shambles in the analysis

I've been trying to work on the analysis of my second research site. The last time I looked at this work was at the end of February. I've been working on Case 1 for most of March. The writing in Case 2 analysis was very dense, embedded and unclear. I realised as I tried to make sense of what I wrote, that I didn't know what I wanted to say when I wrote it and the structure of writing seems to reflects the lack of clarity in my thoughts. I also remember clearly how hard it had been for me to write this draft in the summer heat of January and February in Cape Town. Today I decided to follow the structure I created in Case 1 and apply it to Case 2. I needed some direction because I felt I was tying myself up in knots trying to unravel the previous version of Case 2  - getting increasingly frustrated because I wasn't getting anywhere. I think I'm more in control of the story I want to tell about Case 1, which at this point is pretty much 'complete'. Case 2 is very underdeveloped and large parts of it still need to tackled in a very detailed fine-grained manner. I don't know what the story associated with that case is yet. But in general I'm feeling that analysis, is the hardest thing to write. Well maybe I should wait until I've finished the whole thesis before I make such sweeping claims. Who knows, writing the analysis might seem like a walk in the park once I get to the other parts of the thesis.

On a practical note - another working weekend. Hopefully it will result in some progess overall and concrete improvements to Case 2.

on being marked

LT says that as South African researchers (or scholars from the South) our writing is always marked - there is an expectation that our research or scholarship will be different, exotic, unusual in relation to the Western norm. When the research conforms to this expectation we are marked and when it doesn't we are also marked simply because we haven't meet the expectation. So we are always marked.

Yesterday I felt marked because of my writing but in a way that felt more sinister and negative to me. It made me think of my childhood and my Std 2 needlework teacher. It made me think of one of my 1st year my use of some or other superficial or surface-type features to complete a particular educational tasks meant they could judge me as stupid or intellectually incapable. Unfortunately, I was misguided in thinking that I could forever relegate these negative learning experiences  to my past.

I'm used to being marked. I was born into apartheid South Africa where because of your race you were always marked - whether you were black or white. Typically if you were black, though, you were more likely to be marked negatively. And yet I grew up fiercely proud of my blackness, always knowing that I was never inferior or better than anyone else simply on the grounds of my race - in fact I grew up knowing that the only thing I could ever be, and the only way I could never see myself and anyone else was as an equal. So this is my background - living in a society said to have discrimination dripping off every vestige of its being.

I've experienced another instance that made to feel the full force of being negatively marked. This time simply because I'm unable to impliment a range, of what many regard as surface-level, superficially and ultimately highly subjective, grammatical and stylistic writing features. What I was saying, the argument and interpretations I was construction was seemingly less important than the need to draw attention to my inability to construct 'proper' sentences. I've been doing some or other post-graduate studies since I was 25 and I've never had my writing subjected to this level of negative grammatical scrutiny. Now maybe this is reflection on my teachers, maybe they were poor teacher who like me don't understand the first thing about grammar or academic writing style. Maybe we have 'lower' standards in South Africa. Or maybe grammatical problems, that are visible but don't significantly obscure the meaning the writer is trying to convey is tolerated more or not regarded as such a major problem. Especially in writing clearly signalled as a draft. I don't mind having my grammatical 'problems' identified for me. I know I have a grammar and spelling problem - most of my teachers (or readers of this blog for that matter) have probably picked this up, many times I have told them this myself. It becomes slightly worrying when grammar and style become the major point of discussion rather than the issues I'm trying to raise in my writing. Usually I try to correct as much as I can, I've adjusted and adapted my writing style to suit my new UK environment, but sometime I just don't see the problems - because I simply can't see the problem (but then again it's hard to pin down a moving target). I just don't know all the rules and conventions and I don't think it's important for me to know all the rules and conventions - what is important is that before I hand in that key, high stakes, final piece of writing,  I will get the necessary help to ensure that whatever I produce will conform to the necessary standards demanded. At the moment my job is to make sure that I can, to a reason level of grammatical correctness and adherence to academic style demanded, articulate my argument. Having my writing 'marked' in this way has been a very difficult thing to deal with because it marks me as somehow inadequate and in the most irrational  way threatens to erode or belittle all my academic achievements to date. I know I can't let this get me down, I know I will rise to the challenge but it doesn't make the sting any less painful. Ironic that I had experienced such a powerful sense of being marked negatively not in SA, said to be fuelled by  discrimination and racial hatred, but in one perceived as the custodian of all things morally correct and civilized.

