Movies sometimes make it better

I watched this beautifully simple movie last night - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring,_Summer,_Fall,_Winter..._and_Spring and it made me think about my perceptions about my writing and studies at this moment, especially after my rant and rave yesterday. I'm wondering if I can see and think 'differently' about my experiences outside of my 'attachment' and 'ego'. I've also decided that I should keep reminding myself that I am VERY capable of doing this thing, its doing this thing 'their' way that I need to work on.

That's my opening thought to the day that will be filled with trying to reduce the word length of my report, trying to sharpen my writing, attend to niggly little editing issues and dealing with any outstanding comments from my supervisor.

Is it all just a BS game?

Today I went to a session on preparing for the PhD/probation viva. In the UK (and the rest of Europe) PhD candidates have to defend their thesis via an oral discussion with their examiners, after submitting the actual written document. What stuck me most about today's session was how different the main points being brought across where from what I had heard in 'other' sessions on the same topic. So my question was...WHO should I believe? Well a little qualification is in order...it depends on your examiners. So yes there are these broad general rules that oversee the whole process, but ultimately it is how your examiners interpret these rules. As a PhD student I find myself in this very strange position - I seem to be worshipping at the alters of so many different gods, who all demand very different things from me. I don’t like religion at the best of times and something deep inside me is screaming like hell to simply subvert the process. An underlying sub-text of many of my posts, is discomfort with this whole process that seems in my view to be suggesting that in order to get through this process your have to be subservient to supervisors and examiners. Can’t learning be an experience where you develop, change, become more aware of the world or a specific topic without losing yourself completely in the process? I'm not sure whether my current sense of the whole PhD experience is being clouded by the fact that a) I'm a foreign student; b) there are major cultural differences that I'm struggling to deal with; c) I have doubts about my intellectual, written and social capacity to engaged appropriately with the degree process; or d) often feel like I’m seriously out of my comfort zone. There just never seems to be a moment long enough where I feel I am on solid ground. These moments are just so fleeting.

I came back from the viva session only to find a second batch of feedback comments waiting for me in my inbox - convolutions (conceptual and syntactic) still creeping into my writing. Yesterday I got feedback suggesting that the report was in a suitable state to submit. What to do, what to do? I feel frustrated that I lack the confidence, vocabulary, insight to challenge what I know are assumptions about what writing at this level needs to look like. I want to say “Exactly what is so problematic with my writing? “And why would you possibly think that I could pick out the problems you have with my writing, myself?”

So I’m playing a game, and it’s a BS game. The rules make sense at certain times, but it’s also perfectly acceptable for them to shift and sway as and when it is felt appropriate. I wish I were less of the activist and more of a pacifist – I think that would help make this whole experience a lot easier on me.

And its coming together, the probation report that is

Since my supervision meeting on Monday I've been working, albeit at a slower pace, on implementing all the suggested changes to my report. I know this is going to sound so cliché, but making the changes has improved the overall flow and structure of the report. Today I've been doing a final argument proofread - to check the coherence of my argument, pick up on any slippage of terms, double check my references and write up any linking sentences or paragraphs needed here and there. This process will continue tomorrow and I also need to do all the formatting of the document - which I am not looking forward to at all. Last year I did a course on managing long documents and was introduced to the Styles function in MSWord, but I've forgot so much of it already, so I suspect that doing it now is going to be a chore. But it all needs to be done by Monday morning when I need to send it off to my supervisors for their final review. I'm going to push them to get their feedback to me by Wednesday, so if all goes well I can hand the 'thing' in on Friday - although my official deadline is Tuesday June 1. Then at least my weekend will be a relaxed one. But I'm going to this event http://keepachildalive.org/black-ball/2010uk/invite/ with my friend Anthony on Thursday night so...lets hope I get home from London.

Some progression in my thinking - I've gone from this as a conceptual framework

to a reconsideration of how my conceptual lenses might will inform my data collection.

And I'm a lot happier with this adjustment, for now anyway.

and where the supervision gods happy?

I'm not sure! I had supervision yesterday and got some really good, constructive feedback from my supervisors. But it was a peculiar and challenging session too and I came away feeling ambivalent. Interestingly, I don't feel personal about the session as in being pissed off at any of my supervisors over things that were said or comments expressed - I'm just ambivalent about the whole process of supervision and the PhD. The things you have to go through to get to the other side.

