I know, I know. I need to get out more.
But I just wanted to say - I am off on Holiday on Friday! Friday! This Friday! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
I can't wait. But then I am sad! Despite all my whinging and whining about work and the uselessness of my time here bla bla bla, I am going to be sad to end this particular chapter of my time here! Leaving the city... the hotel room we have, on and off, lived in for a month... leaving the nice man who brings us 'butter-toast', Kaapi and omlette of a morn should we so desire... sad to leave the hectic filth that is our road, with the street dwellers and the sugar cane juice man, the children crying ceaselessly outside our window (we overlook a hospital and pharmacy)... the restaurants who have stopped trying to sell us the more expensive dishes or the AC room, the rickshaw drivers who call to us with an odd fervour every time they see us, despite the fact we have ignored them every single time for the whole month... (they see us coming out of the hotel and bump the price up and MAN it is hard to negotiate!)... the nice men at the dingy (but now revamped! yes, we have been here so long they have had time to have a refurb!) rooftop bar with its dodgy beer... Ahhh. Sweet home.
But no! we are moving on! A weeks holiday then whoop-ha, onto site number one and some serious work for me! I hope I like it and turn into a good researcher... ;0s
x J
Monday, 29 December 2008
Working, working, thinking...
Today I have been working very hard! I have been sat thinking and working and reading about how to do fieldwork...
Luckily I do know how to do fieldwork, I just thought I didn't. So phew for that. I did more prep before leaving the UK than I thought! Reading through the info I realised I had done/was doing most of the advice. All that is left is to suck it and see...
Did a lot of work on my plan in fieldsite 1 too. Worked out exactly what I want to know, in three broad questions. I still have to work out how best to go about getting the info in the short space of time that I have (left). I am loathe to do surveys or questionnaires as that is the method employed by many NGOs, avoiding in depth 'reality' which is so vital to actually gauging the effect of 'aid' on life. Although, I suppose, my questions may be very different. Also, the peeps will be tired of being researched I expect (can't assume though - maybe they will be delighted!) So something between an ethnography and structured interviews will have to do I think. Something expedient! I shall think on it more tomorrow. I have been relating my work here to my general topic a lot more today too, and it seems to be coming together (for now). I have started some themes and categories, which I was desperate to avoid - in a fit of postmodernism - but also now realise that I want to have categories for two main reasons: 1) my mind likes this kind of stuff, I like to be organised; and 2) I can see how I am 'progressing' from possibly naive or uninformed categories, which are little more than biases or assumptions, to more informed and thoughtful themes, understandings of relationships and the environment and people and suchlike. Which will be pleasing. So I think I need Nvivo. I haven't actually learnt to use it - my uni was a bit naff with the courses unfortunately. Hopefully I can find enough info on the tinternet, or some kind soul on findaphd will help me!
So yarse. I feel much better. Am still not sure about my fieldsites, I feel worried about them but can't say why. I am also worried about the length of time I have left here but then again am not super-keen on extending my time. I really have to be getting home. Once I finish up in April I will have only 18 months to analyse and write up. This does not sound like long! I am so miffed with how I have spent my first two months here. I really should have spend the first couple of weeks travelling around all the coast and spending time at possible field sites, then come to Chennai and warmed into life in Inja and chilled and thought about which may be best, made contacts and then gone to the field site a couple of weeks ago. But no, I had to have a placement organised for my Uni (I would have been happy to make it up as I went along!) and they blinkin told me they had work exactly in my field of interest, and then I work for a few weeks to be polite (having been badgering them about this placement since May) then they don't have anything for me. Anything except one email address! Arg arg arg. I am so irritated. I should have been outta here ages ago. Thing is, if they had had something they would have been my major 'in' - introducing me to aid recipients and villages and letting me see their different projects etc. I said to them if they have good projects and we work well together I would be happy to stay until April... But did they say 'No! Oh No, Miss J, we have no work in that field!'. Nope. Not a dicky bird.
ARG. Personally, the experience was great and I would not change it. Professionally... It is hard to say. I wish I could have not had that placement. But then I have got a *lot* of informal and anecdotal info from being there, have taught in a local rubbish school (and loved it) and written kiddies stories (and loved it) and made some lovely friends... But now, I have limited time for the other research. And I still know jack-all about the Tsunami aid effort. GREAT. If ONLY I had known! If only!!!
Too true!
Hope everyone have a tickety boo time wherever they are!
x J
Luckily I do know how to do fieldwork, I just thought I didn't. So phew for that. I did more prep before leaving the UK than I thought! Reading through the info I realised I had done/was doing most of the advice. All that is left is to suck it and see...
Did a lot of work on my plan in fieldsite 1 too. Worked out exactly what I want to know, in three broad questions. I still have to work out how best to go about getting the info in the short space of time that I have (left). I am loathe to do surveys or questionnaires as that is the method employed by many NGOs, avoiding in depth 'reality' which is so vital to actually gauging the effect of 'aid' on life. Although, I suppose, my questions may be very different. Also, the peeps will be tired of being researched I expect (can't assume though - maybe they will be delighted!) So something between an ethnography and structured interviews will have to do I think. Something expedient! I shall think on it more tomorrow. I have been relating my work here to my general topic a lot more today too, and it seems to be coming together (for now). I have started some themes and categories, which I was desperate to avoid - in a fit of postmodernism - but also now realise that I want to have categories for two main reasons: 1) my mind likes this kind of stuff, I like to be organised; and 2) I can see how I am 'progressing' from possibly naive or uninformed categories, which are little more than biases or assumptions, to more informed and thoughtful themes, understandings of relationships and the environment and people and suchlike. Which will be pleasing. So I think I need Nvivo. I haven't actually learnt to use it - my uni was a bit naff with the courses unfortunately. Hopefully I can find enough info on the tinternet, or some kind soul on findaphd will help me!
So yarse. I feel much better. Am still not sure about my fieldsites, I feel worried about them but can't say why. I am also worried about the length of time I have left here but then again am not super-keen on extending my time. I really have to be getting home. Once I finish up in April I will have only 18 months to analyse and write up. This does not sound like long! I am so miffed with how I have spent my first two months here. I really should have spend the first couple of weeks travelling around all the coast and spending time at possible field sites, then come to Chennai and warmed into life in Inja and chilled and thought about which may be best, made contacts and then gone to the field site a couple of weeks ago. But no, I had to have a placement organised for my Uni (I would have been happy to make it up as I went along!) and they blinkin told me they had work exactly in my field of interest, and then I work for a few weeks to be polite (having been badgering them about this placement since May) then they don't have anything for me. Anything except one email address! Arg arg arg. I am so irritated. I should have been outta here ages ago. Thing is, if they had had something they would have been my major 'in' - introducing me to aid recipients and villages and letting me see their different projects etc. I said to them if they have good projects and we work well together I would be happy to stay until April... But did they say 'No! Oh No, Miss J, we have no work in that field!'. Nope. Not a dicky bird.
ARG. Personally, the experience was great and I would not change it. Professionally... It is hard to say. I wish I could have not had that placement. But then I have got a *lot* of informal and anecdotal info from being there, have taught in a local rubbish school (and loved it) and written kiddies stories (and loved it) and made some lovely friends... But now, I have limited time for the other research. And I still know jack-all about the Tsunami aid effort. GREAT. If ONLY I had known! If only!!!
'Life is best understood backwards, but must be lived forwards'
Too true!
Hope everyone have a tickety boo time wherever they are!
x J
Sunday, 28 December 2008
Drama Queen
Ok, so yesterday I may have been a little dramatic. The sentiments are true enough, but today I am dealing with them much better!
I think yesterday, if I were at home, I would have closed my books, closed my study door, got myself lots of schnaffles and tea and watched re-runs of some soap omnibus or other. I would have been savvy and known that I was just stressing and to get away from the work for a while, let it get some perspective. But here that is impossible. Everywhere is my office, is a book to learn from. Nowhere can I hide from work. And that is hard to deal with. I should learn from this and realise that an unscheduled day off now and then if I need it will not create havoc or failure. I felt instead that I should think and think and think. Until I nearly popped. Luckily DB led my babbling self to a local tourist spot for a vodka and coke and a rant. A few hours later I was almost coherent. Today I have even smiled!
Today I have actually been the definition of a busy fool. Today is in fact sunday, a day of rest - or so it would be if I was not here, in my work land all the time! I have been busy working out how to get to my second field site, and decided to go there first. I have a dilemma see... Do I go to the site 1, that is lovely, it is easy for me to get around, I have seen it, I have a contact, I have anecdotal evidence that makes it very interesting for my research, - but is not gritty or even the worst affected area. Or do I go to site 2 first, which I do not know about, do not have a contact in, haven't seen, is hundreds of kms south, but is possibly the main, and best, site?
Arg, I know I am repeating myself. Today I decided to go to site 2 first. Now I am thinking that my original plan to go to happy site 1 first would be best, get me some confidence and cheer me up a bit (yes, I am glum! well, happy glum). I think I just need more time overall. Then I would not be having this convo at all, it wouldn't matter. I would spend 6-7 weeks in each, with time to spare, and potter round asking q's with no sense of a ticking clock behind me. It is important to think about that.
I tell you what is happening. I am getting stressed, and in being stressed I am trying to control my environment. Which is uncontrollable, and unpredictable. So I am getting more stressed, and trying to control it even more, and again failing to find any answers - because as yet, there aren't any. Dope! And so am constantly frustrated, unable to control or predict anything, and therefore am failing and being cross and miserable. Bizarrely, what I have to do is to totally let go and do what I can for now (read at a library) and kind of know that other things will work themselves out in time. I can't possibly say whether site 1/2 will be brilliant or rubbish, I just cannot know that. Until I am there, doing it, or until my time ahs come to review my progress. And the worrying thing is, is that this takes time. I cannot go to site one, and within a week know whether it wll work for me or not. I have to cultivate relationships and a presence, and this takes time - only after a month or so will I know. And by that time, another month has gone by that may yield as little info as my month in Chennai has done. But, I cannot know.
I don't like not knowing! Arg!
I need to shut up, open my ears, get to the library for a few days, have a week off, then go to site no. 1 and cheer the heck up.
:0)
xxxxxxxxxxx
I think yesterday, if I were at home, I would have closed my books, closed my study door, got myself lots of schnaffles and tea and watched re-runs of some soap omnibus or other. I would have been savvy and known that I was just stressing and to get away from the work for a while, let it get some perspective. But here that is impossible. Everywhere is my office, is a book to learn from. Nowhere can I hide from work. And that is hard to deal with. I should learn from this and realise that an unscheduled day off now and then if I need it will not create havoc or failure. I felt instead that I should think and think and think. Until I nearly popped. Luckily DB led my babbling self to a local tourist spot for a vodka and coke and a rant. A few hours later I was almost coherent. Today I have even smiled!
Today I have actually been the definition of a busy fool. Today is in fact sunday, a day of rest - or so it would be if I was not here, in my work land all the time! I have been busy working out how to get to my second field site, and decided to go there first. I have a dilemma see... Do I go to the site 1, that is lovely, it is easy for me to get around, I have seen it, I have a contact, I have anecdotal evidence that makes it very interesting for my research, - but is not gritty or even the worst affected area. Or do I go to site 2 first, which I do not know about, do not have a contact in, haven't seen, is hundreds of kms south, but is possibly the main, and best, site?
Arg, I know I am repeating myself. Today I decided to go to site 2 first. Now I am thinking that my original plan to go to happy site 1 first would be best, get me some confidence and cheer me up a bit (yes, I am glum! well, happy glum). I think I just need more time overall. Then I would not be having this convo at all, it wouldn't matter. I would spend 6-7 weeks in each, with time to spare, and potter round asking q's with no sense of a ticking clock behind me. It is important to think about that.
I tell you what is happening. I am getting stressed, and in being stressed I am trying to control my environment. Which is uncontrollable, and unpredictable. So I am getting more stressed, and trying to control it even more, and again failing to find any answers - because as yet, there aren't any. Dope! And so am constantly frustrated, unable to control or predict anything, and therefore am failing and being cross and miserable. Bizarrely, what I have to do is to totally let go and do what I can for now (read at a library) and kind of know that other things will work themselves out in time. I can't possibly say whether site 1/2 will be brilliant or rubbish, I just cannot know that. Until I am there, doing it, or until my time ahs come to review my progress. And the worrying thing is, is that this takes time. I cannot go to site one, and within a week know whether it wll work for me or not. I have to cultivate relationships and a presence, and this takes time - only after a month or so will I know. And by that time, another month has gone by that may yield as little info as my month in Chennai has done. But, I cannot know.
I don't like not knowing! Arg!
I need to shut up, open my ears, get to the library for a few days, have a week off, then go to site no. 1 and cheer the heck up.
:0)
xxxxxxxxxxx
Saturday, 27 December 2008
The Big Christmas Sulk
Happy Christmas and New Year!
If you are reading this then you too are rather too addicted to your work and I suggest you close your computer down and go and do something else for a day or two - ain't nothing gonna change in the long run.
However, I cannot follow my own advice, and so am sat reading conference papers when I know that in England I would be drunk from the night before and engaging in much festive revelry with my nearest and dearest... Arg.
Fieldwork is great, don't get me wrong, and I adore being here and love this opportunity to visit this country and live here. But, but, but... It is sometimes just too much. You are not your own master - your environment is, you cannot switch off however much you try; you cannot leave, so it feels claustrophobic; and you cannot always be productive but always feel that you should be. Every day should produce something new - or what is the point of being here?
And so with all of this in my head, I am ploughing on, begrudgingly. I am sure that I am rubbish at research. I really don't like the constant questioning and networking and socialising with people I wouldn't normally hang around with. Not only is this unpleasant for me, but it is also not nice hanging round with people pretending to be their friend just to get info from them in the long run. This feels like being some kind of hack! I am not sure about it at all. I used to think all I wanted to do was research, now I think all I want to do is do obvious research - e.g. super-structured interviews and not all this fake ethnography lark - or settle down somewhere and have a family and a cup of tea.
To be honest I am losing all enthusiasm for this course. All of it. I think I am in a slump and really hope I will come out of it - otherwise finishing is going to be such a drudge. I shan't get out though! I shall complete. I just am not happy right now - this research malarky is ridiculously hard. I don't think I have the personal strength to tell myself when to stop working and not feel guilty - like in my first year, working at home. So I always feel bad if I am not working, and cross and irritated when I am. No win eh?! Like I took a day off for xmas and felt terrible last night, like I had been away for ages?! It is the constant pressure to achieve, get knowledge that is valid and reliable and meaningful. But how? For whom? Where? What if I don't? These questions are totally stressing me out and making me unhappy in my work.
I hate it and want it to go away. I have only three months left to do two good case studies. this is almost impossble - they will both be lacking in depth and info with only 6 weeks on each. So what's the point? :0( I can't badger people for info to their face, and am shy to meet people and pump them for info about something really sad to them. I am just no good at this! I am also full of regret about 'wasting ' the past month or so. I know I haven't wasted it but that knowledge is buried deep under my worry.
I don't know what to do.
I guess I will sit and think and wonder and worry. And then hopefully after I have done some reading, spent some time away from the field in Goa and come back on the 13 Jan, I will be refreshed and new and happy again.
I wonder if this can all be boiled down to three main concerns: 1) If I had longer in the field I wouldn't be so stressed and pressured. It is hard to be sociable and under pressure at the same time. You can't have normal conversations but feel like getting to the point asap so as not to waste time. No time to schmooze!
and
2) I don't know how much I want to continue with this field of work when I have finished the course. I would like to do something else, pass on my learning maybe as a teacher. But conferences? Presentations and panels? Working on the corrupt mess that is the international political/humanitarian/economic sphere? They don't fill me with glee. Actually, they fill me with horror and boredom. But I owe it to so many people to go 'up' in this field. My Sup who gave me this opportunity, the ESRC for their generous funding, my Mum for her pride in me, and DB for putting up with me being a skint student for the past gazillion years. I can't think of anything worse that being suited and booted and in the UN or a think tank, going over the same problems time and time again.
and
3) I have followed my head and put off my dream to have a family until I am near completion. This is making me really sad and lacking in verve for the future I think. I wonder how much the sacrifice of not having a family yet will put stress on my happiness, to the point where having a wee bairn and being happy in my life - and consequently my work/life would be preferable - despite the late nights and worry about childcare. I am putting it off because I am also worried about completing on time. It is essential for my deptartment that funded students complete on time. So we get a year less than the average PhD student because we have none of the buffer of the 'writing up' year. But we get paid, I know, I am not complaining. Just worried about letting people down. I wonder if in my heart of hearts I am seeing the PhD as a direct threat/barrier to my dreams of a family I have had for years. And therefore begrudging it and wanting it to be over, so I can start being happy in my life and have a family. Because I can't have one and do the PhD, nononono, I will be told off. I am told that I can't do both, the PhD will suffer. (but who cares?! I can prove them wrong, right?)
