The First PhD Review ...

I made the decision to take on board the critical feedback. Reviews are something you can easily ignore as a performer or writer but I chose to not ignore them here and I think that I benefited. I think I'm stronger for it - and I have a tougher skin as a result. 

~Rufus Wainwright~

I can’t believe that I have been here six months!?! Has so much time passed already? Well the passing of six months means that I had my first PhD review.

Preparing for the review

You can imagine that leading up to the review, most of the first year PhD students were in a little bit of a panic; there were so many questions floating around. Who takes part in the first review? Is it only your two supervisors? What do you have to do? Do you need a slideshow? How long does it last? What do you really think is going to happen? The overriding feelings seemed to be fear of the unknown and worry that we hadn’t done enough for the review.  Now I think I am making assumptions as that may have just been how I felt… lol

Several of us consulted with second year PhD students who had been through all of this already, and they kept reiterating that we shouldn’t worry, it’ll be fine, your supervisors do not expect you to have completed the PhD at this stage; they just want to know what you have completed and they understand that it can change as you progress through the PhD.  Being uncertain at this stage is normal.

So I prepared a slideshow, typed up what I wanted to say to accompany the slides and practiced several times to make sure that I was comfortable with my material. That certainly did not prevent my stomach from hurting before the session was scheduled to begin, but it did make me feel prepared. I also prepared some questions that I had burning in my mind about my research.

During the review

Well, first, everyone but me was late. My second supervisor appeared to have forgotten that we were even supposed to have the session and my first supervisor got caught in a conference call. So you can imagine that my stomach was hurting worse by now and none of the false bravado that dressing up gave me (I decided to wear a skirt and a nice red top) was helping to settle my nerves. I went through the slideshow, forgot one or two things but I made it through and waited for the questions and suggestions.

I think the overriding point that was made is that I need to be more focused, be a lot more certain of exactly what it is that I am examining and want to discover through my research. Interestingly, this has been playing on my mind a lot recently.  I have been having an overwhelming feeling of reading without focus, which has been frustrating, upsetting and confusing all at the same time.

After the review

Well it’s done and over! Everyone that I spoke to seemed to have had a good session, gotten good feedback and was just pleased that they didn’t have to worry about it anymore. For me, the review put back in my mind how important obtaining this qualification is to me. It also demonstrated to me that I have to get a little stronger backbone, and be more ready to deal with any questions that come my way when it comes to my work. 

A Song in my Heart

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. 

~Maya Angelou~

It sneaks up on you just when you think that you are doing just fine and you are sure that you have found something to occupy your time and mind. You fight it, you tell yourself that you can handle it, that it won’t be that bad this time. Come on, what’s wrong with you… you were born alone; there is no need to feel this shattered.

God! I am not sure; I am not sure that I can manage it this time. What do I do?

First on that list is always to sing. Nothing makes me happier at that point… well maybe to dance but that definitely is not my skill. Pouring my feelings, heart and soul into a song and giving it the colour, texture and flava that lets it all out. Allows me to feel protected, open, sensual, innocent, beautiful, scarred, happy and tortured all at once. It brings a smile to my lips, a tear to my eye and a pep to my step.

♫ Oh, I wanna dance with somebody, I wanna feel the heat with somebody

♫ What’s your definition of it? How’s it make you feel?

♫ Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars

♫ The falling leaves, drift by my window

Sometimes there are no words; it’s just the sounds that kinda move with those feelings.

♫ I was just thinking about you… wondering if you wear the same cologne

What is there to do when loneliness sneaks up on you and says, “Girl you need a hug, maybe a soft touch on your cheek, maybe an affectionate tweak on your nose. You need to connect, make a connection.” That is when the singing sets in. That is when you wish that you were a professional dancer and by moving your body could express all the pent up emotion.

But God it also makes you feel pathetic. Why can’t you be happy alone? Why should you need something from someone else to make you feel special? No, not special; to feel … 

♫ Somewhere over the rainbow,Way up high ♫ I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style ♫You tell me to forget... 

Friendship...

So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good. 

~Helen Keller~ 

How many times have you read anything that says a true friend is the one you don’t see or hear often but when you do it feels like nothing has changed? I am not disputing this claim; actually I believe in it wholeheartedly but I think I want to examine it a little differently. How do we get to that point where we do not see or hear them every day? What changes?

At school, you saw your friends from Monday to Friday and then you found ways to see each other over the weekend. So our friend model starts with those people we see often. At University, you may not see them every day but you see them damn often so there is that constant connection, affection and sharing that friendship is based on. You move on to work and you may meet someone there that you connect with so well that you start having regular lunches, going to movies, and yet again you have another every day friend.

I so fondly remember when I made my long lasting work friend. We did almost everything together: lunch, driving, hanging out. It got so bad that our menstrual cycles synced (you know what I mean ladies). We were thrown together for a project and found that we had so much in common that it was easy for us to become friends. I don’t hear or see her everyday anymore, maybe every week but not every day, but according to how busy we are that can extend to a month sometimes. With other friends, I may not hear them for months. There are a few that may extend to a year or so but that doesn’t mean that they are not still in my heart and that the lessons we learnt together or that they taught me aren’t still there.

