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.