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.

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.

stress, a lot of it

i'm a couple days late on my weekly post, partly because i got tons of feedback from two of my committee members last week and i've been trying to work on a revised draft.  they really liked the proposal but had quite a lot of feedback and suggestions, which i definitely prefer and appreciate, but now my proposal feels like a gigantic mess and i'm just feeling like i might not really be able to get it the way i want it to look in time to send it in.

technically, my hearing is in 3.5 weeks and i guess you're typically supposed to give folks 3 weeks to read.  i don't know if i'll make that happen, as this thursday would make 3 weeks and i just am not that prepared.  anyway, we'll see.  i'm feeling stressed...

a complete draft proposal!

so, as i mentioned in my last post, i didn't finish my proposal draft by april 1, but i spoke with my professors and they said april 5 was fine.  for the past two weeks, i've spent so many nights coming home from work and going straight up to my office to read and write.  i haven't slept as much as i usually do, but i'm okay with that because the writing has really been incredible and intense and the best kind of struggle.  i don't know if i have ever loved the writing process as much as i have this semester.  and working on this proposal has been so illuminating and powerful.  so, i guess all that is to say that i'm really happy with this work, not just the final product but the process of writing it.  and i can't wait to receive boatloads of feedback and use it to strengthen this proposal even more.  it's so exciting.  all that said, i'm soooo exhausted, sooo sleepy.  and i am so relieved it's friday.

when life messes spill into neat writing plans

well, this week was a complete mess.  i had a nice, neat plan to take thursday and friday off and spend quite a lot of hours working on finishing up my first draft of my dissertation proposal.  and then, our water heater exploded and i was off most of the week (tuesday through friday), but spent most of the days either working from home or dealing with contractors and insurance reps and basically 100% not being able to work on my proposal.  of course, i had a good chunk written already, as well as lots of notes, but it's still all very haphazard and in need of a lot of rewriting and polishing up.

in any case, i spent a good deal of yesterday afternoon and evening working on my proposal.  i had planned on it being about 25-30 pages, but it's already quite a bit longer and i don't even have my lit review section written yet!  i hope i'll be able to shorten it all down.  my thinking was that the research design section should really be the longest and most thorough, whereas the other sections will be expanded in the dissertation.  if my research design were 8-10 pages, this would leave about 5 (or less) pages each for the theoretical framework and intro/conclusions and about 10 (or less) pages for the lit review.  however, each section is currently just a few pages longer than these planned guidelines.  part of this could be that a good chunk of my already-written introduction contains a lot of material that could potentially fill a lit review.  anyway, i hope i can figure it out.  once i have everything written, i'll be able to edit out things that are redundant and move things that feel misplaced, i guess.

well, that's my news for now.  my original plan was to have a complete first draft done by april 1.  it looks like i might have to push that back, at least by a few days.  more to come soon!

writing my proposed research design section

this week, i focused most specifically on work on the research design section of my dissertation proposal.  i did quite a bit of writing on sunday and came up with a strong first draft of my research design, which my classmates and i talked a lot about on tuesday night.  they offered such great and helpful feedback and asked a lot of questions which helped me to deepen my thinking on writing this piece.  then, on wednesday, my chair and i talked about the same piece and she helped to push my thinking even further along.  all in all, it has been a really excellent process and i look forward to spending more time working on it (and on the rest of my proposal) this weekend.

there were two things that really helped me as i planned to write this piece.  the first is something i read in maxwell (2012) in which he describes qualitative research design as having four parts:

1. research relationships
2. setting and participant selection
3. data collection
4. data analysis

he writes quite a bit more about this on page 90 of his 2012 book.  i liked thinking about it in this way because it helped me to give my research relationships quite a bit more thought and space in my proposal.  for me, this piece on relationships is fundamental to my design decisionmaking, and reading maxwell helped me to keep this piece in.