What do I do? :0(
x J
If you are reading this then you too are rather too addicted to your work and I suggest you close your computer down and go and do something else for a day or two - ain't nothing gonna change in the long run.
However, I cannot follow my own advice, and so am sat reading conference papers when I know that in England I would be drunk from the night before and engaging in much festive revelry with my nearest and dearest... Arg.
Fieldwork is great, don't get me wrong, and I adore being here and love this opportunity to visit this country and live here. But, but, but... It is sometimes just too much. You are not your own master - your environment is, you cannot switch off however much you try; you cannot leave, so it feels claustrophobic; and you cannot always be productive but always feel that you should be. Every day should produce something new - or what is the point of being here?
And so with all of this in my head, I am ploughing on, begrudgingly. I am sure that I am rubbish at research. I really don't like the constant questioning and networking and socialising with people I wouldn't normally hang around with. Not only is this unpleasant for me, but it is also not nice hanging round with people pretending to be their friend just to get info from them in the long run. This feels like being some kind of hack! I am not sure about it at all. I used to think all I wanted to do was research, now I think all I want to do is do obvious research - e.g. super-structured interviews and not all this fake ethnography lark - or settle down somewhere and have a family and a cup of tea.
To be honest I am losing all enthusiasm for this course. All of it. I think I am in a slump and really hope I will come out of it - otherwise finishing is going to be such a drudge. I shan't get out though! I shall complete. I just am not happy right now - this research malarky is ridiculously hard. I don't think I have the personal strength to tell myself when to stop working and not feel guilty - like in my first year, working at home. So I always feel bad if I am not working, and cross and irritated when I am. No win eh?! Like I took a day off for xmas and felt terrible last night, like I had been away for ages?! It is the constant pressure to achieve, get knowledge that is valid and reliable and meaningful. But how? For whom? Where? What if I don't? These questions are totally stressing me out and making me unhappy in my work.
I hate it and want it to go away. I have only three months left to do two good case studies. this is almost impossble - they will both be lacking in depth and info with only 6 weeks on each. So what's the point? :0( I can't badger people for info to their face, and am shy to meet people and pump them for info about something really sad to them. I am just no good at this! I am also full of regret about 'wasting ' the past month or so. I know I haven't wasted it but that knowledge is buried deep under my worry.
I don't know what to do.
I guess I will sit and think and wonder and worry. And then hopefully after I have done some reading, spent some time away from the field in Goa and come back on the 13 Jan, I will be refreshed and new and happy again.
I wonder if this can all be boiled down to three main concerns: 1) If I had longer in the field I wouldn't be so stressed and pressured. It is hard to be sociable and under pressure at the same time. You can't have normal conversations but feel like getting to the point asap so as not to waste time. No time to schmooze!
and
2) I don't know how much I want to continue with this field of work when I have finished the course. I would like to do something else, pass on my learning maybe as a teacher. But conferences? Presentations and panels? Working on the corrupt mess that is the international political/humanitarian/economic sphere? They don't fill me with glee. Actually, they fill me with horror and boredom. But I owe it to so many people to go 'up' in this field. My Sup who gave me this opportunity, the ESRC for their generous funding, my Mum for her pride in me, and DB for putting up with me being a skint student for the past gazillion years. I can't think of anything worse that being suited and booted and in the UN or a think tank, going over the same problems time and time again.
and
3) I have followed my head and put off my dream to have a family until I am near completion. This is making me really sad and lacking in verve for the future I think. I wonder how much the sacrifice of not having a family yet will put stress on my happiness, to the point where having a wee bairn and being happy in my life - and consequently my work/life would be preferable - despite the late nights and worry about childcare. I am putting it off because I am also worried about completing on time. It is essential for my deptartment that funded students complete on time. So we get a year less than the average PhD student because we have none of the buffer of the 'writing up' year. But we get paid, I know, I am not complaining. Just worried about letting people down. I wonder if in my heart of hearts I am seeing the PhD as a direct threat/barrier to my dreams of a family I have had for years. And therefore begrudging it and wanting it to be over, so I can start being happy in my life and have a family. Because I can't have one and do the PhD, nononono, I will be told off. I am told that I can't do both, the PhD will suffer. (but who cares?! I can prove them wrong, right?)
What do I do? :0(
x J
Monday, 22 December 2008
The courage of conviction
I have been working very hard! Sadly not in the way that I would like, talking to people and gathering a picture of their feelings of the aid-effort, but working nontheless. I read a very interesting article that was given to me about participation in fieldwork, but talks about participation in a very self-reflexive way, that embraces the imagination and the transcendental reality of realities - theirs as well as mine. I like this very much, It hovers in the conceptual gap between relativism and absolutism which is exactly where I have been wanting to be, but not known who talks about doing this, Now I know! I like the middle ground, it seems more reasonable.
Which brings me on to another point. I have realised over the past week that I am not a person who has yet had to make many decisions on my own. I love advice, I seek it from everywhere, and then generally follow what I see best. I am a researcher at heart - I seek information all the time, about everything, and then go with what seems to make the most sense. I am not, however, someone who is very good at making completely independent decisions, and having the courage of my own conviction. Well, no, that isn't true, seeing as to do a PhD in any way one has to be convinced about something no one else is, or about something that no one else has thought of before. I just mean life changing, important decisions are really hard to make on your own! Having DB around also enables me to have a sounding board about most things, although I notice that I am leaving even him behind now, as I get further into the research. I can't explain every nuance of thought and background to things I say any more without sounding like I am giving a lecture. So I just have be sure I can sit back in myself, view my surroundings, and be happy with what I have made for myself.
And so I have decided that going to field site one, a lovely and very accommodating place with even swimming pools in easy reach and western food, is still a very good idea. I was shaken by my meeting with the Academic who gave me an 'in' to a possibly 'better' site, but I shall use that too, and stick to my plan. It was so hard to make this decision! I emailed my Sup about it but have not heard back, which is fair enough. He may not have read it - it being the holiday season, or he may have thought I was big enough and ugly enough to work this out on my own. Having courage to make decisions is dreadfully hard. I have been plagued by doubt - what if this site is rubbish?! What if I am making a dreadful mistake? My last month has been quite a 'waste' in comparison with what I thought I was going to be doing here. I can't afford to waste any more time! *I* think it will be great though, I have my reasons for going and should just rely on them. I think my inability to believe my own decisions shows how low I pitch myself, and my thoughts, in comparison with those (the advice) of other people. Anyone. I need to become stronger, and more self-confident! I am not a total fool and would not go a research site if it wasn't suitable. Which brings me onto another point:
Fieldwork snobbery
Ug this is a hard one. I realised yesterday that so much of my doubt was because field site 2 is going to be that much more 'gritty' and hard going. Much more immersed and in the middle of nowhere. But site one is really pleasant! I can walk everywhere, it is touristy (low season though), the respondants are really close by and constantly visible, there are lots of lcoal orgs to go and talk to/work with, there is lots of nice accommodation, and I can eat chips as well as curry. So it is not gritty or hardgoing, but actually quite an enjoyable option. I am really looking forward to it! Consequently, I feel that I am hardly earning my spurs as a hardcore ethnographic researcher and so am rubbish and taking the easy option, or compromising my work for personal priviledge and laziness... Why do I think this? It isn't true! I make no sense. Anyway, I will be going south to site two soon after, and that will be harder! (who cares?!) And Chennai has been hard work - I am totally miserable and dying to get out. This snobbery I thnk is the root cause for my insecurity. How daft is that?! The work is just as hard, it just means that at the end of a day's researching and interviewing, I can cycle 'home' and get in the pool for a swim. And anyway, knowing research anything could happen! To be honest, my research is always going to be by the sea, and therefore tourism spots are inevitable. And tourism development is part of the critique for my work! I am so ridiculous sometimes, I really give myself a hard time. But anyway, fieldwork snobbery does exist. I should just be confident and proud of my happy option and lack of dengue or bullets or post traumatic stress.
Yep, so I have made the decision and am happy for it. I hate having an unquiet mind, which sadly is par for the course on this darned PhD.
In the moment for a while though - I am leaving my volunteering position today! Thank goodness! As I write I am in a really cliquey office and cannot wait to get out and go home. I am not going to see the village they work with on xmas eve any nore, I shall see it when I am there myself in Jan, it is close to my field site. I am slowing down now on the practical side, and will return with a vengeance on the 14 Jan. In the meantime I shall spend days at the library reading about doing fieldwork and being a participant ethnographer, and then go on holiday! Can't. Blinkin'. Wait. This work placement has been a complete disappointment. Total. I feel so let down! They said I could work with their tsunami projects, I desperately wish they had told me there were none. But it is all part of the process is it not? And being here, working, getting rickshaws, speaking Tamil, teaching, realising I can write kiddies stories, meeting some people here who have helped me enormously with settling into Indian life - all that has been worth a lot. Just hasn't generated much direct information!
I am enjoying myself though, honest! It is just such demanding work, of your whole self, and it demands things of you that you could never have anticipated. I sincerely believe that I will come out of this a stonger and more confident and capable person. However, I am still so looking forward to going home and writing up and feeling a semblence of control over my environment. I can't imagine the pleasure of having a fridge, stocked with food... Then again, as I do this research it makes me realise how much reading I have yet to do. Sooooo much learning! And then regurgitating! And re-writing! How on earth does it end?!! I don't think I will ever submit!
Well, I am off to do something. Not sure what... I hope no one is reading this and that you are all on holidays!
Have fun!
x J
Ps. I think one of the kiddies at the school has given me head lice! I kid you not. I am itching and scratching away. UG! That is pretty gritty?!! hehe x
Which brings me on to another point. I have realised over the past week that I am not a person who has yet had to make many decisions on my own. I love advice, I seek it from everywhere, and then generally follow what I see best. I am a researcher at heart - I seek information all the time, about everything, and then go with what seems to make the most sense. I am not, however, someone who is very good at making completely independent decisions, and having the courage of my own conviction. Well, no, that isn't true, seeing as to do a PhD in any way one has to be convinced about something no one else is, or about something that no one else has thought of before. I just mean life changing, important decisions are really hard to make on your own! Having DB around also enables me to have a sounding board about most things, although I notice that I am leaving even him behind now, as I get further into the research. I can't explain every nuance of thought and background to things I say any more without sounding like I am giving a lecture. So I just have be sure I can sit back in myself, view my surroundings, and be happy with what I have made for myself.
And so I have decided that going to field site one, a lovely and very accommodating place with even swimming pools in easy reach and western food, is still a very good idea. I was shaken by my meeting with the Academic who gave me an 'in' to a possibly 'better' site, but I shall use that too, and stick to my plan. It was so hard to make this decision! I emailed my Sup about it but have not heard back, which is fair enough. He may not have read it - it being the holiday season, or he may have thought I was big enough and ugly enough to work this out on my own. Having courage to make decisions is dreadfully hard. I have been plagued by doubt - what if this site is rubbish?! What if I am making a dreadful mistake? My last month has been quite a 'waste' in comparison with what I thought I was going to be doing here. I can't afford to waste any more time! *I* think it will be great though, I have my reasons for going and should just rely on them. I think my inability to believe my own decisions shows how low I pitch myself, and my thoughts, in comparison with those (the advice) of other people. Anyone. I need to become stronger, and more self-confident! I am not a total fool and would not go a research site if it wasn't suitable. Which brings me onto another point:
Fieldwork snobbery
Ug this is a hard one. I realised yesterday that so much of my doubt was because field site 2 is going to be that much more 'gritty' and hard going. Much more immersed and in the middle of nowhere. But site one is really pleasant! I can walk everywhere, it is touristy (low season though), the respondants are really close by and constantly visible, there are lots of lcoal orgs to go and talk to/work with, there is lots of nice accommodation, and I can eat chips as well as curry. So it is not gritty or hardgoing, but actually quite an enjoyable option. I am really looking forward to it! Consequently, I feel that I am hardly earning my spurs as a hardcore ethnographic researcher and so am rubbish and taking the easy option, or compromising my work for personal priviledge and laziness... Why do I think this? It isn't true! I make no sense. Anyway, I will be going south to site two soon after, and that will be harder! (who cares?!) And Chennai has been hard work - I am totally miserable and dying to get out. This snobbery I thnk is the root cause for my insecurity. How daft is that?! The work is just as hard, it just means that at the end of a day's researching and interviewing, I can cycle 'home' and get in the pool for a swim. And anyway, knowing research anything could happen! To be honest, my research is always going to be by the sea, and therefore tourism spots are inevitable. And tourism development is part of the critique for my work! I am so ridiculous sometimes, I really give myself a hard time. But anyway, fieldwork snobbery does exist. I should just be confident and proud of my happy option and lack of dengue or bullets or post traumatic stress.
Yep, so I have made the decision and am happy for it. I hate having an unquiet mind, which sadly is par for the course on this darned PhD.
In the moment for a while though - I am leaving my volunteering position today! Thank goodness! As I write I am in a really cliquey office and cannot wait to get out and go home. I am not going to see the village they work with on xmas eve any nore, I shall see it when I am there myself in Jan, it is close to my field site. I am slowing down now on the practical side, and will return with a vengeance on the 14 Jan. In the meantime I shall spend days at the library reading about doing fieldwork and being a participant ethnographer, and then go on holiday! Can't. Blinkin'. Wait. This work placement has been a complete disappointment. Total. I feel so let down! They said I could work with their tsunami projects, I desperately wish they had told me there were none. But it is all part of the process is it not? And being here, working, getting rickshaws, speaking Tamil, teaching, realising I can write kiddies stories, meeting some people here who have helped me enormously with settling into Indian life - all that has been worth a lot. Just hasn't generated much direct information!
I am enjoying myself though, honest! It is just such demanding work, of your whole self, and it demands things of you that you could never have anticipated. I sincerely believe that I will come out of this a stonger and more confident and capable person. However, I am still so looking forward to going home and writing up and feeling a semblence of control over my environment. I can't imagine the pleasure of having a fridge, stocked with food... Then again, as I do this research it makes me realise how much reading I have yet to do. Sooooo much learning! And then regurgitating! And re-writing! How on earth does it end?!! I don't think I will ever submit!
Well, I am off to do something. Not sure what... I hope no one is reading this and that you are all on holidays!
Have fun!
x J
Ps. I think one of the kiddies at the school has given me head lice! I kid you not. I am itching and scratching away. UG! That is pretty gritty?!! hehe x
Sunday, 21 December 2008
December you say?! Nah...
It is so hot here! So hot! We spent a lot of this afternoon on the beach, drinking some chai and watching the world go by... I jsut cannot believe that it is December, let alone the 21st! I went chrimbly shopping for DB yesterday though, and got irritated with the people, the noise and the queues so felt very much like christmas! And I came home, wrapped them to some wonderfully dodgy Boney M christmas songs I bought down the road for about £2, and have now them on top of the 'Christmas TV'.
I have been feeling stressy the past couple of days about work, and wanted to read about others' experiences and came accross this blog entry from June last year, it sums up my feelings so closely and is written brilliantly:
http://www.antropologi.info/blog/cicilie/cicilie.php?p=2658&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
I really feel for her feelings of sad failure that she never managed to really integrate or 'live' her experiences. I feel like that here, to the point where participation as discussed at home is almost impossible, and even to think I am participating and not an outsider would be to compromise myself ethically and analytically. I need to be aware that I am seen as a priviledged outsider with money and white skin. I am not a local villager, our lives are so far removed, predominantly because of culture and language. Yet we do communicate and have our own form of relationship, which in itself transforms a malleable 'everyday' - while I am here I am part of that everyday, and therefore I am participating. I give a little, they give a little and together we create a new 'everyday'. Hmmm...
I don't think she failed anyway, I think she just feels tired and dissillusioned. When she had been home for a few months I think she would realise she had done so much better than she felt when she wrote the post. I also understand her feelings of fieldwork as 'work' and not participation, as in, you are always watching, learning, listening, planning, analysing, trying to understand... Never just 'being'. It is tiring! you never know if you are paying attention to the right things, or even if you are in the right place! Arg, it is such a guessing game. Sometimes you just have to suck it and see (say I, with little faith).
I also have to read Wolcott The Art of Fieldwork. I have not yet and feel that if I do I will have so much knowledge about how to approach this whole thing, and also be able to manage my expectations better. His work seems to be full of wise quotes. He also says (according to above blog post) to plan your work from the end, to see what you want from it. I am going to do that now.
I also have to go through my interview tape with the Academic. I listened to some of it for the first time yesterday and couldn't believe how posh and childish my voice sounds. More high pitched than it is in my head, and very clipped and British. How strange!
