a dissertation (& health) update

this is likely the longest i've gone without updating this blog, but i've got quite a bit of updates, which i will lay out (for now) in bullets.

• in late spring, i got all my data completely transcribed.  since i was taking notes (in a prezi) throughout my transcription process, i used those notes to develop a pretty exciting outline for my dissertation.
• i may have mentioned in an earlier post that my dissertation research focuses on how academic support staff experience the workplace, specifically looking at how they write at work and how they experience power in the workplace.  i ended up having a lot of notes about different aspects of writing in the academic workplace, as well as lots of notes on how people experience/construct workplace identity and experience power, and then, lots of notes on how people experience/participate in/construct the workplace as an organization.  and i used these as the big ideas to outline my "data chapters."
• i had a plan to have large chunks of my dissertation written this summer, and i have pretty well-formed outlines of my first three chapters.  one is a short introduction chapter, which begins with a story from my data collection experiences.  the story kind of highlights how support staff experience academia as an institution, how delicate the nature of studying one's workplace is, and also, the importance of listening to and creating space for the telling and retelling of workplace stories.  and these three ideas kind of build the strains for the next couple chapters, which are (1) a chapter on foundational ideas/frames and (2) methodological choices and research methods.  so, each of those chapters have lots of well-developed outlines/notes/etc.
• i began analyzing my transcripts in early summer, but have yet to get through the mountains and mountains of them, but it is incredibly interesting to go back through them and re-read.  it's also interesting, having reviewed literature on organizations and on narrative/storying/remembering, to reread the transcripts through those lenses.

finally, i should say that while i had this exciting plan to finish writing my dissertation in the fall and defend it in the winter, my health has been really poor in the past month and after talking with my family, doctor, advisor, and lois, GSE's assistant dean of student affairs, i've decided to take a leave of absence from school for the rest of the year until i can really manage my health and get it under control.  i was incredibly sad to make this decision because i'm really loving my dissertation work and i was excited to sort of finish this piece of my journey, but i know that this is the right thing to do for my health.  that said, i'm hoping to keep updating this blog as i continue to think on my work.

lately...

work has been pretty intense.  the aera conference was in philly this year and while i don't attend the conference, doing gse's party during the week of the conference is a part of my job.  being that the conference was in philly this year and that it's also our centennial year, i expected to have quite a bigger turnout than most years, so the event was quite a lot of work.  rather than the usual 120-150 attendees, i planned for 500 (and we ended up getting 600, having to turn 100 away, which was very stressful!).  overall though, the party was a huge success and my boss was happy.  that said, i'm glad it's over.


so, i gave myself a week off of dissertation work, which was nice.  i spent a lot of my downtime reading.  i'm currently reading chimamanda ngozi adichie's "americanah."  if you're into her, she just recently did an awesome interview/chat with zadie smith that is totally worth the view/listen and it's completely relevant even if you haven't read any of her books.

now that my event is over, i can get back into end-of-semester work.  for me, this includes a couple of smaller events that i do each year, some for faculty and one exciting end-of-year luncheon for staff (one of my favorites to plan because i think staff appreciation is so, so important).

finally, i should mention that i've been ruminating lately about how having to interact with large bodies of academics at once (and especially newer academics and doctoral students) can conjure up a lot of negative feelings for me.  part of this is that i get the sense that there's a lot of unnecessary cattiness and competition and sometimes, i feel (and maybe this is unwarranted) that some of that negativity is directed at me.  as a part-time student, i'm often less privy to a lot of the socializing and bonding that happens between full-timers, and so i don't necessarily get to interact with the guild of academia with the same fervor as others.  i'm also not that excited about participating in the guild, further propping it up, or even sort of working within the establishment once i'm done my degree, so maybe i just don't completely get the fascination and enthusiasm for it, despite my deep admiration for educators, researchers, grassroots actors, activists, writers, and so on.

this week, reflecting on all of the above, i was able to have a couple of very nice conversations with people who seem to situate themselves within this space in similar was as i do and it was nice and refreshing to have those conversations, to have my seeming disengagement/lack-of-engagement/desire-not-to-engage validated.  i'm not sure how much i feel comfortable using this particular space to talk about this particular issue and i can't yet comment on how possible it is to feel this way and study here.  the verdict is still out, but it does help to know that others are doing the same kinds of wondering.

march end update

i'm working pretty hard lately, but that i'm in this stage where there are lots of unfinished bits and pieces that i'm wading in.  it's actually a really interesting part of any creative process, when you've got a bunch of pots of soup, each at the beginning stages of being made, and you are trying to pay equal attention to all the pots, but with the awareness that they won't all get done at the same time, nor all have been given the same amount of attention.

