Good news Bad news

Good news: I've just emailed off another chapter draft. My methodology Chapter and it's only 6,100 words, clear, brief, no repetition and no zombie-categories (out-dated terms).

Bad news: My supervisor is away working on an Aboriginal project in a remote area and won't see my work for some time. That means no feedback for a while.

Good news: I sleep well at night and my brain works well for 9 to 10 hours a day. I suppose it's the feeling of some-success-at-last that brings back an equilibrium into the mind and body.

Bad news: I have to submit another chapter draft in 10 days based on the interview coding I haven't yet finished.

Good news: I can listen to my music during line-by-line coding without distraction. Quite pleasurable. Right now I'm listening to the world's first operatic-supergroup Il Divo - nice clean-cut look in suits and ties.

Bad news: I see no-one, speak with no-one and hardly move from my computer chair.

Good news: I managed to feed the orchids in the back-yard today but I hardly manage to feed the family.

I wonder when the orchids will flower again.

No more zombies

New skills: I learnt to expand time and contract the size of 50 transcribed interviews. Each one is an average of 25 lines, that‘s 1,250 lines to code. The strangest thing happened while I was painstakingly coding them line by line. Time expanded! A minute became an hour and I could scroll though the interviews and speed read them as if I was fast forwarding a DVD. I used the keyboard arrows instead of the mouse. I saw teenage computer gamer do that. No more RSI for me. I completed the first round of coding for all 50 cases in a few days.

Day job: I have submitted my Literature Review draft. Now I am revising draft number 8 of my Methodology Chapter. It’s too long, too out-dated and too repetitive. Suddenly I see it all so clearly. I feel like Mozart who conceived his symphony in one whole piece and then wrote it down. Amazingly I see the whole chapter clearly in my mind’s eye as it should be written. All I have to do is type it up as fast as I can from the master copy in my head. It’s so easy. I don’t even have to think. I typed 15 pages today referenced with academic works from only the last 5 years.

Music I’m listening to: Violin concerti (that’s plural for concerto) played manically fast by a gutsy down-to-earth British guy called Nigel Kennedy who plays Italian Vivaldi with the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra.

Aha experience: I found out that much of my research methodology language and terms are now obsolete. They are ‘Zombie Categories’ no longer needed in the world of academia. They are dead. Words like subjectivity, validity, respondent, and insider-observer are all dead and buried. I don’t want any zombies wandering through my chapter. I found that I like the new research categories. Trustworthiness, crystallization and authenticity are in.

I’m back on track.

Success story

My success story: I've submitted the 3rd draft of my literature review. I'm not proud of it, I'm pleased with it. I like the themes. My sentences are short and crisp. It's 12,200 words and has...wait for it...an up-to-date bibliography full of articles written in the last 5 years.

What took me so long: ‘Supermarket paralysis’ - I thought I had to read every word on every cereal packet to decide what to say. I was drowning in detail.

What helped me: I developed an aeroplane view and started to use broad brush strokes.

What I want to do next: Go to the movies. I don't want to see deep and meaningful movies about suffering in Kurdistan or Africa. I just want to see some trivial glammed up American absurdistan.

What I'm really going to do next: Code my interview transcripts for the next 200 hours.

What my supervisor wants: A draft of my analysis chapter within 2 weeks. My first reaction was 'that's impossible'. My runner-up reaction was anger and fury that she's pushing me so much so I thought 'I'll show her! I'll do it!.'

My day job: Coding this week. Writing a draft for my next chapter on Analysis next week.

Forget the movies.