Sorry it's been so long since the last post. It's not passed me by that I moaned that no one was reading the blog, dragged a load of people over to take a look and then provided no reward. Sorry.
It's been one of those weeks where it feels like there are a thousand things to do, the house is descending into chaos through lack of attention and I'm becoming progressively more manic. Time to calm down girl.
Part of the mania comes from the knowledge that I'm really coming to the end of my fieldwork and it's time to start the writing. My supervisor has heavily hinted (as in demanded) that I write a significant amount before term starts in October and teaching begins and I get distracted again. The pressure isn't kicking in in quite the right way. Instead I'm playing the trick of doing a million things that 'really need to be done right now', just to avoid doing the thing I don't want to do.
Being conscious of my busyness has also got me thinking about the timescale of a PhD. I'm now realising why these things take so long to do; and I'm saying that in a country where the aim is to get the whole thing done in 3 years rather than the 6+ it takes in most of the rest of the world. It's a process of getting into grooves in thought and action, losing them, reclaiming, getting back on the journey and then getting diverted and stuck in a jam, one after the other after the other, again and again. I suspect if we all filled every moment of our time in a constructive fashion we'd have it done in 18 months but, hey, who does that?
The thing is, when I'm in the maternity units, things are busy, but not for me. I sit still on a chair, drink tea and watch other people rush from one job to the other without a moment to breathe. I feel guilty most of the time for not being able to help. Yes, I answer the door, welcome people, I've started to take phonecalls, but in the end I'm on a different timescale. The 'help' I'm giving, hopefully, will come some years down the line. It's not an immediate thing in the way that birth is (once the interminable meandering start has settled into a regular rhythm).
Fieldwork is this funny mix of mania and calm. Rushing to the hospital, rushing home, rushing to do interviews and so on. But when I'm there the pace, for me, slows down. And now I'm getting to the end that slowness becomes a little boring. I think I might be experiencing what they call in the business 'theoretical saturation': when you're not really seeing anything new and it all becomes a bit same old.
It's time to go now and move to the next stage. I need to take a little of the calm with me and spread it over the rest of my life. Breathe, breathe...pause...write.
Albums: 20, 20 + 5
4 months ago
2 comments:
While reading this post I keep hearing one of my advisor professor's words bouncing around in my brain "Reflexivity will get you to the place you need to be." You have a wonderful little piece of reflexivity here, and I trust it will get you to where you need to be! That and lots of centering breaths.
On a different note- 3 YEARS?? Really?? PhD programs are designed to be completed in 3 years there? I have friends who are struggling to complete their masters programs in that amount of time over here!
I know. It's bonkers isn't it! It's mainly because we only had one term's worth of research methods classes. Apart from that it's all done by research.
In reality not all that many people get it done in 3 years; we have an extra year to finish (unpaid) but when you're government funded like me you're under lots of pressure to get it done in 3 or the department starts to get into trouble.
Masters programmes are only a year full time. I found that way too intense. Could really have done with an extra year to learn it all properly. :-S
But if you want a PhD in a hurry it's a good way of doing it!
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