PhD
« Previous Entries Next Entries »Writing?
Writing. Writing.
Writing. Writing. Writing.
Obviously writing.
Miserable writing.
Surely writing.
Absently writing.
Passionately writing.
Sweet writing.
Lost in writing.
Possessed by writing.
Disgusted by writing.
Unbearable writing.
Empty-headed writing.
No writing.
Starved to be writing.
Urged to be writing.
Released by writing.
Amazed by writing.
Actualised by writing.
Submissively writing.
Aching writing.
Traumatized writing.
Only writing.
Yesterday today tomorrow writing.
Not giving up writing!
By Nana | March 20, 2006 | Topics: PhD | 1 Comment »
Inspiring Office for übermensch
It’s very easy: It has two screens (tho I only use one, but the more the better;)), big window, I am all ALONE in here, cosy setting … what more would I want?
Voila;)
By Nana | February 1, 2006 | Topics: Les Voyages, PhD | 5 Comments »
Ian Saved the Day
Right after I wrote a post about intellectual blockage, I talked to Ian. It helped a lot.
We were discussing options for qualitative interview analysis. Right after the phone call, I started to work. And it’s getting on very well, I must say.
First, I printed off the transcriptions of interviews, and started to reading them thru. At the same time, I am marking an important citations and putting them in additional document, which serves as some kind of category note. Quite some categories has already emerged and I put significant citations from the informants (the researchers who participated in the experiment) in each category.
Later on, I will also use QCA analysis, but more about that when I do so.
I just wanted to say: Thank you, Ian:)
By Nana | January 27, 2006 | Topics: PhD, Research | 2 Comments »
Intellectual Blockade
has eaten the whole Yesterday and already started chewing on Today … started to work at 9am and what have I done so far? Erm, khm … amm, boooo.
Today I really had a strange dream. Although I risk that my coefficient of weirdness (as my friend David calles it) will increase heavily, I feel like writing down a part of it:
I was a little Jewish boy, hiding in almost empty room apart from long shelves covered with green blankets. There were few other little boys in the room, around 8 or 9 years old. We all were covered with blankets. Then “they” entered the room, I was afraid “they” would notice me. Someone began pulling my leg and I was certain I had been cought. But the other little boy, who appeared to be a little German boy, pretended it was his leg. “They” said something and left. I was safe.
Hmmm, weird, huh? To add some more weirdness to the whole thing, today it is a Holocaust Memorial Day I as found out on news this morning. Maybe I was a little Jewish boy in my previous life. Or I simply sleep too much;)
Anyway, I better find out how I will come across this blockade. I try to analyse and interpret the data from the first experiment, and I don’t exactly have a clear idea of where to start. I have ten reports from the researchers, ten interviews with them, data from timeline, survey data about researchers work plus a number of logs from our communication during the experiment.
Where to begin? What to do with all these data? I had so many ideas before but now I seem to be quite confused. Ok, I will read .. reading always helps when intellectual blockade takes over …
By Nana | January 27, 2006 | Topics: Personal, PhD | 2 Comments »
Working Sunday
My initial plans for today were visiting Brussels but as I was quite productive yesterday I thought I should have continued working. Now, I partly regret and partly not regret the decision. I have boiling water under way again - I guess I need some balance. When I really feel the heat for work, then it is absolute. Yesterday, after about 9 hours of work I went home and continued reading - it was the new edited book of Christine Hine. I got stuck with the epilogue, written by Nicholas W. Jankowski and Martine van Selm. The authors discuss about agenda for Internet research and in accordance with methodological innovation concept, they report a gap exactly on the spot where my PhD could come in - the lack of research designs for incorporating three major paradigms within social science, or on a method level the lack of mixed methods designs suitable for Internet research. And this is exactly the thing I have been dealing with in the last year.
So, I put the book aside, tried to fall asleep but didn’t work. The ideas inside my head were chasing my sleep, questions kept popping up. Awful. Now, I am sleepy and much less productive then yesterday.