second, a couple of weeks ago, sharon talked in class about breaking up one's research questions into concepts/constructs and taking the time to define and better understand those constructs in the context of one's work.  this was really helpful to me as i looked back on my questions and their relationship to my research design.  around that same time, my chair amy suggested that i create a chart with three columns: research question, data source/s, and data analysis.  combining these two ways of thinking about my questions and their relationships to my data really helped me to fill in the gaps between questions and data sources.

for me, these two pieces pushed me quite a bit further in my thinking and writing this past week.  i have all of the feedback and notes from my classmates and chair gathered together and i'm really looking forward to sorting them out, really thinking through them, and doing a heavy load of writing this weekend.  i can't wait!

moving forward

well, i should start by saying i got almost no work done over spring break.  i mean, i read a lot of fiction and got a mental break, which is good.  but i hoped to get more work done and that just didn't happen.  the one important thing i did do was take all the bits and pieces i had written in various places and put them together in one dissertation proposal draft document.  that has been really helpful in thinking about what parts need to be filled in and what parts i need to do more thinking on.

the most important and amazing thing that happened this week was that i had meetings with susan lytle (my previous advisor) and sharon ravitch about their serving on my dissertation committee and they both said yes and expressed a lot of enthusiasm for my work.  i really respect these two and their work so much and i am beyond excited that they have agreed to do this.  i'm really looking forward to working with them.

this upcoming tuesday, in my dissertation proposal-writing seminar, we will be looking at a piece of writing i have produced, so i'm spending today writing it.  i have a lot of pieces of my proposal already done, but as i mentioned in an earlier post, i've been struggling with writing my research design piece, so that's likely what i'll send them.  i'm nervous, but looking forward to the feedback.

have a great week!

letting things settle

this week was both awesome and messy.  coming down off the crohn's diagnosis and feeling under the weather, i found myself completely unable to do homework over the weekend, so i mostly just kept it low key, hung out with my husband, and read for pleasure.  it was a good weekend to do it -- since i had my group presentation on monday, i had read the readings in advance.  this was also the first year that i completely missed the ethnography forum.  i was pretty sad about it, but in hindsight, i'm really glad i didn't go.  i was simply not in the place to be around anyone, so i'm glad i listened to my body.

our presentation on monday went really well, and our professor and TA wrote to us afterwards with lots of positive feedback and enthusiasm about what we did.  this meant so much to me, especially coming from people i respect deeply.  plus, when you know you've worked hard and it is acknowledged, the rewards are that much greater.

on my dissertation proposal-writing timeline, i had planned to have a good chunk of my research design done this week.  however, it didn't happen, partly because i was wrapped up in processing my diagnosis and partly because i couldn't devote the mental energy to research design planning.  on wednesday, i was supposed to have a 2-pager written for my chair for our meeting, but i emailed her saying that i just hadn't been able to write it.  she suggested that if i found i still didn't have anything written by wednesday morning, we could just talk things out.  this felt strange to me because i'm used to having these polished pieces done, but our talk ended up being just the thing i needed.  first of all, it helped me to break out of the pattern of having a finished thing to present, and to just sit publicly with my questions and not-fully-formed ideas.  second, we had a really good conversation and it really helped me to get a better handle on my plans for my research design.  talking things out with my chair gave me an opportunity to ask questions and sort through my own thinking and confusion. it was great.

next week is spring break.  of course, i will still be at work everyday, but i'm planning on spending the rest of this week and the weekend reading for pleasure.  i won a book called "the gravity of birds" in a goodreads.com giveaway and i want to be prompt in reading and reviewing it.  i hope to be done by saturday night so that i can get back into my dissertation proposal-ing and other homework by sunday.

busy/exciting times, and a diagnosis

well, this has been a pretty intense and interesting week (do i say this every week?).  classes are going well.  i can't believe that the semester ends in just two and a half months!  it's wild how quickly things move.  in terms of my advanced research methods class, my group meets again today to have a final talk about next week's presentation.  because we got started so early, we ended up having to spend a lot less time working on this project.  we split the work out very evenly and gave ourselves the space to make final changes/edits/critique.  in today's meeting, we are each bringing the handouts we've worked on and we'll spend some time cleaning each other's work up.  i'm excited about this process.  it reminds me how amazing collaborative work can be when all parties are willing to be involved.

