The difficult part of research for me...

The difficult part of research for me, is interacting with my research participants. There is a reason I wanted to be a Botanist and also tried telling my supervisor a few years ago that I would rather be a Historian, working with sources, than actually having to be out there interacting with real human beings.

Data collection is tough for me. Finding a school that will be willing to let me be in there. And thereafter having to negotiate so many different kinds of human interactions. Requesting for things for myself and yet trying not to be too imposing on others at the same time.

Once I get my data in, sitting down with them, working with them... it's a lot easier for me. Writing also... Is a lot easier for me than speaking... And imaginary audience, or an audience out there of scholars is much easier for me to interact with, than... a real human being before me. But... this in no ways implies I'm anti-social or anything like that.

When I am working with something I'm not confident in, I tend to be more controlling. I want to choose a school that I like, that I feel comfortable in, where there are teachers I know and feel at ease with. I think all these is to alleviate my sense of anxiety, and having to establish relationships anew, which as I mentioned, does not come that easily to me.

But... this year... I am going to keep my options open... Maybe I might discover by chance a school that matches me. It may not be what I expect, but it might suit my PhD research. I am keeping hopeful. This is honestly, the hardest part of educational research for me, much harder than any kind of formulation of idea or proposal.

Self-Care for Graduates Students

I was casually telling my bestie that I want to come up with a work titled "Self-Care for Graduate Students". Last year, I gave a workshop called "Demystifying the Publication Process". Writing, to me, is a very important research skill that can be taught and learned. And being able to write well, helps so much in every stage of the graduate students' life from writing the thesis to publishing.

Another topic closed to my heart is how we take care of ourselves as graduate students. Important to this topic is our mindset and the perspective in which we view our studies. For example, if the PhD is a very important area of my life, if I take it too seriously, if I care too much where I will end up, whether I publish, how fast can I complete it... the PhD journey may become an uneasy and stressful one. But if I see it as just one area of my life, among many other important areas, and I focus on the process of doing it and learning it, giving myself time and space to learn... the PhD journey will become more bearable and enjoyable.

Topics to cover include:

• What to do when your mind is not clear or working at maximal efficiency? Do I continue working or do I take a break? What kind of breaks help with mind?
• Are you giving yourself enough time to rest? Is it alright to rest? Did you know your mind continues working in the background even as you rest? Don't view times you are not working as wasted time.
• What to do with a writer's block? Or what do you do when you run out of ideas? What resources do you have? Can you watch a video/movie related to it? Read some articles? Speak to a friend/colleague/professor?
• Are you too dependent on your supervisor? Do you have anyone else to go to for academic help?
• Do you have someone who understands what the PhD is about to share your troubles, burdens, and worries, and help you problem solve when you meet with difficulties?
• Are you taking care of your health in general? Are you eating well, sleeping well, exercising? PhD work uses a lot of your intellect, but very little of your body, it is important to move it in other ways. The mind and body are connected.

Just some preliminary ideas. Maybe I need to go for a swim now. My mind is not working as it should...

My absence

It's been awhile since I updated this journal and it is perhaps time to do so.

I wrote draft 1 of chapter 1 in November 2017.

Now, it's April 2018. I am at draft 6 of chapter 1.

May 2017 - I had a completely different topic.

It hasn't pan out the way I had hoped, but I am taking this in my stride.

Because doing my PhD and working part-time cannot feed me, I am also taking up some odd writing jobs on the sideline. And this act of doing work for multiple people, besides myself, has changed the way I view my own PhD work.

Now, I see my PhD work as another job among others. This has tremendously re-position the PhD's location in my heart and life. It's no longer about my identity, no longer about doing a work that represents me, that is pretty perfect, and very good, but also not something I can any-o-how do (I would never do this for a client), but it's realistically something I have to do to the best of my abilities with the limited resources I have to do it. It cannot afford to be perfect, I cannot afford it.

I don't have the time or the money.

I have to do it, the way I do any other work.

This also means perhaps I have reached a milestone in my academic career. This detachment that has developed... I've never seen it before. Perhaps it is also my way of coping, when a journey has turned out longer, more undulating, more meandering than I thought it would.