I took a walk around the lake, which is only a few minutes away from my office. The proof that Louvain-la-Neuve is a lot of nature, too;)
The ducks
Trees in the water
By Nana | January 15, 2006 | Topics: Academic books, Les Voyages, PhD | 3 Comments »
The phenomenon of Louvain-la-Neuve
Yesterday evening I arrived to Louvain-la-Neuve all the way from London. The Eurostar train was quite comfortable to travel with and I was pleasantly surprised at the Brussels train station, when I wanted to buy a ticket to Louvain-la-Neuve. The ticket guy had told me I didn’t have to buy any extra ticket but could go to any Belgium station with a Eurostar ticket.
Then, upon arrival, I somehow realised that my ignorance of French could be quite a challenge. The first encounter was a nice proof of that. I wanted to find out where Bia Bouquet (the street where I live) is. The guy only spoke French and I not a word of it … but then luckily I bumped into a girl who knew a few words in English and I found my way ‘home’.
The next morning, which is today;), I went on another adventure - I had to find the CMC (Centre de Politique Comparee) and my new office. With each step further into the heart of Louvain-la-Neuve I began to realise it was no ordinary town. My assumptions were confirmed at lunch time, when my friend took me to a stroll across the city. He explained the concept behind the town. The centre is actually based on Leonardo da Vinci’s idea about showing what is nice and hiding what is not. The town thus appears as a three-level department store. On the underground level (-1), there are car parks and ways in (roads, trains). Then the ground level (0) it’s only pedestrian. It is the place where people meet, socialize, walk etc. Above that (+1), there are places to live (apartments) and work (offices). Really an impressive structure!
Photos to be taken and published soon;)
By Nana | January 12, 2006 | Topics: Les Voyages, Personal, PhD | No Comments »
Amazonian does it!
The year 2006 is THE year for my PhD. And as I am beginning to realise also the year full of stress. For no particular reason, apart from knowing that I need to work on PhD. Every morning when I wake up, I feel a bulge in my stomach as it would be full of some kind of flies and bees (in contrast to butterflies at special occasions). Then the second thing is a more and more constant pain in my forehead … just ‘above between’ the eyes. As if I had a boiling water in there all the time. I’ve noticed I hardly ever really relax these days. Why is that? It is not the case that I wouldn’t be enjoying in working on the PhD. On a contrary - I love it. Maybe could it be because I think I am not working hard enough? Bingo!
I think what really makes me frustrated is the fact, that not always (or better quite rarely so far) I have some concrete results of my work to show. By the end of the *whole* day, at best I have a page to show or maybe not even that. I guess this is called giving birth to PhD. So I better stop whining about it and find an effective stress killer.
I need to start running again, didn’t do it for more than a month - just out of bad excuses. Which is really funny because once I start again, I *know* I will be so happy about it. The catch of a contemporary hedonism, maybe? Why enjoy something if we can simply get enough from just longing for it.
The other thing that chills me out and makes me feel at peace is a candle light. As much candles as possible, various colours, shapes and aromas.
A bath-tub with jasmine or white musk fragrance oil makes me forget about almost everything but unfortunately I only have a shower in my current apartment. So I try to compensate with delicious body soaps and butters like miranda soap, karma soap, africa spa honey mud, cocoa butter, king of skin (amazing), and amazonian massage bar which send me straight to heaven:).
I should definitely go to sauna more often and it’s a skiing season as well so …. but first all those goodies in Louvain-la-Neuve 
By Nana | January 7, 2006 | Topics: Personal, PhD | 2 Comments »
Heading for Belgium
In a few days, I will be ‘moving’ to Louvain-la-Neuve, where I will be a visiting researcher at UCL for a month. I am really excited to find out more about the town just over 20 years old with university 581 years old. How is that?