Am tired of the research atm, and thinking stupidly negatively about what to do next. Is daft, and I am in dire need of some enthusiasm. I am also really missing christmas! Much more than I thought I would. I love christmas, it is such a fantastic time of year with my family. :0(
On with the work! Am going to do some planning. Planning always makes one feel better when in a pinch!
x J
I have been feeling stressy the past couple of days about work, and wanted to read about others' experiences and came accross this blog entry from June last year, it sums up my feelings so closely and is written brilliantly:
http://www.antropologi.info/blog/cicilie/cicilie.php?p=2658&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
I really feel for her feelings of sad failure that she never managed to really integrate or 'live' her experiences. I feel like that here, to the point where participation as discussed at home is almost impossible, and even to think I am participating and not an outsider would be to compromise myself ethically and analytically. I need to be aware that I am seen as a priviledged outsider with money and white skin. I am not a local villager, our lives are so far removed, predominantly because of culture and language. Yet we do communicate and have our own form of relationship, which in itself transforms a malleable 'everyday' - while I am here I am part of that everyday, and therefore I am participating. I give a little, they give a little and together we create a new 'everyday'. Hmmm...
I don't think she failed anyway, I think she just feels tired and dissillusioned. When she had been home for a few months I think she would realise she had done so much better than she felt when she wrote the post. I also understand her feelings of fieldwork as 'work' and not participation, as in, you are always watching, learning, listening, planning, analysing, trying to understand... Never just 'being'. It is tiring! you never know if you are paying attention to the right things, or even if you are in the right place! Arg, it is such a guessing game. Sometimes you just have to suck it and see (say I, with little faith).
I also have to read Wolcott The Art of Fieldwork. I have not yet and feel that if I do I will have so much knowledge about how to approach this whole thing, and also be able to manage my expectations better. His work seems to be full of wise quotes. He also says (according to above blog post) to plan your work from the end, to see what you want from it. I am going to do that now.
I also have to go through my interview tape with the Academic. I listened to some of it for the first time yesterday and couldn't believe how posh and childish my voice sounds. More high pitched than it is in my head, and very clipped and British. How strange!
Am tired of the research atm, and thinking stupidly negatively about what to do next. Is daft, and I am in dire need of some enthusiasm. I am also really missing christmas! Much more than I thought I would. I love christmas, it is such a fantastic time of year with my family. :0(
On with the work! Am going to do some planning. Planning always makes one feel better when in a pinch!
x J
Friday, 19 December 2008
PhD Depression
OK, so I looked at one of my own links to a great blog entry about PhD depression and feel soooo much better! I am not alone! It is normal to find this damned course so chuffing demanding and difficult.
Phew. Now I can realise it is normal, try to step back and not take it so seriously, and start to get some perspective. It's the weekend, it's christmas, forget work and get shopping! yaya!
:0)
x J
Phew. Now I can realise it is normal, try to step back and not take it so seriously, and start to get some perspective. It's the weekend, it's christmas, forget work and get shopping! yaya!
:0)
x J
Research Fatigue
Since my post this morning, and more gradually as the day progresses, I can feel myself slump into research apathy.
I am normally really grateful for my experiences here, for being able to take part in Indian life and culture for such an extended period of time, being able to wallow in another life, to be able to learn about my topic in a 'real' way, to develop new leads and knowledge... Not today. It started last night really, when we were walking to dinner and I realised for the first time the place was just too damn loud! India is so loud, busy and 'close' and normally I love the energy, and think of home and recoil at how lonely and intraverted lives are. Not then though, it was just in my face. Today I increasingly feel the same and just cannot wait to get home to my sanctuary and lie down and zone out in front of the tele. I can't bear to think about work really - I can 't even grasp the thoughts too well. It is a big jumble too close to my eyes and I can't focus on it.
I think it may be time for a break. I have so much literature to read, and people to contact and a whole world to understand in such a short space of time. And so I am suffering from complete brain meltdown. So, I am going to spend the weekend pretty much ignoring my work (should read some articles really, won't do any harm, just don't stress about analysing and thinking) and xmas shopping, and may do something touristy. I just have to think that I am only 'on' until Weds. I have agreed to go and see these projects on Weds (xmas eve) and am really regretting it now. Maybe come Weds I will be sparky again, but am sure I will resent the intrusion into my christmas time, especially since I won't get home until late evening and it will be a really stressful day! And a bit pointless cause I can see these projects anytime.
I think I am just winding down for the holidays, but also trying to grimly hang on to my enthusiasm, like if I let go of it for a while I worry I will lose it entirely and just get homesick and not want to be here ever again. Which is silly. I am really looking forward to getting back from Goa all refreshed, clean of mind and spirit, and ready to bounce back into it again.
Thing is, I feel like this but I haven't actually done anything yet?!! Ug, imagine how tired I will feel in April! I do sometimes think that in a lot of ways maybe it is a blessing that I have this April deadline, because it makes me focus and work hard, but also means I will be able to get out before I start wasting time and getting too tired. But then again, I could really do with some more months...
Tummy ache!
x J
I am normally really grateful for my experiences here, for being able to take part in Indian life and culture for such an extended period of time, being able to wallow in another life, to be able to learn about my topic in a 'real' way, to develop new leads and knowledge... Not today. It started last night really, when we were walking to dinner and I realised for the first time the place was just too damn loud! India is so loud, busy and 'close' and normally I love the energy, and think of home and recoil at how lonely and intraverted lives are. Not then though, it was just in my face. Today I increasingly feel the same and just cannot wait to get home to my sanctuary and lie down and zone out in front of the tele. I can't bear to think about work really - I can 't even grasp the thoughts too well. It is a big jumble too close to my eyes and I can't focus on it.
I think it may be time for a break. I have so much literature to read, and people to contact and a whole world to understand in such a short space of time. And so I am suffering from complete brain meltdown. So, I am going to spend the weekend pretty much ignoring my work (should read some articles really, won't do any harm, just don't stress about analysing and thinking) and xmas shopping, and may do something touristy. I just have to think that I am only 'on' until Weds. I have agreed to go and see these projects on Weds (xmas eve) and am really regretting it now. Maybe come Weds I will be sparky again, but am sure I will resent the intrusion into my christmas time, especially since I won't get home until late evening and it will be a really stressful day! And a bit pointless cause I can see these projects anytime.
I think I am just winding down for the holidays, but also trying to grimly hang on to my enthusiasm, like if I let go of it for a while I worry I will lose it entirely and just get homesick and not want to be here ever again. Which is silly. I am really looking forward to getting back from Goa all refreshed, clean of mind and spirit, and ready to bounce back into it again.
Thing is, I feel like this but I haven't actually done anything yet?!! Ug, imagine how tired I will feel in April! I do sometimes think that in a lot of ways maybe it is a blessing that I have this April deadline, because it makes me focus and work hard, but also means I will be able to get out before I start wasting time and getting too tired. But then again, I could really do with some more months...
Tummy ache!
x J
Where's christmas?!
Well, people can be jealous of us being in hot climes over christmas, but it just isn't my thing! I don't feel at all christmassy! DB and I agreed that christmas day will probably feel like it's out anniversary or something, and we will be the only two celebrating and giving presents and taking the day off work while everything around us happens as normal. I don't like it! I want to be at home!
Another difference is that I am still working full time and I notice that slowly but surely my friends and family at home are drifting out of the realms of communication - busy with parties and shopping and travelling and finishing work for the holidays... Ahhhh. I cannot wait to take a break. Roll on the 2 Jan! I can't wait to get out of TN for a while and stop thinking about work.
Speaking of work, I have been doing very well these past few days! I got another interview with a friend on the afternoon of my last post and learnt a lot about my planned next field site, which I felt very confident about. Then the next day I arranged to meet a local academic and saw him that evening and we had a very productive meeting. He was such an archetypal Ghandian Hindu; quiet, peaceful, calm, very softly spoken. A social calamity befell me though, of immense proportions. He offered me a drink when I had been talking for a while and I had to take it, but it was in his bottle. Out here you do not touch your lips to someone else's bottle, but hold it above you mouth and pour the liquid in. This is soooo hard and I cannot do it (well, I hadn't tried yet, but just know I can't) but took the bottle out of some crazy anthropological impulse to 'fit in' (I didn't even want any water but to reject it would have been rude, don't ask me how I knew that). I poured for ages and then finally the water went into my mouth, made me choke and went all over my lap. Yes, yes, I kid you not. I choked for ages! Luckily I didn't feel to worried about it, he was a very nice man and anyway worse things happen. *Oh dear*, though. I am the most foolish PhD candidate ever I swear. Regardless, the interview was great and he has given me the name of a Very Important Lady I need to contact about a different potential field site. This has thrown the cat amongst the pigeons, because this field site would be better but is very remote, ugly, quiet... I have thought about it for a while and think I may do this site first, and then if it works out, stay there, and if not, I will go to the ther other one I thought about. I don't think DB will be very pelased, but then good things come out of the most unlikely places and we can't judge until we have been there for a bit. I think I will head down for a week to introduce myself to this lady aftet New Year, and see how it goes from there. The Academic is deeply spiritual, and I feel uncomfortable around all that because I lack any kind of spiritual impulses and feel worried they may try and convert me. I know, it is very childish.
Oh word I forgot there was more interview vileness with the Academic. Toward the end of the meeting he asked to eat please eat some snacks with him. Arg, like I hadn't had enough humiliation! So he got out his snacks, which turned out to be bombay mix - small crispy snacks of peas and teeny sticks of something. Impossible to describe! It is a mess to eat though and at parties at home I avoid it to be sociable. It sticks to your palm, doesn't go into your mouth properly, drops out of your mouth, crunches... I hate eating in stressful situations and in front of people I don't know, let alone attempting the bombay mix. And trying to talk and listen?! Crunching away so I can't hear, then talking with my mouth full. God that was awful. And the worst bit is that culturally here you can't refuse food, and you have to finish what you are given. So I was told I couldn't leave until it was all gone, and so kept ploughing through this huge pile of mix while we struggle to make small talk because I have been there for over an hour by now and, as already made clear, it is hard to work and eat bombay mix. Slowly, slowly the plate clears... But then he pours out some more for my delectation! MORE!! So I sit there eating more, making worse small talk and he is stifling a yawn and talking about deadlines... so everntually I make my excuses, gather my stuff and walk away really slowly so I don't burst into a run, fleeing his kindness. It was horrible! I hated it! But he was so nice! Ug politeness is so awful and stressful! I went out after that and had a stiff drink I tell you (free champagne cocktail at ladies' night... down the hatch!)
I will see him often so hopefully the unease will pass, and he has some great insights and thoughts about doing fieldwork and the work of humanitarianism and development. Plus a great contact or three. And is a good anchor for being here and having some intellectual guidance. That evening I was so knackered, I felt like I had completed some big assignment or something, having got my interviews done, contacts organised - oh! And I told work I was leaving at christmas because there was no Tsunami project here for me and I had to go. Phew! That was a weight off my mind too I tell you! I can't wait to not have to come here any more. I like it, but I feel like such an intruder and want to go home all the time.
I have terrible tummy ache today. Great, ill in time for the weekend. Bah! I did eat three whole Indian meals yesterday so was courting danger I suppose... This keeps happening; I eat hardly anything and lose weight but don't get ill, then think UG! Must get fatter! And get into the food, then feel ill. Bring on Goa! I am going to gorge on fry-ups and chips for the whole week, get some fat on my bonios!!
Well, am sure you lovely PhD peeps have more festive ways of procrastinating these days so wll stop my gabbling for now. Today is being spent looking up about how to translate and analyse and transcribe an interview - do I have to properly transcribe it?! With me in there and everything and with his pauses and stuff? Most of it will in inaudible anyway because he was so quiet. (yes, I got to use my dictaphone! It is now like a dangerous insect in my bag, which I daren't touch or move for fear of wiping the recording or - god forbid - having to listen to me having gobbed water all over his office.)
x J
Another difference is that I am still working full time and I notice that slowly but surely my friends and family at home are drifting out of the realms of communication - busy with parties and shopping and travelling and finishing work for the holidays... Ahhhh. I cannot wait to take a break. Roll on the 2 Jan! I can't wait to get out of TN for a while and stop thinking about work.
Speaking of work, I have been doing very well these past few days! I got another interview with a friend on the afternoon of my last post and learnt a lot about my planned next field site, which I felt very confident about. Then the next day I arranged to meet a local academic and saw him that evening and we had a very productive meeting. He was such an archetypal Ghandian Hindu; quiet, peaceful, calm, very softly spoken. A social calamity befell me though, of immense proportions. He offered me a drink when I had been talking for a while and I had to take it, but it was in his bottle. Out here you do not touch your lips to someone else's bottle, but hold it above you mouth and pour the liquid in. This is soooo hard and I cannot do it (well, I hadn't tried yet, but just know I can't) but took the bottle out of some crazy anthropological impulse to 'fit in' (I didn't even want any water but to reject it would have been rude, don't ask me how I knew that). I poured for ages and then finally the water went into my mouth, made me choke and went all over my lap. Yes, yes, I kid you not. I choked for ages! Luckily I didn't feel to worried about it, he was a very nice man and anyway worse things happen. *Oh dear*, though. I am the most foolish PhD candidate ever I swear. Regardless, the interview was great and he has given me the name of a Very Important Lady I need to contact about a different potential field site. This has thrown the cat amongst the pigeons, because this field site would be better but is very remote, ugly, quiet... I have thought about it for a while and think I may do this site first, and then if it works out, stay there, and if not, I will go to the ther other one I thought about. I don't think DB will be very pelased, but then good things come out of the most unlikely places and we can't judge until we have been there for a bit. I think I will head down for a week to introduce myself to this lady aftet New Year, and see how it goes from there. The Academic is deeply spiritual, and I feel uncomfortable around all that because I lack any kind of spiritual impulses and feel worried they may try and convert me. I know, it is very childish.
Oh word I forgot there was more interview vileness with the Academic. Toward the end of the meeting he asked to eat please eat some snacks with him. Arg, like I hadn't had enough humiliation! So he got out his snacks, which turned out to be bombay mix - small crispy snacks of peas and teeny sticks of something. Impossible to describe! It is a mess to eat though and at parties at home I avoid it to be sociable. It sticks to your palm, doesn't go into your mouth properly, drops out of your mouth, crunches... I hate eating in stressful situations and in front of people I don't know, let alone attempting the bombay mix. And trying to talk and listen?! Crunching away so I can't hear, then talking with my mouth full. God that was awful. And the worst bit is that culturally here you can't refuse food, and you have to finish what you are given. So I was told I couldn't leave until it was all gone, and so kept ploughing through this huge pile of mix while we struggle to make small talk because I have been there for over an hour by now and, as already made clear, it is hard to work and eat bombay mix. Slowly, slowly the plate clears... But then he pours out some more for my delectation! MORE!! So I sit there eating more, making worse small talk and he is stifling a yawn and talking about deadlines... so everntually I make my excuses, gather my stuff and walk away really slowly so I don't burst into a run, fleeing his kindness. It was horrible! I hated it! But he was so nice! Ug politeness is so awful and stressful! I went out after that and had a stiff drink I tell you (free champagne cocktail at ladies' night... down the hatch!)
I will see him often so hopefully the unease will pass, and he has some great insights and thoughts about doing fieldwork and the work of humanitarianism and development. Plus a great contact or three. And is a good anchor for being here and having some intellectual guidance. That evening I was so knackered, I felt like I had completed some big assignment or something, having got my interviews done, contacts organised - oh! And I told work I was leaving at christmas because there was no Tsunami project here for me and I had to go. Phew! That was a weight off my mind too I tell you! I can't wait to not have to come here any more. I like it, but I feel like such an intruder and want to go home all the time.
I have terrible tummy ache today. Great, ill in time for the weekend. Bah! I did eat three whole Indian meals yesterday so was courting danger I suppose... This keeps happening; I eat hardly anything and lose weight but don't get ill, then think UG! Must get fatter! And get into the food, then feel ill. Bring on Goa! I am going to gorge on fry-ups and chips for the whole week, get some fat on my bonios!!
Well, am sure you lovely PhD peeps have more festive ways of procrastinating these days so wll stop my gabbling for now. Today is being spent looking up about how to translate and analyse and transcribe an interview - do I have to properly transcribe it?! With me in there and everything and with his pauses and stuff? Most of it will in inaudible anyway because he was so quiet. (yes, I got to use my dictaphone! It is now like a dangerous insect in my bag, which I daren't touch or move for fear of wiping the recording or - god forbid - having to listen to me having gobbed water all over his office.)
x J
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
What a good day!
Today has been a great day! I got a rickshaw for a reasonable amount to work, and I got an interview this morning! I bit the bullet and went on the hunt for this person who was the key to my immediate future. I found out some info for my work, but not as much as I would like - she was pretty distracted and tired, and my questions weren't really doing it for her. I need to work on this, but being less nervous would help (I didn't act nervous though, but knew I was, and a bit panicky).
