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.