so, regarding data: as of tonight, i've completely "dirty transcribed" all of my interviews and have three left to "clean" before sending them to participants.  i also completed three group discussion/descriptive review sessions over the last month -- they went really well and generated lots of interesting discussion, but i have yet to transcribe those recordings.  that will be a fun project for april.

at the same time, i've also begun outlining 8 or so of the big emerging themes into little chunks of notes.  they're not yet fleshed out enough to talk about here, but it's nice to see the ideas in relationship to each other, and to see various data and things i'm reading kind of talk to each other.

that's all i've got for now... unlike previous years, i seem to be blogging about once a month, but as i've said in earlier posts, that seems to be the nature of being a part-time student working on a dissertation.  lots and lots of wading in deep waters and then little moments when you can surface and report.  kind of a comfortable place to be at this point, for me at least.

disrupting the tried-and-true

i guess school isn't technically back in session yet, but once you're no longer in coursework, it's all kind of one, long, ongoing thing that doesn't stop until you're done.  i'd hoped to spend my two weeks off of work working on transcribing my interview data, and i got a good chunk of it done (about half!).  i still have three days of vacation to go, so it's possible that i'll pick up the pace and get quite a bit more completed.  for me, picking up the pace has been about changing my transcription routine.  in the past, i've let perfectionism take over my work habits, so rather than work quickly and jump from transcript to transcript, i would work on only one transcript at a time (in chronological order by interview date), doing a meticulous initial transcription, followed by a read-through and edit with the recording at a faster tempo. 

earlier this week, i decided to try a new method: jump from interview to interview based on my mood; start with some of the shorter interviews and get them done first; let the initial transcription be quick and dirty, with the knowledge that i'll be able to clean it up and make it more accurate in the second run-through; and take a 5-minute Netflix break for every 2 pages transcribed.  whereas the earlier method meant sometimes spending weeks not doing any transcription and yielded the first five transcripts over many months of weekends, the new method has yielded about five transcripts in just three days or so.  so, it's really paid off to try this more "scattered"-feeling method.  it makes me feel a little uneasy when things aren't super organized, but when i find myself feeling anxious about this disorganized method, i take a few minutes to just breathe and relax my mind.  that might sound strange, but i think it's a critical piece of disrupting old methods: reminding myself that everything will be okay. 

and in a weird way, it's enabled me to kind of relish in the new approach, to find the fun in doing things in a way that seems, at least on the surface, to be disorganized.  in truth though, it's just as organized a method, just with many more parts.

data collection update (take 2)

after my last post, i reached out to folks i'd previous corresponded with re: the possibility of their contributing anecdotes toward my dissertation research.  luckily, one of the three wrote back write away and said yes to contributing something the following week (yay).  i had asked if the person might be feeling challenged by the request to contribute a piece of writing and it turned out this was exactly the issue, so we decided on having a five-minute recorded conversation.  since the other two people didn't respond, i reached out to two new people, one of whom had said yes to contributing when we ran into each other in person once and the other who i thought might be interested but hadn't thought to ask earlier.  the latter responded right away and agreed to work on a little piece of writing to send to me in earlier january.  the former i haven't heard from yet, but i know i will sometime over break.  so, despite feeling like the anecdotes wouldn't come together, it turns out that i will likely have three -- i actually think this will be just the right number for this particular medium and i'm really looking forward to seeing how this pans out.

also, since my last post, i have gotten almost all of my interviews conducted and recorded.  initially, i'd proposed to collect 10-12 interviews, but i'd also expected to have a handful of workshops recorded, which i no longer have.  i've since decided to do 20 interviews and have currently conducted 16 (with 3 more scheduled for this week and 1 kind of hanging in limbo).  if i end up with 19, i think that will be a more than reasonable amount to work with.  that said, i am still kind of hoping for 20.  i'm thinking if the last one doesn't happen until january, that will be totally appropriate.  for starters, as much as i'd like to have all of my interviews transcribed over winter break, it's kind of a super ambitious goal.  i've got 12 days off and 4 already transcribed, so i'd have to do 1.25 per day, which seems kinda tough.  i guess what i'm saying is (a) i'll do the best i can and (b) i will likely have spillover into the spring semester, so i may as well not push for getting that 20th interview done before then.  hopefully, i'll have good things to report by the time i write my next post.