But how do we get to the point where we do not see or hear each other often? The simple answer to that is life!! We get so busy in our everyday activities that when that friend is not an everyday staple something else fills the space. Your priorities change, you have children, partners, activities and so many other things that fill up your time that everyday contact reduces slowly to a few moments on the phone.

Another simple answer is need. Be honest! A lot of people don’t like to acknowledge this but some friends are with you because you satisfy a need in each other; you recognise that the other person has something that you crave, envy, admire or miss in your current situation and just being with them makes handling that devilish or wonderful situation that much easier or better. That means that when that situation changes, the need to be with them is just not as urgent. This can mean that they did a wonderful job of healing your hurt, supporting you through change or just being there when it was necessary.

Why this has been on my mind the last few days I wasn’t sure but I think I worked it out. Having moved, I definitely don’t see my friends every day, and certainly not every week. Technology, as I said, makes things easier but it doesn’t make the missing friends go away completely. I know I miss the easy conversation, affection (I am still a hugger) and the ability to have a deep, full conversation with so few words.

What scares me more than that, (and I think this is what has prompted this thought) is that my move has jump started a need change in some friends, which means they will turn to others to satisfy something I previously gave them, something I enjoyed giving them and something that satisfied something in me to share. That makes me want to tear up, because as I said earlier those friends’ need to be with me will just not be as urgent; it won’t be the same and certainly means we will all have to make adjustments in previously satisfying relationships.

What it doesn’t mean is that the friendship will mean anything less. 

Are you homesick yet? ... The Christmas Edition

Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts. 

~Oliver Wendell Holmes~

Am I homesick yet?
It’s a good time to relook this question because it is the Christmas season and I am not headed to the sunny shores of home to spend Christmas day with family at my Granny’s, and another day in the holidays with family and friends at my Mom’s. I am not feverishly cleaning my place, looking for curtains, putting up a colour coordinated but simple Christmas tree and wondering what day I would do my own entertaining. I am not rehearsing Christmas tunes, I have NOT heard one Kenny and Dolly Christmas song and I am certainly not running around looking for gifts. I could keep going on (black cake…hmmm) but I won’t.

So am I homesick yet?

What I am, after discussing all I would miss, is hungry … lol … But honestly, I miss home and I will definitely miss some black cake this season. Maybe I am homesick this time because I am a little sad, but a lot of that sadness is based on my own greed and love of people. I am a very social being and will miss all the hugs, laughs and interaction with all of the people I love and care about. I will miss, oh heck I am missing some of the excitement, but I am also enjoying the quiet moments.

Considering that I chat face to face with someone special almost daily, I assure you that I am still getting a lot of the interaction that I love with the people I love. But I really should have learnt to make black cake before I left or at least brought the fruit with me. I am hoping that I am dropping enough hints that whoever visits me first brings black cake with them. I can manage all the other dishes without assistance and goodness knows that I can bake but black cake is an art that I have not perfected (neither is rice, but don’t tell my grandmother.)

I got a Christmas card from a neighbour, an invitation to Christmas lunch, am spending some time with a cousin and attended the Department’s Christmas lunch so I am not totally alone. I also got a very nice email from a department (IDU) of the Uni at home. So I am not crying in a corner people, mourning the loss of family and friends. I may be a little homesick but I am managing. Furthermore, friends (new and old) and family are making the change easier by just keeping in touch.

No matter where you are and how I interact with you, know that just knowing you care makes a difference and makes being away from the familiar that much easier to handle.

Merry Christmas everyone! May 2014 bring more experiences, more lessons and lots more of life. 

Research Philosophy ... OMG!!!!

I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then

~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland~

The second module of the Certificate in Research was entitled Research Philosophy. Where do I even start?

Unlike the other course—Research Methods, from the Passion blog—we did not have an intense week of vignettes. Rather, this was an intense week of reading, self-reflection, and quite a lot of big words that were difficult to pronounce and sometimes understand. Of course there were still lecture sessions, but now they were three hours long and the group work never seemed to stop. I started the week a little worried as the course does have a rather odd reputation on campus. At the very least it is recognized as a necessary evil.

I was not impressed with the four pre-readings for two reasons: (1) there were four of them (I did have other work to do) and none of them a few pages long and (2) was I really supposed to understand them all? Now I love reading, especially things that catch my attention, I can relate to or are well written so I did get through two of them. But two paragraphs into the third one and I felt like Morpheus was trying to make me choose between the blue or red pill to see how far the rabbit hole went. Whoops! Just a tad too much for me!!  In addition to the pre-readings, when I looked at the schedule there appeared to be one or several readings for each session (talk about overload; I really felt like a student.)

I was therefore pleasantly surprised to enjoy the few sessions we had. Moreover, I really enjoyed the group sessions during the week. They allowed us (the students) to learn from each other, talk through what we had learnt, what we didn’t understand and kinda muddle through it together.

