scholars, watch out for enemy #1 - ignorance

"It is my thesis that what schools do not teach may be as important as what they do teach. I argue this position because ignorance is not simply a neutral void; it has important effects on the kinds of options one is able to consider, the alternatives that one can examine, and the perspectives from which one can view a situation or problems. The absence of a set of considerations or perspectives or the inability to use certain processes for appraising a context biases the evidence one is able to take into account. A parochial perspective or simplistic analysis is the inevitable progeny of ignorance." - Elliot W. Eisner

My best writing tip

At the moment where you are filled with excitement about a new idea or topic, stop.

I discovered this serendipitously. I have a weakness when I write. I tend to get into a state where I'm overwhelmed with emotions. I write a lot from emotions rather than thinking. When I am overwhelmed, I have to stop. My heart just cannot continue. What I learned from this is that, it makes me anticipate coming back to my writing, because I know there are things undone and fun to write about when I resume in the future.

I saw this in this book called The Writer's Way by Jack Rawlins and Stephen Metzger (7th edition):

"9. Quit when you're hot, persist when you're not. Ernest Hemingway is said to have always quit writing when he knew exactly what was going to happen next, not when he ran out of things to say. That way, he was always excited about going to work the next day instead of dreading it. Hemingway understood that every time you stop writing, whether it's for five minutes or five months, you run the risk of finding out you're blocked when you come back. Get around the problem by quitting when you're hot. Take a break on a winning note, not a losing one. Stop writing when things are going well, when you feel strong and know where you're going next. When you're at a loss, don't let yourself quit; stick with it until the block dissolves, words come, and you've triumphed momentarily.

The principle behind this is basic behavior modification. If you quit when you're stuck, you're in fact rewarding your failure: you're learning that if you get stuck you get the reward of getting to eat, to stretch, to escape. If you stick it out, wait until the words come, and then quit, you reward success. At first it seems contrary to logic: why stop when the words are flowing? The answer is only apparent when you try it: if you quit when you feel good about writing, you feel good all during the break and come back to the computer feeling strong. If you quit when you're stuck, your break is filled with dread and worry, and the return to the computer feels like the climb to the scaffold. 

The longer the break, the more important it is to quit knowing what you'll do next. When I break for five minutes, I want to know what sentence I'm going to write when I come back, when I break for the day, I typically finish with a sketchy paragraph summary of where the discussion is going in the next few passages - a map of tomorrow's journey." (pp. 58-9) 

Dipping and the Deep Dive into Research

I notice stages in my personal experience of research. Usually it begins slowly, like a sampling of literature until you get a taste of the field, and slowly but surely, you start to form a map or bigger picture... It is still sketchy, but I feel like I'm on an exponential curve...

The more I read, the more I know, the more excited I become. It's like I slowly dip my feet into the waters, and then I immerse myself and then I make a duck dive and dive deep into the research.

It is very satisfying. Almost like the more you know, the more convicted you are of the purpose and importance of your research. It's like solving a puzzle and putting together pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.

Gosh... I always make doing a PhD sound like so much fun, don't I?

I'm just starting out and far from consolidating my ideas and all but just thought of celebrating this very moment where I feel free and good about my research.

Excited. :)

Taking up my identity as PhD student again...

There's so many things going on nowadays that I just might forget that I am doing my PhD. I am someone with a great sense of responsibility, so I don't often neglect my commitments for long and when I have relegated one to the side, there's always a nagging voice within to pick it back up again.

So I think today is the day that I resume full responsibility for my PhD studies, including facing fears of the unknown, meeting people, and reading up on things, and being a true-thinker-scholar. I am no longer going to give excuses that I'm not that kind of scholar (not keen on politics etc) or that kind of person (not extroverted etc).

I will be whoever I need to be for the next 3-4 years to get my PhD completed. (And watch my life expand.)

I think it is my responsibility as a training scholar to take scholarship and knowledge seriously. And that for me would include world events and news and history. I hope to be well read in terms of context and all.