Anyway, she did tell me a lot about the aid org I am working with, and basically there is no real future for me here. Most of their work was wrapped up in the relief stage so there are no projects I can actively 'work on', or with. However, they do have a couple of programmes ongoing, and I am going to see these with them on xmas eve! and I have a contact of the guy who implemented them (yay!) who is an aussie who has been here for ten years (double hurray! - we speak the same language!). He is back in Jan so... anyway, the project is near my new Jan abode, a couple of hours south. That it is so far away will give me a chance to talk to them about the org and the tsunami in the car/bus on the way down I hope soooo... xmas should be a good day, feeling relaxed and on top of stuff.
I am super pleased about this! Now I just need to work out whether to leave the org this week, or next. I would stay until the end of next week, and have a neat break with xmas. But I need to speak to this academic guy asap. I need to be organising it now, before the lead gets cold and he thinks I am a rude arse/goes on leave. What to do?! I feel rude saying I am off at the end of this week. But I also need to go to the library and everything, while I am in Chennai and it is all here for me.
I wonder if I should just bite the bullet and say I am going. But that feels so abrupt and I know my manager will be confused.
Arg.
Generally though, the work is going well (at all!) and I just cannot wait for my holiday on 2 Jan. Being at work *all the time* is exhausting on the brain.
I am going to go out for a nice dinner tonight to celebrate my proactivity! Yaya!
Hmm...
Should I stay or should I go now?
The decision's bugging me...
If I stay there will be trouble!
If I go there may be double...
So come oooon and let me knooowowowowww
SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?
la la laaaaa.
x J
Anyway, she did tell me a lot about the aid org I am working with, and basically there is no real future for me here. Most of their work was wrapped up in the relief stage so there are no projects I can actively 'work on', or with. However, they do have a couple of programmes ongoing, and I am going to see these with them on xmas eve! and I have a contact of the guy who implemented them (yay!) who is an aussie who has been here for ten years (double hurray! - we speak the same language!). He is back in Jan so... anyway, the project is near my new Jan abode, a couple of hours south. That it is so far away will give me a chance to talk to them about the org and the tsunami in the car/bus on the way down I hope soooo... xmas should be a good day, feeling relaxed and on top of stuff.
I am super pleased about this! Now I just need to work out whether to leave the org this week, or next. I would stay until the end of next week, and have a neat break with xmas. But I need to speak to this academic guy asap. I need to be organising it now, before the lead gets cold and he thinks I am a rude arse/goes on leave. What to do?! I feel rude saying I am off at the end of this week. But I also need to go to the library and everything, while I am in Chennai and it is all here for me.
I wonder if I should just bite the bullet and say I am going. But that feels so abrupt and I know my manager will be confused.
Arg.
Generally though, the work is going well (at all!) and I just cannot wait for my holiday on 2 Jan. Being at work *all the time* is exhausting on the brain.
I am going to go out for a nice dinner tonight to celebrate my proactivity! Yaya!
Hmm...
Should I stay or should I go now?
The decision's bugging me...
If I stay there will be trouble!
If I go there may be double...
So come oooon and let me knooowowowowww
SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?
la la laaaaa.
x J
Fieldwork tips and tricks...
I am completely not an expert by any means, which makes me perfectly qualified to write the really dumb things that do and don't help when trying to glean information from people...
Firstly - if you are qual (don't know about quant but I constantly hear of lab experiments taking more time than expected) the research will *never* fit into the time you have allocated for it. I am a deadline freak and hate to miss one but with this there is absolutely no choice. Not doing it in the allocated time is not failure but a lesson in determining what can be done and when, and also flexibility. I am sure everything can be justfied - it is unlikely one would have been lying on the beach day-in-day-out (unless this is your research!!!) and, most of thetime, extensions or re-visits to the 'field' are inevitable. It is going to happen. I gave myself 5 and a half months and will defo need eight to nine especially as I have never even been to my research country before! It is incredibly hard not to be too harsh on yourself doing research and one is constantly worried that time is being 'wasted' doing the 'wrong thing' - although how to define 'wasted' and 'useful' or 'wrong' and 'right' in qual research is not always that simple...
- 'Right' and 'wrong' definitions... hmmm. This in itself is actually a useful understanding when approaching fieldwork. I spent ages (still do, don't get me wrong) thinking I am looking for 'this' therefore, if I find 'this', or do a 'good' interview, the work and time has been 'useful' and consequently I did something 'right'. But it is sooooooo much more grey than that. I have spent two months technically 'wasting' time - because i have found little info out that directly answers my research problem. However, I have found out mounds of info that indirectly leads me to new considerations or understandings, or helps me settle into local life, or which provide more info than perhaps an interview with the wrong person would. Which is fine - when you realise you have to factor in a lot of time for such settling in - or researching-the-research periods.
Secondly, and more practically:
Firstly - if you are qual (don't know about quant but I constantly hear of lab experiments taking more time than expected) the research will *never* fit into the time you have allocated for it. I am a deadline freak and hate to miss one but with this there is absolutely no choice. Not doing it in the allocated time is not failure but a lesson in determining what can be done and when, and also flexibility. I am sure everything can be justfied - it is unlikely one would have been lying on the beach day-in-day-out (unless this is your research!!!) and, most of thetime, extensions or re-visits to the 'field' are inevitable. It is going to happen. I gave myself 5 and a half months and will defo need eight to nine especially as I have never even been to my research country before! It is incredibly hard not to be too harsh on yourself doing research and one is constantly worried that time is being 'wasted' doing the 'wrong thing' - although how to define 'wasted' and 'useful' or 'wrong' and 'right' in qual research is not always that simple...
- 'Right' and 'wrong' definitions... hmmm. This in itself is actually a useful understanding when approaching fieldwork. I spent ages (still do, don't get me wrong) thinking I am looking for 'this' therefore, if I find 'this', or do a 'good' interview, the work and time has been 'useful' and consequently I did something 'right'. But it is sooooooo much more grey than that. I have spent two months technically 'wasting' time - because i have found little info out that directly answers my research problem. However, I have found out mounds of info that indirectly leads me to new considerations or understandings, or helps me settle into local life, or which provide more info than perhaps an interview with the wrong person would. Which is fine - when you realise you have to factor in a lot of time for such settling in - or researching-the-research periods.
Secondly, and more practically:
- Do smile at *everyone*. And I mean everyone. If in an office setting, smile at everyone, if in the street in an area you're doing an ethnography in, smile at everyone, if children are harrassing you for money, smile, smile smile; smile at waiters, at shop assistants, at librarians, at hotel staff; and, especially, smile at admin people. This may sound like obvious politeness, but when at home you may not realise just how much you switch off, and are 'normally' polite but not happy and smiley polite and friendly, or realise that you are in a bad mood. I am often in a bad mood and this has worked against me twice. Once I was really hungry and paranoid and a lady next to me at work kept offering me her food, which (due to me being a bit of a shy freak) makes me abnormally stressed and embarrassed. Don't ask me why, it is ridiculous. Anyway, one day I did not look at her during lunchtime so as to save her the worry of having to, yet again, give me her food, and she didn't talk to me for aaaages! I was so sad about this. Also, she turns out to be the CEO's mother and getting an interview with him has proved to be nigh-on impossible. Lesson learned. Other times are when I have been normally polite to people who actually turn out to be a goldmine (waiters are a strange one I am realising!) and being friends with hotel staff can be great for information, local contacts, even translating. I know this now. Being nice to everyone is exhausting though.
- Do have a lot of free time. I am in a bind because I am volunteering full-time - I thought that this placement would get me in to see peeps for my research. This did not happen and I was stuck there for a while, seeing out a suitable amount of my promised term. (Darned ethics and reputation!) Seeing people for interviews is very time consuming! You need time to find the interviewee(s), find their contact details, make contact, get hold of them (this takes an age), then organise a time when they are free. You need to be free to see them *whenever* and to travel wherever. Getting interviews is hard blinkin work! So if you aren't free to go to them... doh.
- Be aware that writing and performing interviews can, a lot of the time, be two totally different things. So it is a good idea to try and internalise your questions as much as possible so they come out naturally, rather than relying on a pad (unless you are lucky enough to be doing a structured interview that is) with questions, or even memory jotters on it. Also, the interview can often take on a life of its own - this can be good if the interviewee is responsive and chatty, not so good if all the questions are recieved flat and they give you an answer, but not a very informative, all-rounded one, or are distracted and busy. Obviously, good interviewers can weedle all sorts of information from these people. I can't. :0(
- Do love and respect Gatekeepers. From my memory these are presented in books at home as scary creatures whose power is very visible. They are 'Gatekeepers'! I didn't think I had any to deal with. And then I realised then everyone who isn't an informant, or an interviewee, is a possible gatekeeper (hence all the smiling). Gatekeepers are admin people who can get you appointments with busy CEOs, are the admin people who have an address book full of contacts, they are the waiter who can give you the name of the organisation down the road you would never have heard of otherwise, they are the librarian who really kindly lets you into the library when you aren't really allowed in... These people are gods, and should be treated as such. No bowing though, or leaving of food at their feet, is necessary. Haha.
- Do travel, travel, travel.
- Asking questions is not always easy, and something that sounded great on paper, can sound rude or silly out loud so have a wee practice.
- Getting out a dictaphone for the first time is surprisingly hard. I am still unsure when a friendly chat stops and the interview starts. I suppose this is a flaw with my 'technique' (I have no technique) but I am yet to whip out my dictaphone when we are having a nice, free flowing chat and I am gleaning all this fabulous information. I am also yet to read their 'confidentiality' rights before the interview, and not at the end... Sometimes it is just terribly inappropriate! I think though, as time goes on, you realise when is a dictaphone moment, and when just memory and notes will have to suffice...
- Doing field research is tiring. It never, ever stops. Even in the ATM booth the other day I was leafing through the knackered panflets for any kind of info about culture and general life. All. The. Time. Therefore, you need holidays - real ones, not just a change of scene asking the same questions. Be nice to yourself!
- Sometimes nothing happens. Nothing may happen for like, two whole weeks. You find out only general information, are confused and a bit downhearted. And terribly worried about going home knowing nothing, Then kazam! You find something, or have the best conversation, or finally, that person you have been trying to get hold of for interview emails/calls! Woot! And you are off again. Sometimes though 'nothing' can in itself be something, or encourage you to look in a different way or at something new you have neglected. Good stuff.
- Do always, always ask for the name of any one they can think of that you can contact at the end of an interview.
- Do carry a memory stick around for if someone wants to give you a document, but is only on their comp!
- Do try and remember faces. The amount of times I have met someone and the promptly wiped them from my mind (as I do at home) because I think I will never see them again, and then later had to go and see them... And who are they?! The fear of asking someone to speak to so-and-so, for it to turn out to be them, is just horrifying (I had it this morning. Thankfully she was pointed out to me anyway, and I went ah! Like I already knew).
- Don't always think that because you have yet to organise that interview, or chase up an interview request or go somewhere, that you are simply procrastinating. Sometimes, a better part of you knows that now isn't the time. Sometimes though, you are just procrastinating.
This web blog has some more practical advice on it, it is great:
http://www.mythicrhythm.com/2006/05/helpful-fieldwork-tips.html
This is all I can think of for now - feel free (in fact please, please do!) to write any other tips!! Lord knows I need them. I know these tips probably seem horribly basic to a lot of you super-researchers out there, but as a novice with only a few weeks of experience any help is help!!
ciao!
x J
Sunday, 14 December 2008
I see light!
What a magic weekend I have had!
I have been in such a fuddle about my work, not knowing where to turn next with the research, and also being so concious of wasting time, thinking and being paralysed by stress, when the clock is tick-tick-ticking away! I only have till april. I only have till april. And all the time, worrying about the next stage of the work.
But I have been thinking and thinking and writing and writing (found out don't have to write my field journal for other peeps to read! Phew!!!) and have worked myself out of my hole for now. I am planning to leave my vol position unless they give me work directly related to Tsunami projects. I have done a month, I can do no more there. I am going to get an interview though, this week (hopefuly tomorrow!) and contacts from chief gatekeeper, who was actually out to dins with me and a friend (and other friends woot!) on Thurs. But she is leaving the org! So I have to get the info out of her asap! So I will either work where I am but on relevant projects and talking to aid recipients, or I will leave to go interviewing other peeps and join a library etc etc. I have also decided to make my next field-site a proper ethnog case study. I just don't know for how long so emailed my Sup for some advice on how appropirate it will be when I am leaving in April (if no visa extension) and whether one case study would be cool over two or three. I dunno.
Have also been reading like crazy and found brilliant reports and newspaper articles on the corruption rife here and about aid and the Tsunami and about my case study land. WOOT!
I feel so much more settled.
I have also been writing interview questions tonight. They are *hard*!!! For some reason I had a nice idea that I would just need to write a couple out to guide me, and otherwise let the conversation steer itself, but there still needs to be a lot of discipline!! I have written them out so many times. I have about 5/6 and will have follow up q's to go with. I shall see how they work tomorrow - I am on a mission to find the lady whose name I have as a contact for the organisation's aid effort, so then I know where I am with the organisation as a whole. I can't wait to get out of my office! It is depressing!
Well, I better go. I have been bitten twice since I started this (grrrrr) and DB needs the wireless internet stick. I need to get back to my Tsunami corruption stories. Damn but why can't people just behave?!!!
So long!
x J
I have been in such a fuddle about my work, not knowing where to turn next with the research, and also being so concious of wasting time, thinking and being paralysed by stress, when the clock is tick-tick-ticking away! I only have till april. I only have till april. And all the time, worrying about the next stage of the work.
But I have been thinking and thinking and writing and writing (found out don't have to write my field journal for other peeps to read! Phew!!!) and have worked myself out of my hole for now. I am planning to leave my vol position unless they give me work directly related to Tsunami projects. I have done a month, I can do no more there. I am going to get an interview though, this week (hopefuly tomorrow!) and contacts from chief gatekeeper, who was actually out to dins with me and a friend (and other friends woot!) on Thurs. But she is leaving the org! So I have to get the info out of her asap! So I will either work where I am but on relevant projects and talking to aid recipients, or I will leave to go interviewing other peeps and join a library etc etc. I have also decided to make my next field-site a proper ethnog case study. I just don't know for how long so emailed my Sup for some advice on how appropirate it will be when I am leaving in April (if no visa extension) and whether one case study would be cool over two or three. I dunno.
Have also been reading like crazy and found brilliant reports and newspaper articles on the corruption rife here and about aid and the Tsunami and about my case study land. WOOT!
I feel so much more settled.
I have also been writing interview questions tonight. They are *hard*!!! For some reason I had a nice idea that I would just need to write a couple out to guide me, and otherwise let the conversation steer itself, but there still needs to be a lot of discipline!! I have written them out so many times. I have about 5/6 and will have follow up q's to go with. I shall see how they work tomorrow - I am on a mission to find the lady whose name I have as a contact for the organisation's aid effort, so then I know where I am with the organisation as a whole. I can't wait to get out of my office! It is depressing!
Well, I better go. I have been bitten twice since I started this (grrrrr) and DB needs the wireless internet stick. I need to get back to my Tsunami corruption stories. Damn but why can't people just behave?!!!
So long!
x J
Thursday, 11 December 2008
Writing up in Qual fieldwork
This is a superb article on writing down, and up, in fieldwork. It covers:
* writing and theorising
* audience
* Framing and opening
* Shape
* Tone and readability
* Voice and person
http://www.infed.org/research/write_up.htm
Writing when researching is such a personal experience. Reading around, I am particularly interested in the idea of writing *as* fieldwork. Malinowski has been often cited as the man who revolutionised ethnography by keeping detailed and personal fieldnotes. It is argued that in his writings he incorporated three elements: Fieldwork data, information about the research process, and theoretical assumptions. (see http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=138193 )
Writing is a form of interwoven personal artistry and fact and it is at the discretion of the author which dominates. Personally, I have to write for myself, in my voice, in order to feel that my thoughts are being successfully trasnferred to paper. This leads to rambling and all sorts! It works though, I often put down my journal having realised something/solved a riddle that I would not have without the writing process.
It is also useful to remember that writing down while 'in the field' is really hard - there are a lot of observations that you should probably make but are so much part of the everyday they are overlooked. Hopefully, when home, the contrast between then and now would make such oversights more apparent. (see http://research.edu.uea.ac.uk/events/researchstudentseminarannarobinsonpantethnographyandparticipantobservation)
x J
* writing and theorising
* audience
* Framing and opening
* Shape
* Tone and readability
* Voice and person
http://www.infed.org/research/write_up.htm
Writing when researching is such a personal experience. Reading around, I am particularly interested in the idea of writing *as* fieldwork. Malinowski has been often cited as the man who revolutionised ethnography by keeping detailed and personal fieldnotes. It is argued that in his writings he incorporated three elements: Fieldwork data, information about the research process, and theoretical assumptions. (see http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=138193 )
Writing is a form of interwoven personal artistry and fact and it is at the discretion of the author which dominates. Personally, I have to write for myself, in my voice, in order to feel that my thoughts are being successfully trasnferred to paper. This leads to rambling and all sorts! It works though, I often put down my journal having realised something/solved a riddle that I would not have without the writing process.
