something to say

My last post was June 12, almost a month since I was able to write about this journey called my PhD. I've never been the poster-girl for the PhD experience, in fact I've been described as the anti-PhD. I havent really taken on the identity of the PhD student, finding my other identifies far more relevant and significant. I've always wanted my PhD to be part of my life, not my life. I cant help this feeling, idea, planted inside me a long time ago by my first supervisor SW - an activist, adult educator, professor, pragmatist and motivator - I dont think she knew that what she said to me in passing would have such a profound impact on me and how I saw my career and my studies, but it has. She lamented how seriously people take the PhD, thinking that it would be the pinicle of their life's work and the most important thing that they had done - when of course it isnt really that. In those innocently spoken words the foundational philosophy of my PhD experience was born. And as I live through this experience and see how limited the impact of my work will be on real life and how fundamentally it's all about my experience, I appreciate more and more those pragmatic and realistic sentiments expressed 10 years ago.

I've had a hard time recently dealing with the prospect of coming back to the UK to complete the final leg of this journey. In fact I didnt want to come back to the UK at all. I wanted to stay in Cape Town and finish my journey there. Why the need to move from a place where I felt that my PhD was just part of the life? An important part, but simply a part. While in the UK where I dont feel I have a life - it was this all consuming monster determining my life in ways that rendered me powerless. Powerless and voiceless and fundamentally changing me in ways I wasnt happy about. Writing especially on such a public forum seemed like the wrong thing to do. But I also wasnt able to write privately either - I could only manage conversations with myself and some close confidiants as I tried to unravel what I was really feeling and how I wanted to move forward. I havent figured it out just yet and someone said to me that maybe it's not too important to try to find reasons and solutions right now - I can free myself of that responsibility for the moment.

This is my fourth day back at the OU - the first couple of days were the worst. The contrast between this environment and the fieldwork context is just so stark! All the differences which I hadnt really paid much attention to previous just came racing towards me on Monday and Tuesday. I realised a crucial negative aspect of the OU work experience - it's isolated nature where only minimal interpersonal and collegial engagements are encouraged and sustained. It's great if you are happy to sit at your computer the whole day and want to work in silence, not being bothered by those around you or the environment. But I'm a social person - I need interaction with others, I feed off the interaction of others, I trive in an environment where I can talk, listen, talk some more, where I feel like I am heard, where my doing is practical and social. While I've found some outlet for some level of this engagement here - it really has been so marginal in my experience. They always say that research is a lonely, almost solitary journey and this has been aptly personified by my OU experience.

But I have pressed on these past few days drawing on my determination to finish this PhD and cognisant of the options I have. I've also decided to focus on my strengths - what I see as my strengths anyway and not play that 'onderdanige' South African ever grateful for getting the scholarship. In Cape Town I realised that I had a voice, that those around me found what I had to say important and valuable, that I was recognised as someone who had something important to say, and it didnt really matter how I said it. While I am aware that this context is different, I have to be weary that I dont change completely to accommodate the context - what I chose to change has to be strategic. This has been something I have been aware of since I arrived - but I think it got lost along the way and I think I have succomed to the dictates of the context that have compromised me in ways that were not very beneficial to me and my feeling of self worth.

Then I had a very welcoming and positive supervision dinner last night. I came away feeling positive about myself and my engagement in the interaction. They are conscious of my apprehensions about being here and I know they are trying to make me feel comfortable and supported - I really appreciated this. But ultimately I dont have control over my supervisors I only have control over my actions, behaviours and how I chose to perceive their responses to me. It's up to me really? Which of course begs the questions: - is it the context or the individual? How much control does an individual really have over the context and can you overcome your context? Or does who you are shape how you engage or perceive your context? Because I am me, does it mean that I can only experience this context, a context, in the specific way that I can? I can only see it through my eyes in the way that I do.

I'm giving myself four months to decide how I want to spend the final year or so of my scholarship. I'm going to resist making a firm decision until then and I'm going to resist, except to those I really trust, talking about how I really feel about being here. This is all I can do for now.