Yesterday I was watching some YouTube videos about Catalonia and yes, I think that kind of direction is what I need to take. To give myself a broad base of learning and knowledge so I can build my scholarship upon a solid foundation.

So last week I closed a writing chapter. This week I will open a reading one. I am going to be a reader. Read widely, think deeply.

And I will plan when I want to do my confirmation. I will plan some deadlines into my schedule. And I will meet them. This way, I will be moving forward.

Watch this space!

Performance anxiety

We often hear about graduate students becoming depressed and all. I myself am very prone to anxiety. Just typing that A word made my palms sweaty. I think one of my biggest fears (probably silliest on hindsight) is attending conferences and meeting all these very established scholars and having to shake their hands. This is/was very difficult for me because I am also socially very shy and public situations trigger this sweaty palm condition, which makes me even more embarrassed than I already am.

Maybe I need to challenge this. So what if a big shot frowns at my palms, wipes them off his pants, looks at me with disgust and walks away?

Nothing. That's fine with me if someone chooses to conclude who I am based on a first impression.

Wait, but I am here not to talk about graduate school mental health issues, though I feel I have sufficient experiences to talk about it.

I wanted to write how I am mysteriously not very nervous about a workshop I am going to give soon and to a big crowd next Friday. This is in contrast to my big bout of nervousness needing to teach intermediate English to non-native speakers in June. And also giving presentations in classes. Maybe I feel less watched, I don't know. I get tense when I feel I am being watched.

Maybe I am thinking that I really have an important message to share. I may not share it very well, but I still want to share it, because it resonates with my heart. M may think this is not right, the teacher must give the students what they want, not only what she wants to give... I don't know... It's so hard for me, maybe I need to learn to balance this, but that burning message in my heart distracts me from caring how people would think of me.

It's almost like, you can think the worst of me, but still, please listen to this message.

Maybe for us, graduate students, we can develop such a relationship to our PhD work and believe in it so strongly, we can be so confident even before people in authority who put us down.

I also care less how big a shot you are. I don't know how this happened. Maybe after visiting a very rude doctor. Or maybe after aging a few more years and gaining authority over younger ones by simple virtue of age. But I realized what I value in a person is not his intelligence, not his wealth, not his power; but his kindness, gentleness, thoughtfulness, and lovingness. To me, I will respect people who have the latter set of characteristics. I just value them more, I don't know why. Maybe you do too. :)

So don't try to impress me with your intelligence if you don't have the heart to care that your intelligence is not harming other people and making them feel stupid.

the thrill of seeing oneself in print

“I understood immediately the thrill of seeing oneself in print. It provides some sort of primal verification: you are in print; therefore you exist. Who knows what this urge is all about, to appear somewhere outside yourself, instead of feeling stuck inside your muddled but stroboscopic mind, peering out like a little undersea animal – a spiny blenny, for instance – from inside your tiny cave? Seeing yourself in print is such an amazing concept: you can get so much attention without having to actually show up somewhere. While other who have something to say or want to be effectual, like musicians or baseball players or politicians, have to get out in front of people, writers, who tend to be shy, get to stay home and still be public. There are many obvious advantages to this. You don’t have to dress up, for instance, and you can’t hear them boo you right away.” – Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

Re-reading old articles

I used to hear this a lot in church and often experience it myself, where you read the same bible passage at different times and hear it speaking different things to you (in other words, you are interpreting it in different ways). They say that is the power of the Word.

Something similar happens in academia. I am re-reading articles I had to read in the past to write my Masters work. But I am reading them in new ways because of my new research questions and directions. So I am looking at different sections of the old papers as relevant to me and I am re-interpreting old passages that once had a certain meaning to me, but today mean something else.

Gosh and we were once afraid it was possible for two people to write a similar thesis?

It is hard for the same person at different stage of his research to even look at the same thing in the same way. I would go so far as to say it's possible for the same person to read the same materials and write two different theses from different lens or approaches.