Three Paragraphs

I just wrote three paragraphs in my literature review. I am still slightly amazed. These are truly my voice. I have initially written down what others thought about those things, and I have quite a lot to copy and paste from all over the place after studying this topic for six years and having written countless accounts on this topic from various angles and approaches, but I accidentally deleted them. But perhaps it was good that I had, because after putting together what others have said, I could no longer hear my own voice. Now the question is how I am going to weave in the evidence and still retain my own voice?

Word

"The clean, linear presentation of statements of problem and purpose that are typically found in scholarly chapters and journal articles provide a thin basis for understanding the initial mess and frustration of finding and fine-tuning a problem for your inquiry. For that matter, it is probably misleading to suggest that you simply "find" a problem or question, as if all you have to do is reach into that mess and pull out a researchable idea. Problem posing in qualitative inquiry demands more of you than simply hunting, gathering, and then displaying." (p. 21)

Schram, T. H. (2006). Conceptualizing and proposing qualitative research (2 ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey and Columbus, Ohio: Pearson, Merrill Prentice Hall.

The struggle of finding clarity

I have typed the title of this post three days ago, but it's only today that I know what to say about it.

For about four to five months, I struggled greatly to find a focus for my PhD study. I have written multiple drafts of my chapter 1 to be, but all have led me to more confusion, rather than greater clarity.

It is only today, that I saw the light more clearly. Here is how it has evolved since November...
1. I have decided that rather than focusing on "commemorative events" and "rituals", I will focus back on "patriotism". (Thanks Dr Chris)
2. I have decided that rather than using the ethnography method, I will use the case study method. (Thanks Jasmine)
3. I have decided that rather than looking at all four core events, I will focus on one main one - the National Day celebrations. (Thanks Zhang Si)
4. And I have re-thought out my research question, after changing it multiple times, to - How does a secondary school in Singapore teach about/for patriotism?

I was frustrated and stressed up, especially as I wrote more and more drafts of this chapter 1, I felt further and further  from where I wanted to be. I was writing so much, but not getting close to what I wanted to do. It felt like I was stagnating and running on a treadmill. But alas, actually, through writing and sharing what I was doing with other colleagues and students... the questions they asked, though at first made me possibly uncomfortable because they were suggesting something different from what I thought I had in mind, actually helped me zoom in faster to what I truly wanted.

I think doing the PhD requires so much courage and perseverance and faith. You really don't know the end point, and you just got to keep trying. My friend, Chin, was telling me that he noticed for my Masters, I struggled to get going, but once I got started, I had an exponential increase. He was telling me not to worry for my PhD. I hope that happens again. I give myself time to write a firm foundation for my research study, and trust that this will be the platform from which everything else will take off.

The importance of taking mistakes in one's stride

I think one of the most important traits needed for a PhD student to successfully navigate this journey is the ability to take mistakes in his or her stride. It is probably inevitable that no matter how brilliant the student it will take time to form the research proposal, from the research problem to the methodology chosen. And it is inevitable that changes will occur. A change in focus, in theoretical framework, in school (what if your first choice rejects you), in methodology, which I am currently undergoing...

I am a strange researcher. I came into research enamored with certain methodologies and I design studies around using particular methodologies. Scholars will tell me, this is not the way, you first find your research problem, and later on, then you find the right methodology to solve that problem. So I know clearly the correct direction.

However, to me... I am willing to tackle any interesting research problem... So it's tough for me to begin there, because there's so much to research. I prefer to constrain my choices by working backwards... But... working backwards doesn't always work. It works most of the time for me, but not this time.

I have had great difficulty finding a research problem and question for my revered "ethnograpy" method. You know, I have always wished to be an ethnographer, like the kinds that live with the locals in another culture... And I tried my best to write a research problem around this, also given my current resources and abilities and networks, but... it is beyond me...

I will probably switch back to the case study methodology. I tried my best, but it's not working.

So yeah, if... you don't take mistakes like these in your stride, to try to make a smaller deal of making big changes to your thesis, and these things keep happening, you'll be beaten!