Estimating

Just started entering data from my questionnaires and I realise that some people have no clue on estimating either time or distance: already came across 2 people claiming to driver 15-20 hours per week, but then mentioning a TOTAL of 80-100 km for that week?!? Is the rest of the hours on rollers in the backyard???

Well, was I lost or what?

It has been ages since I wrote anything here. First I couldn't write about what I wanted to write about (my boring supervisory problems) and then I was busy trying to make up for lost time (due to my boring supervisory problems). Today I entered the age of Facebook in a workshop and I am required to create a blog (haha, already got one) and link this to Facebook later. We are curious. ;-)

Could my future be this bright?

Or is this whole study a waste of time?



Just some random thoughts while in limbo (waiting for the results of my last unit). Sigh. (Both photo's made in Tonga, last week.)

Back from holiday

And still no grade for my last assignment. How surprising (not). No tutes anywhere in sight, due to the uni's new policy of teaching without sessionals. Good thing I'm really relaxed at the moment, thanks to my Tongan holiday. Plough on with the ethics proposal. Yay! Part of my data will be generated at another institute, so I have to put in 2 ethics forms. The person at the other institute has vanished of the earth (email came back as undeliverable) and the research office he was working for is nowhere to be found (or so the receptionist tells me). It is sooooo Monday!

Yay, holiday!

I can hardly believe it myself, but I actually handed in my lit review an hour ago. 40 pages of sweat, blood and tears. Honestly, my efforts came closer to writhing than writing the past weeks/months. Now all I need is a Pass (yep, my standards decline by the hour) and get organised again. That is, after my very well earned holiday in Tonga, land of leisure, palmtrees and good food (and dengue mosquitoes, but who cares?). I'll be working on my tan (don't start on the missing ozone layer please!) and on reversing the damage all this stress has done to my body and mind (think heartburn, sleep deprivation, gaining weight, raised blood pressure and knotted up muscles). Being a student is so much easier is you are young, if only because your body can actually cope with the stress when it is 20 years old!

Snails pace

I feel like a snail, trying to run a marathon. And I feel stupid for trying in the first place. What on earth possessed me a year ago???? Was it ambition? Was it temporary insanity? Was it existential angst, fearing for misery in the future without the doctorate (as in no job, no pension, no future)? Was it arrogance? Damned if I know.

Nature

Both my readers complained last week that I have not been writing anything. This is true, I haven't. Starting out I thought I would have lots to write about my research adventure, but doing research is actually a very lonely job. Most of the time I'm stuck by myself in a room with a computer, trying to type something interesting onto the screen. This is a very slow and boring process. I could rant on and on about my supervisory problems, but I don't want to get into a liability suit (or whatever it is called), so that topic is a bit off limits too. Past weeks I've tried to get my enthusiasm back (I was on the verge of chucking the whole thing in), and wandering through nature works better than meandering through the uni. Here's some of the beauty of Oz, so there you go: I'm writing again.


Lorikeets and pidgeon


Autumn in Oz

Embarrassed

Had a totally embarrassing meeting with my supervisor today. Yesterdays email mentioned that my with blood, sweat & tears produced chapter 3 was 'poorly organised'. This I found odd, because among all the different kinds of critique my work gets, poorly organised has (so far) never been one of them. Today I got back a stack of feedback, written on MY VERY FIRST CUT AND PASTE DRAFT FROM 4 WEEKS AGO. No wonder he thought it poorly organised, that was not organised at all. And full of repeats. And mistakes. And lacking lots of content. After apologising extensively for sending the wrong version (while he was muttering things about precious time, and rightfully so), I staggered out of the room with a bright red face.

About half an hour later it dawned on me: I HAD send the final draft, but did not know how to turn of the 'track changes' (which I use to write notes-to-self on how to proceed the next day, etc). So my supervisor got this document, filled to the brim with 4 weeks of tracked changes. Undoubtfully the word 'chaos' must have come to mind. Clicking on the button 'final' instead of 'final with markup' would have solved this, but how was he to know? He must have clicked on 'reject all changes' and so ended up with what was the very first cut & paste version, and then spend lots of time trying to make something of it (a rather heroic effort I'd say).