it just might be a chapter in the future

I finished what might very well be the beginnings of a analysis chapter. I wonder if writing related to the PhD can ever be thought of as finished? Anyway, cynicism aside, yip I crafted a viable analysis draft that can certainly become a chapter if it wants to. At the moment it looks like a chapter in its scope and structure but with gaps and holes that still need to be plugged.

After all my moaning, groaning, drama I finished the freaking thing and sent it off. I didn't even do a final proof read, I just sent it off. I was just too tired to subject myself to yet another proofread. It's a draft after all, so it's not meant to be perfect. I'll probably find all the mistakes tomorrow when I read it before going into supervision to discuss it.

Yet again its been proven that the process will carry you along - kicking or freaking screaming - but it will just carry you along (I'm giving the process loads of power here am I not?). But through all I this I realised that I keep forgetting all these important lessons I so carefully or haphazardly articulate in this blog, especially when I need it most like...
- nothing is meant to be perfect, your writing will never be perfect
- a draft is just that a draft
- write for yourself, not your supervisors - its your learning experience not theirs (listen to what they say of course, but if your learning demands that you do a particular thing or write in a particular way so that you can make sense of something, then that might be what you have to do)
- 'life' is more important than the PhD, the PhD is just a small part of life, never lose perspective about that
- sleep is important, family is even more important
- always talk to your friends especially about non-PhD related stuff (remember your want your family and friends to still like you when the PhD is over)
- even when the PhD makes you feel like you're stupid, you're certainly aren't and if you doubt your intellectual ability at any stage refer to everything listed above

Tonight I'm going to indulge is some movie watching to relax and maybe, just for a short moment, forget about the PhD in the absence of friends and family.

nothing particularly coherent, profound to say

I'm sitting at my desk, with my headphone on listening to some Jazz courtesy of LastFM and fantastising about that pizza slice I'm going to have for lunch. I'm going to be at my desk until at least 6pm today because I have a deadline. One I can't really meet, but one I have to. I've been back in the UK for just over a month and in that time I've created, designed, produced a series of workplans, monthly and daily activity schedules all in a bid to help me meet my deadlines. I've discarded most of these timekeeping and work scheduling aids - fuck do they really help? I'm still behind so they can't possiblity be doing their job, right? Anyway - onward, onward I go. Still with analysis, still trying to make sense of my data at a grounded, almost surface level and then also at a more abstracted, metalevel - and then how to present both these levels of analysis, how to make choices about what to include, what not to include, how to let go of my 'little darlings' (those lovely photographs of a student drawing or an interaction in a class or dialogue in an interview that shows the wonderful interaction I had with my participants). And still the deadline looms as I try to make sense and craft a piece of writing that matches the expectations of 'others' completely disconnected from my research but with such power and authority that their opinions and idiosyncrasies have to be tolerated. Ok that pizza slide with my name on it,is waiting!

and the sun makes an appearance

Well it has over the past few days - and I'm now considering switching to a lighter 'spring' jacket. My English colleagues have however, been sporting short-sleeved tops and no socks. I think that is a tad bit overenthusiastic for temperatures hovering around 14-15. Goodness this is middle-of-winter temperatures in Cape Town. But with the sun has also come a slight elevation in my mood. Sunday was a dire day - any kind of interest, enthusiasm and motivation to do anything PhD related where conspicuous absent from my being. Of course I kept thinking about the fact that I wasn't doing any work on my PhD and that I didn't really 'lus' to do anything anyway. I suspect that if anything gets me to the other side of this PhD it will be guilt!