It is also useful to remember that writing down while 'in the field' is really hard - there are a lot of observations that you should probably make but are so much part of the everyday they are overlooked. Hopefully, when home, the contrast between then and now would make such oversights more apparent. (see http://research.edu.uea.ac.uk/events/researchstudentseminarannarobinsonpantethnographyandparticipantobservation)
x J
Writing in Fieldwork
I read a blog (www.phddiary-shr.com - pop this into google and her site comes up easy as pie) and in it she mentions fieldwork writing, and the form that this should take. Now, I am a rather impetuous researcher and admittedly not very mature - I haven't read much about 'doing' research (how I lament this lack of preparation - tho I was very busy focussing on other aprts of my imminent fieldwork?!!) and have been writing a journal every night, and relaying anecdotal info and analysing. But as I have been writing it has occured to me that maybe I am meant to hand in this journal as data. I am not sure if it is something I *refer* to in the writing up process, or whether it is actually 'data' in its own right... I am now thinking it may be the latter. In which case I shouldn't necessarily write about when DB is being annoying, or when I am ill... !! The problem for me is though, that the process of thinking and writing are often one-in-the-same. I can't write 'here' about this part of my day, and 'there' about another. They all intermingle. Which theoretically I am sure is fine, I can say it is all pomo bla bla - but personally, I don't much care for my examiners reading about my personal day-today issues and insecurities! I definitely need to a) re-write or b) sanitise my writings in the future and keep it strictly work.
The problem with that is, that my writing is pretty free flowing - I can be whinging one minute, then something will pop into my head about work that is really good and insightful (yes, yes I am brilliant, thank-you). Hmmph!
Anyway on my searches about how to be a grown-up ethnographic field writer I found this, and it is super:
http://www.infed.org/research/write_up.htm
Thank you phddiary-shar for drawing this (albeit unintentionally) to my attention!!
x J
PS - I had an email from someone wanting to meet with me to talk about my woik. HURRAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let the formal work commence.
The problem with that is, that my writing is pretty free flowing - I can be whinging one minute, then something will pop into my head about work that is really good and insightful (yes, yes I am brilliant, thank-you). Hmmph!
Anyway on my searches about how to be a grown-up ethnographic field writer I found this, and it is super:
http://www.infed.org/research/write_up.htm
Thank you phddiary-shar for drawing this (albeit unintentionally) to my attention!!
x J
PS - I had an email from someone wanting to meet with me to talk about my woik. HURRAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let the formal work commence.
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
Wednesday!
I am at work - it is super quiet today! I think I have missed something - why is no one here? oh well, I have my story about the rain cycle to edit so will be fine for a bit... I have been very lucky though and was just given a pastry (I said no, I am always too shy to take food from strangers but the Indian people I have met so far do not recognise 'no' when they are giving you something - it is so lovely!) and it was *gorgeous*. I have to know what it is so I can eat it every day.
I had a very enlightening day yesterday (on my holiday day!). I...
* realised that technically, I have only been on active research duty for three weeks. This makes me feel a lot better about my lack of formal interviews.
* Read through some notes I brought from England, and read about how fieldwork takes time, interviews are hard to get and you need persistence and patience. I am showing little patience (but am happy to show more!) and this week is the beginning of my persistence (follow-up phonecalls to my emails last week). It was nice to find out that getting people - particularly in organisations - to give interviews etc is not often simple or easy. So I am doing just fine.
* I realised that in the few weeks I have been on active duty I have actually learnt a lot, am collecting anecdotal evidence and also discursive evidence (from newspapers) and taking pictures - to build up an image of life here and issues etc.
* That I shall act as if I am not going to extend my visa and go to my fieldwork sites as planned. then at the end of March if I am in need of more time, shall gamble and go to Sr Lanka and hopefully, get an extension. If I can't that shall have to be a limitation of the research is all. Or I will have to come back for a couple of months next year.
So those were my major insights and, again, I felt better for realising them. I am not a failure after all but quite normal. :0)
I am off teaching in an hour with the crazy kids. Then I shall come back to the office for a bit, then hopefully sneak off home early. I have some reports to look up too, and download while I have the internet. I know this all loks terribly unethical, like I am not working, but actually I am being a bit prolific in my story writing so have plenty of time to spare - and I offer myself around for other things but they don't need me so... I do some uni work.
I really wish I could read some uni books. I really want to read more around my topic while I have spare reading time. Unfortunately for me, I have to make do with Graham Greene's Brighton Rock. I used to try and read Graham Greene and hated his writing but am now hooked. Hurray! Problem is, I shan't be able to give them away so will have to lug them around India till I leave. Bums.
Later y'all!
x J
I had a very enlightening day yesterday (on my holiday day!). I...
* realised that technically, I have only been on active research duty for three weeks. This makes me feel a lot better about my lack of formal interviews.
* Read through some notes I brought from England, and read about how fieldwork takes time, interviews are hard to get and you need persistence and patience. I am showing little patience (but am happy to show more!) and this week is the beginning of my persistence (follow-up phonecalls to my emails last week). It was nice to find out that getting people - particularly in organisations - to give interviews etc is not often simple or easy. So I am doing just fine.
* I realised that in the few weeks I have been on active duty I have actually learnt a lot, am collecting anecdotal evidence and also discursive evidence (from newspapers) and taking pictures - to build up an image of life here and issues etc.
* That I shall act as if I am not going to extend my visa and go to my fieldwork sites as planned. then at the end of March if I am in need of more time, shall gamble and go to Sr Lanka and hopefully, get an extension. If I can't that shall have to be a limitation of the research is all. Or I will have to come back for a couple of months next year.
So those were my major insights and, again, I felt better for realising them. I am not a failure after all but quite normal. :0)
I am off teaching in an hour with the crazy kids. Then I shall come back to the office for a bit, then hopefully sneak off home early. I have some reports to look up too, and download while I have the internet. I know this all loks terribly unethical, like I am not working, but actually I am being a bit prolific in my story writing so have plenty of time to spare - and I offer myself around for other things but they don't need me so... I do some uni work.
I really wish I could read some uni books. I really want to read more around my topic while I have spare reading time. Unfortunately for me, I have to make do with Graham Greene's Brighton Rock. I used to try and read Graham Greene and hated his writing but am now hooked. Hurray! Problem is, I shan't be able to give them away so will have to lug them around India till I leave. Bums.
Later y'all!
x J
Monday, 8 December 2008
Thinking
Today you find me a much *much* happier person! I spent the weekend thinking, thinking, and have come up with some solutions! I actually just sat, and thought. For hours.
I was having such a problem with how to make the best of my time here, and horrified by the thought that I will go home knowing nothing more. I am a terrible networker - I can't stand ringing people, I can't stand asking people for favours, I hate interrupting people and definitely cannot 'bother' people. I am very restrained and polite, and a bit shy. So, I think it is evident that networking - a skill which requires the phone more often than not, a certain amount of confidence and social bravado and persistence - is not my bag. And I feel really bad about this all the time, really guilty and inadequate. However...
(Hang on...)
Ah. Am back - just went to get myself a we thimble of chai to help along my musings.
Right yes, however, I am good at approaching people if I have made acceptable overtures and am expected in some way. What I don't know what to do is approach people who have ignored me. This has been bugging me - I know that these big orgs that I have emailed (twice now) will ignore this email again. This could be for any reason, and I have to remember this, and not just assume they all hate me. It could be because their email is down, or their fingers have all been broken, and as much as they would like to, they just can't type or dial my number! Oh dear. I should halt my paranoid suspicions of ill-will toward me. So, with this in mind, I shall ring the orgs I emailed last week, next week. I shall see what happens. Ug. Generally though, I have realised that networking with these orgs is not the be-all and end-all of my work. In fact, I will manage quite well without them! This has made me feel so much more relaxed, and turned my networking attempts into something proactive, rather than something that is obviously failing.
Also, I have worked out that one of my key research sites is much more accessible than I thought. One of the main reasons I wanted to contact Big Org peeps in Chennai is because, admittedly, I lost focus and thought they were my prime target interviewees - they aren't - and also to get a contact from them of someone on a field site further south, As you go south, in my imagination, it all becomes so much more barren and people don't speak english and there are few reasons to be there if you were not born there. And so I would stick out like a sore thumb and could never approach villagers randomly like some bumbling colonialite anthropologist from the 50's... But it turns out, by chance, I read in a wee paragraph that there are still plenty of signs pointing to rehab projects and inviting visitors! WOOT! Also, there are places to stay in and around so that is *fab* and all of a sudden that stage of the research is not so fearsome. Networking in person I can do. When I have to.
I have also worked out how best to spend my months here. My main worry is that this month in Chennai may lack fruit but I am doing my best to make sure that doesn't happen. I will approach this org I am volunteering with next week (after been here a month), to ask if they are going to use me for any Tsunami projects/get interviewees/meet old project peeps. So that will be big. And maybe they can introduce me/give me a name for someone at another org involved in the Tsunami, in chennai. See, it may yet work itself out. What I have also thought is this - why can I not get to see the big orgs? Why is it hard for me to talk to anyone at this vol place? This is, in itself, research. Because, these orgs mimic the INGOs I am critiquing from home - they are built on strict hierarchy, with ceilings - that mean if you are under a ceiling you shall not be able to see - let alone access - the bigwigs. So even though i am volunteering, I will have to get on then phone to talk to anyone. Plus, here no one talks to me! I am so ignored! They don't even say hello. :0( I smile all the time, but sadly have a desk facing the wall so am smiling at my laptop. Booo. I digress - it is also interesting why the orgs do not seem to really talk amongst each other. Again, this arguably mimics the West where a lot of big orgs work in cooperation but also in institutional competition with each other. Self preservation is King, which can compromise true humanitarian acitivity. So one could say - this is very layman atm I know - please don't email me with well thought-out intellectual critiques!!
So, even an apparent 'dead-end' can be an answer. This is the multi-layered reality of research. I am sure that in the research site I am off to next, where the orgs are teeny tiny and live 'on-site', there will be a different vibe. Or will there? This is all part of the work - what is the nature of contemporary 'humanitarianism'?
I have also decided that unless I end up doing vol work that is directly related to my research here I will leave when I go to Goa on the 2nd. iI will be so sad to not teach any more - I think this is the last week of school before holidays too. But I can't sit here through all of Jan to be polite, when they explicitly said that I could work with their Tsunami projects and as it turns out, I am not. No, we will head to research site number two (am aiming to get a variety to get a general overview of the response) after Goa and stay there until mid Feb. I will get my Ma to come out around the 9 Feb (love her, she is dying to come out and see me and although I have no time to spare, I just cannot say no. I think she is super-keen to see me before my 30th. ahhh) and stay in a posh resort by the beach (while I do work for a few days), and then we will go to a hill station and have some happy chill time. And then, we will go to site number three and four (same region, different towns) for another month until my beeday! After my beeday we will go back to chennai I expect and I can do last minute interviews for the last week, and tie up loose ends. Then home!
I think I shall go back in April. I am sure I can complete the work by then, if it goes horribly wrong then I can always fly out again. Going to Sri Lanka will take too long and they are in a terrible fracas with India. Are threatening bombs in colombo too. Not good. Nepal is no good because there are *no* flights in feb or march - dunno why. Thailand is way, way too expensive, and full of unrest in Bangkok. So is pretty much a no go! But I have worked out my three months of work in my different sites, and will work hard when there so should be ok. Any piece of work will take as long as you have to do it. If I have three months it will take three months, if I have 9 months, it will take nine months. Plus, I have to do interviews at home too before the research side is complete so better get on with that!
These ruminations and conclusions are the fruit of my very lazy, otherwise unproductive, weekend. But I am so much more relaxed about it all.
My office is busy busy this morning! I am wearing my jeans this am, I hope this wasn't the most awful mistake ever but it was quite cool when I got up... I love my jeans!
Better write a story about the cycle of rain...
Byzle!
x J
I was having such a problem with how to make the best of my time here, and horrified by the thought that I will go home knowing nothing more. I am a terrible networker - I can't stand ringing people, I can't stand asking people for favours, I hate interrupting people and definitely cannot 'bother' people. I am very restrained and polite, and a bit shy. So, I think it is evident that networking - a skill which requires the phone more often than not, a certain amount of confidence and social bravado and persistence - is not my bag. And I feel really bad about this all the time, really guilty and inadequate. However...
(Hang on...)
Ah. Am back - just went to get myself a we thimble of chai to help along my musings.
Right yes, however, I am good at approaching people if I have made acceptable overtures and am expected in some way. What I don't know what to do is approach people who have ignored me. This has been bugging me - I know that these big orgs that I have emailed (twice now) will ignore this email again. This could be for any reason, and I have to remember this, and not just assume they all hate me. It could be because their email is down, or their fingers have all been broken, and as much as they would like to, they just can't type or dial my number! Oh dear. I should halt my paranoid suspicions of ill-will toward me. So, with this in mind, I shall ring the orgs I emailed last week, next week. I shall see what happens. Ug. Generally though, I have realised that networking with these orgs is not the be-all and end-all of my work. In fact, I will manage quite well without them! This has made me feel so much more relaxed, and turned my networking attempts into something proactive, rather than something that is obviously failing.
Also, I have worked out that one of my key research sites is much more accessible than I thought. One of the main reasons I wanted to contact Big Org peeps in Chennai is because, admittedly, I lost focus and thought they were my prime target interviewees - they aren't - and also to get a contact from them of someone on a field site further south, As you go south, in my imagination, it all becomes so much more barren and people don't speak english and there are few reasons to be there if you were not born there. And so I would stick out like a sore thumb and could never approach villagers randomly like some bumbling colonialite anthropologist from the 50's... But it turns out, by chance, I read in a wee paragraph that there are still plenty of signs pointing to rehab projects and inviting visitors! WOOT! Also, there are places to stay in and around so that is *fab* and all of a sudden that stage of the research is not so fearsome. Networking in person I can do. When I have to.
I have also worked out how best to spend my months here. My main worry is that this month in Chennai may lack fruit but I am doing my best to make sure that doesn't happen. I will approach this org I am volunteering with next week (after been here a month), to ask if they are going to use me for any Tsunami projects/get interviewees/meet old project peeps. So that will be big. And maybe they can introduce me/give me a name for someone at another org involved in the Tsunami, in chennai. See, it may yet work itself out. What I have also thought is this - why can I not get to see the big orgs? Why is it hard for me to talk to anyone at this vol place? This is, in itself, research. Because, these orgs mimic the INGOs I am critiquing from home - they are built on strict hierarchy, with ceilings - that mean if you are under a ceiling you shall not be able to see - let alone access - the bigwigs. So even though i am volunteering, I will have to get on then phone to talk to anyone. Plus, here no one talks to me! I am so ignored! They don't even say hello. :0( I smile all the time, but sadly have a desk facing the wall so am smiling at my laptop. Booo. I digress - it is also interesting why the orgs do not seem to really talk amongst each other. Again, this arguably mimics the West where a lot of big orgs work in cooperation but also in institutional competition with each other. Self preservation is King, which can compromise true humanitarian acitivity. So one could say - this is very layman atm I know - please don't email me with well thought-out intellectual critiques!!
So, even an apparent 'dead-end' can be an answer. This is the multi-layered reality of research. I am sure that in the research site I am off to next, where the orgs are teeny tiny and live 'on-site', there will be a different vibe. Or will there? This is all part of the work - what is the nature of contemporary 'humanitarianism'?
I have also decided that unless I end up doing vol work that is directly related to my research here I will leave when I go to Goa on the 2nd. iI will be so sad to not teach any more - I think this is the last week of school before holidays too. But I can't sit here through all of Jan to be polite, when they explicitly said that I could work with their Tsunami projects and as it turns out, I am not. No, we will head to research site number two (am aiming to get a variety to get a general overview of the response) after Goa and stay there until mid Feb. I will get my Ma to come out around the 9 Feb (love her, she is dying to come out and see me and although I have no time to spare, I just cannot say no. I think she is super-keen to see me before my 30th. ahhh) and stay in a posh resort by the beach (while I do work for a few days), and then we will go to a hill station and have some happy chill time. And then, we will go to site number three and four (same region, different towns) for another month until my beeday! After my beeday we will go back to chennai I expect and I can do last minute interviews for the last week, and tie up loose ends. Then home!
I think I shall go back in April. I am sure I can complete the work by then, if it goes horribly wrong then I can always fly out again. Going to Sri Lanka will take too long and they are in a terrible fracas with India. Are threatening bombs in colombo too. Not good. Nepal is no good because there are *no* flights in feb or march - dunno why. Thailand is way, way too expensive, and full of unrest in Bangkok. So is pretty much a no go! But I have worked out my three months of work in my different sites, and will work hard when there so should be ok. Any piece of work will take as long as you have to do it. If I have three months it will take three months, if I have 9 months, it will take nine months. Plus, I have to do interviews at home too before the research side is complete so better get on with that!
