Getting my findings out there

Best part of doing my thesis: writing

Worst part: damaged work-life balance

Next best part: presenting my thesis findings at a national conference

Next worst part:  waiting for my journal article to be accepted

Most recent best part: it looks like my article will be accepted

Personal challenge: awaiting the final outcome - peer reviewing submitted articles takes months

Starting my annualism

Writing so much is good for the spirit but unhealthy for the body. My 12 month goal is to get my good health back and stay that way.  My goal: change me

I'm having the time of my life

Writing for a living is a real blast. Influencing decision makers by writing is a privilege. Finding the right tone is a challenge. Learning the appropriate writing style is a discipline. Writing never stops.

Writing for a living

I write for a living and I live to write. Life couldn't be better. I've got a real job and it's about writing.

I'm back I've arrived

I was fragile now I'm powerful

Mother-daughter separation

My journey: It's happened. My daughter has outgrown me. We are well on the way to mother-separation. My old blog template is back and she has moved on to bigger and better things in the blogosphere and beyond. Our days of playing around with my blog template together were fun while they lasted but all good things come to an end.

What I'm reading: A Woman in Berlin, the anonymous journal of a German woman in the last days of the second world war in Berlin and immediately after. It could have been my mother's diary. Reading this book helped me connect again with my beloved mother, whom I've missed every single day since she left. That's how it goes with mothers and daughters long beyond the grave. We're tied invisibly, painfully. We fight, we separate and then we find new ways of reconnecting long after we think it's no longer possible. We can still find that reconnection in a transcendent place somewhere inside us.
A Woman in Berlin is a must-read for all women. It raises the question in relation to mass wartime rape. Is it better as a woman to suffer indiscriminant gang-raping or to become a whore with a small degree of control over how it happens? Read the book and see how one woman handled it.
A Woman in Berlin book review

My day job: Mark 5 of my Analysis Chapter is well under way. My supervisor read Mark 4 "with pleasure". We've reconnected and it feels good. Only three months to go to the final submission of my dissertation for assessment. I can hardly believe I've come this far.

Motto: Women share more secrets with each other than men will ever know.

From my op shop stories

Remember the days when the air was crisp and clean, when the view of the mountains was breathtakingly spectacular and mundanely familiar all at the same time. Remember when Bayswater was a bright, bustling little place where you stopped and talked to someone you knew every few minutes. Templer community life in the 1950s was not rushed. There was time to talk, time to shop and time to enjoy the quaint local atmosphere of a sleepy outlying suburb nestled into the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges. Long gone and but not yet lost.

Magic still happens. Time stood still for me recently in Bayswater. It was the second Saturday of the month. I was in a hurry. Kids had to be chauffeured, appointments kept. All of a sudden, there it was. The Bayswater Market, a magnet of nostalgia pulling back to a place I hadn’t visited in years. The railway station looked prettier than ever. It hadn’t lost its charm of the 50s and 60s, still curtained by the lacework of autumn trees, staged against the backdrop of the bluest mountains. The theatre of my childhood drew me into the car park of umbrella’d stalls.

I met other Templers, council representatives, the local MP in a warm brown jumper. Conversations came with comfort and ease. How are you today? Wie geht’s? Nice to see you. Mach’s gut. A vendor weighed my produce and threw an extra handful onto the scales just like Mr Pegler had half a century ago. The tomatoes looked real, not plastic. The stall holders had time to chat with customers. The laughter and friendly banter predated the robotic formula I was accustomed to from the salesperson connected to the cash register in the supermarket. A gift-wrapping paper vendor spoke in poetry. How about hail on grass, grandma’s roses or rainbow silly string? I took a roll of each one for less than a dollar. The prices were more like they used to be before we knew about inflation and productivity. Strawberries tasted like my childhood. Then I found the best treasure of all. A gold rimmed soup terrine with a full set of deep soup platters like the ones Oma had brought from another world across the oceans. Too much to carry, but trust grew like the healthy flowering pot plants I was loaded up with. It seemed natural to pay the money and leave behind half my wares with smiling strangers. I could come back for them later.

On leaving the car park timewarp, panic struck me. I had lost myself in the past, forgotten the tight schedule of mum’s taxi. I looked at my watch. Time had almost stood still. No hurry, only fifteen minutes had passed. I could still enjoy a cuppa in the café around the corner in Station Street with another Templer. I’ll be back next month to take in a bit more of the forgotten fifties at the Bayswater Market.

Motto: Sometimes it's good to bring the fifties back into the noughties.

Bad dream good dream

Scary dream: I had a dream that my computer was taken away from me forever. I was overwhelmed by a feeling of devastation that I would never be able to finish my thesis. The function of dreams is not about premonitions. Only prophets and gods can do that. It is to give the self some so-real-that-it’s-more-than-real practice at feeling certain emotions. Then we know what to do next in waking life. I’ve been slavishly working on my thesis ever since.

Today's motto:
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Tips to keep the researcher in line

How I keep my story readable: I imagine reading my chapter to the people I interviewed. If I can say those things with comfort and ease to them, then it’s O.K.

Keeping the right tone: I do some member-checking. I keep showing the people I interviewed samples of my work and listen to their reactions. I ask How does that sit with you? Their responses make me change what I’ve written every time.

Keeping it credible: I use lots of triangulation. That means I use different points of view to show the same results like what they said, what I saw, what I read, what they wrote, what they did.

Keeping it plausible: I describe what just one person said, then what a sub-group said, then what most of the people said. That makes the trends I find sound more real.

Latest aha experience: I worked out how to use the ‘memo function’ in my Ethnograph software. It really speeds up the process of noting regular insights for my chapter draft whilst I‘m still coding data. I tried so hard to learn that function before from the manual but there’s something about IT that prevents the brain from learning to do something on the computer until you really need it.

What I’m listening to right now: Butterfly Lovers, a violin concerto that tells an amazing story of two people, a bit like the Romeo and Juliet tale. The story-telling music coordinates well with my current research activity.
all about The Butterfly Lovers

What I’m drinking: Ahmad tea brewed in my favourite stoneware teapot with real tea leaves. There's nothing better than a bit of authenticity to keep me in the right mood.

My deepest regret: My daughter wants me to help her with her Maths Project on probabilities. I haven’t had time all week and it’s due soon. I wonder what’s the probability of finding time to do it with her?

Special thank you

A special thank you: to my daughter for the new banner at the top of my blog. I love it.

What I’m reading with her: How to say NO and keep your friends – peer pressure reversal for teens and preteens by Sharon Scott.
Check it out

Three best kept secrets about writing the Analysis Chapter:
1.Make it transparent - that means every time I use a quote from my interviews I should reference it eg Case 004, lines 72-88, theme 2, code 202.1. I wasn’t doing this correctly because I kept changing my codes. This is important because it gives the reader the chance to make validity checks of my interpretations against the data itself.

2. Make it persuasive - that means give plenty excerpts, quotes and phrases from my data source. I’m good at this one because I like telling other people’s stories from their point of view.

3. Make the persuasive argument sound plausible – that means be careful not to move the interpretation too far from the data. Sometimes the interviews just show up ordinary mundane things that everyone already knows and the researcher is tempted to find in them something a bit more way out.

Motto for the day: There is never only one right story, but your story has to be believable.

Identity is not nationalism - how to be yourself

Things I’ve learnt from my research:

National identity: is in danger of developing into politically imposed nationalism which, history shows, has always had destructive consequences for humanity.

Dual citizenship: In today’s newspaper The Age, Hugh Morgan said that dual citizenship was a form of bipolar mental disease and that you should hand in your passport if you have dual citizenship in Australia. Does that mean he won’t tolerate people with mental illness either?

Citizenship: Morgan said this is one of the most important elements of personal identity and the survival of Australia as a nation. I agree but not nationalistic citizenship. I favour a new kind of democratic world citizenship where we participate as citizens of the planet in caring for our place and all of humanity.

Mushy misguided multiculturalism: is what the Australian treasurer Peter Costello thinks having multiple identities amounts to. I think he is the mushy, misguided one.

Diversity in personal identity: For the first time in history more people are relating to others who are different and in different places on an unprecedented scale. Our kids are becoming ‘world kids’ who experience immensely creative forms of localised identity alongside trends of incredible sameness in world music, world cuisine, clothing, and movies on the internet. They need bilingualism and intercultural skills for global participation where they are experiencing myriad forms of cultural hybridity and vast intercultural experimentation. They travel. They talk on the net. Immigrant children who live in bilingual communities have an advantage. Languages have become the new ‘cultural capital.’

