Life in Thesis-land : balance

I flu, therefore I am not

Karen.Hall — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:58:00 GMT

I hate being unwell. It might be my meglomanic conviction that the world will fall apart without me, or internalised childhood guilt about days off, but mostly I think it is the sheer misery of being overwhelming conscious of embodiment.

Now, with my academic hat on, I'd argue for the importance of embodiment: that the mind/body split impoverishes both these aspects of existence, that body and mind inform one another, that to ignore or supress the body has an intensely dubious history of power, priviledge and exploitation. Lying on the couch on Tuesday, focusing on breathing with Dr Phil on TV because that was as much as I could engage with intellectually, all I wanted was transcendence of the body.

A few days later and feeling better, I'm more aware of the taken-for-grantedness of my healthy body - that getting up in the morning with energy to do things isn't always the case. I'm also aware of the irony of one of my first reactions to feeling better, which was planning how to discipline my body to work harder, more efficiently and more healthily. Being told that you need to take better care of yourself (thanks mum) as yet another set of chores to add to a long list still feels, at the moment, like weight on the transcendence side of the argument.

Good Habits

Karen.Hall — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 06:47:00 GMT

In the quest to find some way to balance the job-thing and finishing-thesis-thing while maintaining some shreds of sanity (don't laugh!) I've decided that the key is good habits. There is no point in pretending that I can manage to live on sugar and caffiene for the next five months, just writing and not sleeping, and doing well at either of the things. So I am aiming for sustainable but solid work practices and balance. So here are my new habits:

Going to the gym again. Having fallen into a gym slump in the absence of my gym buddy - because gossip can motivate me to get out of bed, but machines of torture aka circuit and pump classes cannot - I'm trying to reverse the trend and get to the gym 3 times a week.
Restricted TV watching. As some of my previous frivolous posts might have shown, bad TV has to get pretty bad indeed to stop me watching it. My current scheme requires me to register with Housemate Sister a weekly roster of shows I am allowed to watch, while she has total control of the remote and permission to be Official TV Doorbitch.
A tidy study desk, with all the resources I need on hand. Any junk that tries to move onto the desk has to go to a proper home or the bin.
Blocks of time. Thesis writing time is two hours each weekday evening. That means the two hours have to be done, but also that once they are done I can switch off the computer and go to bed.
Rolling Things To Do List. All the steps that need to be taken to get the thesis done get written down, and eventually crossed off. At the end of each evening's writing time, I select that tasks for the next day from the list. For example, tonight is two paragraphs of writing for Chapter 5, where I've blocked in the topic but haven't written the content, and one paragraph for Chapter 6. Small steps and attainable goals, that's my mantra.
And in a confession of potential New-Age wackiness, I've found that using an oil burner at my desk can help me get into writing headspace. I guess it is a sensory signal to myself to get to work, plus having the candle burning makes me feel like I shouldn't leave the room.

The Wait is Over!

Karen.Hall — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 08:25:00 GMT

I blogged a while ago about things I was waiting to hear back on: the news is that my crazy week of application writing paid off! This week I've begun a six-month position as Graduate Education Officer here at UWA and I've also recieved a Whitfield Fellowship - a six-month, 0.5 role - that will begin after the GEO job finishes. In terms of the thesis, this means that I have six months to get it done and in - a slightly overwhelming prospect, but I'm trying to spin it to myself as an exciting challenge. (This is also a partial excuse for my recent blog silence).

What does this all mean for this blog space? A few different things, I think. Firstly, I'll need to articulate and post my 'ethics of blogging' because while considerations of professionalism, privacy and appropriate topics have always informed what I've chosen to put up here, this job means that I could be read as not just speaking for and about myself - even if that is all I'm planning to do. Secondly, I plan on using this blog as a reflective space to talk in particular about issues to do with thesis research and writing as part of the job. And finally, I guess it means that you'll still be hearing from me for another year, as I make the transition to early career researcher - so hopefully you the reader aren't sick of me yet!

