Viva La Viva

Nearly a week ago now, I survived my viva. The 'doctor' is still pinching herself and may need to check her heart using the toy stethoscope that appeared on her desk the next day.

However, I have to say the auspices weren't great. My supervisors had given me a very stringent mock viva which had exposed some potential problem areas and resulted in another ten days of reading and notemaking before the day itself arrived. I thought I knew where the weak points that might be challenged were - and there were plenty of them given that I had attempted a form of (somewhat) participatory action research.

But I had also frightened myself by reading horror stories online of failed vivas. Note: not a good idea.

The day didn't start well. I decided that I would leave plenty of time (an hour an a half) before the appointed meeting with my supervisor prior to the main event. That would give me the opportunity to park easily on campus, settle myself with a coffee and take a final look over my notes. On arrival at the university I discovered that three hours was the maximum parking time for a visitor on site. Never mind that I was a student and that it was my BIG DAY, the conversation with the floppy-haired undergraduate on reception left me in no doubt that there was no way to circumnavigate this parking practicality without a permit from my supervisor.

'No problem,' I smiled, determined not to get upset and knowing that I was still in the afore-mentioned plenty of time. 

My supervisor thought she did have a suitable permit, but was still busy driving through the Sussex countryside. We arranged a meeting place for the handover and I parked up to wait. It was a good few minutes later that I realised I no longer had my phone. After turning the inside of the car upside-down I decided that I must have left it on the reception desk. I drove out of my dream parking spot, back to the main reception carpark and sheepishly back in to Floppy Hair, just as my supervisor was phoning me back to ask why I wasn't where I said I would be. 

At this point I thought, I can't even park the bloody car. Why on earth would they give me a PhD, and dutifully conforming to the stereotype of hopelessly impractical academic.

It transpired that it wasn't the right permit. Another exchange was made. I parked the car for the fifth time and discovered that I didn't have time for the coffee and read-through that I planned. Perhaps my supervisor could help me with some more practice questions. I needed to quell the rising panic somehow. But no, she wanted to talk about all sorts of mundane things: beach-walks and gardening and family and hip operations: anything, it seemed but critical pedagogy. 

And she was absolutely right. Answering her 'hairdressing-salon' type-questions calmed me right down. I had always suspected that the biggest viva problem would not be the material but the fact that I get very nervous; thus the previous few days had been spent tumbling down rabbit holes about confidence in interviews and presentations. I particularly liked this TED talk by Amy Cuddy: 

It was compelling enough to lead to me doing 'Wonder Woman' poses in the toilets before I went in. 

And, strangely enough, I almost enjoyed it. Perhaps I can't quite go that far. But it wasn't unpleasant. It actually felt like what it should do: dialogue between people who really understood about the substantive topic of reading. An hour and a half went FAST. I couldn't believe hearing the external examiner say, 'And so, my final question is about...' 

Only twenty minutes' deliberation before I was called back in to hear the recommendation of a 'pass with minor corrections'. It's not official yet. (I wasn't listening properly to the what happens next part, but there's some sort of review board to go through first.) Which is fine, because the idea that seven years of work might now be finished still hasn't sunk in. 

And anyway, in the meantime, I've got a plastic stethoscope. 

80000 Words in an Inbox

 

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well.

It is done.

*Just* the viva now.

I feel strangely numb.

Intention to Submit: Clock ticking

 I look back and see that I haven't posted anything since February - but it seems that spirits were quite high, and, apart from the financial impact, there was the sense that 'progress' was being made with the writing. I can go a little further today: six and a half years after I began the doctorate, I have just completed my 'intention to submit' form. 

That means that the clock is now ticking and I have just eight weeks left before submission.  Eight weeks!

I wonder sometimes how I have got to this stage. I know that there have been many, many moments when I thought that I wouldn't. 

But somehow, now, I have a thesis that is probably in its sixth draft, and I have passed the 80,000 word mark that seemed impossible even a few months ago. I am left reworking only the Conclusions chapter. Those 'original contributions to knowledge' are little beasts.

The plan (though there have been so many plans along the way that I'm reluctant to even call it that with any degree of confidence) but the plan is to submit before Christmas and give myself the Christmas holiday writing-free before the viva sometime next spring. 