Identity formation: is adaptation. Humans are good at this. I encourage people to develop multiple emerging identities based on where they came from, who they are now and where they want to go. It’s better to be true to all the myriad elements of yourself than to suppress parts of your heritage as was the case during the assimilation years. Of course, it’s easier if you are part of a like-minded community or if you can find, or even create a meaningful community to be part of. It could be the local golf club or even your blogging community.

Like-minded networks: These days a network of shared interests is a community. You no longer have to all live in the same village. We live in a very exciting time where we move around fast and interact with lots of different people. Diversity rules, not sameness.

Speaking up: and speaking the truth are very important skills to develop. It’s about being honest and open, being yourself.

Diplomacy: Speaking with diplomacy is another skill that Morgan and Costello both lack because they talk in hidden agendas that hurt, belittle and manipulate other people for their own ends. Diplomacy does not mean confounding your listener with false loyalties or sugar-coating the subject. No, diplomacy means treating the others with honesty and compassion. When we speak up we ought to show genuine concern and compassion for the other whilst speaking what we believe to be the truth. If your intention is good, you'll find the right way to do it. Like all other things, it comes with practice.


Motto for the day: Compassion comes first, then world citizenship has a chance.

It was wrong to never come first

My data analyis: The story of postwar European immigrants is emerging nicely through my interview data.

My aha experience: Forgotten memories of the past are resurfacing as I work through the hardships of the postwar assimilation years.

From my collection of op-shop stories:
She was much fitter than all the other kids but she didn’t know it. They didn’t have to walk to school for several hours every day from an outlying farm. She didn’t like to attract attention. Just follow the rules. Do whatever the teachers say. That’s the best way to fit in. Don’t talk. Do your work. “We have to fit in,” her family said at home.

She never smiled although she didn’t know that either. When she carefully obeyed the instructions of the school photographer the others said, ‘Why aren’t you smiling?” But she was, inside somewhere.

The interschool races were held on the oval at the end of the sleepy township away from the school. The Grade Oners lined up to race. It was too far, right across the oval, she thought. Too far for her age group. “Run as fast as you can,” was the teacher’s instruction, “as fast as you can.”

She never thought about being the asthma baby of the class. She didn’t know what it was like not to be sick. Better not to make a fuss about it. Better not stand out. She knew she was different, not like them. Hers was a migrant family coming out of the wartime internment camp. That seemed normal. Her parents were accidental immigrants not like the Brits who had special accommodation and still complained. She walked to the shops with her mother every week, even further than the school. Poverty meant no toys and no lollies. Sometimes she ran with her older brother to play under the pine trees at the top of the farm. “That’s exactly one mile,” her mother said.

The gun shot exploded and the kids took off. It frightened her. She didn’t know what to do. “Run! Run as fast as you can,” yelled the teachers. So that’s what she did till she caught up with the pack. Run as fast as you can, she thought. She always did what she was told. Quietly, not to attract attention. Soon she wasn’t running with the pack any more. She was running on her own. Where did they all go? Better keep running, as fast as you can, she thought.

Then a fear gripped her, worse than the fear her mother felt when she dreamt of the war years she left behind. They were behind her. She was way ahead of the pack, tearing out in front of them across the green, when she saw the ribbon. Two teachers were holding the ribbon taut ahead of her. Suddenly she understood. The winner runs through the ribbon. “That’s it! Run!” they yelled. The winner would get all the attention. That’s not how to fit in.

She wasn’t even tired but she slowed her pace till the pack caught up with her, till she was at the back of the pack. Somebody else won the race. Someone she didn’t know. The teachers were dumbfounded, “What happened? Why did you stop running?” Too much attention, she thought. She had just learnt the most important lesson of her life. If she was to do well at school, never come first. And more importantly, don’t ever let them know you can.

My motto: It takes a lifetime to recover from old hurts, but all's well that heals well.

Perfectly good material

My day job: The data analysis of my 67 interviews is telling a great story of immigrants and their offspring. The 80-and-90-year-olds paint a rich picture of postwar immigrants. Their dilemma was deciding what bits of their culture and language to actually give up so their children could fit in – a story of lost hopes and dreams. The 60-and-70-year-olds have a slightly different perspective and still fit into both the old and the new worlds – true intercultural beings. Their dilemma was pretending that they had given up the old world and keeping up that facade. The 40-and-50-year-olds have taken on the burden of the first generation and were left with the pain of an incomplete sense of self, with damaged intercultural skills. Some revived these, other couldn’t but never felt quite whole.

What I’m reading: Zits cartoons by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman. I love their character 15 year old Jeremy.
Have a look
Zits comics

What Jeremy said: (to his dad who was just going to tell something funny that happened in the office) Dad! Stop! I just hate to see a person waste perfectly good blog material by describing his life experiences out loud.

Analysis shock

Just like life: My thesis is a microcosm of life. Every time I complete a major chapter I think I have completed the main part of the study only to find out an even bigger hurdle is yet to come.

Main workload done: My field work data is gathered and transcribed, my methodology and literature review (background theory) chapters are written except for a few edits.

Shock-horror aha experience: I’m onto analysing and writing up my interview and participant-observation data. I thought I could do this section reasonably quickly. I’m horror-struck. It’s almost as much work as all the cumulative work I’ve done so far.

My new day job: Having fun with my daughter. Today we’re going to watch a re-run of Corpse Bride – Johnny Depp we love you.

What I’ll do next: Walk in the morning; analyse data for the rest of the day; read at night.

My motto: Shrink the body, expand the mind.

Lovely data not lovely legs

The stage I’m up to in my thesis: I’ve submitted a partial draft of 'Chapter 4: Analysis' to my supervisor. I’m on the home run.
What my supervisor said: You have lovely data.
What I thought: That’s the ultimate compliment for a thesis writer. It’s better than ‘you have lovely legs’ or ‘lovely eyes’. At last I’ve won her approval again.
What I told my muse: My writing progress is slow but I know the quality is good. My existence meanders between two dreams, the life of my thesis and the life at my home with my beloveds.
What else my supervisor said: Tell the story in your Analysis Chapter through the characters. Tell a story, not a diatribe.
What I said: She’s right. That’s how I learn about life, from other people. That’s how I’ll build the themes in my latest chapter. For so long I was lost in sociology theories and academic research. I’ll let my research participants tell the story through their comments. It’s so easy. I’ll be their scribe.
What my daughter said: How do you like your new blog-look?
What I said to her: I love what you’ve done. You brightened my life. You are my inspiration. Thanks a million my darling.
What my muse said: Wait and see how your blog-buddies' retinas cope with a pink-stripey-background. Obviously teenage-power copes just fine.

Under construction

Still under construction. Homework and mother-daughter conflict are slowing us down. At least we're getting lots of bonding time.

Work in Progress

My daughter is giving my blog a makeover.
We don't agree on everything. Sometimes we don't agree on anything but she's trying to give me what I want.
If it was up to her it would be black, purple and hot pink.
A bit too much for me. Possibly she knows best.

Telling a story

Entrapment: My supervisor said I’m running out of time. I feel I need more time. She and I are trapped in my writing chaos, my broken thesis. Only she and I can free each other from this snare.

My Motto: “If not now, When? If not us: Who?” (J.F. Kennedy’s call for national action.)

What my supervisor said about my Methodology Chapter: “It’s really there” and then she sent me a hundred edits. Did she mean ‘it’s nearly there’? There’s a big difference between ‘really’ and ‘nearly’. The former means it’s OK; the latter suggests I can’t quite make it, I haven’t made it, I never will make it. Self-doubt looms again. Fear of rejection.

What my supervisor said about my Literature Review Chapter: I won’t read it if you keep making changes.

What my crying inner child said: Rejection. There it is. I always knew it was coming.

What my supervisor said about my Analysis Chapter: It’s coming along well. You should think about ‘telling a story’ and use lots of comments from ‘the research participants.’

What my research participants said in my imagination: Beware of what you write about us. We will reject you…We will cast you out of The Community.

What my inner psyche said: Fear the rejection of The Community. It happened to me once before…a long time ago…Fear the rejection of my supervisor... it may be looming in the near future.

What my startled inner child remembered: My father cruelly rejected me when I was too young to cope with the pain. He was a prominent member of The Community. My brain has been permanently scarred. If I pre-emptively sabotage my thesis work and make The Community reject me now, then the pain of opening that wound won’t be as bad as it would if it happens when I’m off guard.

