Hurumph

Hello friendly blog audience,
As many of you know, I am trying to complete my thesis at the moment. While I thought the end of August was an immovable deadline, it looks like I shall (yes, oh yes, again) be working into September and maybe beyond that.

So I wanted you to know that I won't be posting as much for the next short while. It seems hard to think of much else, and feels a bit disingenuous to sound excited about things when I'm really just exhausted and nervous.

Thanks (as always) for your lovely comments. See you soon xx

Study lovely

Image

While thoughts turn to both study and study places, I find myself looking at nooks where inspiration might come a-knocking. Isn't this duck egg blue place just the spot?

Meanwhile, have a look at Academic, Hopeful's tips on study. This girl knows her thesis-ing!

Organising Bug

A great use of Ikea's Expedit shelf from Flickr.

I love to organise. And then to re-organise, to re-stack, to re-fold, and to re-categorise.

It reminds me from that scene in Amelie, where the narrator says, "Amelie's mother liked to take everything out of her handbag, clean it out, and then put everything back inside it again. Amelie's father used to like to take everything out of his toolbox, clean it out and put everything inside it again". That really resonated with me - it's not that these types of acts are chores, but rather they seem quite meditative and calming.

There are pleasures (for some!) in conceptualising order and then enacting it within their home. In fact, I long for the day when I can build custom cabinets and shelves to fully perform organisation, as it were. This may, ahem, be a thinly disguised reaction to having no control over my study environment right now, but I'm no psychologist...

In the meantime, have a look at these deliciously organised spaces:
This kitchen is from the home of Chez Larsson - my soul-mate. She loves Ikea and organising things - I think we'd be good friends.

These are also from Chez Larsson - a craft space, and...
...a work hub. Swoon.

So You Want to Do a PhD?: Part II

Image via the nonist

Continuing the PhD series, I thought I'd look today at the idea of how to pick an issue to write on, and how to keep to it. This is, of course, only what has been helpful to me. It shouldn't be read as a definitive primer - I'd love to hear about your different experiences.

The best advice I can offer in terms of picking a topic, is that you should be deeply excited about it. You should want to know the answers to the questions you have, it should make you want to move towards a computer and you should want to spend hours thinking about it.

In my own experience, I did have a fairly clear idea of the topic I wanted to focus on, but no idea on what areas within it, nor even which books I'd pick to study. That was a level of vagueness that I could cope with, because I knew with lots of research, I'd find out the books which would help me, (some hadn't been published when I started!) and subsequently puzzle out the tropes of interest.

While that doesn't mean it was an easy road, I have seen some others falter along the way when they have no idea of their scope, and therefore spend a lot of time doing reading which ultimately doesn't help. Often then, there's a subsequent difficulty in finding a framework for an initial idea when that idea keeps changing.

So if you can, focus on one area, and then find a framework for it, you'll be much better off. (Award for most obvious, much?!) Even if you canvas all the options, pick the one you get most joy out of thinking about. My supervisor always says: pick what makes your heart beat faster. She's right!

There's also a big question in PhD-land concerning when to stop reading and start writing. I guess you could conceivably read for the three or four years without writing a thing, both because there's a lot out there, and because it can be intimidating to start writing after reading all the experts.

I was told to start writing really early, but found that to be impossible when I hadn't decided on a defined topic. So for me, I started to write small sections after about six months of reading, just to get my eye in. It was horribly hard at first, but it was as if I broke through a barrier earlier on, and even though I hated what I was writing, I needed to write something.

So write when you feel you have a few ideas - don't pressure yourself, but see it as a positive first step towards the end project.

Next time: organisation and time management. Wahoo!


This post is the second in a series. For the first, have a look at: So You Want to Do a PhD?: Part I

So You Want to Do a PhD?: Part I

Cutest image in the world from Golly Molly

I'm reluctant to make this blog all about doing PhDs, because that's not what it's supposed to be about, and I already alienate enough people socially with the "P-word" - I don't need to do it more online!

But I had a lot of feedback about my last post on doing a PhD, and thought I'd share a few thoughts on what prompted me to make the decision in the first place, and some of the reactions I received.

Deciding to do a PhD seemed quite an unremarkable thing to me at the time. I love studying English, I had a good idea of what I wanted to study, and the opportunity to work with a great supervisor. But for what I thought was an uncontroversial decision, I received a surprising amount of backlash from some people. (Not, of course, from my close friends.) A few of the common reactions were, "Why would you want to spend another four years at uni?", "You're too young/old to do a PhD", (I'm only 25 now!) and "Why don't you get a proper job first?" I was blown away! I wondered why so many people felt qualified to judge my decision so openly, but it seems like you just need to get used to varied reactions. Even now, a few months away from completion, I try not to say 'PhD' when I meet new people - it just elicits a lot of hostility.

So none of that should be taken as a reason not to pursue a doctorate - more just like a friendly heads-up that people can get weird about it...

But these are some things that might help you feel good about your decisions. You might want to do a PhD because:

-you have a really great idea and feel passionate about researching and writing it.

-you see a PhD as a positive next step in your career and are excited about the thought of publishing.

-you want to get into academia.

-you want a period in your life where you can think, read and write with as much freedom as possible.

-you are organised and goal-oriented. Self-motivation really helps here - you're on your own a lot.

Since beginning my candidature, I have decided (at this stage) not to go into academia. Do I regret my thesis? Not at all. It has taught me so many invaluable things which I couldn't have imagined before - and not just about my topic area. It has been an incredible experience to have to think so hard. Of course it's difficult at times, but getting through those patches has made the results even sweeter.

OK, that's enough for one post. I'd love to keep hearing your feedback - anything I should cover next?