Although I blame myself for about 99% for this medium disaster (emailing a document with tracked changes turns out to be a rather stupid action), but one thought did occur to me: why did he not realise I would never hand in a piece like that (full of repeating sentences, double paragraph headings, mistakes, etc) and ask for the right version?

Vacuum

Everytime I have finished something (last Thursday a draft of chapter 3, methodology) I end up in this vacuum: an empty feeling. The last adrenaline dripping away, I start feeling really tired and end up doing nothing. Well, not totally nothing. I'm thinking, but that doesn't show. So it looks like I'm doing nothing and it feels like it too, because I don't have anything to show for it at the end of the day. It is like that at the moment. Would this be what they call 'being in limbo'?

Personality DNA

My research is on thinking styles and while reading lots on thinking styles it is unavoidable to read about personality characteristics as well. I came across an intriguing test on your personality. Apparently I am a benevolent experiencer. Who knew?

Benevolent Experiencer

(If you click on the blogtitle you can do your own test.)

Brilliant!

I handed in the first draft of my first chapter, version 13. It 'only' took me about 3 weeks to write these 12 pages. I'm brilliant! Have to write this today, because tomorrow feedback is due to come my way, so that might change my mood ever so slightly. Although I am of course a very mature person, who realises how feedback will help me grow (mostly size-wise, due to stress-as-a-result-from-received-feedback), so I am not worried at all. Absolutely not. I think. Okay, let's be honest here: I'm crap at receiving feedback, even while I teach other people how to feedback or not to feedback, so to speak. Typical case of 'do as I say, not as I do'.

Study and relax

When studying, relaxing is very important. Unfortunately I'm no great relaxer, rather the opposite. In an attempt to do something which would leave me no energy to think about anything other than the present, I went swimming. A colleague was supposed to keep me company during this braving of the elements (an indoor pool with lots of chlorine, yuk!), but she was stuck in a lecture. Hm.

Anyway, since I was already on the doorstep of the pool, armed with bathers and brand new purple goggles, I decided to go ahead. After a struggle with the lockers, I managed to find the 50 meter pool. There were signs at the head of the lanes saying 'slow lap swimming only'. Well, I could do slow, so I got in and started swimming. 50 meters later I was out of breath already, which was quite pathetic, so I decided to do the return 50 meters too. Then someone started, well I can't really call it swimming, moving very very slowly in my lane. Since my swimming is a bit lopsided, I found that disturbing, so I crossed a few lanes until I found an empty one.

Half an hour later I had finished 12 laps and got out of the pool. Made quite a spectacle of myself, because I could only get out halfway, after which I landed on my stomach and rolled onto solid ground. Where I discovered that the sign for this lane said 'high speed lap swimming only'. Oops. After another struggle with the locker, which refused to give my clothes back until the manager told it too, and a shower with my ears pricked up to keep track of my belongings in the change room, I was outside again feeling quite proud. Of what, you might ask? Well, at least I hadn't been thinking about my study for half an hour.

Writing a scientific paper

What would you expect to be doing if you attend a workshop called 'Writing a scientific paper'? To write! Wrong. Yesterday's workshop with forementioned title comprised solely of ..... (drum roll): reading! Yes. Where I hoped to get tips on how to write, preferably through doing some practical exercises, the main thing was to read other people's articles. And analyse them, concluding most of them are not that good. Which is basically what you spend half to all your time on already as a postgrad researcher. So what's the point? The highlight of my attendance was the person I was sitting next to, who happened to be the officer in charge of the Bureau of Meteorology. Since my beloved is a sucker for the weather (ABC's weatherman Mark Harmody is his hero), I boldly asked if there were possibilities to come and have a look around. To which my neighbour answered 'yeah, sure, give me a call'. When I told the beloved that the weatherman gets all his info from this very bureau, he couldn't sleep last night from excitement. Think a little follow-up email today will be smart. :-)

Conferencing for beginners

The coming few weeks there's a shed load of free (!) workshops for postgrads at my uni, so obviously I've enrolled in a few. Nothing as good as free education. I am a firm believer in free education for everyone, because education is the best way to enable people to make their own choices in life, but let's not get off on a tangent here. Conferencing was the topic of the day. As an academic you are expected to go to conferences, preferably 'giving papers' (which is academic jargon for 'doing a presentation' or 'public speaking about your work'), hence as a postgrad you have to work your way into the conferencing business. Good for networking, getting feedback from peers on your research and, not to be forgotten, having fun. The conference flyers all mention gala dinners and excursions to wineries etc. That would obviously be meant for networking, won't it?

