Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrg!

Writing up the fieldwork is not easy at *all*!!

I am having a nightmare!

Because the information is so higgeldy piggeldy, a simple sentence can have three different bits of info in it that I need, and would ideally like to structure in three different parts of the chapter, but they have to be all in one. Or the information is contradictory, so I can't say anything with any strong conviction, every comment is a bit of this, a bit of that... it is really hard! I have only just realised that rather than me being totally *quite a bitm but not totally) slack every day for hmmmm... about three weeks, it is largely that the chapter is so hard to write! If I could write it, I would. I have only just realised this. Every day I sit and jiggle about my introduction, then think a-ha! I have it. Then I go to re-jog my chapter accordingly and realise it won't work. It isn't going to be neat. So how to go about sorting this out?! It needs structure, and I won't go through the questions and answer them one by one - how dry and convoluted. Nor will I go to each village and write out what they said one by one. No, it needs to be a synopsis of the research, to tell their stories but in a way relevant to the research question and also include analysis.

How to do this? Don't ask me!

Bah, I didn't expect this. Am now going to go back to er, staring at it and thinking. I think it may have even got to the stage where I need to start thinking aloud. Yes, jibbering to myself.

x J

chasing concentration...

Where is it? I can't concentrate for toffee. I have a lot to do and it isn't even that hard, but can I do it? Nope.

I do have a bit of a hangover and am extraordinarily tired. I am meant to have finished this chapter by now but it just seems to be getting bigger and bigger and needing more and more and mooooooooore.

I have been faffing over one paragraph pretty much, all week. It is not good.

Better get back really! Am clearly skiving.

Ohhhh for a snooze. Instead I have half an hour of work left, then have to bundle up Bean to take him out in the snow to a baby group. Am really not in the mood for organised play, I just fancy bumbling around the shops really. Hmmmm.

My baby is one in two weeks! ONE!

laters!
x J

Tired and Annoyed

Bah. I am so tired, my baby is super demanding at night time at the mo (am praying it's a phase and I won't need to get all sleep-trainer-y on his arse) and my back hurts from my stupid make-shift work desk.

I am annoyed because I am not working well at the mo, just skiving and bumbling about. I can't get any momentum again - my baby wants me to be in his eyeline all the time or he cries and his Dad doesn't seem to be able to chill him out :0( I cannot work when my baby is crying downstairs, it is just impossible. And again another day has gone by and I have done very little. DB and I are arguing again, excellent. Am a bit miserable really. Can you tell?!

I want to have this chapter done by Friday. Friday! I feel some night shifts coming on. (Baby willing. I always forget! harrumph I am tired, my brain is like a sieve - as DB notics constantly when I forget to do things or do things wrong/badly. Again.)

I have to sort out my workspace, working as I am I can feel that the middle of my back is kind of holding the rest of me up, as I lean over to work. It hurts and is most unnatural. DB says it makes him wince to see me hunched over. But I love this workspace! It is my stupid chair. It is stupid ;0)

Tomorrow is another day. Another day for work. NO! No work tomorrow, I don't work tuesdays. ARG. At least DB will be out so we don't argue.

Am off downstairs to er, probably argue.

x J

Mumsnet

Is my new distraction. I know, I know but I like it, it's funny ;0) It was once facebook... then the Guardian... then both... then pregnancy websites... then all three... now it is facebook, Guardian, hotmail and mumsnet. Bad rabbit.

Today I did a lot and achieved nothing! I spent hours on 200 words in my introduction, fussing away, deleting, copying, pasting... frowing away like the busy fool that I am. Then realised I had those words already written and so they were pointless. I put them in another chapter that has yet to be written (though I did think it had been written. Jeysus but it hasn't)...

SO that has been my day. I worked yesterday morning and last night, though didn't get a whole lot done. Am a bit distracted at the mo though can't say why. Just being slack.

I have until the end of next week to get the first draft of this sent off to my Sup. Why am I wasting so much time? Although today wasn't my fault, I was just being thick and really, it is quite typical to do such things. I can't always be on the ball... can I?

Am working tomorrow morning. I like that, means I shall have some flow from today. Stop/starting each day with long periods of time between each working session really hampers flow and, consequently, motivation. Each time I sit down I need to start anew and it bugs.

x J

This week

Has mostly been ok. Apart from the fact that last Sunday my baby had norovirus and so spent all day throwing up on me - he was fine though between bouts of pukiness, though i was flummoxed having never looked after another person who can't get to the loo to throw up before. I didn't know if I should hang him over the loo, keep him where he was, get a cloth...

