Epiphany!

This weekend was a brilliant weekend for a stressy person such as me.

I spent Saturday bathing and reading the paper and then DB and I went to watch the chinese state circus - it was so much fun! Afterwards we went into town and had some ciders outside (for the first and last time this year actually!) as it was quite warm and I didn't fancy being at home in my own thoughts. THEN yesterday we went out for a really long walk aroundabout and then I made us some lasagne... Ahh it was so lovely. The last thing you want when you're stressy (I find) is just to sit around, inches away from the cause of the stress (my laptop and office) and have no company. I also wasn't in the mood for jiggling about in the gym so a walk was perfect. It was so funny because we live near the local airport and this lovely beautyspot up the road is right next to the runway. So one minute you are looking at ducks and the next 'whoosh!' - there is this enormous bug*ering plane landing. What is better than that even is the main road right under the flight path... so we went round and stood on the pavement and the planes would come in to land above our heads! It was sooooooo cool! We want to go at nighttime with all the lights - would be really weird. That last sentence sounds really geeky... But it is very cool!

Yeah... DB was *lovely* and we did things and chatted and he let me whine on about my fears for TN and the PhD as a whole. And *then*, last night when I was avoiding looking at the tele (because it had the DVD start of Saw II on it and was scaring me) while I waited for DB, I had an epiphany about how to start organising my work! Phew!! I realised that I will have to work out some stuff when I am there, but this is also part of being there. E.g. I cannot say now whether I will be able to just approach people for informal chats like in the UK, or whether I will need some kind of 'in' or be introduced or WHAT - until I am there. But I can work out the differnt methods I am lilely to use, and that fit with my general methodologial direction e.g. semi-structured interviews/case histories/participant obs. and creat a 'tool box' to dip in and out of when I am there. Today I am going to work out what I can do here and what I will need to to there, and then I am going to happily organise two timelines - one for here and one for there. Obviously the one there is flexible but will give me targets eg. 'in a month you should know how to approach your participants' and stuff like that...

I wonder if this is painfully obvious to everyone else. But I really have never done research before and am trying to make it up as I go along. I really thought that I would need to have it all sorted before I go and when I am there I would start working asap. But really, 'working' takes different forms - just spending the first month volunteering, learning the language, making friends and contacts while doing some observation, maybe having chats if an opportunity arises and seeing how my research would be best carried out - is all part of the methodology! It is part of the whole research process - it is as important to a po-mo researcher as setting up the framework for a lab experiment is for a scientist. I am so slow! I perhaps would really like a book that is doing overseas po-mo research for dummies. Is there one?! !!

I was soooooo pleased, ran into my room and made some notes and slept soundly, actually looking forward to today. I am now sure that my fatigue and tummy aches and pains will go away.

Realising this made everything else seem less worrisome too. I have been stressing over buying a medical kit, about jab appts, about buying suitable clothes and enough of them, about storage, about networking and meeting people. But now I feel like I can compartmentalise all these things again (instead of being one big worrying thought) and also, just not worry about it. I am sure I have enough clothes and so what if I don't?! So what if I don't have a perfect medical kit?! It will be *fine*. I have been in quite a stressy hole for a few weeks, where needing to be 'just-so' has stultified any sense of progress or perception. Hopefully though, I am now out of this.

My Sup thought we could meet today and I said noooooooo because I was stressy and wanted to sort my head out before I saw him. His comments on my chapter are really helpful but also indicate a need for serious revision and perhaps to be mpore thoughtful and mature in my contentions. I think I have relied on generalisations too much. This weekend this was a problem, but now I am cool with this and able to recognise that I will deal with this in time and make my work better. I am much less critical today and able to see that this chapter was never going to be finished and was a first draft. I am just a bit of a perfectionist and wanted it to be pretty much done!!

Well, am off to organise and plan (yaya! my favourite).

Now where are those highlighters?!

x J