Anyway, the workshop lady was an experienced conferencer and gave us some nice tips. Such as to be aware that the deadline for abstracts (of papers you might like to present) is mostly 6 months before the actual conference. This means you have to plan ahead and keep an eye out for 'calls for papers'. It also made me realise I'm very lucky, because I get additional money to spend on attending conferences, which is not the usual way apparently. Now I just have to find some useful ones in my area, which should be 'traffic psychology'. Unfortunately the traffic psychologists are very busy, so for this year I haven't found any conferences yet. But I'll keep looking, even if I have no clue of what to present, if anything. Being a participant would suit me fine for now.

The only thing from this workshop I totally disagree with is the tip to READ your paper instead of presenting it! As a journalist I have attended many conferences on a diversity of topics and the people reading their stuff are the most boring EVER. Participants actually fall asleep during some of these 'presentations', especially after lunch. Why? Because reading aloud is a very tricky thing to do, you tend to go too fast, use a monotonous voice and lose contact with the audience completely. So my tip is: do NOT read your paper. Practice you presentation until you know what you're talking about. Realise the earth won't shake if you forget to say something. Then just go out there and talk. Engage yourself with the audience. And HAVE FUN!

Supervisors

You cannot do a postgrad degree without having a supervisor. A supervisor has to be a superwoman/man, because they have to be knowledgable on your subject (preferably the most knowledgable), they need to be nice (or you might kill them before you finish your degree, which will result in huge delays), they must have time (or they won't ever get to reading your stuff until it is too late) and finally, they must be willing to supervise you (which mostly doesn't earn them anything extra, but is very time demanding nevertheless). In short: lots of wannabe-postgrads are desparately seeking a supervisor. I see the emails come in with different proposals, send out to all staff, hoping to find one.

I was lucky, I found the supervisor first (and he is all that) and he even agreed to take me on as a student, before I put in the proposal. So what more could I want? Well, first of all I would like to be not so intimidated by this lovely, non-threatening, friendly person. Somehow I feel like a first year undergrad, afraid to show him anything I've written or tell him anything I thought off, or ask questions (ouch!). I really want to make an impression of being smart and this makes me cautious to a ridiculous level, for fear of looking too stupid for the job. This person is there to help me, for goodness sake! The only positive effect is that I can relate better to my own students, who are first year undergrads. Sometimes they get terrified by me, now I know why.

Secondly, I need a little bit more direction every now and then. Sometimes I leave a meeting with 10 new questions instead of 2 answers on the questions I came in with. Solving the first problem will probably positively affect the second. Last week I actually had a meeting which gave me an answer, which yesterday made a quarter fall in my brain. Eureka! I've got a starting point, hurray!!

Organising

I'm still wandering through the labyrinth in a slightly dazed state. In a feable attempt to actually get started on my thesis, I spend today organising my stacks of useful peer reviewed (peer pressure is supposed to be strongest during your teens, ha!) articles.

This was not as easy as it seems. Although it is relatively easy to put paper in manilla folders (have you ever tried to remove the 'easy glide' tabs, get the tiny insert out, put it back in and then put the tab back on the folder????), you have to decide on which keywords are suitable as labels. And then decide on the articles that address more than one keyword. This last thing occurs quite often, which is in itself a good thing: it gives the impression the articles all have something to do with your topic of investigation.

I also tried to create some kind of guide for my research, which resulted in a totally confusing mind map. Sigh. I think I'm going to watch the Melbourne Open now. At least I'll know what I'm doing.