So, here is the story of Lovain-la-Neuve: Chatolic University of Lovain is a name for two parallel institutions of higher education; one giving instruction in Dutch, the other in French. The original university, the oldest in Belgium, was founded by a bull issued by Pope Martin V in 1425. In 1970 the university was reorganized as two parallel autonomous institutions, one being the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Dutch) and the other Université Catholique de Louvain (French). And that’s how a new town emerged as almost exlusively student town as apparently half of its population is currently attending the university and the other half are former students.
Today, I asked my friend whether I should have brought my running shoes and he replied: “Sure, it’s a great place to run, it’s full of pedestrian alleys and footpaths, and also a very large sports centre, and swimming pools, and a nice forest nearby, + a path around a lake, too, etc.” Now tell me, who wouldn’t be excited over such answer?
5 Nights to go;)) … oh no, six, + one in London (I couldn’t go anywhere in this world bypassing London;))
By Nana | January 5, 2006 | Topics: Les Voyages, PhD, Research | 3 Comments »
How Serious Is This?
This morning, I received an email from a friend, saying this: “Thank you for your congratulations on my analysis [this is the only sentence I understood in your message!]…. but I suppose you sent me this message by mistake?” Of course, I sent it by mistake, I should have sent it to one of my researchers who is working on the 2. experiment. Ok, this was just for a starter… but read this;)):
This morning (again), I wanted to pick up my mobile to call my mum. Then I realised it was nowhere around to be found. Not on the bed, not in the bathroom, neither on my desk. Then I wanted to be smart and find it with my land line. I called my mobile number, turning my head around my apartment and trying to locate the bip sound and the vibrations. There was no ringing sound but instead a voice ANSWERED MY phone (not only my call;)). I almost fainted out of surprise … and this very polite voice said: “Hello, are you calling to come picking up your phone?” I managed to answer a question with a question: “Is my mobile lost like *really* lost?” Then, this very nice person told me a story of how he and his wife had found my mobile yesterday afternoon outside nearby where I live. Since then, they were waiting for the owner to call them. I quickly ran to the address they gave me and on the way I bought a chocolate box Merci to express my appreciation to them.
Only now I am beginning to realise, how lucky I really was that such honest people found my mobile and returned it to me. I could have easily ended up less lucky and without it right now, probably whining over it as it is quite new.
However, it really makes me wonder how serious it is, that I only realised I had lost my mobile in the same moment as I found out somebody had found it. Am I losing myself? It is absolutely no wonder this happened, as I work almost all the time and sleep four hours a night in these days. When this experiment is over, I will surely take a break. Without any bad conscious!
Thank you, very honest people from Grafenauerjeva ulica 25!! I will not forget this.
By Nana | December 12, 2005 | Topics: General, Personal, PhD | No Comments »
Week 6 and all the previous ones
It’s been one month now, since my last post. And in this month, there was all - from really hard work, fair laziness, to almost depression for not having the right energy and ideas.
I am beginning to realise that writing up a PhD it is no joke. That it may sound like just another few hundred pages to be written in a scientific language, with some smart citation and some cool ideas of the author - but actually it really is much more than that. I think I didn’t quite have the idea until a few days ago, when I really sit myself down and tell myself off for not being hardworking enough. Then I realised it’s not all about hard work. It’s also about feeling right, being in the right mood, having the right ideas, reading the right books and articles, organising the work right. Yeh, how to organise the work process? I read and I read and I read … and nothing seemed to stay in my head. Then a friend (who already completed a PhD) told me that it’s all about making the right notes not only in the book but in a seperate document. I already read about this once but didn’t think I could actually work like this. Then another friend told me she is using EndNote not only for references and citations but also for note - writing. I tried it out. It is fantastic. Now I think I am out of the crisis I have been in for the last month and I can start THE real work. Oh well, this will yet to be seen.
By Nana | November 18, 2005 | Topics: PhD, Research | No Comments »
« Previous Entries Next Entries »