These ruminations and conclusions are the fruit of my very lazy, otherwise unproductive, weekend. But I am so much more relaxed about it all.
My office is busy busy this morning! I am wearing my jeans this am, I hope this wasn't the most awful mistake ever but it was quite cool when I got up... I love my jeans!
Better write a story about the cycle of rain...
Byzle!
x J
Friday, 5 December 2008
Friday innit
It's Friday! I have a weekend of fun in front of me - we are heading south to a traveller-area for some pool and sunshine and a bit of beer and some chips. Hurray!
I emailed a couple of contacts today. I think my contact emailing has left something to be desired so far - I think I have been all rather long winded and indirect. These emails I was more direct and to the point of my purpose here. I dunno, emailing prob isn't that good but I like it to cushion the suprise when I ring. I have been anxious because another week has gone by and I have done no formal work. I wonder if this is becsaue I am now ready to do formal work, and have woken up. So far I have been busy watching and learning and settling into Indian life, plus my new 'job' and language and getting anecdotal info. (Informal work - geddit?!). Now, I feel settled and it's ready to push on.
Actually, the best thing that I have done is start helping to teach the young 'uns down the road. I love it. I really, really love it. I have gone every day (I don't need to ever go, it's really nothing to do with me but I speak english so they thought I may want to go along) and am sad I can't go on Monday. I will be there on Tuesday. I get such a buzz from getting them to behave and listen to me (power trip!!) and when their little faces light up because I tell them how well they have behaved, or when we go through their work and talk about it (I talk, they look confused). I love being so happyn when they say 'Good afternoon' or have learnt a new word! I just love it. They are 8-10 and some are really naughty, some are fantastic, some are super-shy. I am winging it on beginners luck and my novelty value I know, but so far we are all getting along just fine. Am now wondering how many IR doctorate positions there are in primary school teaching... Hehe. Also, I like the hard kids the best. To walk into a nice quiet classroom and very well behaved children wouldn;t quite do it for me, I need them to be rough, loud, naughty and energetic. And then when you have aquiet classroom it is *amazing*.
I think I am probably just finding an outlet to hone my parental skills! Broody get that I am. I will learnt to teach swimming and get my teaching fix that way I think.
I am at work and being naughty on the tinternet. We haven't had internet for aaaages because of the rains, so am glad to see it again and not in a cramped internet office!) I have no creative juice today. I expended it all on Weds - I wrote two stories that day! I hope to go home at four.
Am going to chill and think for the weekend. Despite the bomb threats in Colombo and bus bombs etc I am going to go to Sri lanka and try to get a new visa anyway.
better go and pretend to be really creative (how to write a story when you have no plot?! And I am very hungry. Not good.)
x J
I emailed a couple of contacts today. I think my contact emailing has left something to be desired so far - I think I have been all rather long winded and indirect. These emails I was more direct and to the point of my purpose here. I dunno, emailing prob isn't that good but I like it to cushion the suprise when I ring. I have been anxious because another week has gone by and I have done no formal work. I wonder if this is becsaue I am now ready to do formal work, and have woken up. So far I have been busy watching and learning and settling into Indian life, plus my new 'job' and language and getting anecdotal info. (Informal work - geddit?!). Now, I feel settled and it's ready to push on.
Actually, the best thing that I have done is start helping to teach the young 'uns down the road. I love it. I really, really love it. I have gone every day (I don't need to ever go, it's really nothing to do with me but I speak english so they thought I may want to go along) and am sad I can't go on Monday. I will be there on Tuesday. I get such a buzz from getting them to behave and listen to me (power trip!!) and when their little faces light up because I tell them how well they have behaved, or when we go through their work and talk about it (I talk, they look confused). I love being so happyn when they say 'Good afternoon' or have learnt a new word! I just love it. They are 8-10 and some are really naughty, some are fantastic, some are super-shy. I am winging it on beginners luck and my novelty value I know, but so far we are all getting along just fine. Am now wondering how many IR doctorate positions there are in primary school teaching... Hehe. Also, I like the hard kids the best. To walk into a nice quiet classroom and very well behaved children wouldn;t quite do it for me, I need them to be rough, loud, naughty and energetic. And then when you have aquiet classroom it is *amazing*.
I think I am probably just finding an outlet to hone my parental skills! Broody get that I am. I will learnt to teach swimming and get my teaching fix that way I think.
I am at work and being naughty on the tinternet. We haven't had internet for aaaages because of the rains, so am glad to see it again and not in a cramped internet office!) I have no creative juice today. I expended it all on Weds - I wrote two stories that day! I hope to go home at four.
Am going to chill and think for the weekend. Despite the bomb threats in Colombo and bus bombs etc I am going to go to Sri lanka and try to get a new visa anyway.
better go and pretend to be really creative (how to write a story when you have no plot?! And I am very hungry. Not good.)
x J
Tuesday, 2 December 2008
A room with a view
No I am not going to postulate on E.M forsters classic, but simply show off about how I now have a room, with a view. Hurray! We have been moved from our pokey, dark den with it's only window facing the window of the gym next door... which blasted the same ten songs again and again from 6.30 to 9.30 am... to a corner room, with a window! it is perfect and at last, we are starting to feel settled.
And the sun has come out! The rains are nearly at an end! Thank goodness. DB and I have been frequenting 5* hotels in a bid to find a beer and some non curry tucker... I have been wandering round in circles wondering about my research... Usual, usual...
Work is going ok. I should have gone in today but I didn't because I just can't think of another story and needed a day off. No one talks to me there either so it is as if I am invisible anyway. I don't mind as I am quite quiet anyway, but it is a bit lonely (violins please)... a day off has refreshed me though! I have also been feeling a little confused about my work - I am running out of time rapidly - I barely feel like I have been here two seconds and I have to start researching, but I just don't feel ready. I don't mean as in a cowardly or can't be bothered way - just in a 'it's just too early' kind of way. I feel like I would go headfirst into interviews with little time to look around me, and this will show up as ignorance. I just am not ready. I want to get another volunteer place/knock on some doors but not be doing the hardcore research part yet... I think the fact that I perceive it as the 'hardcore' part is telling in itself - when I am ready it will just be the next stage and spmething that I am prepared for, like this settling-in stage. In an ideal world I would wait until feb to leave the big city and start talking and working more directly in smaller areas directly affected by the Tsunami. By then I would have been here networking, thinking, reading and working/volunteering for 6/7 more weeks and would know so much to be able to go south. Plus, my Tamil will be better (it is coming along!! I have even got myself an indian accent doncha know!!! I just *wish* I could do the head wiggle - it is so profound! It has so many meanings and all of them really nice and warm). SO I think that I will think in my head that I am probably staying until June (or will go home and come back again maybe if no visa in Sri lanka - not likely though) and then I can chill out and not be trying to do three things at once (learn my way around TN, culturally as well as physically; volunteer; do research) and none with any real commitment. The volunteering at the mo is not a waste of time, if I have the time for it. If I have to leave chennai in Jan then staying where I am is a waste compared to what else I could be doing (knocking on doors - trying to find shorcuts to info). Where I am, I am sure that if I actually get hold of the 'english team' who also do teaching, I will be more likely to make friends (they speak really good English and are more my age and friendly) and and learn something about the aid-effort - or at least who I can talk to. I have other agencies to contact too, which I am starting this week but I don't know when they will respond - december is the holiday season here (whole month). These actions will get the ball rolling though.
All I want for now is to get the ball going - although what this ball is and how it will roll I have no clue! Doing this research is actually really good for control freakery - I have so little control, but am also aware that slowly but surely info crops up - and in the most unlikely of places. And so you have to go with the flow. I think my primary job is to ensure that there is a flow to keep going and that it doesn't turn into a trickle (or dry-out altogether), and to take advantage of info and leads as they turn up. Other than that, I watch, I wait, I learn, I try to be in the right place at the right time and I ask questions. I can't possibly work out how I will get the info I need to head south and be confident of where I am going and why and who I may know there (contacts-wise) but as I read and watch and learn and ask questions, these things come up from people. I follow them up and roll along with mah wee ball. That for me is the nature of research. Obviously this is all very romantic, in reality I spend a lot of time looking for the ball and wondering if I am following the flow or just being lazy and watching the discovery channel too much.
I suppose you have a goal and just trot along its path until you feel you have achieved it. At the mo though I feel quite content. If I can stay until June. Else I am in trouble.
x J
And the sun has come out! The rains are nearly at an end! Thank goodness. DB and I have been frequenting 5* hotels in a bid to find a beer and some non curry tucker... I have been wandering round in circles wondering about my research... Usual, usual...
Work is going ok. I should have gone in today but I didn't because I just can't think of another story and needed a day off. No one talks to me there either so it is as if I am invisible anyway. I don't mind as I am quite quiet anyway, but it is a bit lonely (violins please)... a day off has refreshed me though! I have also been feeling a little confused about my work - I am running out of time rapidly - I barely feel like I have been here two seconds and I have to start researching, but I just don't feel ready. I don't mean as in a cowardly or can't be bothered way - just in a 'it's just too early' kind of way. I feel like I would go headfirst into interviews with little time to look around me, and this will show up as ignorance. I just am not ready. I want to get another volunteer place/knock on some doors but not be doing the hardcore research part yet... I think the fact that I perceive it as the 'hardcore' part is telling in itself - when I am ready it will just be the next stage and spmething that I am prepared for, like this settling-in stage. In an ideal world I would wait until feb to leave the big city and start talking and working more directly in smaller areas directly affected by the Tsunami. By then I would have been here networking, thinking, reading and working/volunteering for 6/7 more weeks and would know so much to be able to go south. Plus, my Tamil will be better (it is coming along!! I have even got myself an indian accent doncha know!!! I just *wish* I could do the head wiggle - it is so profound! It has so many meanings and all of them really nice and warm). SO I think that I will think in my head that I am probably staying until June (or will go home and come back again maybe if no visa in Sri lanka - not likely though) and then I can chill out and not be trying to do three things at once (learn my way around TN, culturally as well as physically; volunteer; do research) and none with any real commitment. The volunteering at the mo is not a waste of time, if I have the time for it. If I have to leave chennai in Jan then staying where I am is a waste compared to what else I could be doing (knocking on doors - trying to find shorcuts to info). Where I am, I am sure that if I actually get hold of the 'english team' who also do teaching, I will be more likely to make friends (they speak really good English and are more my age and friendly) and and learn something about the aid-effort - or at least who I can talk to. I have other agencies to contact too, which I am starting this week but I don't know when they will respond - december is the holiday season here (whole month). These actions will get the ball rolling though.
All I want for now is to get the ball going - although what this ball is and how it will roll I have no clue! Doing this research is actually really good for control freakery - I have so little control, but am also aware that slowly but surely info crops up - and in the most unlikely of places. And so you have to go with the flow. I think my primary job is to ensure that there is a flow to keep going and that it doesn't turn into a trickle (or dry-out altogether), and to take advantage of info and leads as they turn up. Other than that, I watch, I wait, I learn, I try to be in the right place at the right time and I ask questions. I can't possibly work out how I will get the info I need to head south and be confident of where I am going and why and who I may know there (contacts-wise) but as I read and watch and learn and ask questions, these things come up from people. I follow them up and roll along with mah wee ball. That for me is the nature of research. Obviously this is all very romantic, in reality I spend a lot of time looking for the ball and wondering if I am following the flow or just being lazy and watching the discovery channel too much.
I suppose you have a goal and just trot along its path until you feel you have achieved it. At the mo though I feel quite content. If I can stay until June. Else I am in trouble.
x J
Friday, 28 November 2008
Friday!! It's the weekend!
So today marks the end of my first week of work in India, and my first week of proper work since... hmmm... Dec 07. Hehe. Today thought I needed only go in for an hour and a half... though I wrote a story about lions! I was sent home in case the rain blocked us in... I was also told not to worry about coming in while the rains are as they are - hurray! There was no point today really either as the internet was down (because of the rain - the power was out in a lot of places too) so couldn't look up any of my animal fact to write about them.
I have thought more, and realised that with the rains, any kind of travel or move would be most unpleasant and also, pretty dangerous. I ahve also realsied that getting accommodation anywhere else in December is going to be pointless - it is high season in Indian terms, as families move around to be close to each other and there are lots of festivals. So I shall have to stay put anyway, regardles of my intentions to go down the coast and do interviews etc. Further down the coast has actually been evacuated so that would be no god at all! I would be the only person there! Silly colonial. This realisation has made me much more relaxed and stopped all worrying thoughts about going elsewhere immediately. I shall stay where we are for December, then when I get back from Goa on the 12th I shall think about shipping south for a bit.
In the meantime, I have some train tickets to try and buy tomorrow... The rains are so annoying because they make staying in really quite imperitive. No sightseeing can be done really. I suppose I should read some reports!! I have a *lot* of reports to get though. Hmmm....
x J
I have thought more, and realised that with the rains, any kind of travel or move would be most unpleasant and also, pretty dangerous. I ahve also realsied that getting accommodation anywhere else in December is going to be pointless - it is high season in Indian terms, as families move around to be close to each other and there are lots of festivals. So I shall have to stay put anyway, regardles of my intentions to go down the coast and do interviews etc. Further down the coast has actually been evacuated so that would be no god at all! I would be the only person there! Silly colonial. This realisation has made me much more relaxed and stopped all worrying thoughts about going elsewhere immediately. I shall stay where we are for December, then when I get back from Goa on the 12th I shall think about shipping south for a bit.
In the meantime, I have some train tickets to try and buy tomorrow... The rains are so annoying because they make staying in really quite imperitive. No sightseeing can be done really. I suppose I should read some reports!! I have a *lot* of reports to get though. Hmmm....
x J
Thursday, 27 November 2008
Woiking
Hallooo
I am at work, and at waiting for my umbrella to come back... The rainy season is well and truly upon us which means flooded roads, soaking feet, soaking clothes, smelly drains and grey, grey skies. But it's cool. It's nuts the way it just rains alllll the time. Allllllllll the time. Proper rain. English rain seems so pithy and cold in comparison to this hot, thick, drenching rain. And it's so dark! It is actually pretty depressing and I love the rain normally. It is very hard to get around because you get soaked. I arrived at work this morning with my trousers drenched (I had to wring out the bottoms!) up to my thighs and my shoulders soaked. I am just dry (5 hours later) and have to go out again! Actually, I would have left but someone ran off with my umbrella.
Work is cool! I am enjoying writing the kiddies materials but it is funny how exhausting it is! I have written two 700 wd stories today and just can't muster up any imagination for another. But today I talked a bit more to my neighbour, and have the internet on my laptop so also managed to be on facebook and look up flights from Goa. Hurrah! that's my kind of working.
I didn't come in yesterday. Yesterday was my (our - DB was v poorly) grumpiest day here and the first where I actually wished to be at home. We had moved accommodation to this place called Broadlands in Chennai, which is a sprawling old colonial-style mansion place just up the road from where we were staying. It was more traveller-y so we hoped to meet people, and the rooms were amazing - really high ceilings, open bathrooms with floor to ceiling windows, many windows in the bedroom and a little table and two chairs to sit at. It seemed perfect compared to our relatively dark and damp little room over the way. So we moved in lock, stock etc on Tues morn before work, all excited because they had said that we could have the room until after Jan. Which was a lie, and then they said we would have to move rooms (someone else had booked 'ours') and then that room was booked too! And that night we had had the most awful storm, which should have been very romantic in that old lodge with the giant windows and views of field, but instead we were bitten to death and didn't sleep until the sun rose!! To *death* - I have bites on my eyebrow, under my eye and on my lip - just to name my face. So, irritated and tired we moved back to our old place yesterday but have a better room! It has no gaping hole where the air con is meant to be and so is much, much quieter (a massive bugbear was waking at 6am to trance bollywood music played through a megaphone. I am NOT exaggerating!!). SO we are happier today. DB was terribly poorly yesterday when we moved too, so at least we had concrete walls around us and a nice bathroom and a nice bed and no bugs!! Hurray! And a tele back (sporadic reception) and a nice man who gets us cups of kaapi. So we will stay there until after new year - everywhere else we have tried is booked, and anyway, having had the broadlands horror we are so, so grateful, however dark it may be.
I heard from my sup today! I emailed him yesterday (feeling very despondant and rubbish at my researching skills) about my progress (lack of) this past month and he sent me such a lovely reply and am completely reassured. I didn't whine at him or seek reassurance (never do that) but just confessed about the kiddie book thing etc and my plans and what I have been up to and he said that research in actuality never turns out as imagined anyway and just gave me some tips. I was wondering what to do with the info that I get from general convos, with waiters etc - talk a lot to waiters actually - and he said they can count as a form of interview in the biblio and I can use it as anecdotal evidence. Which is ace because I get a lot of info this way, about corruption and how people feel about the aid etc - without it being a formal interview with the call for the 'confidentiality' speech etc. This kind of info also provides a lot of context to the research and would explian my thoughts and motives as I learn more (I hope I learn more).