School saver

The uni is only a 15 minute bus ride from my home, so that is quite handy. It would be even nicer if the bus frequency was a little higher than one per hour, but hey, you can't have everything. Since I officially became a student, complete with student card-with-ugly-photo to prove it, I can use a school saver 10 rides card for the bus. Yes, the same card the kids use to get to school. It still feels a bit funny to use a children's card, but so far no bus driver ever asked to see my student card. I guess there are so many adult students in Oz, that they can't be bothered to check it. Today I needed a new one and I went to the uni shop to buy it. However, the helpful person behind the counter advised me that the card is actually not valid during the school holidays. Oops. I had just used it to get to uni and luckily wasn't caught. For a second I felt silly, then I realised that this information was nowhere to be found: not on the bus, not on the website, nor did the driver say anything. Apparently this is common knowledge, or so they think. If they are thinking at all. Stuff the students that are taking summer school. Anyway, way back when I did all communication for a public transport company in Europe, this obviously would never have happened. And I got to ride busses for free then. ;-)

Library

A big thing in academic life is the library. This might sound funny in this day and age where you can find 'virtually' anything on the internet, but it is still true. When I did my Masters in Linguistics, many many years ago children, computers were just entering the uni, but definitely not available for students. And nobody heard of a thing called internet. Studying meant spending long hours in a library (you know, the place where all the books are?) reading through journals, books, other peoples' theses, and writing notes on little cards. This is not how it works today. For starters, the library has lots of computers for students to use. Most of its journals are available in digital form, accessible through inter/intranet. Which leads to the funny situation of students surrounded by walls of books and journals, reading everything on their screen. It is a bit like commuters cramped together in a train, all talking or texting on their mobiles to someone not present. Weird!

The upside of this is of course that you can access everything from your home. Which is what I did yesterday, when I finally got myself to do something resembling studying. As was to be expected (on whatever day you start your diet, someone will celebrate their birthday with cake), I got stuck. I got the references, but I could not get to the actual articles, because the program did not accept my student number and password. Luckily our uni library has the best librarians, who are not only knowledgeable, but also friendly, which is an admirable combination. So after we spend half an hour on the phone not being able to solve the problem, the librarian emailed me the articles (this is where the friendly part is very important).

After I hung up, I suddenly found some info on the website I had never seen before in the 2 years I'm working at the uni. Something about a uni certificate ... Which I downloaded. Which solved the problem. Bingo! I felt very much like when I have been looking for something in, say, the supermarket and the moment I recruit a shop attendant to help me out, the thing I was searching for suddenly pops into view, the very moment I'm asking the question. Know the feeling?

Room without view

Good start of my new status as a postgrad instead of lecturer: I lost my room today. Boohoo! Even if it did not have a view, other than the photo's I put up, it was a handy space to leave stuff lying around and I had my own computer. Back to dragging everything around in my backpack, as students do. Being a student sucks!

Procrastinating

All of a sudden, well, to be truthfull after 6 weeks of frantic work and another 6 weeks of nailbiting, I was the proud receiver of a research grant. The first step on my way to a Masters by research/PhD, so I can be a real academic and not just a uni lecturer and tutor, as I am now. On contracts anyway. With the grant, massive amounts of stress came into my life as a free bonus. First of all, there is an amazing amount of bureaucracy attached to academic life, which makes me think it is all a trick to be learned: the content of your research matters less than adhering to all the milestones, rules and prescribed ways of doing things. (I do hope this is not true though.)

Secondly, now I've finally got my foot-in-the-door with the uni, I have to say 'no' to all offers of employment, because the grant requires fulltime study. A luxury problem, but still a bit daunting. In order to be able to continue what I love doing (teaching), I have to stop doing what I love doing for the next years. I tried teaching and studying together the past semester, but combining being a unit convener doing 2 lectures a week and fulltime study does not agree with me. Unfortunately I'm one of these people who gets stressed, depressed and burnt out easily, due to my overly responsible and perfectionistic nature.

The perfectionism and responsibility thing does not help in reducing stress by the way. I feel obliged to the grant suppliers to succeed and I want to do a good job with it too. I did quit a good job last semester, which is probably why I still have to recover from it, passing the IELTS academic with 8.5 and getting an HD and an Di in my research units. However, now the 'real' thesis is starting and I'm dreading to start with my literature review. 20.000 words are required and I haven't written anymore than 3.000 so far (for the review that has to go in your research proposal). That's why I'm lost already/again. And why I am procrastinating (love that word) by starting up a new blog on my research adventure. Well, that is done. The first post is a fact, and don't we researchers love facts. Actually, I discovered I'm more inclined to do qualitative research, but my topic requires quite some quants. But ... okay, STOP WRITING. Get to work. NOW!