Part of my problem is that I'm studying meaning making, I'm studying assessment text production and studying academic literacies and I'm experiencing all the things those wonderful researchers say about writing in higher education. I could be the pin-up girl for academic literacies, damn it! All the frustrations, emotions, feelings of not fitting in, not being able to write, faking it and being caught out, being the 'other', hell that's me. I remember once while doing my Masters at UCT I had a 'moment' and I told my supervisor that I felt as if I just didn't have the Discourse (referring to James Gee's notion of Discourse - that basically means a way of being within a particular context e.g. the academic way of being might mean demonstrating to those already in the academic context that you know the rules, can play by the rules and will be recognised as fitting it). Coming out of that meeting yesterday, while I couldn't put my finger on it exactly, I felt again like I just didn't get the Discourse.

Of course I'm over analysing everything but I'm aware at such a intricate intellectual level of the (probably)  ideological and power positions at play around the issue of 'student' writing. And I am in the middle of it - trying to make sense of my own experience, linking it to the field I have located myself in - academic literacies - while acknowledging how immensely difficult the whole writing process is for the student and the teacher. I'm aware of what my supervisors are doing to be sensitive, and I know they know when I'm faking it, but they also get caught out and slip into approaches or dispositions that foreground their ideological position and power in the interaction. Yesterday for example - there were times when I thought - "fuck Lynn why cant you challenge them, be more cocky, defensive, whatever!" But I sat back and listened, trying to see their angle, trying to juxtapose my own position in relation to theirs, trying not to resort to..."but, why haven't you raised this with me before, but when I sent you x and y previously you didn't raise these concerns then?" That just didn't seem like the appropriate response - defence isn't always the best form of offence.  Its hard to argue against people who are the leading lights in the field you are exploring and trying to aligning yourself with - or is it? Its also hard to argue when someone challenges your word choices and there is no way in hell you can counter pose their point  because, hell, you just don't know or have an alternative.

Anyway...I'm not bitter, I'm humbled to the process, its crap, its destabilising, its a muddle (like my writing apparently!) but I am meant to come out on the other side. And I know I will. Tomorrow the corrections begin and in all honesty they are mostly minor and I know that by working through the correction the piece will be improved and I will live to write another blog entry.

I'm so tired...

I handed in my draft probation report today and feel completely drained. At the start of the whole process I was so upbeat about the prospect of writing up the draft and felt confident about just getting it done. But the writing process was more challenging than I could have imagined. It just took ages to write...ANYTHING. It felt as if I was agonising over each word, each sentence, each point I was trying to make. When that happens the edit-and-perfection freak takes over and effectively stifles any creative flow I have inside me. On top of that I've been irritated with the lack of balance to temper my academic life, frustrated that all I've done for the past two weeks is focus and work on this draft. So unfortunately these two issues, the need to get everything down perfectly and the frustration of not being able to step aside from the work, made for a very uncomfortable writing experience.

How do I feel about the piece of work I submitted?...rough! Too many issues I don't think I've nailed down sufficiently. But that's a positive quality too - I've become aware of my shortcomings. Hell there always is a brighter, positive spin to everything.

hello Bernstein my old friend

Yes, I can hardly believe it but the man is back...Basil Bernstein "jou lekker ding" - not sure how appropriate such a phrase might be on a 'serious' academic blog like this.

But I've come around, decided I need to do the hard intellectual work and deal with a Bernsteinian analysis of students' assessment texts in the academic sites of my research. I know why I shied away from him before - a combination of not having the right support to guide me through the plethora of different ways to understand and use his theories, and not wanting to do the hard intellectual work it takes to see the world through Bernstein's eyes. Strangely, now that I have embraced him again things make sense - I needed an overarching organisational frame to pull together ways of describing the academic context of the research and the pedagogic device offers it to me, along with analytical tools that show potential synergy with academic literacies. In all fairness I have to give a lot of the credit for this cathartic moment to Paul Ashwin and his new book on Analysis Teaching-Learning interactions in Higher Education and MRL for suggesting I read it. He does this brilliant chapter on using Bernstein theories to explain structure and agency in the teaching-learning interaction and I just saw so much connection with my own work. Well its a start anyway and will go a long way to relieve the conceptual framework vacuum headache I've been having since it all went poof!

poof!.... goes the conceptual framework

Yes its gone, not very productive in helping me understand my research topic. I said it last week at my supervision meeting and I've been thinking about it ever since. My goal is to articulate what the hell I mean by conceptual framework by May 12 when I hand in a complete draft of my probationary report to my supervisors.  To help keep me sane over the next week, I'm reminded of what one of my prospective research participants, a lecturer of graphic design, said to me during an introductory interview in April; she was trying to explain the notion of design that students need to grasp - the idea that you cant see the end product at the start of the process, all you have are idealised versions of what you think it might look like and usually it never ends up looking like that anyway. Somehow I feel that its a lesson for me too and one I think MRL has been trying to hint at for a long time, by telling me not be to be so hung up on pinning things down outside of data collection. At least its something that can help me stay sane, No?

a day in my writing life...a visual tour

The start of the day...