And THEN I gave me and DB food poisoning. What a fool. We spent Tuesday sick as dogs and today is the first day I have felt a-ok. Looking after the wean and being so sick was just hideous and pressed home the imprtance of having family to be able to take him in such a circumstance. Though to be fair it shouldn't really happen today, especially now I have stopped cooking ;0)

Workwise all is going well. Am working this morning voluntarily, mostly to browse the internet and have some time away from the bubba as am on duty on my lonesome this afternoonand am tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired and feeling selfish. DB can look after him cause he is at the gym this avo (oh to bumble around a gym, then to sup a latte and read the paper lazily in the cafe on my todd afterwards because no-one would know... OMG, in fact, don't even go to the gym just go straight to the cafe and watch the tv and eat chips and read the paper! Hehe!). I am christmas shopping browsing and doing my chapter. Am 8,000 words into it now and is pretty easy really though slow going. I didn't plan really before how it was going to be so am having to constantly restructure it, but this is ok. I think this will be a 10,000 word chapter, easily. Am not going to let it be bigger than that though unless really I have no choice. I have to find out if the total amount of words at the end (100,000) includes the appendices, footnotes and references because if they do then each chapter needs to be 8,000 really. Makes quite a difference!

Ja, so will get on with it!

x J

What's the likelihood?

Jeeez Louise.

I just had an email from my Sup saying that the Vice Chancellor at my Uni is interested in being my internal examiner! :0) He is a lecturer from my Uni where I did my MA so I actually had him for a module then - he is *lovely*! Really friendly, super intelligent and not at all competitive/showy-offy as so many academics are. Very inspiring guy. How lucky am I?

So I could have the VC as an internal, and a *hugely* influential, rather famous chappie as my external. I am supervised by an emeritus professor who edits an internationally renowned journal and is friends with the who's who of international politics (hence my possible examiners). I have won funding go to one of the top ten Unis in the country for my field and am completing what so far has been seen to be a solid piece of research. My CV is *hot*!!

BUT BUT BUUUUUUTTTTTTTT I really don't want to be an academic! :0( I really don't. I think it looks awful. I do want to write this up as a book that no one will want to publish and maybe a different work avenue will come from publishing in journals. I have looked and looked at being an academic, willing myself to want to do it but I just think it is soooo dry. I would have to go to conferences and present often, all over the world. Hell. It is majorly majorly competitive - I would really have to want it. I would have to be willing to work anywhere in the world (it is international politics after all ;0)). I would have to write and write and write forever. I would have to do more research (I don't really like the research bit, just the thinking). I would like to teach and mentor peeps tho.

ARG what an arse I am! What a CV! What a lack of desire! I just hope hope hope that I do get a job that justifies all the opportunities that have been afforded to me during this PhD. I p*ss myself off, I really do. Why do I want to make my life hard?! Why can't I just be an academic? I wonder why I am doing this PhD, and very selfishly it is just simply because I enjoy it. Would I still be doing it if I wasn't funded? No - but that would be a financial decision rather than whether I enjoy it or not. I love it! I can sit all day and think about my research and pootle along writing it up and find it really, really interesting. And I am not beholden to anyone to do it.

I wonder if this is one of those things that is probably best left to fate... I'll probably have a great job in a couple of years that ticks all the boxes and uses my CV brilliantly, where i write, and help people as best I can and think I should just not have worried so much - and not felt so guilty...

x J

Working working - for the moment...

I start to work - as in *work* not faff about on the internet and it is great. Then I take a break and it takes me aaaaages to get back into it!

Arses!

Am knackered today. I have yet to make it to work before 9am this week, am just so tired! Bean was up at 1am until 3.30am for some reason, totally hyper and bouncing all over the shop. And you can't take him downstairs because you can't get him thinking it is cool to be up, so you sit in the dark in bed constantly battling to get him to lie down and chill and not be scampering about. Arg! DB is looking after him this morning and is like a sleeping tiger. If I don't really talk to him or ask questions he is fine and will make me a cup of coffee and be generally nice. But should I talk or demand anything he is very, very ratty. So I have slunk away and will try not to take it personally and just reiterate that he is *tired*. Is ok for me, I have has a shower, am sitting on my ownsome with the radio and my laptop and no baby narking at me for this and that (Bean is being really bizarrely demanding at the mo, very impatient and squealy - is most odd and quite hard work to be patient, smiley uber-parent). Is very pleasant.

Today I am continuing to type up quotes and e.g.s into my empirical chapter. My fieldwork has worked sooo well - I am so insanely pleased. I wish I knew it would all be ok while I was in India and relaxed and enjoyed it a bit more. I have incredibly fond memories of India now, now I am stuck at home and can't even pop to the pub let alone jetset off to somewhere like India :0) I want to print off loads of pics and make a big ol' India wall actually. Think I will, that will help me procrastinate some...

Nooooo. I have until Friday to finish filling in the quotes etc for this chapter, then I need tos tart jigging it all around so it makes sense and bringing in other authors to help give it depth and credence.

More immediately, I finish at 12.45 today because it is Bean's swimming lesson today and we are always in a rush. Then I want to go for a jog about 5ish (can't see how, am so so tired my body weighs a million tonnes) and then, then I am going to have at least two large glasses of wine with DB and relax. Though ebing tired as we are we will probably just have a glass and then start falling asleep/bickering ;0)

x J