What I’m listening to right now: I am soothed by Nigel Kennedy, loutish violin virtuoso playing Inner Thoughts. His violin talks of sadness eclipsed with soothing moments of serenity.

What I’ll do next: Feel the fear of rejection and do it anyway. I’ll tell the story and send it to my supervisor.

I was on holiday

What I did on my holiday: I walked, swam, sat in the sun. I didn’t turn on the computer.

What I ate: A diet of tropical fruits and milk shakes was what I lived on.

Where I went: I spent my holiday by the water, surrounded by flowers, sitting under a gazebo….in my back yard. I chose to stay home but do no work because I was on holiday for a month. I practised slow-down therapy.

What I learnt:
1. That the Stardust Spaceship sent a probe back to earth containing research samples from a comet in outer space, for analysis.
2. That I love gardening. I transformed my neglected courtyard garden into a paradise of flowers, herbs and prolific pot plants.
3. That I love wilderness walks along a scenic meandering creek, bursting with birdlife.
4. I found just the write words for my thesis chapters.
5. That I loved blogging and missed my blogging buddies. I thought about you all a lot but I didn’t dare let myself get tempted to turn on the computer.
6. That people who use computers for work or research waste 25% of their daily work-time doing “other things” on the Internet. I shall limit my blogging time and do more efficient research work.

My holiday retreat

My holiday retreat: At home. I have taken the month of December off. No coding. No chapter writing.

My day job: Christmas baking with my daughter.

Creative venture: I'm reclaiming the stay-at-home mum inside me. We sewed a bag out of an old denim skirt. My daughter desiged the decorations. She's already taken it on an excursion to the zoo and to the Botanical Gardens.

Here it is:

The front of the bag. The handle is a belt. We lined it with an old pink pillow case and sewed pink shell beads around the pockets.


The back view. The striped waist band of the skirt made a nice feature. The skirt was pleated so the bag became nice and roomy. "T" picked some other favourite beads to sew onto the pleat panels.

Aha experience: It's fun being mum again.

Motto for the day: Work with your hands. It frees the mind.

Things I collect

What I collect: Quotes from my interview data that represent major themes and trends in my study on postwar immigration.

What else I collect: Stories of damaged lives, opp-shop-stories, discarded ones that nobody cares for anymore but are still too precious to throw out with the garbage.

Today’s opp-shop-story: I was raped because it was my fault, said the woman in the opportunity shop. I ducked in, to rummage for a cheap summer blouse. It was too early to pick up my daughter from school, too late to start anything new.
I was raped by two men, she said. Her long blonde tresses of angel curls belonged to a younger woman budding with female hormones. The finest network of dry wrinkles all over her china white face cracked the false image of youth. Her eyes were the perfect colour of calmness, a pale translucent green. She came into the shop to donate her story to strangers who might still find some use for it.
My mother made me believe it was my fault because of the way I dressed, she said. I know I drank too much but I didn’t realise. I really didn’t have any idea. That’s how I dressed in the pub. They raped me and didn’t care. If they did care they wouldn’t have driven me to the cliff and left me. It was my fault.
How are you coping? The buxom middle-aged woman fixed behind the counter asked the question in a way that showed she was used to the story.
I cry every night, said the angel, whose slender body fitted neatly into the stylish, palest khaki second-hand outfit. Her figure was the envy of all fashion conscious women, maintained not by aerobics classes, but withered by street drugs.
I’m going to work with children, she dared to announce. Her voice sounded guilty, reluctantly practising self-esteem. My grief counsellor said I would be good at that. I love animals and children. I could work with children but I still cry every night. My husband died a few years ago.
A drug overdose, I thought judgingly. She's alone.
My grief counsellor said it wasn’t my fault but my mother said…. I’m doing really well. I’m getting over it. Her voice lied at the spell-bound audience in the shop.
You’re very beautiful, I told her.
The angel looked surprised, the way a child does when she hears something new for the first time.
I have to go to the hairdresser she said, shyly, checking the faces of the others to see if she was allowed such self indulgence.
It wasn’t my fault, was it? Her voice pleaded affirmation from the well-fed statues of nice suburban woman in the shop. Silence.
No, it wasn’t your fault, I said from behind the rack of old clothes.
She looked stunned that another woman dared to defy the teachings of her mother.
You’ve got a lot healing to do, I said.
Yes I have, she said without crying.
Trust the universe, I said and turned to leave the shop.
I do, she said. What’s your name? She called at me anxiously.
I turned back and said my first name. Then she said hers the way children do in the schoolyard and we hugged each other. I felt her body so fragile it could break easily like the old chipped china in the window display.
I left quickly to pick up my daughter from school.

Lebkuchenhaus

Here's our gingerbread house. My daughter did a good job decorating it. I did the cleaning up. We are eighteenth-century-diaspora-Germans which means we've been outside Germany for 220 years and still make our Lebkuchenhaus at Christmas - accumulated memory passed down through the generations.

Ways of thinking

The first way of thinking: I’m stuck. When I think mountains-of-data I am painfully overwhelmed by the job of coding 67 interviews for my data analysis.

The second way: When I think data-as-star I can see a delightful relationship developing between me and the data I collected. The data is the star in my Analysis Chapter. I have to feature the star in the form of nice quotes, good examples and little praiseworthy commentaries.

The third way: Now I know how to write the chapter and approach my coding task with comfort and ease. And I’ll enjoy doing it.

The fourth way: To make readers believe in my analysis, I need to locate the data examples in context. Every time he-said or she-said I have to say where it took place, name the little parcel of land they were on. It's just like writing a novel or a biography. I can do that with comfort and ease.

The fifth way: Remember the motto – Try a new response in a stuck situation.

Mountains of data

What overwhelms me: Mountains-of-data to code - over 1000 lines.

What pleases me: My supervisor loved my 3 chapter drafts. The Methodology chapter is almost perfect, just a few tiny edits. As for the Lit Review she altered nothing in the first 15 pages. Great. The last bit needs some rewriting. I'm going to enjoy doing that one. And she loves the preliminary outline of my Analysis chapter.

Current status: I have redeemed myself in the Land-of-Academia.

What I did next: My daughter and I made a gingerbread house for Christmas. We laughed and hugged. She said I'm much happier these days. I wish my supervisor could see the iced gingerbread house.

What I'm looking forward to: I have two biographies to write after I finish this university dissertation and I can't wait. Both my patrons want me to start right away. I wish the next 6 months would pass faster.

My day job: Immersion in the mountain-of-data to find some good quotes. Get cracking.

Motto for the day: Use tough situations to practise soothing yourself down rather than working yourself up.

Pardon my enthusiasm

She said: “No – I have not forgotten you.” That’s how my supervisor started her long awaited email. And I thought we weren’t connecting any more. That means she does know what I think. And then she said, “I am very pleased with your chapters”. She finished off with “don’t take your foot off the pedal.”

I said: At last. Now I’m motivated again. It was worth waiting for. I can go on with my coding.

Then I said: Should my coding categories be consistent across all my data sets?

She said: What do you mean by data sets?

I said: I love those deep and meaningful questions. I missed my supervisor’s pedantic precision that makes my brain power go where it never dared to venture. I’m back on track. Life’s good again. Keep coding that data.

My daughter said: Let’s go and see The Corpse Bride.

I said: Yes I need a break. I hate myself for liking Tim Burton films so much because on one level they are a bit whacked.

The corpse bride said: (during the piano duet) he he, pardon my enthusiasm.

He said: I love your enthusiasm.

My daughter and I said: (swooning, drooling and fainting) WE LOVE YOU JOHNNY DEPP.

I say: Google The Corpse Bride and Piano duet, listen to a sample and see how you’ll love it.

My conscience says: (not Peter Lorre, the worm) You have to see the movie to get that one – get back to coding and writing that Analysis Chapter.

Director’s cut

The file in my cabinet drawer marked ‘Old Drafts’ has more stapled papers in it than any other file my work space. I have written more rejected, revised, corrected drafts than I have ever submitted to my supervisor. I kept them as souvenirs of my Director’s Cut. Who knows if disaster strikes and I lose all my work one foul day, I can still piece them together like a jigsaw puzzle from that drawer.

My day job: I write easily and painlessly these days. The effortlessness makes me feel like I’m not working properly. I conceive whole paragraphs in my head already constructed rather than compose them word by word. I type really fast to copy them down before they scroll away. I’m like a child at Primary School copying loads of meaningless lines off the blackboard into my book. Only when I read them back do I see the clarity of insight and originality of thought. Where did all that come from?