But Monday came and I found myself sitting at my desk at the OU writing. Reflecting on why I had such a down Sunday I came to a rather profound realisation - well maybe I've come to this realisation before but just wasn't open to taking notice of its significance. I realised that my learning experience offered by the OU just don't suit me and how I prefer to learn. For me to learn and become enthused with the learning process I need to be engaged in dialogue with teachers, with colleagues, with learned others, generally people who I believe can help encourage and support my learning. I don't really strive in an individualised, solitary learning contexts. While I can work well independently this must be support by strong dialogical engagements or events (like supervision). Its just what I need and I don't think the OU environment really supports this kind of learning. So there it is in a nutshell. Of course there are other issues that cloud my learning experience too, but I think this is the major one - and there is no solution. I have to accept that the environment cannot accommodate my learning needs. Being aware of this, I think, is important - because it allows me to understand but crucially, accept some of my frustration with my learning experiences during this PhD. It doesn't mean that the OU is a bad place to do a PhD - not in the slightest way - it just doesn't accommodate or support the optimum way that I prefer to learn. So I will continue to have 'problems' but I need to proactive about how I deal with them - knowing the limitation of a situation can only help one find creative ways to succeed despite the constraints. Already a feeling of calm has surrounded me - now I just have to deal with the impending September deadline....yikes!

'In Bruges'

I've been away from my work for about 4-5 days. I went to Bruges for two days and wandered through the beautiful old city thinking only cursory thoughts about my PhD. I took some writing work with me but just couldn't bring myself to look at it. The weather and the beer were too good to lament over the stylistic construction of my sentences. But this temporary sidestepping of my PhD was exactly that...temporary. And once again it fills my brain and almost every inch of me. It depletes all my energy and really does dull my mind and senses - who says a PhD is meant to make you feel more intelligent? I'm falling behind almost on a daily basis - it just seems to be taking me so long to do 'simple' things. Tonight I sat working out my 'final' (well I certainly hope so) workplan. My submission date is now firmly set for December 2012 and if all goes to plan (and I stick religiously to this final plan) and I don't have to resubmit my thesis for review (I hoping in the worse case scenario for major corrections without resubmission) I could realistically have my degree by June-September 2013. But as I'm trying to tell myself on a daily basis, in a bid to stop myself from hyperventilating, I have to focus on small specific, doable tasks rather than on thoughts about how my final thesis might be received, or more destructively, and all the gaps in my knowledge base or what I haven't or won't be able to do in my thesis.

So six months to go before the end of my funding period and full-time stay at the OU - exciting, happy? but also sad - like most things it's never an either/or scenario. No matter how I finally come to see this period in my life, positively or negatively it will have made a fundamental mark on me, shaped me forever, I'll never be able to go back to where I was from here - it will forever be different, I will forever be different.

In Bruges - an intertextual moment

"I thought I could write until I came here"

There is deep irony in this title.

I'm struggling with my writing at the moment. I'm frustrated and irritated by the lack of writing progress I'm making because I can't find the words, expressions, sentence structures to say the hell what I mean. So I'll easily sit for an hour to write a single paragraph or even two or three sentences. Then I'll read over what I've written, say maybe 6-8 pages and take another 1-2 hours to correct what I've written. And so it goes on. Maybe this is all in my head and this is just what it means to write - but it certainly is a new experience for me. To be fair I'm write my analysis - trying to construct an external logic to a deeply localised, contextual body of data. I guess I'm making what is familiar and obvious to the participants and to me, explicit in a completely unambiguous and almost de-contextualise way. I have to make my explanations of deeply specific activities, practices and norms - generalised using language and explanations that anyone, without any understanding of the context, can understand. I don't know how to break this impasse and worry that this is going to become the norm for me. I'm I being overtly sensitive to the norms, conventions expected of my writing in this context or responding to the negative sanctioning on my writing style or is something else at play?