all that said, it's been an incredible semester.  i've learned so much from conducting all my interviews and i really feel deeply emotionally connected to this work.  i can't wait to share more as i wade deep into the data in the spring.  this has been such an exciting process and i know it only gets better and more complicated from here on out.

data collection update

it's been about a month and a half since my last post, but i think if anything, it's a good representation of the nature of dissertation work.  re: my dissertation, i've conducted about 12 interviews now and they've all been incredibly interesting.  they've also enabled me to make friends with folks i've known somewhat peripherally for years.  i love that.  in addition, some interviewees have followed up with me post-interview and said, "our chat about such-and-such helped me to think about such-and-such differently," so i think there is some positive impact there, both in terms of how talking about work can extend our relationships to the work we do and also in terms of how talk in general is meaning-making work.

i had laid out some other data ideas that have yet to come to fruition.  first, i wanted to record some workshop sessions, but after the first one, i realized that the act of recording disrupted the workshop space.  a couple of attendees had said things like, "i wanted to make sure to talk enough about power and writing," and i worried that the knowledge that this might contribute to dissertation data was reshaping the content, maybe negatively in terms of impact.  so, while the talk itself was enjoyable for participants, it took away from the goals of the workshop session, one main goal being to workshop workplace writing needs.

interviews have been my primary data source, but i have actually found this same pattern in interviews too. whereas i try to keep the space pretty conversational and am completely open to participants' talk covering a variety of topics (including but not limited to writing and power), participants tend to self-censor or interrupt their own trains of thought to make comments like, "hmm... well, this doesn't have to do with writing, so maybe i should stop," or "well, i don't think this will be relevant and i don't want to waste your time."  so, i find myself having to reassure that everything we discuss is useful to me because i'm interested in the relationships between writing and the other things that come up.  i haven't figured out the right schtick yet to best explain this interest, but i'm getting there.

i had also planned to collect some anecdotes from former employees, but this has not been that fruitful.  a few folks have expressed interest, but have not had the time to provide something.  i'm not sure how to go about this.  i'm thinking about maybe asking each person if they'd be willing to have a 5-minute recorded phone conversation instead.

whereas over the past two or so months, i have been focused primarily on interviewing, i want to spend the next month being equally focused on interviewing and transcribing.  now that my eye flare (which began in october) is in deep healing, i feel more able to transcribe for long stretches.  i hope i can get a lot of transcription in over the next month!  more updates to follow.

researching and reading

since my last post, i've begun conducting interviews for my dissertation.  it's been an incredible process.  after each interview, listening again to the recordings, i'm learning so much about how to be a better interviewer.  the biggest piece has been to step back, allow silences, and allow people to direct the conversation.  so far, the interviews have been illuminating.  i'm interested both in how people write at my workplace and also how the workplace enables them to construct their identities and make meaning about our workplace and its social and political dynamics.  it's amazing how much these issues come up in regular conversation and what a deep awareness people have of the politics.  it's also been interesting to listen for power in the conversations, to see it emerge in areas i didn't expect.  this work is so exciting.  i'd love to spend my life interviewing people about their lives and work, learning about how they think and who they are and where work fits into all that.  really, i could do it all day.

outside of that, i should be doing better at reading academic things.  i've been wanting to start reading "images of organization," which one of my committee members suggested to me.  i did read the introduction and loved it (and looking at the table of contents got me pretty excited about the book) and i can't wait to read more.

but i have to admit, i've been indulging in all kinds of novels instead.  the newest one, which i just purchased about a week ago, is called "dreaming in cuban" by cristina garcia--it's her first novel, which she wrote in 1992, and it was recently banned from the curriculum in arizona schools because of what a parent of a 10th grader described as "porn," but could more accurately be described as a few short paragraphs describing sex.  in any case, a book being banned somewhere is probably one of the best reasons to purchase it with urgency and read it as soon as possible.  that said, and as i've likely written on here before, i have a tendency to have 10-20 books open at once (i would love to know the cure for this), so it takes me a while to really get into and finish a book.  i want to try and curb this by finishing up the two or three books that i'm more than halfway through.  once that happens, i'll start reading this one (admittedly, i already read the first few pages).  anyway, i'll let you know how it goes.