No back-ache; no sore neck; no stiff fingers. It’s so easy. I can play music, talk on the phone, go for long walks and still copy down the paragraphs from the screen in my mind with comfort and ease. I almost feel guilty that I should be working harder, suffering more, agonising over the right words.

Recreation: I went clothes shopping with my daughter. We laughed and hugged. We came home with bags of everything we didn’t set out to buy and nothing we intended to get.

Motto for the day:
Limit the frustration too much choice can cause.
Know which choices are worth your time and which are not.
Often you are choosing between two equally fine possibilities.
Choose, Act. Enjoy.
from Stepanie Dowrick

I dare to enjoy myself.

Back on track

The good news: I’m back on track. I emailed a painless 13 page draft of Chapter 4 on Analysis to my supervisor today. I still haven’t had any feedback from the last two chapters I submitted or the 6 page report. It’s like sending my writing off into a big black hole in cyberspace. But it doesn’t put me off. I live to write. I write to submit work requirements. The rest can come later – the consultation, assessment, reviews, re-writes.

What I’m interested in: The problems of identity; the mystery of what it is to be human; hybridity created by border crossings and cross-cultural marriages; the indeterminacy of boundaries; and how we can become citizens of a world democracy. If I can think peace, harmony and connectedness in this troubled world then maybe my descendants will also pick up the thread and run with it.

What I’m listening to: the CD Miracle sung by Celine Dion.

What I’m drinking: tonic water with a dash of Clayton’s and orange blossom water.

Life’s tricks: My thesis writing, with all its painful and joyful moments, has become an important journey of self discovery for me. A quote from my favourite author:

"It is one of life's most playful quirks that even the most insightful among us find it extremely difficult to discern which events in our lives will ultimately turn out to be our greatest blessings. Sometimes wonderful things happen, and then fizzle into nothing. At other times, events occur that we would do anything to avoid, yet it is these that have the potential to challenge and deepen us, to hone us into the person we needed to become; to increase our knowledge of life, and our authentic pleasure in it."
From Forgiveness & Other Acts of Love by Stephanie Dowrick

Check out Stephanie’s web site: www.stephaniedowrick.com

Reconnection with myself: I reconnected with the place of my childhood today. The majestic property I lived on had been transformed into a massive housing estate and sports ground with narrow walk ways between the fences. It was so different. At first I thought I would never find it again. There were no manmade structures that could serve as landmarks. As I walked and explored I felt the place from inside till I knew where I was. Some century-old trees were still standing on the highest ground. I used the lie of the land, the mountains in the distance and the wind in the branches to orientate myself. Yes, I knew exactly where I was and where everything had been. I felt my mothers struggle with discrimination as an accidental immigrant during the post war years. I knew the full impact of my father’s bitter disappointments and lost battle with illness. I plucked some leaves from one of our old poplar trees to take home and press in a tattered children’s book. I was OK again.

Now I can go on writing.

Back on track

The good news: I’m back on track. I emailed a painless 13 page draft of Chapter 4 on Analysis to my supervisor today. I still haven’t had any feedback from the last two chapters I submitted or the 6 page report. It’s like sending my writing off into a big black hole in cyberspace. But it doesn’t put me off. I live to write. I write to submit work requirements. The rest can come later – the consultation, assessment, reviews, re-writes.

What I’m interested in: The problems of identity; the mystery of what it is to be human; hybridity created by border crossings and cross-cultural marriages; the indeterminacy of boundaries; and how we can become citizens of a world democracy. If I can think peace, harmony and connectedness in this troubled world then maybe my descendants will also pick up the thread and run with it.

What I’m listening to: the CD Miracle sung by Celine Dion.

What I’m drinking: tonic water with a dash of Clayton’s and orange blossom water.

Life’s tricks: My thesis writing, with all its painful and joyful moments, has become an important journey of self discovery for me. A quote from my favourite author:

"It is one of life's most playful quirks that even the most insightful among us find it extremely difficult to discern which events in our lives will ultimately turn out to be our greatest blessings. Sometimes wonderful things happen, and then fizzle into nothing. At other times, events occur that we would do anything to avoid, yet it is these that have the potential to challenge and deepen us, to hone us into the person we needed to become; to increase our knowledge of life, and our authentic pleasure in it."
From Forgiveness & Other Acts of Love by Stephanie Dowrick

Check out Stephanie’s web site:

Reconnection with myself: I reconnected with the place of my childhood today. The majestic property I lived on had been transformed into a massive housing estate and sports ground with narrow walk ways between the fences. It was so different. At first I thought I would never find it again. There were no manmade structures that could serve as landmarks. As I walked and explored I felt the place from inside till I knew where I was. Some century-old trees were still standing on the highest ground. I used the lie of the land, the mountains in the distance and the wind in the branches to orientate myself. Yes, I knew exactly where I was and where everything had been. I felt my mothers struggle with discrimination as an accidental immigrant during the post war years. I knew the full impact of my father’s bitter disappointments and lost battle with illness. I plucked some leaves from one of our old poplar trees to take home and press in a tattered children’s book. I was OK again.

Now I can go on writing.

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.

The best dissertation

Aha experience: The best dissertation is a completed dissertation, not a perfect one, and definitley not an unfinished one.

My release: I abandon perfectionism. I give myself permission to be imperfect. You can't tell from a completed thesis how many years it took to write or how many chapter drafts were rejected. Each academic has their own writing story. Where planning and organisation are absent, perseverance wins. Right now I'm being evaluated on how many chapters I can produce.

Progress: I've just finished the third draft of my literature review chapter. It's 23 pages long. That's 11,350 words, a bit over 10,000 but not bad. I got rid of the 'ing' words like 'establishing' and replaced them with concepts words like 'establishment.' I found it's better to write 'that indicates' rather than 'this shows'. 'Show' is too colloquial. I did an edit/word find in my draft and discovered I used the word 'can' 53 times. Never use 'can' in a thesis.

Next task: ...but I can use can't...I can't submit my chapter draft to my supervisor till I fix up my bibliography. The 'cite while you write' function doesn't work in my Word program. I'll get around it. It's a bit tedious but such a relief to have the chapter finished.

Tomorrow's day job: Make a few changes to my Methodology chapter and submit that too. All I have to do is update the references to the last 5 years. Nothing before the year 2000. I've got the books. I've re-read them. It won't take me long to finish that chapter.

Current state: I'm smiling. I can get back to reading some trashy detective and historical fiction novels in the evenings with my hot chocolate instead of wading through concepts and theories. Life is good.

Aha experience

Day job: Writing, writing and writing – only 5 pages left to go of my theory chapter and it’s a good one this time. It really makes sense. It’s easy to read, interesting and, wait for it… punchy. I write all day, walk in the late afternoon and read at night. It’s working well for me.

Light-bulb ‘aha’ experience: For every word or sentence I write, I have to leave out as much as they contain. I can’t say everything I want in my chapters. A friend told me I can always write articles for journals later and say what I left out. Knowing that makes writing easier for me.

Extra-curricula activities: I’ve been attending some free lectures at the local university, where I am not enrolled, on Migration and Identity. My supervisor said not to bother with that and just write. I suppose she’s worried I’ll get side-tracked and write another 80 pages of irrelevant stuff. Write-write-write is all she wants me to do right now.

What I don’t feel like: I don’t feel like a fraud anymore. I don’t feel as if my dissertation is a family-writing-hobby gone wrong. I believe again that my dissertation is important, that my data is unique.

Concerns: My family has lost faith in me. They think I’m going nowhere, and have been for the last 9 years. I’m sad that they can’t see how I lost my way and then found it again. They see the ironing piling up, the floors dirty, the evening meals getting sparser and me glued to the computer under piles of papers. I suppose the proof is in the pudding. I can’t wait to serve up the pudding of my completed bound work. I’ve given up on striving for a PhD conversion but I don’t feel sad about that anymore. I’m happy, really happy with the idea of completing my masters dissertation.

My distant supervisor: Being an external student, I never see her face-to-face. I just get her cryptic/borderline-abusive emails, her slashes-of-handwriting across my notes via snail mail and a kind-laughing-voice on the phone. Is she really my supervisor or is she my mother? She’s always there in the background, entrenched in my past, connected to my life whether-I-see-her-or-not. She's always ready to praise, support or criticise. When my mother died, did my supervisor take over? Am I her pseudo-student-daughter? When I told her my mother died she told me her mother had just died and she missed her more than life. When she saw my children, I told her how hard it is to be a mother and a post grad student at the same time. She said she loved them and envied my motherhood, that I had it all. Once on a residential visit to the uni she came up behind me while I was at the computer and kissed my head.