Produce

Karen.Hall — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 07:35:00 GMT

Gardening, like cooking, helps keep me grounded - quite literally, I suppose, when playing with soil, but also in the general sense of occasional immersion in seasonality, in 'wholesomeness' and 'sustainability' (however much I might also want to interrogate those concepts), in the unexpected graces and losses of the material world.

I must confess, though, to being an irregular gardener: filled with sudden enthusiasms and grand plans that don't always happen. I'm a nomadic gardener as well, conditioned by student living in a series of rental homes to plan for portability or leaving things behind.

In my last house, I replanted the narrow beds around the paved courtyard at the back six months before I moved out. Along the back fence was a row of lavender interspersed with rosemary, a potato vine in the corner starting to grow up a trellis left behind by a previous tenant, and in the shady left-hand side, a shrub (can't remember the name) and native violets. I wonder how it is going now?

The plants that move with me are fewer, and all have sentimental associations: a small potplant that was a gift after my first lecture, its small white flowers recalling those on the burial mounds of Rohan (I was lecturing on Tolkien); a large architectural not-palm from my sister's house, left behind as she moved across the country; a creeper with heart-shaped leaves and small white and purple flowers that colonised a herb pot when I lived in the Fremantle dreamhouse, struggling through every summer since then.

At the moment, I'm living in my parent's house while they are away. The garden here is designed to be fairly low maintainence - my father has always had a thing for reticulation (the first $100 note I ever saw went to buy tubing), so watering isn't really an issue. But without the standard landlord-tenant worries and space to play with, I've started into vegetable gardening. My philosophy of gardening - such as it is - leans towards the organic and sustainable, which to me means either vegetables and fruit or natives. (My father would of course note that anything with carbon in counts as organic, but I'm sure you know what I mean). I have occasional dreams of a rural lot designed on permaculture principles.

The soil here is beach sand, with gum tree litter and god knows what other stuff in the side bed. The vege patch has two parts: nearer to the kitchen is the herb and regular pickings plot (basil, tarragon, rocket, cos lettuce, sage, thyme, mint, garlic chives, strawberries, a couple of leeks, bay laurel in a pot, parsley). The soil here has been built up over a few years, and the main struggle is keeping runners from the lawn from invading. (This has prompted rants on how Deleuze and Guattari must not have been gardeners). In the side bed is the second part: two beds bordered with left-over bricks. When starting the garden here I added plenty of manure, and I'm using blood and bone and pea straw mulch to keep building up the soil. The compost bin lives here as well, protected by the fence and dug into the ground by over thirty centimetres. Leaving the compost bin outside the fence resulted in open pit mining by the puppy dog to get at the ebticing mouldy kitchen scraps. The now fortified patch has been christened 'stalag 13', with the dog as head of the escape committee. (In the early stages of fortification he burrowed in, then spent the night howling, trapped inside because he couldn't figure out how to leave through the hole he came through!) This is where I'm trying to grow pumpkins, eggplants, leeks, garlic, more cos lettuce, spinach and carrots. I have some broccoli seedlings in a seed raising tray that need to be planted out this weekend.

While these small patches are nowhere near enough to keep the household fed, I like them for the small differences they make: greenery is a spot that was empty before, some fresh basil in my bruscetta, time away from the computer screen with some small alteration in the world to show for it. And gardening, like the plants that move with me, can be a way of tending to emotional ties - comparing crops over the phone with my mother, being given recipies - and more jam jars than I could ever need - by my grandfather, noting the opposing transitions between seasons when talking to friends overseas. It is productive, I suppose, in ways that go beyond produce.

Heading Towards the Light...

Karen.Hall — Tue, 29 May 2007 04:43:00 GMT

I've been heading towards the light (ie, completing various tasks that having been taking over my life) for the last few weeks - hence my virtual silence and in-person whining. I like the 'light' metaphor, not only because it insinuates the semi-comatose state I've been in at times - almost oversleeping the bus stop when going to pick up my car on Monday was not a good sign! - but also because it is vaguely optimistic. Volume 13 of Limina has been launched, only one week of teaching left with the marking edging towards done, and maybe someday soon my current chapter will finally link up into coherence. So if you see me wandering around campus looking a little out of it, maybe it means I'm headed for a better place: head down into the final chapter in the semester break.