At the moment my response is to simply keep at it - even if it means I spend an hour staring at a piece of data wondering how to explain what I'm seeing or what I understand it to mean or I sit for hour constructing a few sentences.

Going forward, slowly, but never back

It's been a slow day today - very slow. I had a half-day yesterday and I think it messed up my head and my levels of production. I'm moving forward but it seems like it is all happening in slow motion. I work everyday but it never seems enough. I guess at this point in the game it's not enough that one is working you need to work productively and efficiently. What you write needs to be good writing rather than superficial, draft-like waffling. I'm currently re-visiting some analysis work I did in Nov/Dec. I am hoping to develop this into a proper analysis chapter. I look at the quality of the analytic and interpretative insights I offer and I can see it is just so...almost juvenile. It's a bit of writing, claims and statements and then some data to illustrate these, at times often outlandish, claims I'm making. Having just come out of a supervision meeting where my interpretations were subjected to critical scutiny and where it wasn't ok to simply make a claim and then add some data that sort-of had a connection to the claim - I can see how underdevelop this initial analysis attempt was. What did surprise me though, is that I had actually done a substantial amount of analytic work. I remember when I went to CT early this year I was rather embarassed that I didnt seem to have much analysis work to show - that 6 months after leaving the field I didn't have 'any' viable analysis to show. Just goes to show how I see the world - always half empty, never half full!

But this job is all about outputs - to hell with the process - just produce a thesis that is good enough and will stand up to the scutiny of the examiner. That 80 000 word document is all that is required at the end of this experience. That is how it feels at the moment anyway. And in order to produce that document I need to write, write, write but also produce quality writing - another thing all together. So I'm moving forward, always moving forward even if it's slowly at the moment but, maybe tomorrow, next week, the week after that it will be faster and of a higher quality.

The benefits of recording your supervision meetings

I've decided to share some helpful pearls of wisdom gained as a result of the PhD experience. What a difference this is to my usual lamenting, no questioning, of why I chose to put myself through this experience in the first place. So this is a positive, enlightening and mildly useful blog about why a PhD student will find benefit in recording their supervision sessions. The benefits aren't obvious at first. In fact the first thing that hits you is that you will have to set aside time to listen to the recording again. So if you had a 2 hour meeting (like mine typically are) you need to accommodate at least 3 hours to listen to the recording and make rough notes. If it's been a particular complex session where you discussed theory or where your writing was dissected - you might need at least double your original meeting time to go through the recording. Also if in the meeting everything you said or wrote gets ripped to shreds it's not a very comforting thought, that when you listen to the recording you will actually be forcing yourself to relive the experience. So when faced with these initial realisation - why the hell would you want to do it?

Well for me it's simple - during supervision you can concentrate on following the discussion you are having with your supervisors and focus all your attention on responding to what they are saying, rather than trying to divide up your time on capturing the discussion and attending to your responses to their questions. You get an accurate record of really useful comments, phrases, insights etc...that your supervisors have on a range of issues - from their interpretation or critique of a particular bit of theory, their summary of what they think you are saying in a written piece you've given them to review, to dates for the next meeting or instructions or tasks they expect you to complete. But beyond these almost obvious, implied benefits associated with recording of your meetings - listening to the recording also means you have a chance to gain perspective on what they have said, your responses and how you might have felt about the meeting. Often I've left a meeting feeling completely deflated by the experience and listening to the recording helped me to put those feelings into perspective. It's almost like a de-briefing space where I can almost set aside my emotional responses and cut directly through to the content of the discussion. I'm then able to see with more clarity the different layers of the interaction, I see where I made good points and also see how my supervisors might have been trying to help me get to a particular conclusion or where they actually praise, validate and affirm me and my work. Of course sometimes the crap said and expressed gets rubbed in your face directly - but in the grand scheme of things, I think that's useful too - it's about getting to know your supervisors, the nature of this crazy, sometimes unexplainable process (game?), know yourself and anticipate how to respond to similar situations the next time around. I've been doing this since 1st year so it's really just become part of my practice as a PhD student, I almost can't see doing my meetings another way.