Next task: Write about multiple identities, orbiting in and out of different cultures and languages, playing the balancing act of culture-switching and code-switching. I can do that with comfort and ease.

My community

Day job: Trying not to blog too much. I've given up trying-not-to-blog.

My community:I heard on the radio today that there are approx. 14 million bloggers. 10% have news blogs which I love; that's 1 million. I love being part of this community.

My concerns: Blogging is addictive and obsessive so I'll try to find a balance in my life while I have my other day job of thesis writing.

My other day job: I'm writing about language shift, language death (sounds morbid) and immigrants who keep up transnational links. I like these topics. I can relate to them as a member of my other community which is a bunch of immigrants who are not sure whether they are ethnics or not.

The state of my heart: Thesis-writing causes low self-esteem and heart-ache. I can't believe that is how things should be. Surely such a high-level educational experience should be uplifting. Maybe it's because I'm a long-term post grad or because I'm an external student. I feel like I'm in the wrong place, at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing.

Where to now: Keep writing. My mother told me things always change, that doors open when you least expect them.

Down the track

My long-term aim: I look forward to the day I finish my dissertation so that I can do more blogging.

Day job: Trying not to blog.

Current status: I'm into my Lit Review chapter re-write and enjoying it.

Slow down therapy

Today's advice to myself: You will resent less when you rush less. Cut your list of 'have to' jobs in half. And then in half again.

Day job: Slow down therapy.

Current status: A clear mind means I can see things the way they really are. An open heart means being true to myself, not to someone else, like my supervisor.
I look forward to writing today.

Housekeeping

Story so far: I did housekeeping today. First I sorted, put away and threw away the icons, folders and files on my computer desktop. Now I cans see the bird in my background picture. Next I tackled the files and manila folders in the groaning drawers of my metal filing cabinet. They dated back to the 1980s. Some represented happy times that I clung to. Others still bore traces of the pain and suffering I had endured to collect, collate and read them. They didn’t just contain obsolete information. They were connected to my deepest psyche, filed in my heart and soul. Out they went. I slammed them into the wheelie bin before the university board gets a chance to slam my thesis. I must destroy all those references so they can never again creep into my chapter drafts, not even while I’m sleeping at night. What a relief it is to shift into the present.

Day job: Writing in the morning. Walking in the afternoon. Reading at night.

Need to know: I will only use references from the last five years in my thesis - that means anything with a year starting with 2-0-0.

Star quality: I can survive adversity. I can write. I have published one book and many journal articles.

Current status. I’m up-to-date. I’ve started re-writing my lit review chapter. The sentences are shorter. It will be no more than 20 pages long . If I write 3 pages a day it should take about a week. How good is that?

Most liveable city

Survey: Conducted by a Washington-based group and written up in our weekend newspaper.

World's most expensive cities: New York, London, Paris and Geneva. Indicator used: the cost of housing. Our wealthiest relatives live in London and Geneva so those results make sense to me.

World's most liveable cities: Melbourne, Seattle and Vancouver. Indicators used: lots of cafes and restaurants, close to CBD, tree cover, proximity to coast, good transport, low crime rate. I'm glad I live in one of these.

Consequences: At least I'm in a good place conducive to writing. I must say I never see the beach or CBD, but I do go for a walk to get a cuppaccino for my breaks.

Healing strategy No. 2

Distraction. I was totally engrossed in the novel I read in the last few days. Luckily I was able to get through some of my transcribed interviews and re-code the participant identifiers into question-and-answer codes. Ten down, forty to go.

The novel: ‘Fire Fire’ by Eva Sallis, is a must-read for anyone with a troubled childhood. I know Eva’s uncle so the book had a really strong impact on me. She based it on her own life story. Set in the Australian bush of the Adelaide hills her musically brilliant family starts off as living an idyllic life away from the hustle and bustle of mainstream materialism. Her artistic mother takes the seven children on a wholesome alternative lifestyle journey from love and nature to squalor, debauchery and violence. It’s beautiful, shocking, disturbing and all true.
Check out the author's site
Eva Sallis award-winning Australian author

Personal insight: That novel made me reflect on the last ten years of my life. How did it pass quickly? Those years swallowed my dissertation work, made it obsolete. It’s as if I’ve just woken up from strange dream. I suddenly understand why my supervisor thinks everything I wrote is so dated. She insists I ditch half of it or the examiners will slam my work. My self-revelation is both a shock and a relief. Eva’s book has moved me forward just enough to know how to tackle that chapter I have to re-write. I think I can do it.

Healing strategy No. 1

My current state: Asthmatics can’t go bike riding. The minky blanket on the couch curled itself around me. Illness makes a person regress. I became my own mother and nurtured my sick inner child.

Movie of my choice: I watched A Good Woman on DVD. It's our current version of Oscar Wilde’s 1892 play Lady Windermere’s Fan. If seen as a cheesy film for older girls it’s harmless. What shocked me was connection between snobbish 19th century London society and 21st century upper-middle-class-urban life in Damascus. I remembered those elegantly-rigid Damascene lounge rooms from the casual objectivity of my Western life where nobody cares how we dress or what we say. I missed the sit-up-straight scrutiny where there’s always someone watching and gossiping about what they think they’re seeing. When I was over there my children told me I was different. I knew how to play the game. My scrutineers were never quite sure what they were seeing. The movie had an air of sadness and playfulness. That's what it's like in Damascus.

My writing tasks: Replaced by healing today.

Sliding back to good health

Distraction: I can’t write. Spending time with my sick daughter meant playing gentle bouncing animations.
Check out

my girl's games

I have to be careful not to get sucked into the lovely teen world of anime. Its musical tracks are pearls of soundrops plopping into the pond of my inner meditation. There’s a lot I didn’t know about my girl.

Don’t spend too much time connecting. Keep focussed on my dissertation.

Blog-leave

I’m taking a couple of weeks of blog-leave due to my writing work load and ill health.

I’ll be back soon.

Patient progress

Concerns: My beloved daughter is burning up with fever. She’s been off school for three days and I haven’t left the house for a walk or a bike ride.

Tedious tasks: I’m still transcribing a few interviews that got corrupted on my dusty computer disks.

Exercise: Hand-washing muddy soccer shorts and socks that never-really-get-clean any more. I wonder how other mothers get things clean.

Distractions: Instead of preparing food I watch Ready Steady Cook on TV with my daughter-patient. My grated apples landed on the sink near the neatly cubed boiled potatoes that didn’t tempt her either.

Progress: I leave her bored and miserable on the couch-bed and transcribe with unrecognisable speed. I’m good at this. My data companion and I make a good team. I have to live with this data in my head for the next 6 months. Transcribe, code, analyse. It's a cycle that never stops.

A thought: My mind prepares to tell the family at dinner tonight what one of the community elders said today. The blurred lines of my various realities shock me back to my senses as I realise it was only the voice in my earplugs who said it 9 years ago in one of my research interviews.

Next: I hope she’s well enough to go back to school tomorrow.

What's data coding?

So what's data coding?
I have to sit and stare at all those 49 interviews that I transcribed into my computer. I then have to find little interesting bits of info. And those little bits are going to form a theory that nobody has come up with yet, at least not in immigration and identity studies. That would then be a good doctoral thesis.

Or maybe those little snippets and titbits of text are just going to build on what somebody else already said, somewhere in that weird and wonderful world of academia. And then I write it all down and explain it in my own words. That would make a good masters dissertation.

49 interviews of an average of about 1,000 numbered lines per transcribed interview equals 49,000 lines to read and code. I'm supposed to go over them several times to get deeper insights. I keep my little labels of interesting insights about what my research participants said in a code book. I divide the interesting things in my code book into a family tree where some labels are parents and some are babies.

I'm supposed to stay alert and keep track of all of this because I have to write it all down and explain it to someone else, namely my supervisor.

I could practice by threading my daughter's beads to make interesting little bracelets and necklaces. At least I could wear them on the outside.

Coding the beads.

Dissertation survival: I’m up to data coding. I have to go through my interview and diary field notes line by line and label chunks. Every time I look at them I get new insights and produce new labels. It’s like my daughter making jewellery. She’s threading beads to make a bracelet out of her many bead trays and the possibilities are endless. She's so creative.

My fear: I’ll never stop coding or labelling. Stoppage is always my biggest challenge in life – when to stop talking, stop writing, stop worrying, stop loving so much. I suppose I’m afraid of moving to the next stage.