No Longer Crumbling To Dust

It is a new year. It brings a hope that this might be the year in which the doctorate is completed, and a fresh determination to support that hope by getting on with things. The end is in sight. It is a long way off and there are several mountains to climb, but it is there away into the distance and the path is signposted.

I have spent the £10,000 that I had mentally allowed for the privilege of this study. I can’t say ‘budgeted’ because I never had it saved up to begin with, but have scrimped and saved over the last six years and had several periods of intermission when the funds simply weren’t there. And so there is a financial imperative to complete as well as an intellectual and practical one. 

In January I redrafted the methodology chapter. And so far in February I have redrafted the introductory chapter. Both now represent a third draft (though I am on a fifth draft of the findings chapters).

The breakthrough is really that I finally feel as though I wouldn’t be embarrassed for anyone to read them. I would no longer crumble to dust if they were shared. It’s a long time since I began writing both, and the cringy, self-important sentences are largely gone. When they were written in those earlier days they weren’t intended to sound self-important, more to desperately establish a claim in territory that I found slippery and hostile - clinging on in a place that I didn’t think I deserved to be. They make uncomfortable reading in the drafting process but their removal begins to remove some of my anxieties. Having more or less a draft of the whole means that each rewrite achieves greater clarity and narrative coherence. And the fact that some passages haven’t been revisited for many months means that objectivity is achieved through that distance.

The rest of February will be devoted to the Literature Review, which is currently around 15,000 words. It needs a whole additional section as well as a further rewrite. The assurances from my supervisors that it would simply be a case of expanding the original Literature Review included in the proposal was a little removed from the reality. I have read more than a hundred further books and papers since that was submitted five years ago. 

So, on I plod. The journey metaphor is annoying, and I have already overused it and mixed it up here, but it is a hell of a ride.

Giant Waves

December 2020 and I need another metaphor for 'rollercoaster' because that doesn't really cover the highs and lows of this thing. 

It is more like being tossed around on giant waves that make you violently seasick at the same time as feeling that you have no hope of making it to shore in your tiny, insubstantial boat, to which you are clinging on for dear life. 

After all last month's bravado and excitement, I was cut down once again by what felt like brutal feedback on my (fourth revision) of my data chapters.

I have had to be very systematic about picking myself back up and addressing what is required, remembering not to take it personally and not giving up.

But - with all but the conclusions chapter in some sort of draft form, I will move to 'pre-submission' status at the end of March. (Where I am hoping for calmer waters.)

The Thing

I've found 'the thing'.

Everyone told me it would happen and I didn't quite believe them: that there would be a theory or branch of thinking that would serve as a framework for my thesis, and that I would find it at some point along the way.

I remember being on a university 'Away Day' during my first or second year where we all had to identify the organising principle of our work, by way of an ice-breaker. I was so far out of my depth that I couldn't even see any ice to break, and I haven't been back to an away day since.

For my supervisors it was dialogics and hermaneutics. I tried those, hopefully, and they didn't fit.

But this weekend, I found the thing that did fit.

It was a huge penny-drop, lightbulb-on moment where suddenly everything makes more sense and previously unanswerable questions can be reframed and addressed.

It happened after the third revision of my data chapters (which I believe to be quite late in the process!) when feedback from my supervisors pointed me in the direction of two particular articles. It turned out that I had independently reached conclusions that other had found before me. I was struggling to articulate them and suddenly found that I had a language to do it. 

What's more, in true 'Eureka' fashion, it happened in the bath. Unlike Archimedes I didn't start running through the streets though. I had to call for a pen and paper to scribble on. I tried at first to dictate but my thoughts were crowded and my husband impatient, so instead I scrawled on soggy, disintegrating pages (I was half way through washing my hair so there was much dripping) and in the cold light of day this morning, they still make some sort of sense.

The relief is overwhelming. A weight truly has been lifted, and now I need to go and pull my weight to get this thing finished. So excuse me while I get back to the thesis and try and unravel some of it.

And the thing? It's very simple, and it's actually been there all the way along, I just didn't take any notice of it. More to come!

Literature Review

A first draft of this is complete, and sent to my supervisor as of last night. Another chapter!

It happened so suddenly. I have noticed this with a lot of academic writing: it feels as if there is a long way to go and then all at once and somehow unexpectedly, it is done. Not quite 9000 words, so a few to play with.

I allowed myself a celebratory lock down beer.