My word the rain is coming down. It really isn't going to stop. Am going to see if my umbrella is back yet. I need a full body coat really and not these oversized, super-long trousers. It is rubbish as well, because I am going to have to go and have a fight with a rickshaw driver. Bargaining is just not my scene - why can't the just be fair in the first place?! They see my white little face and my wet feet and think KER-CHING!! So I have to prove my mettle and get it so I only pay double the fair amount (which is the normal amount). Peace studies be damned.
Friday tomorrow! WOOT! Hopefully I can blog a lot more now I have work internet.
x J
I am at work, and at waiting for my umbrella to come back... The rainy season is well and truly upon us which means flooded roads, soaking feet, soaking clothes, smelly drains and grey, grey skies. But it's cool. It's nuts the way it just rains alllll the time. Allllllllll the time. Proper rain. English rain seems so pithy and cold in comparison to this hot, thick, drenching rain. And it's so dark! It is actually pretty depressing and I love the rain normally. It is very hard to get around because you get soaked. I arrived at work this morning with my trousers drenched (I had to wring out the bottoms!) up to my thighs and my shoulders soaked. I am just dry (5 hours later) and have to go out again! Actually, I would have left but someone ran off with my umbrella.
Work is cool! I am enjoying writing the kiddies materials but it is funny how exhausting it is! I have written two 700 wd stories today and just can't muster up any imagination for another. But today I talked a bit more to my neighbour, and have the internet on my laptop so also managed to be on facebook and look up flights from Goa. Hurrah! that's my kind of working.
I didn't come in yesterday. Yesterday was my (our - DB was v poorly) grumpiest day here and the first where I actually wished to be at home. We had moved accommodation to this place called Broadlands in Chennai, which is a sprawling old colonial-style mansion place just up the road from where we were staying. It was more traveller-y so we hoped to meet people, and the rooms were amazing - really high ceilings, open bathrooms with floor to ceiling windows, many windows in the bedroom and a little table and two chairs to sit at. It seemed perfect compared to our relatively dark and damp little room over the way. So we moved in lock, stock etc on Tues morn before work, all excited because they had said that we could have the room until after Jan. Which was a lie, and then they said we would have to move rooms (someone else had booked 'ours') and then that room was booked too! And that night we had had the most awful storm, which should have been very romantic in that old lodge with the giant windows and views of field, but instead we were bitten to death and didn't sleep until the sun rose!! To *death* - I have bites on my eyebrow, under my eye and on my lip - just to name my face. So, irritated and tired we moved back to our old place yesterday but have a better room! It has no gaping hole where the air con is meant to be and so is much, much quieter (a massive bugbear was waking at 6am to trance bollywood music played through a megaphone. I am NOT exaggerating!!). SO we are happier today. DB was terribly poorly yesterday when we moved too, so at least we had concrete walls around us and a nice bathroom and a nice bed and no bugs!! Hurray! And a tele back (sporadic reception) and a nice man who gets us cups of kaapi. So we will stay there until after new year - everywhere else we have tried is booked, and anyway, having had the broadlands horror we are so, so grateful, however dark it may be.
I heard from my sup today! I emailed him yesterday (feeling very despondant and rubbish at my researching skills) about my progress (lack of) this past month and he sent me such a lovely reply and am completely reassured. I didn't whine at him or seek reassurance (never do that) but just confessed about the kiddie book thing etc and my plans and what I have been up to and he said that research in actuality never turns out as imagined anyway and just gave me some tips. I was wondering what to do with the info that I get from general convos, with waiters etc - talk a lot to waiters actually - and he said they can count as a form of interview in the biblio and I can use it as anecdotal evidence. Which is ace because I get a lot of info this way, about corruption and how people feel about the aid etc - without it being a formal interview with the call for the 'confidentiality' speech etc. This kind of info also provides a lot of context to the research and would explian my thoughts and motives as I learn more (I hope I learn more).
My word the rain is coming down. It really isn't going to stop. Am going to see if my umbrella is back yet. I need a full body coat really and not these oversized, super-long trousers. It is rubbish as well, because I am going to have to go and have a fight with a rickshaw driver. Bargaining is just not my scene - why can't the just be fair in the first place?! They see my white little face and my wet feet and think KER-CHING!! So I have to prove my mettle and get it so I only pay double the fair amount (which is the normal amount). Peace studies be damned.
Friday tomorrow! WOOT! Hopefully I can blog a lot more now I have work internet.
x J
Monday, 24 November 2008
Back in the Game
Hurray! I am being a proper adult! Well, I am not eating properly and still on a major sulk about eating more and more curry. But other than that...
Today I managed to go out and be happily self-sufficient. Being with DB does mean that he takes over rather, and me being all lazy I do let him... And also, the people here speak to the man and so I am genearally never expected to do or say anything, which means DB is even more asssertive than usual. As we are both fairly alpha beings this does grate and we do fight about it. But then I back down and watch tele. Anyway, point being, that today I went and sorted out my phone so I am now mobile-worthy! YAYA! Also, I managed to get to my volunteering appt today and have found out what I am to do! I am to illustrate kiddies books! ( a lot more fun nd creative than just writing 'leaf'.) And if I am good, I may get to help teach English to tiny tots using phonetics. I shall meet the lady they have doing that at the moment (an Ameican volunteer - woopy, I hope she is nice and can be my friend), tomorrow and see what that is about. I am so looking forward to writing out kiddies stories though! And picture books! how lovely! Although lord knows where I would start. Eck. I shall blag it. I can keep my own hours which is ace, I shall probably do ten/10.30 to four... As long as I don't have to get up early and commute then I shall be fine. The guy next to me keeps wobbling his leg, and we are sat on this flimsy mezzanine level (more like balcony) and so I am bouncing up and down like no-one's... And I spoke to the 'English team' about my research and they seemed very interested and nodded enthusiastically when I spoke about cycnicism about whether the aid worked and suchlike - so i think I am on to something here. My biggest fear was coming here and everyone saying that the aid they recieved and the way they were treated was just *the nuts* and so the past few years would be pretty much barking up the worng tree. Although, I suppose whatever happens I can turn it into research wobble wobble. Ya, so generally I feel a lot happier. And I got my first rickshaw on my won, got us lost and walked half the way back in the end. Great stuff. I wasn't ripped off though and also I spoke Tamil. Things are looking up! Now all I need is to find someone to give me a lovely meal.
We went flat hunting today to. We are in such a dilemma about what to do about accomm - do we get soemwhere of our own, or just stay in a guesthouse? Turns out that our vol org doesn't know of anywhere because they are all Indian... which is generally good for my research but not good for helpful tips about what volunteers do for accommodation in this land. We need to stay for about a year apparently to get a flat, but somewhere nice was found for us for three months (perfect area as well) BUT they want 1.5 grand deposit! WHAT?! And we don't have that. we coud probably find it - but then what if we don't get it back?!! They could say anyting and we wouldn't know or be able to even stay in the country to get it back. So, we think we will stay in a guesthouse. DB is looking now.
Other than that, I have been working out my general plan of action in TN... I always have to thinkover my plans. They change all the time, but really almost imperceptibly - it is only have a few weeks that the shift is noticable. Now I am not sure that an ethnographic style is going to work at all - the culture and language barrier is so great, and it would take longer than six months - longer than a year even to 'be remoetely accepted. There is just too muh of a divide between Indian and Westerner - not in a palpable way, just in a 'way'. So I cannot pretend and think that not pretending or holding out that it may happen is a good , honest way forward - and so now me-being-me will be an important part of the wirte-up, without assumptions that I can immerse. I don't think anyone can really - unless you spend a couple of years living in a tiny community that has no choice but to assimilate you, and you to it. But that would;t work for me becuase I need a lot of info from a lot of people... One village just won't cut it. So I think I will be inceeasingly observation and interview based... Also, there is the issue of interviews that i have to do in england with aid agencies - they need to have their say. This porbably constitutes part of the research process and so maybe my time here isn't the focal point of the 'data gatehring' process, but just one aspect of it - in which case until April should suffice. If i get all my interviews and my observations and impressions - why stay longer? So these things are all things that I ponder. I really do feel like I am the navigator of this process, but the geography, the terrain and the vehicle are all mostly independent of me, I just try and steer it a bit.
DB has come to get me! must go ta ta!
x J
Friday, 21 November 2008
Maladie
Hallo
Well, this week has beena bit of a weird one. I have been ill since monday eve, hardly eaten a thing and been spending whole days in the hotel at a time... Not done any volunteering but have managed to do some thinking!!! yaya for thinking. DB went to volunteering though and told me some things which have changed the research somewhat for the mo...
Basically the agency that i am volunteering for, now I am here, is very different to the one I thought I had signed up to volunteer with. This may sound strange because it is. I have no idea how this happened! I wonder if at home in england I have been accessing an old website from before they got all successful and mahousive - and now I am here I see a different website that explains very clearly what their org is all about and I tell you, if I had known, I would not have offered my (limited) services!! It is a purely educational agency and I have no knowledge of education materials or teaching skills which is what they do, and my research is a million miles away from this too. Sooooo. I will stay until I go to Goa in Jan and then if I like it etc go back, and if it isn't really happening then I shall make my excuses and leave having put in a month's worth of work. I came out wanting to volunteer for a small 'hands-on' org, by the coast, with a handful of staff and volunteers so I could talk to people easily, get to part of a wee aid family here and also have easy access to the people and communities who they work for and with. Instead I am part of a VERY busy aid-machine, with very paid employees, with very international meetings to go to, and a national agenda of change... which is great, but I am not that enthusiastic about being sin a back office somewhere labelling pictures!!!
HOWEVER,
Instead of crying about it I am working out how to work it to my advantage. I can use them to:
network with other large orgs here
use their brains about the aid industry in india
ask about their priorities (morally and philosophically)
See any aid villages they have worked with (hopefully, they did say something about that on email months back...)
ask about the makeshift huts I have seen up the road
find out about the aid-effort in Chennai
and use the time I am spending with them to also liaise and interview, even volunteer, with other peeps that I have just spend two hours rustling up on the tinternet.
Twill be fine I am sure. I am not going to worry about it for about a month or so and then shall see what the last few weeks have brought up (anything).
One thing I am learning is that when you are in the 'field' (UG! need a new word! anyone?!!) some days you find out loads and others you find out nothing. 'Tis the nature of the beast. And also, something that may been unexpected and therefore a challenge makes you look around it and question it - ' why is it 'wrong' - could it be useful?' and this too adds a rigorousness to what you 'know' and use in your research, and what you leave out/don't follow up. It also allows the research to progress a little on its own without having to be activley working on it all the time because these little challenges can be blessings in disguise.
Arg though, being ill this week has made me feel really lame. I sit there in bed thinking of all my friends and their intrepid, intellectual brilliance and think 'they wouldn't sit in bed for days, no sir! They would do the job they came to do!!' Then I think I am lazy and before you know it I am convinced I am a big, embarrassing research jokette. Pity poor me.
Then I go to sleep.
Oh oh OH though! I haven't said but I did some more research on my theoretical ideas and from my post the other day the answer was that indeed I was being ignorant and hadn't read enough - I put in very unlikely words into google and WHOOP! There it was! A lovely lovely article saying how my ideas were spankingly fine-a-doodle-do. So , finally, finally, my theoretical direction is all set, i love it, and I am sure that the rest will fall into place soon enough! SUCH an enormous weight off my mind, you just don't know what you are looking at when you don't have your theory pinned down. 'Can I write as a po-mo?! Or should I write as a realist? How would this affect how I go about and write-up and analyse my interviews? How does this affect my interpretations/transcripts of my observations?' bla bla blaaaaa.
But I know now. Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot!!
Now I just need to work out what my research structure will be like here. I think I sall have to wait until I have settled in for a month, do a lot of reading and asking around my vol place, and then reassess and start doing interviews.
I am tired!! we are flat hunting later... I would love my own place! I am sick of eating out - I am craving just a meal of bread, cheese (any cheese, plastic cheese will do) and some coco pops (I don't eat these sugar pops normally but they seem so normal and plain here!!). Or some lentils I have cooked myself in my own way. I just cannot face curry!! I cannot! What I shall do instead is beyond me - but then so is hunger so... I am getting a bit skinny malinny though and ought to start eating soon. My mind is not on my side though. If it sees dirt in a restaurant it goes 'Uch! I shall not eat!' And makes my tummy churn. If I smell curry it does the same. And so all is not good!!! I just feel sick!
Bah.
My word, I ought to get some chrimbo pressies! Oh dear lord WHAT shall I buy?! To the John Lewis website pronto...
x J
Well, this week has beena bit of a weird one. I have been ill since monday eve, hardly eaten a thing and been spending whole days in the hotel at a time... Not done any volunteering but have managed to do some thinking!!! yaya for thinking. DB went to volunteering though and told me some things which have changed the research somewhat for the mo...
Basically the agency that i am volunteering for, now I am here, is very different to the one I thought I had signed up to volunteer with. This may sound strange because it is. I have no idea how this happened! I wonder if at home in england I have been accessing an old website from before they got all successful and mahousive - and now I am here I see a different website that explains very clearly what their org is all about and I tell you, if I had known, I would not have offered my (limited) services!! It is a purely educational agency and I have no knowledge of education materials or teaching skills which is what they do, and my research is a million miles away from this too. Sooooo. I will stay until I go to Goa in Jan and then if I like it etc go back, and if it isn't really happening then I shall make my excuses and leave having put in a month's worth of work. I came out wanting to volunteer for a small 'hands-on' org, by the coast, with a handful of staff and volunteers so I could talk to people easily, get to part of a wee aid family here and also have easy access to the people and communities who they work for and with. Instead I am part of a VERY busy aid-machine, with very paid employees, with very international meetings to go to, and a national agenda of change... which is great, but I am not that enthusiastic about being sin a back office somewhere labelling pictures!!!
HOWEVER,
Instead of crying about it I am working out how to work it to my advantage. I can use them to:
network with other large orgs here
use their brains about the aid industry in india
ask about their priorities (morally and philosophically)
See any aid villages they have worked with (hopefully, they did say something about that on email months back...)
ask about the makeshift huts I have seen up the road
find out about the aid-effort in Chennai
and use the time I am spending with them to also liaise and interview, even volunteer, with other peeps that I have just spend two hours rustling up on the tinternet.
Twill be fine I am sure. I am not going to worry about it for about a month or so and then shall see what the last few weeks have brought up (anything).
One thing I am learning is that when you are in the 'field' (UG! need a new word! anyone?!!) some days you find out loads and others you find out nothing. 'Tis the nature of the beast. And also, something that may been unexpected and therefore a challenge makes you look around it and question it - ' why is it 'wrong' - could it be useful?' and this too adds a rigorousness to what you 'know' and use in your research, and what you leave out/don't follow up. It also allows the research to progress a little on its own without having to be activley working on it all the time because these little challenges can be blessings in disguise.
Arg though, being ill this week has made me feel really lame. I sit there in bed thinking of all my friends and their intrepid, intellectual brilliance and think 'they wouldn't sit in bed for days, no sir! They would do the job they came to do!!' Then I think I am lazy and before you know it I am convinced I am a big, embarrassing research jokette. Pity poor me.
Then I go to sleep.
Oh oh OH though! I haven't said but I did some more research on my theoretical ideas and from my post the other day the answer was that indeed I was being ignorant and hadn't read enough - I put in very unlikely words into google and WHOOP! There it was! A lovely lovely article saying how my ideas were spankingly fine-a-doodle-do. So , finally, finally, my theoretical direction is all set, i love it, and I am sure that the rest will fall into place soon enough! SUCH an enormous weight off my mind, you just don't know what you are looking at when you don't have your theory pinned down. 'Can I write as a po-mo?! Or should I write as a realist? How would this affect how I go about and write-up and analyse my interviews? How does this affect my interpretations/transcripts of my observations?' bla bla blaaaaa.
But I know now. Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot!!
Now I just need to work out what my research structure will be like here. I think I sall have to wait until I have settled in for a month, do a lot of reading and asking around my vol place, and then reassess and start doing interviews.
I am tired!! we are flat hunting later... I would love my own place! I am sick of eating out - I am craving just a meal of bread, cheese (any cheese, plastic cheese will do) and some coco pops (I don't eat these sugar pops normally but they seem so normal and plain here!!). Or some lentils I have cooked myself in my own way. I just cannot face curry!! I cannot! What I shall do instead is beyond me - but then so is hunger so... I am getting a bit skinny malinny though and ought to start eating soon. My mind is not on my side though. If it sees dirt in a restaurant it goes 'Uch! I shall not eat!' And makes my tummy churn. If I smell curry it does the same. And so all is not good!!! I just feel sick!
Bah.
My word, I ought to get some chrimbo pressies! Oh dear lord WHAT shall I buy?! To the John Lewis website pronto...
x J
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
Poorly!