re: my dissertation proposal, (a) the readings in my advanced research methods class have really informed proposal-writing from a practical point of view (for example, maxwell's book on qual research design and ravitch & riggan's book on conceptual frameworks have been immensely helpful in my thinking about the organization and delivery of my ideas and argument); (b) the classwork for my proposal-writing seminar has been equally helpful, as we have a group of people working together on our projects -- this week, we began sharing quotes and ideas that will contribute to our lit reviews; (c) sara, my lone cohortmate, and i have been reading each others' writing and offering feedback and this has been an excellent way for me to receive feedback and also extend my thinking on my work; and (d) my meetings with my chair amy have been really exciting and beyond helpful in moving me forward and keeping me on a timeline.  i have no doubt that i'll have a complete proposal in may.  this weekend, i'll be working on a 2-3-pager on my research design.  i really can't wait to write it.

so, i've been talking a lot about my health issues and the various tests i've been undergoing.  this week, i also finally got a diagnosis: i have crohn's disease.  on the one hand, i'm feeling really relieved that i have a diagnosis.  for some reason, my husband and i have had a strong feeling since dec/jan that this was crohn's, so its good to just know.  and on the other hand, it's kinda scary.  my symptoms and inflammation are super mild, so that's good, but i really don't know what the future holds.  over the past year, i've begun creating habits (like meditating, running, etc) that i know will help me in the long run, and knowing that i'm a few months away from coursework and might soon have more time to maintain and develop these good habits is also good.  but i'm still kinda bummed.  i know this sad feeling will pass soon, but for now, i'm kinda just sitting with it.

at the same time, knowing that i have so much support from my coworkers and family and friends helps quite a lot -- in fact, the love and kindness i've received, especially from my husband who is my champion in everything, has been incredible.  and being able to finally work on my dissertation proposal also helps -- it's like, i know that no matter what happens with my health, i have this incredible project that i'm working on and that i'm so passionate about, and that really keeps me excited and enthusiastic.

an update

this week felt so long while i was in it, and now it feels like it has just flown by.  among the tasks i hoped to get done this week was the writing of a 2-page prospectus toward my dissertation proposal.  i have about two pages written, but they are in serious need of revision.  i've got a lot of thinking to do on this tonight, as i hope to email the prospectus to my advisor early in the weekend so she has enough time to take a look at it prior to our meeting on wednesday.

for my advanced qual methods class, i met with my group (of two other people) re: a presentation we'll be giving to the class in three weeks.  it was really great to meet so far in advance with two other people who are equally enthusiastic about giving a good presentation that we feel will be really helpful to our classmates.  we already have a great plan, but now we need to build in some of the details.  i'm definitely looking forward to it.

in terms of health, i'm once again a step or two closer to figuring out whatever it is that i have.  i had a capsule endoscopy test today and i'll have the results back in a week or two.  so, there's that to look forward to.

also, a shameless plug about an upcoming event that i help coordinate:

the 15th annual clayton lecture, featuring

DR. WILLIAM HITE

superintendent of philadelphia schools

LEADING THROUGH CHANGE

tuesday, february 12

4:30-6:30pm

bodek lounge houston hall

reception to follow

[more info here]

hope to see you there!

getting to the problem

this was a really intense week, partly because i had to have a colonoscopy done on wednesday as part of my ongoing health situation.  so, i couldn't eat anything but jello and broth on tuesday, which gave me that really delightful combo-buzz of delirious and low energy by the time i got to class on tuesday night.  that said, we did a really cool activity that helped me to think about my dissertation work.  the writing activity was called "getting to the problem" and it's clearly one of those things that you could use for a variety of projects.  you start by answering these four questions:

1. topic: i am studying (writing about)...
2. question: because i want to learn more about...
3. rationale: in order to understand...
4. significance: so that we will know more about...