writing, writing, writing

I have a deadline for Monday, I need to write a draft for a very small book chapter. I started working on this piece in Cape Town but have struggled to pull it all together. I always imagined writing for publication meant you already did the analysis and theoretical work and were then simply reworking your 'work' to match the prescriptions of the publication. Not so in this case - I'm doing an all-in-one jobby, I suspect this is a recipe for disaster! Well it certainly has meant that my writing is slow, slow, slow. I spent the whole of yesterday trying to write one paragraph and failed. But I thought fuck it, just persevere...remember a PhD is all about tenacity...So instead of having a relaxing Friday night reflecting on my recent return to the UK or just emptying my mind with some mindless TV I sat at my desk and worked on my writing. Perseverance paid off! At least last night. It started to come together. Taking on board the process approach to writing and the motivating messages and tips from Tanya Golosh-Boza....is possibly the way to go for me. Keep at it, sit down and write even if it's just 30 minutes at a time. Today has been productive too, slightly too slow for my liking, but moving forward nonetheless. A positive start to my writing weekend.

a bit tender

I'm back at my desk at the OU, almost back in the 'swing' of things, but still a bit tender about leaving the comfort, security and support of Cape Town and all it offers. Unfortunately that is just the reality - Cape Town represents all of those things for me and when I leave, it takes me a while to adjust and get used to my new environment. I'm glad to be back in the UK though, it is my home even if it's only home with a small 'h'. But I have my own space here - my work space and my home space - they too are stable and secure in their own little ways and when I come to Cape Town (or go to Sweden) I have forego those comforts too and make the necessary adjustments.

Beautiful tulips from my landlady
awaiting me on Monday night

I've given myself until tomorrow, Friday, to adjust to being back. To stop feeling sorry for myself and just get on with it within the boundaries and parameters of this context no matter how painful or uncomfortable it might be. I've been forced to stare some hard cold truths in the face this week - not really conducive when you are feeling as tender as I am - but as is often the case with 'cold truths' they don't wait until you are all comfortable and secure to unleash their message on you. Well at least I was open to seeing them - I can at least give myself credit for that.








So the cold truths are...
- this PhD experience has not met my expectations for a range of reasons and on a number of levels (all probably well documented in this blog)
- I can't make the experience fit my expectations - I think I've tried but it's not working and the more energy I put into making it fit the more frustrated (and at times depressed) I get
- I somehow need to balance these competing forces - my expectations with the reality of the experience and keeping a positive outlook on the whole thing can only help

Spring is coming say the snowdrops
 I encountered on my way to work
this morning.

 I've previously mentioned that doing a PhD is all about tenacity - being able to stick with your project until the end irrespective of the depressing and disappointing lows and the few and far between positive, affirming and acknowleding highs. But I think another personality traits seems to be equally important - confidence - being 300% confident in yourself, your ability, your tenacity, your story and the need to tell it. Someone said to me that I need to toughen up, and I guess they are right in a way. Take it on the cheek and move on. Just freaking move on.
So it's not what I wanted it to be, not by a freaking long shot, but this is probably as good as it is going to get, so I need to just accept this fact and just relax into it. But I'm conscious that I need to build my confidence and through that toughen my skin - after all I'm a African! I have the resilence of ancestors running in my blood, ancestors who survived the onslaught of countless colonisers, pilliages and thieves yet retained, for the most part, their dignity, respect, self-assurance, confidence and will to survive, asserting their self-determination to be treated as equals and confident of their rightful place in the world.