Now, about the teaching sessions in more detail… sigh. These sessions were thought provoking, interesting, befuddling at times and sometimes fun. Please do not think this story will have a typical ending i.e. expect poor session but it turned out to be great …no no no… this story has a totally different emphasis. Let me focus on the thought provoking part of the week. Have you ever asked yourself:

• ·         What is reality?
• ·         How do I view reality?
• ·         Are there multiple realities?
• ·         Does the reality of a situation change for the same person?
• ·         What is the truth?
• ·         How do I know that something is the truth?
• ·         Are there several truths?
• ·         Does the truth change according to the perspective of the viewer, thinker or individual?
• ·         Is the truth the same no matter whose point of view it is seen from?

These are the types of questions that were being tossed at us (almost carelessly) during that week. The answers to these questions, or rather our answers to these questions or our point of view would apparently make it easier for us to determine our philosophical positions as it relates to research.

Seriously?!? Who thinks about this stuff? Who wants to do this much self-examination? What was I doing here? Was getting a PhD supposed to make me examine myself and my beliefs? Even scarier: were these questions really that difficult? For some persons I am sure the answers would come very easily because everything in their lives is so clear-cut and sure. But right now, right then especially in the face of all these differing perspectives, what did I really think? What was I sure of? What did I believe?

What do you believe?

Sigh… all this thinking is exhausting. Anyway … the week went by, I believe I participated and I know I learnt something. Words like ontology, epistemology and methodology all became a little clearer; I even think I get interpretivism and positivism. Unfortunately that didn’t mean that I knew the answers to the hard questions or that I was ready to complete the assignment which essentially requires my answers by January.

What do you think? What is the truth?

Some things change...

Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity. 

~Robert Morgan~

I have been thinking for a while what the next blog would be about and honestly could not come up with a good theme, thought or lesson. I have been correcting too many papers to think too closely about blogging, honestly. However, I have had a few fleeting, disjointed thoughts. If I was to attempt to find a common thread among those thoughts, and it may be a stretch, I could say that those thoughts have largely focused on the things that I love about being here or that I am very impressed by here but are very different from my own experience, while others have been about how similar some things are to my home. This blog will focus on the first section of that list—“Some things change”, with the list of things that are different. The follow up blog—”And some things stay the same”, will discuss those things that appear eerily similar.

Some things change:

• One of the most beautiful things I have observed here is that most everyone says thanks to the bus driver as they get off the bus. I LOVE IT!! It’s so polite and it doesn’t appear to be done by most people just because. Rather, it appears to be done out of gratitude. Those who don’t care just don’t say anything. So, as a line of people get out of the bus they look him or her in their face and say: Thank you, Thanks driver, Ta and other similar things. I guess I don’t have to say that I have warmly embraced this habit; it’s beautiful!
• This one is about teaching. Everything seems so well planned. There are set forms for marking, set guidelines as to what each band of marks represents and it is clearly laid out (in all the cases I have encountered so far) what you are looking for with each assignment as you mark. No guessing here! All students have access to these forms and therefore know exactly what they need to do if they want to excel. Puts the responsibility firmly in their hands.
• The library is AMAZING! You can walk in with your bag, phone or whatever. It is just expected that you will be responsible enough to stick to the rules of the floor. That means that if it is a silent floor each person respects that and if it is a group work floor, everyone respects that.
• Have I mentioned that the library is AMAZING!! Let us not even get into the fact that I put my books on an automatic ‘thingee’ and it gives me a receipt for my books and I get an email when they are due back. Returning is just as simple, place the books on the conveyor belt and get a receipt. AMAZING!!! Of course, as cool as this is, I have lost the human interaction (and I do love to chat).

...and some things stay the same

Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity. 

~Robert Morgan~

This blog as promised is the follow up from…"Some things change" and will be my list of the things that seem to have no cultural barriers (should I even say that?) A better way to put it may be that this list will include things that remind me of home and make me feel nostalgic… lol (that wasn’t any better.)

…and some things stay the same:

• Students! I so far generally (please note I did not say always) see more effort from the ‘foreign’ students than I do from the ‘local’ students. Doesn’t that sound familiar? When I had a conversation with a member of the Administrative staff about it she said, “Well they pay.” My first thought was I could be in the office at home sitting talking to anyone else in my own Administrative department and they would say something eerily similar if not absolutely the same.
• Shorts! Imagine my shock to come to the UK and see girls in what can only affectionately be termed batty riders (short shorts for those of you not familiar with the term). Lol. Fashion always comes before practicality! A girl has got to look good! Granted, they are wearing tights under them (sometimes very sheer ones), but I in my naiveté could not imagine wearing shorts in this cold weather (before now … hmmmm… I am already rethinking some outfits).
• Penguins! I almost did not believe it when I saw it but I saw a guy wearing his pants below his boxers. I really am naïve when it comes to fashion (Shakes my head) I expect to see this practice in the States; I somehow did not think that in this cold weather that anyone would want their boxers exposed to the elements that sounds like it would lead to a mighty cold butt!! But (lol) in their defence, locals are a lot more used to the weather than I am.

Honestly I am sure there are other things but right now they are not coming to mind.