as a second step, you could try to answer these four questions backwards, i.e. from 4 to 1 and see what you come up with.  here's what my first try (while under the influence of zero food, so it's not awesome, but i'm sure you're not judging) looked like:

i am studying the kinds of conversations and questions that take place in a series of staff-run and staff-attended writing workshops because i want to learn more about (1) the ways academic support staff think about their work and how they are situated in it and (2) how academic support staff view the power and social demands of the workplace in order to understand the various learning demands of the academic workplace (as seen by those doing the work) so that we [in the field] will know more about (1) power and social positioning as legitimate (though often unacknowledged) learning demands of the workplace and (2) how academic support staff negotiate identity and power at work, and so that we [academic support staff] will (1) know more about ourselves and each other in the context of our work and (2) have a context in which to explore the various ways that we write and the types of writing we want to learn.

whew - that is quite a run-on sentence, but it was a really enjoyable and eye-opening activity that helped me to think about and understand my topic in a different and, in some sense, illuminating way.  more on this later, and more on my health later too.  as always, thank you for reading.

overwhelmed, but still enthusiastic

this week was short -- we had monday off for mlk day, meaning my qual methods course didn't meet.  it also gave me an extra day to spend with my husband.  we went to new jersey with another friend of ours and spent a good part of the afternoon with my tattoo artist.  i got three really pretty tattoos on my legs (which i can hopefully post pictures of when it's warmer and when they've healed) and my friend got her first tattoo ever, which is on her forearm.  it was a really fun process and i'm in love with my new ink.

on tuesday, i had my doctoral seminar.  it was great to chat about the readings and about our proposed work, but we were also told that we may not be sharing our proposal drafts in class over the semester, but rather should be working on them independently.  this has me a little apprehensive, but i might ask either (a) if we can change this plan or (b) if a few folks in the class want to share our work independently.

on wednesday, i met with my advisor amy to officially ask her if she'd be my dissertation chair and she said yes!  she also gave me a bunch of homework to do in preparation for our next two meetings.  i'm really happy she's my chair -- she is not just super adept and knowledgeable about qual research, and literacy and learning, but she's also really adept at goal-making and timeline-obeying and i really need all of this.  i'm genuinely thrilled that she has agreed to be my chair.  i'm sure i'll write more about her and this process over the coming years, but in the meantime, she is helping me to feel positive and enthusiastic and challenged.

amy also suggested i email a couple of cohort mates about reading their proposals, which i did today.  one has already sent hers to me, and i hope to read it over the weekend.  speaking of reading, that's another thing i've been feeling overwhelmed by.  i've likely mentioned this a billion times over the past few years, but i'm kind of a slow reader.  especially on weeknights, when i've had a long day at work, i find myself struggling through material, even stuff i'm really interested in.  so, the gigantic batch of reading i've been assigned has been tough to maneuver through, but i'm doing my best.

reflecting on week 1

week 1 of courses was amazing.  i'm so excited to be in my last semester of coursework and to be taking the two classes i'm taking.  i'm most looking forward to getting to work on my dissertation proposal (and i do think both classes will help me to do that).  dr. campano got us all really excited in class on tuesday night, and then nervous when we started thinking about the magnitude and significance of the work to our lives, and then excited again when he told us that with hard work, we can have complete proposals (subject to revision once read by our committees, of course) written by semester end.  yippee!

after class, the other lone cohort-mate of mine who is still in coursework (and is a wonderful human being and fun to be around and to study with) and i went to a wine bar and chatted about the journey and looked forward together, too.  it is great to reconnect with a cohort-mate after a couple years apart.  we're lucky enough to have yet another cohort-mate as our TA for our proposal writing seminar, so i'll be actively using the "cohort love" tag on my posts this semester.  this is clearly a good time to announce that i just added a "dissertation" tag to this post.  aaah!  i'm tagging things "dissertation" -- that time has come.  i'm obviously too excited to be very coherent in this post, so i guess, reader, you'll have to trust that things will be more coherent in future posts.  i'll leave it at that.