spent my summer in ways that I needed, even if my brain and rational self might have suggested I needed a whole range of 'other stuff'. So it's all good, and it will all be good. Next week at this time I will probably be sitting in a boring meeting, without a t-shirt and kikoy, but wrapped up warmly in layers upon, upon layers of clothing and insulation (and not only from the cold weather). I suspect I'll be better prepared for whatever comes my way, and that is probably be the value gained from how I've spent this summer holiday.

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.

Lynn the school ma'am

One thing I was really appreciating about my new teaching self was the fact that I've been so relaxed. Especially about the expectations I had about my students. In my previous teaching life, before the PhD, I was such a reactive teacher. Very demanded, critical and hard. Setting the bar very high and expecting my students to rise to the challenge. I often got 'upset' at them because they seemingly refused to do the right thing in class or take their learning seriously. At the time I had very clear motivations for this aspect of my teaching behaviour; motivations I thought (and in certain respects still do feel) were honourable and came from the right place. While today I still believe in the those underpinning values that drove certain aspects of my practice, I don't feel compelled to exert too much pressure on my students, or demand that they conform to strict rules of appropriate learning behaviour that I strictly enforce. It's their learning experience and they should be given the opportunity to exert as much control over what and how they learn (within the structures that the university has created).

On Thursday I felt all these new grand ideals slip from my grasp as I morphed into Lynn the school ma'am. As it happened I could hear the voice in my head say...'No! don't go there' and as with so many other moments like this in my personal life, I told the voice firmly to shut up and I went 'there' anyway.

It had been a frustrating lecture from the moment I stepped into the class. The students just seemed distracted and as the hour passed it felt like I had to stop every 10 - 15 minutes to get them to calm down, get them to concentrate on the discussion at hand, encourage them to participate in the discussion or respond to a question I had posed, or ask one or other group to stop talking. Then as I tried to talk through the last slide which outlined the small homework task, there was a rush of students to the front of the class, smartphones in hand taking photos of the slide. I make all my slides available on Blackboard either before or within an hour of the lecture. This sent me over the edge. I couldn't help but wonder if students at other, more prestigious, universities would react and behave like this in their lectures. And then I started my rant. Almost embarrassingly I turned into the delittling parent  - using their power to scold the child but at the same time seek retribution by transferring the blame back onto the child. Afterall it was the child's poor behaviour that had forced the parent to respond in ways that was clearly demeaning for the parent. Welcome back the old Lynn. I'd like to suggest that the frustrations of the multiple challenges I had to deal with during that hour were to blame for my outburst - but I think it's an easy response and one that all too quickly vindicates and absolves me from all wrong doing. But it is challenging teaching where I teach. It's even more challenging trying to maintain my learning and teaching philosophies that value and reinforce active and critical learning while also placing a humanist ideal at the centre of all I do in the classroom. So I didn't do too well on Thursday but I hope I can keep Lynn the school ma'am at bay...for now anyway.

that immediate response

When your teaching goes right - the response is immediate. Your students connect with you, with the content you're trying to explain, with how you've designed the session to help make the content understandable. You feel a reassurance that everything needed to make your lesson engaging, active, interesting, understandable has all come together and for most of the students the desired effect has been achieved. Even if you have one of these 'connected' session in every term or semester, it's enough to give you the inspiration and energy to deal with all the other times when your lessons pass by uneventfully. I had one of these 'connected' sessions last week and the effect on my psyche and confidence was just so uplifting. So many behind-the-scene aspects related to my work conditions have played havoc with my sense of purpose and confidence in my role as academic, that having this very positive and immediate feedback from my students was just what I needed last week. While I fear this description of events and its effect on me is now bordering on the cliche, this simple classroom engagement has release an overwhelming feeling of hope and possibility - that maybe I still have something worthwhile to offer, even if  only to the unsuspecting 70 odd students who happen to have me as their Communications lecturer.

self talk and visualisation

A few days ago I responded to someone's question about how my viva preparations were going by saying 'the mind is strong, but the body is weak'. I was referring to my inability to get myself to just sit down at a table somewhere and do the preparation work I needed to do. I wanted to do it, and each morning I told myself I needed to do it, but I kept failing to do it. My friend's response to my lament, was to suggest that the mind is the most important ingredient in all this and as long as the mind was willing I would be ok.

Reflection on this piece of advice I see so much truth in it. Since my mock viva, I've been rehearsing answers, strategies for answers, thinking through different angles to take on particular questions - but I've been doing all of this in my head. I've been telling myself it will be ok, the viva will be ok, that 'I know my stuff'. I've been visualizing the day before the viva, the day of the viva, seeing myself in the viva, talking, expressing, responding, even feeling the intensity of the experience especially that burning sensation in my face that usually comes when I'm engaged in a heated discussion or when I get asked a difficult or tricky question. My visualisation are always about a positive outcome. I always pass, I think I believe this - that my thesis, my research and my understanding of the research is good enough to warrant a pass. But I'm preparing for different variations of this outcome - I see myself content with a 'pass with substantial amendments' even though I would prefer a 'pass with minor corrections'. But pass is the operative word and all the emotions attached to my self-talk and visualisation is linked firmly with this word.

time to step back

Initially, when I first knew there would be a three week 'break' between the submission of my full draft and  feedback from my supervisors I was a bit frustrated. Three weeks of free time or rather three weeks of wasted time, I thought. But as I approach the final days of this three week period my views have shifted. I'm realising the value and opportunity this free period has provided, especially for two particular aspects relating to the thesis itself and the PhD process.

