Top of the World

So, I went on holiday. I had an unforgettable weekend in Kathmandu: it was noisy and messy and at times very confronting, but my local friend was an excellent guide and was really able to show how to appreciate Nepal. Here's a taste, but you should go, go, go.

Me 'n' Joan

It's been a while, hasn't it?

In fairness I have very little to say, but a brief update would probably be a good idea.

The PhD Movie

The PhD Movie came to Perth this week and was shown in joint UWA/Curtin screenings on Thursday, with proceeds going towards supporting Indigenous literacy programs. It's always a bit odd watching films in a lecture theatre - more like watching a really big TV with a bunch of people you don't know - but it was an appropriate setting for the film.

Thesis-gazing

I'm on the home stretch of getting the thesis finished, and every now and then I'm struck by a very clear memory of writing a specific part of it, or of doing some of the research.

This book, for example, will always remind me of the oddest Australia Day I've experienced so far: it was in 2008, and I was on my first research trip to Finland. I read the book in a cafe at the Messila ski slopes near my parents' home, drinking cup after cup of hot chocolate while my husband snowboarded outside. There I was, all comfortably bunkered in to reading about shame and desire, when the radio started playing Land Down Under. It was all so gloriously, incongruously familiar it's stayed with me. I'm sure that in some bizarre way that moment pretty much encapsulated my whole research experience.

I've also been flicking through my notebooks looking at mindmapped plans of my chapters. I always marvel at the fact that when all those coloured marker pens touched paper significant bits of the thesis were only starting to come together. The progression from notes to actual finished thesis has been long and even painful, but somehow those notes make the early days feel much closer and the progress much more precarious.

(Note to self: backup files) 

When I first started my thesis I kept a diary about my progress with the plan to eventually turn it into some kind of book about writing a PhD - "if I could do it, so can you!". But then I got embarrassed at how slowly everything was going and how little I felt I was achieving I gave up on that project. As nice as it would be to have a record for the future of my possible successes, I'd rather not leave evidence of my potential failures, I reasoned.

I was an idiot.

If it's not too late for you (is there a too late?), do keep notes of your progress: the little breakthroughs, the periods of stagnation and despair. At the pointy end of the process you do want to be able to look back and know how you got to where you are, but the memories don't take form quite as easily long after the fact.

Should you publish in languages other than English? (The answer, obviously, is 'yes'.)

Publishing in languages other than English... to do or not to do?

Being and Not-Being Smart

At a recent gathering of like-minded postgrad lady folk we got to the topic of being, and not being, smart. Specifically the kind of smart that makes one postgrad or academic stand out from the rest: we can assume some basic level of intelligence in the cohort as a whole, but there are some people who make the rest of us wistfully sigh with an envious "She's really smart (not fake-smart like me or even normal-smart like him)."

Good Enough

I'm rewriting my thesis. All the parts exist (except for a conclusion, and it's not like that's important...), but they don't flow, and there are still gaps in the literature that need plugging. I'm hoping to get a complete draft ready before the end of semester, which is about ten or so weeks away. For someone who only works two days a week... Well, it's not a whole lot of time, even with my weekend tinkering thrown in.

Still, it will be done.

Gendered trauma?

According to some recent research, what is often thought to be postnatal depression is actually post-traumatic stress disorder.

Without going into the merits of the argument (I don't have the necessary medical understanding), beyond an emphatic agreement that birth is traumatic, I can't help but wonder about the implications of the theory. Put this down to my recent reading of Superfreakonomics, but I do suspect that there is more funding out there for research on PTSD, given its associations with war, violence and other more 'manly' pursuits, than on PND, which is clearly a more feminine affliction and still relatively widely thought to be just part of a natural process. Could the traumatic experiences of parturient mothers be taken more seriously or have more support services directed towards them if they were framed in the same terms as those of soldiers?

Krótki pomyślenie o filmie

I'm thinking about European cinema: the texts, the makers, the markets and so on. And I think I've come up with the film that best represents all of European cinema. Are you ready?


Carry on Godard! I Know What You Did Last Year in Marienbad... With Monika.

Now all I need is for someone to make it.

What goes "Create New Folder" in the night?

This weekend I've been caught in the crossfire of different aspects of teaching (class preparation and marking), research (thesis and non-related entirely new whizz-bang sparkly article projects), job search and social life (I have one, who knew?).
 
And you know what? I'm loving it.
 
I got home from a party with my own kind, oddly inspired by the general relaxed camaraderie that naturally forms among the overeducated idle poor. I had ideas. I even had to get out of bed at 2.30am to write down a rough plan for an article. I'm now looking at expanding my sights into ghosts, the public sphere, peer learning and volcanoes.

I should go out more often, yes?

Just one more thing...

Today I made progress. Teeny-weeny tiny progress, but progress nonetheless.

Onwards and upwards

Over the past couple of days I've been toying with the idea of applying for a job. I won't go in to the details of said job, but it exactly the sort of project-based research/writing position I think I'd be excellent at, and it looks as though the hours could be fairly flexible, so it would suit me fantabuloriffically. Of course, there are the complicating factors of Thesis and Baby.

On Plan B

Today I direct you towards a blog post by one of my more sparkly and spectaculoriffic conference buddies, Phil. Phil went to the (in?)famous Screen conference in Glasgow, and had an underwhelming time - a neat contrast to another friend who went a couple of years earlier and experienced/witnessed exactly the sort of mean nastiness Phil refers to.

The one where I discover I'm a fox.

So the semester has well and truly started, and my tutorials are going well so far. Rather predictably the teaching has taken up all my thesis writing time, and it has been weeks since I've even opened the document. What I also knew would happen, because it always has done, is that once I start teaching I start gravitating towards doing research in the teaching field. So for the moment my mind buzzes with research projects related to classic fairy tales, or perhaps even Star Wars (because of the monomyth connection). When I taught Kalevala and national romanticism, I was all about that, and I still think I might one day do a bit more of an exploration of the "Kalevala process". When I teach first-year contemporary Europe topics I go all giddy about EU expansion and integration - that at least I've been able to channel into my Eurovision Song Contest project, which I now solemnly swear I will submit by the end of the year. The Communciation& Culture survey unit, with Habermas and medieval processions and whatnot got me going on urban space and nostalgia, censorship and pedagogy.

Release the Policy Nerd!

I'm the ultimate multi-tasker: I'm having a cup of tea, knitting, listening out to hear whether Sebastian is snoring/vomiting (we've had a rough night behind us...), and trawling through the publication search of the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. I like reports and policy statements far more than may be healthy.

Sunday reading

I got Outi Heiskanen's Tehtävä Suomessa on interlibrary loan, although in that frustrating version that only allows access to the book inside the library. So I spent my Sunday afternoon  in the library, reading about Finland in films by non-Finns, such as Helsinki playing Moscow or St Petersburg during the Cold War.*

A rhizome by any other name...

Danica reminded me today that I had promised to explain where the name "Siberian Ginseng" came from, but had not yet delivered. The shame!