My task: Focus on the data. Forget the theory in my Lit Review. Get back to the data. I have to be able to find some new claims and conclusions from the data.

My anchor: Remember that I have to explain all that stuff in my dissertation. Don’t forget there is someone out there called the reader. It’s so easy for a thesis student to fuse with all those words and texts and forget to come up for air.

My promise file: That’s where I put those superbly interesting chunks of data that have no bearing whatsoever on my studies but I can't let them go.

Greatest joy: This is the most creative process I’ve ever gone through. I’m not discovering a story. There is no one-right-path. The Data and I are co-creating the story.

Best advice to myself: Remain a bit skeptical. It’s healthier.

Published at last

My book’s been published.
This calls for a celebration.
I wish I could write more books. I’d like to specialise in biographies and write extraordinary stories of ordinary people.
Don't even think about it. First I have to finish my thesis.

I’ve just reviewed someone else’s new book: My son the Messiah by R. B. McSwain. It's a touchy subject. I would never attempt something like this. Still, religious fantasy has become a rather popular literary genre.
I knew he was writing but I didn’t know he was so prolific.
Check this publisher:
Blue Crane Press

Good news bad news

The good news
I’m up to data coding. I sent some data analysis work to my supervisor. I had to send it by snail mail because it consisted of my computer generated code book, and definitions as well as a coded version of one of my interview transcripts – 19 pages long, and my interview schedule of 44 questions. I won’t do any more coding til I get some feedback from her.

The bad news
It was getting dark and I hadn’t done my bike ride.

The good news
I grabbed my helmet and took off down the road to the bush where the bike circuit starts.

Bad news
It started raining while I was riding round the bike track. I saw a young dog-walker in the distance trying to fly a great yellow and white fluoro kite just as it started to drizzle. She wasn’t having much luck. The kite must be wet and heavy. The rain made dots on my glasses and blurred my vision.

Good news
The rain made me pedal harder. I was getting a really good workout.

Bad news
The wind turned into a blizzard as I rode up across the highest ridge of the narrow track. It was like riding along the blade of sword. The sky turned black. The rain pelted me. My black and yellow fluoro top flapped in the wind and I rode like crazy.

Good news
I was on the home stretch. As I turned off the bike track into the suburban traffic I glanced back for a split moment. The kite was high up in the sky. She did it. She persevered and it paid off. Above the kite, making a huge arch over the entire park and bike circuit, against the black sky was the most perfect rainbow I have ever seen.

Good news and bad news
The rained stopped by the time I got back home. My bike was surprisingly dry.
I still have to re-write my literature review.

I'm back.

To my blog: Where have you been? No space in my life for a few lines. I can’t believe how much time has passed since my last entry.

My progress: I completed more work for my thesis in the last six months than I did in the whole preceding 18 months.

New skills: I learnt to master the text-based data analysis software that I need to code my interviews.

Historical breakthrough: I recovered 40 transcripts out of 49 that I had saved on disks over 8 years ago. It seemed more like divine intervention than luck considering how dusty they were. You can’t even buy those disks at computer swap meets any more. Revisiting the past was an unnerving experience. I transcribed a few more tapes at surprising speed. Only 3 left to go. The elderly couple laughed and chatted through my earphones from beyond the grave. They are now listed, along with 12 others, in a column headed 'deceased' in my summary table of interview participants. Thank goodness I did those interviews. It’s valuable data. Surreal. I have truly retrieved irretrievable data.

My current task: Rewrite my literature review. You have some good themes but it’s too long, was my supervisor’s feedback. I have to reduce 80 pages to 20 pages. Shorten your sentences, she said. Use broad brush strokes. At least she recognised it as a work of art. Actually she’s doing me a favour because it will be more readable in the long run, if anyone survives long enough to read it. I noticed that a thesis can be much shorter and simpler these days. A good thing too.

Physical breakthrough: I went on a bike ride, the first one in over two years. I dusted off my bike, pumped up the tyres and installed my new gel seat that was still in the packet I bought from K-mart 18 months ago. I rode a circuit of the bike track near my house. The sun was so low in the sky it almost blinded me. I had the presence of mind to wear my sunnies. The paddocks were brilliant green, dotted with grey-green clumps of bush. In the evening glow the silver-grey construction against the horizon looked more like a space station than a suburban shopping centre. The wind froze my face, my legs hadn’t forgotten how to pump up hill in low gear but my lungs heaved like an old pack horse despite sucking in a double dose of Ventolin. It was exhilarating. I’ll do that again soon.

Two down three to go

The good news: I just submitted another chapter, the methodology, to my supervisor and a complete, hopefully accurate, bibliography with over 200 entries. Two down and only three chapters to go. The brain work seems so easy when it used to be so hard.

The bad news: The chapters are too long,the bibliography too copious. A thesis is shorter these days. I've accumulated too much inforation over too many years. I’m writing 5 to 10 hours a day and have RSI in my right arm. It must be from using the mouse to fix my bibliography entries. My shoulders are too tight and I’ve developed a permanent sharp pain in the back of my neck. I thought I had my ergonomics right. The monitor sits on a telephone book and I removed the arms of my chair. I need to get out more.

My current status: I checked my 8 appendices to the thesis and the old disks from 9 years ago have died, as did my first computer. Now I can’t recover my much-needed files. I found hard copies so I’ll on coding my research data.

My drink: Lost track of time and dehydrated.

My food: Too much snack food. I’ve put on 2 kilos since writing these chapters. More exercise needed.

My Music: Too busy writing in silence. I live in a world of words. My instrumetns are for data collection.

My next task: Get out and walk for 1 hour a day… urgently.

I've done it

The good news: I’ve done it. I submitted the chapter of my Literature Review to my supervisor. I am so pleased with myself.

The bad news: It was 80 pages long in double spacing. 20,000 words!! My supervisor asked for 10,000 max. I know that post grad supervisors hate getting large chunks of work from their students. The trouble is I had 10 years of accumulated literature to review. The sad fate of being a long-term student.

My current status: Successful external hermit. That doesn’t mean I’m a crab out of my shell although I do feel a bit vulnerable waiting for my chapter feedback. External means I’m studying off-campus. I live 1,200 kms away from my university. That’s loyalty for you.

My drink: Naturally brewed Japanese green tea with a pinch of freshly ground green cardamom pods. Mmmm nice.

My food: Open rye bread sandwich with chicken liver pate, stuffed olives and freshly sliced Lebanese cucumbers. It’s nice to have so much time on my hands.

My Music: Butterfly Lovers violin concerto. I’m feeling quite light headed.

My next task: Perfecting my bibliography that goes with the chapter. I didn’t submit that yet. There are over 200 entries in it and I need to list each one accurately. How did I read all that stuff?

Most recent email: From my supervisor. She said ‘good person.’ That’s all. No more and no less. Wait til she reads it! She said she won’t look at it til next week. Can’t blame her.

What I’m reading right now: ‘Seven Up’ by Janet Evanovich - a funny and grandly surreal crime novel. The blurb on the cover says “it takes balls to be a bounty hunter and Stephanie Plum doesn’t care whose…”

Have a look: http://www.evanovich.com/

Somewhere in China

An ex-colleague sent me a photo of a university campus in China.

It made me think that somewhere in China: there must be a person just like me struggling with words and chapters, fluctuating between elation and depression.

The key to sanity as a post-grad: talk to people and be really honest. That's the best way to stay grounded.

Hold that thought writer

Frame of mind: Trying to hold onto a thought about the transition from assimilaton to multiculturalism; and another about replacing the 'native speaker model' of language teaching with the 'bilingual or multilingual speaker as a goal' model and relate it to past experiences of my research participants.

Distractions: Far too many in the last five days: non-stop visitors, took a sick relative to hospital, my offspring had too many unmet needs and wanted their mother back, my beloved missed me and felt his life slipping away too fast wihtout me. No time to write - so I just held onto my thoughts and I fear they will slip away if I don't write them down soon.

Concerns: The university wants to know if I can do the presentation.

Joys: My publisher came today to show me a proof of my book. It was nice to see my name on the cover.

Consequences: I once thought of applying to a Writers'Conference for Writers but the criteria stated that only those who had actually had a complete work published could apply. That's me now.

Secondary consequences: I've missed my thesis chapter deadline again.

When I loved myself enough

Progress: Still writing and loving it. My chapter's not quite ready yet.

My doubts: If I spent as much time as I do on the computer in a paid job, my life would be so much better. Why don't I just go and get my old job back?