Grr I have been ill! Yesterday, the first day of proper volunteering, and I had to call in sick! How rubbish - especially with the palava of the day before!!! We have taken today off too and will go in tomorrow (lunchtime so I get a lie in thankfully! Sleep has not been my friend these past couple of days). Yesterday was just awful, we went to a posh restaurant for dins the night before and i am sure that was what made me ill because DB has been fine! Today I am ok but not eating and really weak and pathetic. Will go back to the hotel in a min for a rest methinks.
Am off curry for a while. My mind is totally averse to the curry. Crisps it is then! I remember in Guatemala when we were terribly ill I lived off crisps. Not the wisest, but better than beans or egg - or spicy curry!!!
Hopefully tomorrow I will do some work and have something to report. Bizarrely I had a lot of time to think (too ill to read or anything :0( ) and worked out that philisophically I shall have to take an eclectic approach. Not the easiest but one I have discussed with my Sup before and he wasn't totally averse to it (unlike my decision to be totally po-mo). I like a couple of theories and don't want to be boxed in by one or the other. I don't really see why they can't work together so that is what I shall do. I shall have to explain (and defend) it to the nth degree though, but there is no harm in that, and if I am passionate about it and believe in what I am arguing then the writing will come more naturally anyway. I have written out my points of view and generally think that either a) I have made something up which could be quite interesting; b) I have described a theoretical approach which already exists but, in my ignorance and lack of reading, I am unaware of it; or c) I am thick and making something up that is essentially contradictory and therefore impossible both in abstraction and practice. I am worried about making a fool of myself and so will go 'home' and ponder over it for a while...
Ug the boy next to me in the internet cafe stinks of B.O. The first smelly person I have encountered in India.
Au revoir!
x J
Am off curry for a while. My mind is totally averse to the curry. Crisps it is then! I remember in Guatemala when we were terribly ill I lived off crisps. Not the wisest, but better than beans or egg - or spicy curry!!!
Hopefully tomorrow I will do some work and have something to report. Bizarrely I had a lot of time to think (too ill to read or anything :0( ) and worked out that philisophically I shall have to take an eclectic approach. Not the easiest but one I have discussed with my Sup before and he wasn't totally averse to it (unlike my decision to be totally po-mo). I like a couple of theories and don't want to be boxed in by one or the other. I don't really see why they can't work together so that is what I shall do. I shall have to explain (and defend) it to the nth degree though, but there is no harm in that, and if I am passionate about it and believe in what I am arguing then the writing will come more naturally anyway. I have written out my points of view and generally think that either a) I have made something up which could be quite interesting; b) I have described a theoretical approach which already exists but, in my ignorance and lack of reading, I am unaware of it; or c) I am thick and making something up that is essentially contradictory and therefore impossible both in abstraction and practice. I am worried about making a fool of myself and so will go 'home' and ponder over it for a while...
Ug the boy next to me in the internet cafe stinks of B.O. The first smelly person I have encountered in India.
Au revoir!
x J
Monday, 17 November 2008
Almost week four!
Halloooo
I can't believe I have been here for three weeks now! That is nearly a month! Time has flown by!! I am enjoying myself tremendously - until i think about work and get all hot and bothered that is...
I started volunteering today! Although I say 'started', really we got lost twice while trying to find it and ended up taking a rickshaw and realised we were well out of the way!!! Ug. I make it a thing to always make sure I find my way to interviews etc in good time and without asking the way because I have a thing about showing assertiveness and initiative - and being competent enough t0 make my own way. But no, we got lost a LOT and was all rather embarrassing. So we finally turn up and after a ten minute meeting get to go home again until 2pm tomorrow! Wooty! My kind of working... hehe. I am to help initially with teaching materials for a class that someone teaches english to. This worried me a bit really because stuck in a room writing 'leaf' under a picture of - a leaf - isn't going to help my research much. But then, I thought that this is just an initial job while they work me out, and also I am not really to question much until Dec 17th - my unofficial review day as I would have been there for a month by then. If all is not going to plan - I haven't been able to do any research of any kind, then I will see about cutting my hours and also volunteering for somewhere else - I have two other agencies here in mind who I will talk to anyway but not until after new year...
I then had a panic about what I would find out in Chennai anyway seeing as this area wasn't really affected by the tsunami. But then on reflection realised it was in fact affected and could just ask around about waht happned, who was affected, who helped (INGOs?) and in what way, and what the status quo is - has everyone been rehoused now? (I know there was an issue with fishing people being taken away from the site of their villages and placed on the edge of a vile shanty town 2km inland... for aaaaaages - are they still there I wonder? Or in spanking new houses or whattie? I shall investigate!) So that direction of nosiness could be an 'in'. ('In' to what?!! How can I have an 'in' to knowledges I can't yet predict or define?!! Strange...)
Am still having terrible dilemmas with my theoretical point of view. I am just happily eclectic. To the unhappiness of everyone else. And when I try and justify my eclecticism I do sound barmy because the theories do contradict each other. But but but. I wonder if I should leve it until I have finished... but then I think 'hmmm, but doesn't it affect how I am meant to do my interviews and things? If I am a positivist, for example. then I would set up my interviews to have minimum bias etc for optimum rsults. But I am not one of those! Interviews are interactive! therefore I am.....' at which point I dose off. I wish my Sup would tell me the answer. I am sure he knows it, but is waiting for me to figure it out. I can't! I need books! i need a LOT of textbooks. And I have none. :0(
I am also fretful about what kind of info I am meant to be seeking. Am I meant to couch all my info in some kind of ethnography?! To give it some kind of context? Because if so, I am very bored already. I love other cultures but relaying them in tedious, ritualistic, objective detail is just so awful. I don't care about matriarchy vs patriarchy/dowries/inheritance stuff. Whatever, whatever. I hope i don't have to. But I don't know. when do I know? I hope this thing unravels itself as expected and I am not on the plane home crying because I know nothing. Nothing!
Good news though, my friends are coming to Goa on the 5th Jan and I am heading down for partay partay! and I was thinking of taking a long leisurely journey back via bus and train through karnataka and the ghats (cool, green mountains and beauty and forest and loveliness) but that would mean a two week holiday... I would get back around the 17 Jan and only have three and a half months left! eek! I think I really need to go to Sri Lanka and extend my time here. truth be told, I have no inkling to want to go home. Here is too ace. Ah! we had the lovliest lunch today - we went to a real local-local place on our road and sat down and there was no menu so we said 'meals'? and he said 'yes, yes, meal!' and wandered off and came back with massive banana leaves that he plonked in front of us and showed us to spread water on it, then two waiters came along and put two different curry dishes on them, and lots of rice and there was our meal! It was unlimited as well; I was stuffed but think I am looking a little too lean because they insisted on giving me more food. And the main waiter was like a really fussy old grandad and made sure we knew what we were doing (we didn't) and told us things and generally made us feel right at home. It was so lovely to be looked after like that!! So many Indian people we don't know have looked after us, really gruffly but with sincere kindness that doesn't ask to be thanked. Ahhhh. Human kindness.
After our 'volunteering' DB and I walked for about an hour in the neighbourhood the agency is based at and generally are getting our bearings as we stay here. We just love it. I am working in the evenings, working out plans and writing out my thoughts in my (really bizarre - I bought it here, it seem to have a picture of 'heaven' which is a vietnamese fisherman on his wee canoe, heading toward to *giant* swans kissing each other in a sunset. very lurid and frightening) 'fieldwork' journal, and asking myself a lot of questions I don't know the answer to. With optimism I could say 'yet'. At the moment though, I am just pretty scared. oh well, if I wasn't scared of knowing nothinig i would have no impetus to go and find anything out eh?!
And with that nugget of wisdom I shall thee leave...
x J
I can't believe I have been here for three weeks now! That is nearly a month! Time has flown by!! I am enjoying myself tremendously - until i think about work and get all hot and bothered that is...
I started volunteering today! Although I say 'started', really we got lost twice while trying to find it and ended up taking a rickshaw and realised we were well out of the way!!! Ug. I make it a thing to always make sure I find my way to interviews etc in good time and without asking the way because I have a thing about showing assertiveness and initiative - and being competent enough t0 make my own way. But no, we got lost a LOT and was all rather embarrassing. So we finally turn up and after a ten minute meeting get to go home again until 2pm tomorrow! Wooty! My kind of working... hehe. I am to help initially with teaching materials for a class that someone teaches english to. This worried me a bit really because stuck in a room writing 'leaf' under a picture of - a leaf - isn't going to help my research much. But then, I thought that this is just an initial job while they work me out, and also I am not really to question much until Dec 17th - my unofficial review day as I would have been there for a month by then. If all is not going to plan - I haven't been able to do any research of any kind, then I will see about cutting my hours and also volunteering for somewhere else - I have two other agencies here in mind who I will talk to anyway but not until after new year...
I then had a panic about what I would find out in Chennai anyway seeing as this area wasn't really affected by the tsunami. But then on reflection realised it was in fact affected and could just ask around about waht happned, who was affected, who helped (INGOs?) and in what way, and what the status quo is - has everyone been rehoused now? (I know there was an issue with fishing people being taken away from the site of their villages and placed on the edge of a vile shanty town 2km inland... for aaaaaages - are they still there I wonder? Or in spanking new houses or whattie? I shall investigate!) So that direction of nosiness could be an 'in'. ('In' to what?!! How can I have an 'in' to knowledges I can't yet predict or define?!! Strange...)
Am still having terrible dilemmas with my theoretical point of view. I am just happily eclectic. To the unhappiness of everyone else. And when I try and justify my eclecticism I do sound barmy because the theories do contradict each other. But but but. I wonder if I should leve it until I have finished... but then I think 'hmmm, but doesn't it affect how I am meant to do my interviews and things? If I am a positivist, for example. then I would set up my interviews to have minimum bias etc for optimum rsults. But I am not one of those! Interviews are interactive! therefore I am.....' at which point I dose off. I wish my Sup would tell me the answer. I am sure he knows it, but is waiting for me to figure it out. I can't! I need books! i need a LOT of textbooks. And I have none. :0(
I am also fretful about what kind of info I am meant to be seeking. Am I meant to couch all my info in some kind of ethnography?! To give it some kind of context? Because if so, I am very bored already. I love other cultures but relaying them in tedious, ritualistic, objective detail is just so awful. I don't care about matriarchy vs patriarchy/dowries/inheritance stuff. Whatever, whatever. I hope i don't have to. But I don't know. when do I know? I hope this thing unravels itself as expected and I am not on the plane home crying because I know nothing. Nothing!
Good news though, my friends are coming to Goa on the 5th Jan and I am heading down for partay partay! and I was thinking of taking a long leisurely journey back via bus and train through karnataka and the ghats (cool, green mountains and beauty and forest and loveliness) but that would mean a two week holiday... I would get back around the 17 Jan and only have three and a half months left! eek! I think I really need to go to Sri Lanka and extend my time here. truth be told, I have no inkling to want to go home. Here is too ace. Ah! we had the lovliest lunch today - we went to a real local-local place on our road and sat down and there was no menu so we said 'meals'? and he said 'yes, yes, meal!' and wandered off and came back with massive banana leaves that he plonked in front of us and showed us to spread water on it, then two waiters came along and put two different curry dishes on them, and lots of rice and there was our meal! It was unlimited as well; I was stuffed but think I am looking a little too lean because they insisted on giving me more food. And the main waiter was like a really fussy old grandad and made sure we knew what we were doing (we didn't) and told us things and generally made us feel right at home. It was so lovely to be looked after like that!! So many Indian people we don't know have looked after us, really gruffly but with sincere kindness that doesn't ask to be thanked. Ahhhh. Human kindness.
After our 'volunteering' DB and I walked for about an hour in the neighbourhood the agency is based at and generally are getting our bearings as we stay here. We just love it. I am working in the evenings, working out plans and writing out my thoughts in my (really bizarre - I bought it here, it seem to have a picture of 'heaven' which is a vietnamese fisherman on his wee canoe, heading toward to *giant* swans kissing each other in a sunset. very lurid and frightening) 'fieldwork' journal, and asking myself a lot of questions I don't know the answer to. With optimism I could say 'yet'. At the moment though, I am just pretty scared. oh well, if I wasn't scared of knowing nothinig i would have no impetus to go and find anything out eh?!
And with that nugget of wisdom I shall thee leave...
x J
Saturday, 15 November 2008
Saturday 15 Nov - Two and a Half weeks in...
hallooo!!
So we are two and half weeks in - I can't believe that is all we have been here for! we have done and seen and learnt so much! We are still in Pondy, enjoying the sites and gorging on 'finger fries' and 'secret tea' (beer in teapots so the police don't get wind of it?!) and, admittedly, cigarettes (I know), until we head back to Chennai tomorrow - the land of saintly goodness. In Chennai there is no beer really (is some kind of prohibition going on), no finger fries, and as a lady it is unbecoming for me to smoke - which I don't if I am not drinking secret tea anyway, so there. So back to the land of goodliness - and volunteering on Monday! Eek! they haven't told us when to turn up so I shall go along about mid morning and take it from there! I hope I don't get stuck doing admin. This is my biggest fear I think. Answering phones and being all customer service. NOOOOO! I hope I get to do hands-on stuff.
Am quite nervous about the volunteering really.
I am also having a total quandry about my theory. I just cannot work out where I stand. I seem to be in the middle of a few theories but not commiting to any in particular. So I have to do a lot of reading about that. And I would say folks- anyone wanting some sage advice plus a bit of philosophy thrown in I suggest reading 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence'. It is a novel but written by someone who is clearly a scholar and been through what we are all going through, he is very wise and talks about philosophy a lot (realism/rationalism/idealsim etc) and also has lovely nuggets of calming info such as his advice about 'stuckness' which concludes with him saying that stuckness is a good thing and things will always become unstuck and clear in your mind in the end. And he talks about how work creates a sense of peace of mind when you know it is right, because you care about it. Because you care, you are looking for it to be right, and you are looking for that feeling of 'peace'. I imagine that is how I would feel when I have completed my final draft of my PhD... Although maybe a bit mad at first, then a bit drunk, then very drunk, and then at peace (hungover/asleep).
Assuming I'm not up the stick of course. Then I would go out and eat a lot, which always creates a kind of peace when the sugar/carb-rush has subsided.
So yes, read the book - it's by... Arg, his name. I don't know, it's a weird one. Pop it into google anyway - I would suggest everyone read it if you are feeling a little disconnected from your work. Or just as a nice reference book to look at when you feel blue and he tells you 'well, learning is hard' and you think, 'yeah! it's hard!' and he advises you leave it for a bit so thoughts can work themselves out. I like that.
Well, better read sommat about Critical Theory. Please be the one, PLEASE.
x J
So we are two and half weeks in - I can't believe that is all we have been here for! we have done and seen and learnt so much! We are still in Pondy, enjoying the sites and gorging on 'finger fries' and 'secret tea' (beer in teapots so the police don't get wind of it?!) and, admittedly, cigarettes (I know), until we head back to Chennai tomorrow - the land of saintly goodness. In Chennai there is no beer really (is some kind of prohibition going on), no finger fries, and as a lady it is unbecoming for me to smoke - which I don't if I am not drinking secret tea anyway, so there. So back to the land of goodliness - and volunteering on Monday! Eek! they haven't told us when to turn up so I shall go along about mid morning and take it from there! I hope I don't get stuck doing admin. This is my biggest fear I think. Answering phones and being all customer service. NOOOOO! I hope I get to do hands-on stuff.
Am quite nervous about the volunteering really.
I am also having a total quandry about my theory. I just cannot work out where I stand. I seem to be in the middle of a few theories but not commiting to any in particular. So I have to do a lot of reading about that. And I would say folks- anyone wanting some sage advice plus a bit of philosophy thrown in I suggest reading 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence'. It is a novel but written by someone who is clearly a scholar and been through what we are all going through, he is very wise and talks about philosophy a lot (realism/rationalism/idealsim etc) and also has lovely nuggets of calming info such as his advice about 'stuckness' which concludes with him saying that stuckness is a good thing and things will always become unstuck and clear in your mind in the end. And he talks about how work creates a sense of peace of mind when you know it is right, because you care about it. Because you care, you are looking for it to be right, and you are looking for that feeling of 'peace'. I imagine that is how I would feel when I have completed my final draft of my PhD... Although maybe a bit mad at first, then a bit drunk, then very drunk, and then at peace (hungover/asleep).
Assuming I'm not up the stick of course. Then I would go out and eat a lot, which always creates a kind of peace when the sugar/carb-rush has subsided.
So yes, read the book - it's by... Arg, his name. I don't know, it's a weird one. Pop it into google anyway - I would suggest everyone read it if you are feeling a little disconnected from your work. Or just as a nice reference book to look at when you feel blue and he tells you 'well, learning is hard' and you think, 'yeah! it's hard!' and he advises you leave it for a bit so thoughts can work themselves out. I like that.
Well, better read sommat about Critical Theory. Please be the one, PLEASE.
x J
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