Firstly, stepping back has given me perspective on the arguments and claims made in the thesis and how I've expressed it. Reading over some of the key chapters in my thesis over these past three weeks I am starting to see where I could have taken the argument and possibly why I didn't. Of course I also see the gaps, I'm always seeing the gaps. I can also see the value of expressing the claims and arguments in a sharper more coherent fashion. I've been tweaking my prose here and there, but this has in some cases resulted in additional words which my thesis can't accommodate at the moment. A really significant realisation I've made is that how the arguments are expressed in the thesis is contextually-tied to the thesis itself. As I've tried to 'take out' these arguments for use elsewhere, like for the SRHE conference in December, I can see how they need different kinds of 'mediation'. Here the value, significance and importance of presenting one's work to the field and audiences outside the field have struck me. Especially when taking my work outside my field I feel I needed to develop a more robust articulation of my core arguments. But for me this is really valuable in helping to reclaim the practical value of the thesis. It's a way of bringing the four years of intellectual work down to earth.

Secondly, because of this 'time away' from the thesis and the intensity of the PhD process itself, I'm starting to see the PhD process differently, especially the PhD relationships. I think this can only be because of the distance that has been created and maybe, on a minor note, a reflection on the stage I'm at in the process itself. Towards the end you see things very differently to the views you had as you were setting out or when you were smack-bang in the middle of it all. For me, in order to engage in any critical reflection of the process, the people, the relationships, I need some dislocation from the immediacy of the experience - which this three weeks provided. I've been given the permission to see my own experience differently and I think I have gained insights into the actions and behaviours of the 'others' in this very personal and in many ways intellectually intimate relationship. I haven't forgotten those dark days and the conflict and confusion I felt, but now I can step outside of those experiences to try to understand them differently. Understand the people involved in those experiences differently. People always talk about how the PhD changes you forever, and I think before I decided to embark on the process I was most worried about the nature of the changes that would affect me. I see now how much I've changed (maybe I'll have to devote another blog post to reflecting on these changes) in ways I could never have predicted.

Now, I wait for the feedback and wonder where it will take me. So yeah, as obvious as it sounds, this time next week will be a very different time and place. In this moment I am happy to just take on that realisation, its the best I can do?

fickle

Can one be so fickle? One moment I'm in a complete panic about the amount of time I have to get my thesis together and worrying deeply about the quality of the work I'm producing. Then, after editing a chapter or getting some positive comments, everything feels fine again. I calm down, stop stressing and feel like I'm worthy of this freaking PhD. Up and down, up and down go my emotions. One moment confident, the next complete unsure.

I went to Zumba tonight - just fantastic! The perfect antidote to all my troubles. I can't think about my thesis or my silly emotions because I'm too worried about following the steps and getting my feet to co-ordinate with my arms.

some good advice

I got some good advice last week. The basic gist - I need to shift from thinking and talking about myself, my work, as being in deficit; not being good enough to meet the approval of the PhD police. As I see that freaking finish line ahead, I know that what I need to enable me to cross that line, is confidence and a strong belief that my work is solid, worthy and credible. I need to believe in what I have done and in the quality of what I have done. No more hedging and grovelling - I need to take the thesis my hands and present it as a true gift that I can be proud of. I have to stop thinking about what lies in the shadows, but focus on what is illuminated. This is the essence of the advice - LT can see all of this already, all I need to do is to see it in myself.

And I'm starting to feel a sense of pride, accomplishment, confidence - a little bit here, a little bit there - as I work through the chapters already written, reworking or reordering my arguments. I have something to say and at times I say it very convincingly and articulately. I have to take my writing, my thesis in my hands and hold it gently and firmly all at the same time.

submission

I submitted my reworked Interpretation chapter today and yesterday I submitted Chapters 1-4. What can I say about it...nothing much really. I'm a bit nervous about how it will be received - especially the Interpretation chapter. I'm conflicted actually. I'm happy about where my argument is going but the presentation of the argument is patchy and I'm nervous about what that communicates to my supervisors. But what is the point of making this version of the argument watertight if the argument itself is not accepted? This is my logic for justifying the patchiness of this version...I wonder how plausible this line of argument is - will it hold in my next supervision meeting? Fuck it...it's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So what do you do after you make a submission? Take the day off and go in search of the sun of course - especially if in about five days time you're going to a place where the sun never shines. Oh joy!

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.

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.