Then some cleaning...

Neck a bit sore

I'm serious it is sore!

Snack time, need some energy

See it helps, on another page now

Time for a little pink hot drink, mmmm

Need to clear my mind, help me structure those research questions

How can you not love Milton Keynes in the spring?

Late lunch, really late and some telly

My its-night-time-and-I've-finished-what-I-set-out-to-do-today treat

Making education my husband

I found this in my inbox this morning, from a Cape Town friend. She wondered if this is what I was doing? Long-story- short of the article was the value to Black South Africa girls of making education, rather than some useless man your focus of attention. By making this very powerful choice, one then opens up the range of choices you will have to make your life a better, more fulfilling one. A rather poignant statement during the 1970's and 1980's in South Africa, but increasingly relevant I think to the Black girl child today. But of course this isn't about the girl child somewhere in a South African township, its about how this relates to me - the not so girl child. 

Have I made education my husband? I think my late father would probably say yes. I remember him asking me one day, just before he died, if I was happy with all the studying I was doing, especially since I didn't have a husband like 'normal' women my age ought to. I don't think its a choice for me like it is might be for the girls the article is directed at. In fact I think having that significant someone around during this process would probably enhance and add another dimension to the whole experience. If the person was supportive of the whole exercise that is. I do see many of my colleagues within relationships create and manage a 'balanced' personal-PhD life, which is something I struggle to do here in England. I would also hate to think I was forced to pick one or the other, I would much prefer having both - education and a 'husband'. But I now have a good rebuttal when questioned about my singleness and/or the many degrees I seem to be amassing.

sjoe! supervision

I dont know what to make of my last supervision meeting, a mere 90 minutes ago. Was it a good or bad experience? What does it mean when you come away thinking...oh my goodness what just happened here, shortly followed by being overcome with panic that you dont really know what you are doing! Maybe it wasnt that negative, just loads of critical, direct, challenging questions thrown at me. One realisation that surfaced was the fact that I'm probably constructing my conceptual frame in a very restrictive manner and its not helping my thinking or the articulation of my central argument. The other really glarring, but probably self-evident realisation is that I have a serious amount of work ahead of me.

Interestingly, both supervisor reassured me that I would get through the probation - that the draft I submitted and was reviewed at our meeting today would probably get me through - but that isnt really point is it? The draft in its current form isnt going to help me develop my next line of thinking as I move beyond the narrow requirements of the probation report. So it makes sense to ensure that the report fulfills more than these narrow requirements and that means I need to do the hard conceptual work required.

Before the supervision meeting I was thinking I should back-track a bit from what I said yesterday about the process being all mighty. I realise I wasnt factored into the equation - I described the process as something rather devoid of the influence of agency and I wanted to set that right. BUT my supervision today brought it all home for me again; how the process - in this instance, my supervisors asking those uncomfortable questions - was again responsible to pushing me forward, forcing me to reconsider, reformulate, restate. I guess for the process to do its work, I only need to be open to it.

A process-kind of PhD

I've been thinking about this for a couple of weeks now - that 'the process' of doing a PhD will get me through this PhD. It's a rather calming thought and that is probably why I keep having it and why I'm thinking it's probably a good, useful thought to cultivate. I see 'the process' as this overwhelming, bigger than me system that acts almost like God (to believers that is), and will have a big part in helping me to get the PhD at the end. Well maybe my formulation of the whole process is somewhat naive and deterministic, but that's how I see it at the moment.

So much of one's time as a PhD student is spent agonizing about a whole variety of things - but essentially about  how crap you are at some or other thing related to completing the PhD successfully, and yet most PhD students finish the PhD successfully - so in my logic there must be something greater than 'us' taking/helping/guiding us through; i.e.'the process'. I'm also reminded of some good advice given to me by LT, a previous supervisor, to always trust the process to resolve whatever issues and dilemmas encountered on this rather rocky and tempestuous journey. I'm starting to really internalize that advice and I can see in my new positive attitude and confidence towards the tasks before me, it's constructive impact.