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.