IRB and getting started

i'm happy to announce that since that post, i have submitted my IRB protocol, received edit recommendations, and submitted a final version.  i hope it gets approved soon.

i've also been lucky enough to not really require much by way of recruitment for my dissertation.  i'm studying my own workplace (GSE) and there was a glitch in the monitors this past summer, which caused the announcement of my proposal hearing to be displayed for something like two months.  in other words, my name and the title of my proposal, "narratives of working lives: academic support staff experiences of literacy, identity, and power in the workplace," flashed before many, many coworkers' eyes over and over and over again, and consequently, many coworkers approached me directly about the study, expressing interest in learning more and possibly participating.  and so, quite a good chunk of my participants have already volunteered face-to-face.  this will make that process go by pretty quickly.

i'm not as nervous about the actual process of conducting research as i was about the IRB.  i have no clue why that threw me for a loop.  it took me way longer to actually get started than to do it.  i think i did most of the proposal in an afternoon and then created all the supplemental materials on another afternoon.  meanwhile, just getting to the point where i felt comfortable starting took easily a few months.  i'm not sure if others have this problem, but it's definitely something that's plagued me my whole life.  in fact, a coworker noted the other day that i often start things WAY in advance, sometimes months and months.  i explained that part of the reason i do this is because in high school, i was a serious procrastinator and it was primarily due to my fear of starting things.  so, getting things started, even if it's as simple as creating a title page in september for a paper due in december, is my approach to making sure they get done.  lately, it's working for me.

anyway, this post is way more stream-of-consciousness than i'm used to, but it gets the job done.  i can't wait to get approval and start reporting on the dissertation process.  hopefully, that'll happen soon.  to be continued.

a post-summer update

last semester ended in a rushed, stress-filled month of anxiety.  i got my coursework done, worked my butt off on revising my proposal and preparing for my hearing, and lost lots and lots of sleep in the process.  my proposal hearing went really well (i passed!), but it left me feeling completely empty in the strangest way.  it would take me a few weeks to realize that my body just can't do all-nighter followed by all-nighter anymore and that i don't process stress and lack of sleep that well.

after my hearing, i got sick again and then it clicked: "oh, i actually can't just keep going on as if i don't have crohn's and uveitis.  i have to make room in my life for my illnesses because they aren't going anywhere."  so, i took the summer off and spent the time overhauling my health plan.  for starters, i switched my specialist doctors to two people who are much more trustworthy and much more open to the idea of my using diet, rather than traditional medicine, as a treatment for my diseases.  this shift in doctors has actually helped me to shift my own thinking.  having doctors who support my plan enables me to stretch my plan.

now, the semester has started and i'm quite a bit healthier (off most of my meds and eating a really clean, crohn's-friendly diet).  though i'm no longer in coursework, i want to approach this semester with a deep level of interest and a commitment to spending time on my dissertation work.  equally, i want to give myself some reading homework each week.  luckily, my chair has also formed a research group of her advisees, which meets every other way, where we can share our progress, ask questions, and talk about each other's work.  that's been pretty helpful so far.

right now, i'm working on getting my IRB protocol done.  it's actually been taking way more time than i thought it would and i'm just anxious to get it done.  more to update later as i dive into this work!

pouring your soul in

as you might have imagined, i've spent the past week in the throes of proposal writing/revising/completing and it really took a lot out of me.  that said, i think it turned out well.  you know that feeling where you've been so inside something you're writing and so absorbed by it that when it's done, you really have no clue how to measure if what you produced is good?  that's kind of where i am.  my proposal hearing is in a couple weeks, and i'm really hoping that after a few days away from the proposal (and after getting adequate rest), i'll be able to read the damn thing and figure out if it's any good.  and of course, this scenario brings with it the possibility that it's horrible and then i'll likely spend the week before my hearing crying hysterically.  as you can see, in its high stakes moments, grad school can really illicit all kinds of unexpected and extreme emotions.

at the same time, grad school, for me at least, has also been a journey of struggles and milestones.  in a way, it's like high-intensity interval training.  you're never really stopping, but you do get those slow-down-and-breathe moments, but only to catch your breath and then you're moving again.  so, i guess producing this proposal has been a real milestone moment for me.  as one program-mate commented to me, it's different than other projects because those are papers you write that matter to you but then they're over.  this is something that is big and thorough like a paper, but in essence, it's like a pre-step to doing the research you want to do.  you're arguing that the project you want to do matters and it's really an argument that is tied to the soul.  so "pouring your soul into your writing" becomes a very literal, actualized experience.  and that's bound to drain a person.

for me, it has been both exhausting and exciting.  on the one hand, i have produced this gigantic thing and i feel so done.  and on the other, i really do just want to have a catch-my-breath moment and then jump right back into it.  i have already created a draft set of proposal hearing slides for my presentation, but i'm sure i'll have a ton of ideas on how to revise it once my head has cleared a little.  we'll see.  truth be told, despite being exhausted, i can't wait to get started on my dissertation research.