N. O. spells well, maybe

Karen.Hall — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:57:00 GMT

I just said no to something. A NQDJ contract related something.

I feel kind of nauseous. Saying no isn't something I do often, and even having discussed with with one of my supervisors and various other people, it still felt quite scary to say it. Part of this, I think, is that it has to do with students and teaching and as much as we do (and should) professionalise teaching and relationships with students, there will always be an affective component to that complicates our perspective.

Universe, this isn't a rejection of you as a whole. It's just a recognition that certain things, at certain times, aren't the best things for me to be doing - and that one 'no' might make it possible for the other 'yeses' to be more wholehearted.

I'm Ready To Commit. To Groceries.

Karen.Hall — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 05:52:00 GMT

Alternative title: This is where smoking behind the bike shed gets you...

As of yesterday, I'm suspended. Despite the fact the I should be getting really serious about my thesis (with a side order of thesis related hermitage and insanity), I've taken on a temporary part-time admin job for the next 10 weeks. Combined with the NQDJ and some family stuff, I'm not going to be able to commit to my thesis for a while. Instead, I chose to commit to groceries, rent, and all that other lovely stuff one can purchase with an income.

The thesis/groceries choice is the result of not completing the thesis within my three-and-a-half years of scholarship. (Moral of the day, kids: Finish your thesis before the scholarship runs out. Stop reading this blog. Go back to work. Right now.) I'm still going to try and fit in some kind of thesis work, but it will be moments grabbed on the run rather than solid sessions of work. Suspending means that I can do that and see what work I do get done as a bonus, rather than feeling as though I should be up all night writing in a futile attempt to get more hours into the day.

On the bright side, I got the latest chapter four draft back. I'm not sure if having your supervisor agree with your note that [THIS PARAGRAPH SUCKS] is a good thing or not, but there were more ticks and less 'this needs improvements' than last time.

Behind the Eight-Ball Before It Even Starts Rolling

Karen.Hall — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 07:59:00 GMT

It's Friday afternoon - 5pm - and I'm packing up to go home, going with the business-day schedule even though there isn't the usual drinks to lure me. Rather, I'm off home to catch up with the parentals (and check that their house is still standing in the aftermath of the superstorm I scoffed at yesterday - sorry, Esperance!)

But even as I go, I've got a whole pile (virtual and paper) of NQDJ stuff that I had promised to get done once uni reopened still lying there on the desk. I haven't touched the thesis for two days. I had a library expedition this morning (to both EDFAA and Reid) to gather resources to start researching and thinking about my conference papers, which I plan to begin skimming through in my hammock this weekend, but helped underscore my unpreparedness for the upcoimg conferencing. It's barely the beginning of the year (half the uni is still shut down) and I already feel like I haven't done enough and I'm falling behind.

Old Reliable

Karen.Hall — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 06:12:00 GMT

Apart from a brief 3.30am insomniac writing session, I haven't worked on the thesis today. Given that I have promised a chapter to my supervisor by the end of this week, this is cause for concern (and possibly for the raging headache I have setting in). However, the majority of the day has been spent on other tasks that need doing, even if they aren't the thesis. Particularly when other people are relying on you to get something done - and you have the skills or knowledge to do it - it always seems easier to me to just go ahead and get it done. This can get you an 'old reliable' reputation, which is both good and bad. I'd rather be reliable than flakey (though trust me, I have my flakey moments), but reliability means that you are stuck into a pattern of behaviour and end up accumulating more and more things to do. You could say that developing collegiality and a record of service are a valuable part of the postgraduate experience (and good for the cv) but where do you draw the line?

No real answers, but I'm off to scavenge some nuerofen.