My surprise: A university, not the one I'm enrolled in, wants me to present a paper on Migration and Identity. I'm not ready!! Will I ever be ready for anything? Life is safe and comfortable in virtual reality. Why does real-life-reality keep creeping in?

When I loved myself enough: I began to know I was in the right place at the right time, and I began to relax.

Can't stop writing

Progress: Can’t stop writing. I’m up to 11,533 words and that exceeds my word limit for the chapter. It’s not quite ready to submit yet, not quite, but soon. Maybe I should start cutting it down.

Physical state: Alert, calm, deeply fulfilled, an open channel direct to my subconscious mind. I don’t even plan anymore. I just write by intuition.

Distractions: Music, hungry offspring crying for food, favourite TV shows, sunny weather outside - nothing distracts me. I live to write. I will not leave the computer.

Drinks: Anything, even water just to keep me hydrated.

Food: Anything they bring me. I think the family is feeling sorry for me, glued to the computer 24/7

Song playing right now: Liberace playing piano. Just goes to show what a good researcher can dig up.

Email from my supervisor: Disappointment. All this writing and no output! She thinks she’ll be in the grave before she gets anything from me.

My reaction: Crushed. If only she knew how good this chapter is.

What I need now: Redemption

I hate winter

My sister-in-law wrote a great snapshot of the precise moment when a person feels winter has come. I can relate to everything she wrote. Brilliant. Here it is:

BBBbrrrrrrrr
I hate winter. What I truly dislike is the sudden onset of the night, the sun in freefall as it dips below the horizon – one minute half light and the next darkness.There's no easing into the evening, no quiet reflective moments in which you can kick off your shoes, reach for a chill glass of white wine and ponder all those things that you have stuffed up in the course of the day.
It's too cold to sit outside in the courtyard and look across the street and sitting inside and reviewing the day's disasters is not the same. You need to be able to gaze into the distance and enjoy the soft, evening air while calling down curses on all those who you suspect of having maligned and defamed you since morning.
When you arrive home in winter there is but one thing on your mind – to peel off your layers of protective clothing and immediately climb into several more.
You can't eat salads during winter because it is too cold which is fine for some people but poses certain dietary problems for me.
I hate vegetables.
Not potatoes, which I don't count as real vegetables because you can make chips out of them, nor butternut pumpkin because if you close your eyes you can convince yourself you're not eating pumpkin, nor peas because they taste just fine in meat pies.
What I cannot abide are real vegetables, which are anything green or yellow other than the above mentioned which makes for limited winter fare.
Winter also means confronting the virus that attacks sweaters, tracksuits and sweatshirts during the long, languid summer months.
Each year as the first breath of autumnal chill frosts the grass, I dive frantically into wardrobes and draws in a desperate search for warm clothing.
In a moment, T-shirts and shorts are cast aside and ill-matched, ill-fitting fleecy lined outfits with saggy knees and baggy bottoms are hauled out due to my subtropical belief that any temperature below 12C can cause cardiac arrest.
Unable to tolerate the most modest fall in ambient temperature, I am among the first to succumb to this paranoid layering of winter wear, whingeing and whining as I burrow into my cupboards in search of sweatshirts and trackpants.
I'd put them away last spring I recalled, and then last week I found them all folded and stacked since last they were worn.
So I tossed the lot into the washing machine and wandered off. Twenty minutes later, I reached for my glasses to check the cycle on the washing machine.
I couldn't find them but could hear a peculiar metallic scraping sound coming from the machine as my clothes swirled and swished within.
I stopped the cycle and found the source of the scraping, it being caused by my glasses which unaided, had somehow made the journey into the washing machine.
On the bright side, they were exceptionally clean, but the arms were twisted like strands of spaghetti.
I straightened them out, sort of, and now they don't fall off my face. Quite the reverse in fact, for they are now perfect for a woman whose forehead is less than 2cm wide.
Accordingly, they hold my loaf-like head in a death grip. It's like walking around with your skull in a vice.
Few people realise that one of the many downsides of winter is that you become a messier eater and spend a lot more time doing laundry.
In summer you eat fish and steak and salad which are not mess free – or not at least when I am wielding the knife and fork – but which allow you to keep the collateral damage to a minimum.
In winter, you eat soup which can be disastrous. One moment's lack of concentration and you're wearing a dollop of Big Red tomato soup down the front of your white track suit top.
For reasons blindingly apparent to anyone who has known me even casually, I do not own any white tracksuits and prefer to colour code my tracksuits with my food – a red one when eating tomato soup, olive green for pea soup and army-style camouflage for stews.
The chill, grey months stretch ahead.
Bears, I think, have the right idea.

Good news-Bad news

The phone call: I've just been commissioned to write another biography. Big smile on my face. Great boost for my self-esteem.

The good news: The first book I wrote is to be published soon. Writing is what I love doing. Writing the extraordinary life stories of ordinary people is what I love to do even more. I can't wait to start.

The bad news: I'm still writing chapters for my thesis. I'm bogged down, drowning in journal articles, strangled by the high-brow expectations of academia. No time to start on another job or I'll jeopardise my studies. I've struggled for so long with my thesis-writing.

My dilemma: My hands are in shackles. Do I want to have an academic qual that I might never use or be a biographer? Should I follow my heart or my head.

My bank account: Empty. I could do with some pocket money.

The consequences: My motto in life is to follow the rational path. Ignore the pull of the heart strings and get back to my academic chapter writing. Defy all distractions. Remain single-minded. Feel the pain and deal with it. Persevere with the thesis. Maybe the job offer will act as a carrot to motivate me through my studies.

I just hope my patron has a long and healtly life and can wait for me.

Who's writing this stuff?

Progress: Twenty pages of great stuff until I re-read it the next morning and decided to rewrite the first fifteen.

Physical state: Tight shoulders and neck from too many hours at the computer.

Distractions: Someone is playing Green Day in the background and I can’t consciously form a sentence without my brain going dyslexic.

Drinks: I’m in self-indulgent mode onto Cafe-Mocha.

Food: What’s that? The occasional chocolate feeds the brain and calms the nerves.

Music via headphones to block out the rest: Violin concertos by Joshua Bell who played behind-the-scenes for that cute guy in Ladies in Lavender.

Breakthrough: All family members are co-operating. I have no more excuses, no-one to blame. Just finish that chapter.

What to include in my chapter: Scrap the plans, ditch the outline. I’m in intuitive mode. My hands are frantically typing words on the keyboard as if they are not connected to me. My eyes read fabulous paragraphs as they appear from almost nowhere on the monitor in front of me. Who’s writing this stuff? It’s really good.

Not Mothers Day

I lay in bed thinking. The house was so quiet, my mind was at its most creative, as it always was when I was lying down. I would re-write the first part of my chapter to include a discussion of the term ‘settlement’ and how it first emerged in times when immigrants were expected to fit in and become so Australian as not to be noticeable. I got up to go to my computer. I had composed the paragraph in my head and it finished with the sentence ‘the concept of settlement is now free from the assumptions behind the notion of assimilation’ just when I walked in on my children making breakfast for me and wrapping up presents.

I had forgotten it was Mothers Day. They looked embarrassed and annoyed. I wanted to get to the computer to write but I told them I was tired and going back to bed. I was tired of motherhood and writing. I pretended to be asleep when they walked into the bedroom with a tray of coffee and porridge cooked with bananas and drizzled with Turkish honey. I unwrapped my presents, Isa Bella perfume, Ferrero Roche chocolates and a CD of the Ladies in Lavender soundtrack. I could play that while I write my chapter. Violin playing is very emotional and good brain food. They ate the chocolates.

My fears

My current state: Being an external post-graduate student is lonely, frustrating and self-depreciating. I yearn for contact with other academics, PhD students and professors for high-minded discussion, to check out my ideas, theories and constructs.

New word: ‘Constructs’ because it sounds good and could mean anything.

My fears: Contact with my uni professor. I dare not email her. Never phone up, or own up that I haven’t done enough work. Don’t reveal that my ideas and constructs are a muddle of prescriptions and descriptions without enough clarity and direction.

More fears: That all other post grads can use a sophisticated ‘academic register’ that I don’t have.

Favourite read: My professor’s latest book. She wrote a dedication inside the front page “to the memory of my mother, the best teacher any child could have had.”

What I need most: A mother.

Action: I rang the uni and talked to my supervisor.

Outcome: She said those other post grads were ‘showing off’ and I should get on with my writing.

Consequences: Keep writing, my chapter is quite good.

Distractions

Progress: still writing
Physical state: eyes watering, can't stop yawning
Distractions: daughter is having a pool party, bar-b-que lunch, making jewellery, playing Monopoly. It's such an old game. I used to play it years ago with the princes's children in Beirut. We played in French and English. How can they stilll enjoy it today?
Drinks: lots of coffee
Food: packets of chewing gum
Music: Steven Halpern's 'Music for Accelerated Learning'.
More distractions: my elderly aunt has given me two handwritten pages of addresses she wants me to type out for her. I'm tempted to start on that; Germany, Canada, Cyprus, Israel, Australia.
What to inlcude in my chapter: transnationalism is a new big topic. I could include something about transnational links maintained by my research subjects.

Do the laundry, water the garden pot plants and then keep writing.

A brainwave

My writing wasn’t progressing very well today. I couldn’t get a clear perspective on assimilation. The politician’s were out of synch with grassroots immigrants, too many different issues. I couldn't focus, too many contradictory discourses. My daughter wanted me to bake some cakes with her.

We were creative and made a marble cake in three colours: white, pink and brown. Just to be different we put them in mini muffin tins instead of one large round one. Baking clears the mind. It’s a form of meditation, very relaxing. All that is required are slow, gentle movements in a fairly confined space in the kitchen listening to Green Day’s rock songs and ballads. The smells of vanilla, butter and chocolate intoxicated our inner senses.

The music was interrupted by the radio announcement that Al Grassby died. He was the Labor Minister for Immigration from 1972 to 74. I was going to cut him out of my second thesis draft, too much detail, irrelevant to my topic. I felt sad that he died just when I decided to reject him. We licked the spoons and started laughing. Then we dipped and licked our fingers into the mixture, once for each finger so as not to double dip until we had chocolate tipped pussy cat claws. We licked the spatula and the bowls.

The news broadcaster said Al Grassby made the most significant contribution to multiculturalism of all the immigration ministers. We put the cakes in the oven and set the timer. People remembered him for his colourful ties because they were symbolic of the colourful cultures in the multicultural community, said the radio voice. His ties? A man deserved more dignity than that upon death. If they remembered his ties maybe I should include him in my chapter.

A sudden ringing in my head – I’ve had a brainwave. The oven timer just rang. The cakes are ready. I will trace the evolution of assimilation and multiculturalism through the main ministers of immigration: Arthur Calwell, Harold Holt, Al Grassby. They are the ones who made the most memorable public statements. I can juxtapose the covert and overt ethnic activities of my research subjects to coincide with precisely the same eras of each minister. The perfect snapshot of the move from assimilation to multiculturalism and how ordinary people responded to the policies.

The cakes were over-baked. I should have checked them when the timer rang. Daughter said she likes them crisp. We didn’t enjoy eating them. It was more fun making them.

I'm rich

A cheque arrived in the mail today from the university - my study grant. For a short while I’m rich again.

Student life is an impoverished existence. Just keep writing. Remember the Stardust space shuttle. Its job was to collect samples from the universe to provide a window into the distant past, helping scientists around the world to unravel mysteries surrounding the birth and evolution of our Solar System.

My job is to collect snippets of human behaviour, compile them, organise them, write about them to provide a window into the past about people who have ventured far from home and made border crossings to create for themselves a ‘third place’ that lies somewhere between the familiar and the other. I unravel the differences about those who appear to be assimilated.

In my thesis I decided to reject my favourite academic quote:

“To leave one's homeland is to embark on one of the most difficult of journeys, a departure from the familiar: one's native culture, mother tongue, family and friends, neighbourhood. It involves a process of uprooting, a time of mental turmoil and physical insecurity. To emigrate is almost never a first option, rarely gladly embraced, the trauma of departure often hidden from self with the consolation that it is only temporary, that there will come a day of return.”

Markus and Clyne 2001

Why did I cut out this one? Too painful to face? Include it, highlight it and use it to make a point that the trauma was even greater for the involuntary immigrant – the accidental immigrants. The losses and the newly found riches are about self-making, changed identities. Write about it. I am the insider, one of the accidental immigrants. I am the one who can write.

Full steam ahead.

Lit Review chapter

My writing task: At least its flowing. I’m reviewing all academic literature on survival strategies, assimilation and adaptation of immigrants in the context of visible and invisible communities. What makes an immigrant community go ‘underground’? What are their survival strategies? How do they sustain their continuity? It’s OK, I’m getting there.

My drink: A potent cup of hot chocolate, cinnamon, ground cloves and a pinch of cayenne pepper to give me the kick I need.

My background music: a violin sonata by Secret Garden to release my creative alpha and beta brain waves.

My desk: Open books, pages, papers, my scribbling piled high in utter chaos, feeding my mind.

My anxieties: worried that my university supervisor will retire before I submit my next two chapters.

Secret Garden

My surprise parcel came in the mail today. I felt like a young birthday-child. An audio CD by Secret Garden called Earthsongs. The Celtic songs are more heavenly transcendent than rooted in the earth. The Irish violin virtuoso, the drums and haunting voices remind me of melodies I used to hear on my travels in the Arab countries.

I have a ‘secret garden’ that I go to with my daughter when we want to do nothing more than be together. We don’t tell anyone where we are going. It has an art gallery with ever-changing exhibits. I remember the first time we went there we stepped into a new age jewelery exhibit. We became Cleopatra and Nefretiti pouring over our jewelry troves. There is a café and sometimes we share a platter of exotic roti bread with spicy dips or we are consumed by the sheer indulgence of the easy moments together and order giant solid chocolate baskets filled with raspberries, blueberries and cream. Then we go for a walk around a manmade lake on a winding path that meanders in a landscape of tangled weeds. We laugh at the antics of the acrobatic water birds that surely put on displays just for us. No-one is there. The whole complex of buildings and nature is surrounded by a ring road of strange residential houses that have won Architect Awards. We admire their desert gardens of pebbles, cacti and stylishly stark high walls that look like boxes piled up, and then we pretend we are in the secret places that we have been to in Damascus. Times expands and we connect in an easy rhythm, walking as one, breathing in synch until we reach that state before her birth when she was still in my womb. She told me once she wished she could have stayed in my womb forever. I told her she has, forever.

Thank you sister-in-law, for the Earthsongs. They have transported me to my secret garden.

Resistance and Writers Bloc

My current task is to write about the effects of the post-war assimilation years on immigrants. My problem is that friends and family believe they assimilated very well and are proud of it. My job is to demonise the assimilationist ideology, to suggest that they did the wrong thing, lived improperly, lived a lie because they ‘went underground’ with their culture and mother-tongue and never really assimilated. They lived in denial, marginalised themselves, and distanced themselves from their offspring.

Resistance raises its ugly head and my writing procrastination sets in.

Resistance is my inner small child tugging persistently at my skirt. She springs from my subconscious anxieties and signals danger, don’t go there. It is too dangerous to reveal the content of my work. I ask myself, why is it so hard? My conscious mind wants to proceed but my subconscious urges are much stronger. To use willpower to overcome my bloc is a flawed concept, a Dr-Phil-on-Oprah bullying millions of viewers to set goals and start working on them while they burst into tears and wail that his theories don’t work or they smile in self-denial and choose to remain silent when they ought to speak. Expel the bully, crush-the-Dr-Phil.

My inner psyche can only be seduced with kindness and gentleness. The subconscious mind responds best to pleasure and seduction not seven-step goals. Decisive action only increases resistance anxiety. So now when resistance comes tugging at my skirt I am curious and gentle. I listen to the little voice that says, don’t go there for it feels too dangerous. I coax her ever so gently and encourage her to connect to me, with ease and comfort, rather than tug away from her and leave my computer to do the laundry or make yet another cup of coffee.

I ask her ever so gently, what does the danger stand for? Separation anxiety, yes that’s it. My beliefs about the community’s ‘false assimilation’ endanger my relationship with them. I see their ‘dilemma’. They call it ‘successful settlement.’ The threat of exclusion looms ahead. Should I be confrontational in my writing? Should I risk losing the connectedness I worked so hard to build up? Do I proceed into the darkness of the cave to face the dragon? I hear the sharp criticism of the parent voice in my psyche. I want to be comforted, reassured, not criticised. I seek love and approval. Separation anxiety is my problem. If I write the wrong content in my thesis, my case study subjects will be filled with hate and disapproval.

How can I overcome my writer’s bloc? The same way I would enter the forbidden cave – with curiosity and ever so gently. That’s my style in life – slow and gentle. That’s how I need to write.

I choose to write about assimilation ever so gently.

Read about The Captive Muse:
http://www.thecaptivemuse.com/muse_excerpt.html