My last “published” blog post was logged in July 2019. There has been a notable gap in output on this blog. That’s because there were some gaps in time on this PhD journey, so this post is a kind of explainer – to myself, to my supervisors, and if/when this eventually goes live to a broader audience, to them – whomever “they” may be.
I started my PhD in March 2018. According to the canons of literature describing the PhD journey, most candidates start out with feelings of trepidation. No matter how overwhelmed and insecure you feel as a fledgling PhD candidate, apparently this is normal. I started the PhD with a 12-month-old child, but I was confident I’d be able to manage the juggle. (I’ve got a teenage daughter, and I started my undergrad degree when she was two, so I was skilled at juggling the roles of mum and part-time student.) Then, about six weeks into the PhD journey, I realised I was pregnant.
At first, my strategy was “I’ll get to that later”. I had reading to do. I had stuff to do. There was no time for acknowledging the presence of an entirely new human being – no matter how wonderful and welcome. When that “strategy” inevitably lost viability, I grappled with my options, ultimately deciding: I want to do this. I want to keep going. It will be tough, but I will manage.
So, I persisted. Along the way, my partner and I dealt with major disruptions to our childcare arrangement, a challenging case of separation anxiety in our little tot, workplace upheavals for my partner including a period where he worked remotely [at-the-other-end-of-the-continent-remote] for six weeks, and a general feeling of “this is so huge I don’t know where to start” – all of which impacted on my ability to be at work, to focus while I was there, and stay on track to meet deadlines. And, I didn’t take leave, which – seen from that glorious all-knowing position called Hindsight – would have been the wise move. Instead, I just kept going. Eventually the baby came and I took six months maternity leave. Researching a rapidly flourishing and developing industry (blockchain), I feared a full year of maternity leave would mean I would come back and the whole world would have moved on, my topic would no longer be relevant (or original) and motherhood will have finally wrecked my career. Right?
Well, after six months, I returned to study part-time. Sleep-deprivation combined with the general stress of assimilating a PhD candidature into the now “almost” full-time job of being a mother to three (and for my partner – a father to four), combined with the unabated feelings of overwhelmed incompetence pretty well slayed me. I decided to go on leave again after three months of struggling to meet the demands of a rapidly approaching first milestone. Ironically, I was on leave for a year in the end anyway, only instead of taking my twelve-month maternity leave entitlement, I only took half, then used up all of my other leave. The blockchain industry is still here, still relatively nascent and it didn’t make a single difference to the world whether I took advantage of my maternity leave entitlements – or not. There are lessons here, some highlighting the value of finding and becoming an expert in the use of a crystal ball, others highlighting the importance of knowing when and how to care for yourself.
So anyway. Here we are most of the way through 2020.
Back in 2019 when I started this blog, I had caches of ideas swirling around in my head, and a seemingly overwhelming inability to put them into any kind of order. So I thought it might be a good idea to start a blog. The thesis is an academic document that demands adherence to strict conventions that, when applied correctly, answer a very specific research question. There is no room for “the grapple”. Because, as PhD candidates, we grapple. We transform. We go through shit. But there is no room for that in a thesis – the grapple, I mean, not the shit. Unless it’s part of the thesis – again the grapple, I mean, not the shit. It’s not really part of mine. Again… the grapple… I mean… not. The shit.
So that’s what this blog is for: the grapple. It’s a place to write. To put ideas down, to reflect, to grapple and do my own little bit of digital auto-ethnography. I don’t intend to waffle on or bellyache. (Haha! Too late.) I have many ideas that I need to flesh out, define, wrangle and WRITE about. I haven’t been writing, and I heard once that you haven’t read something in full until you’ve written about it. This lack of writing stuff down is now manifesting in my glaring inability to articulate very complex concepts when required. At this point in my PhD, this is seriously alarming and it’s critical that I address it.
So, this blog post is a bridge. It’s a bridge between the last “iteration” of this blogger and me; the undefined, inarticulate, writer’s-blocked, fragile and very tired mother-of-three, and the vision of a hoped-for state of being: Grounded, across the literature, prepared, clearly defined, ordered in her thinking, confirmed PhD candidate. It may be a rope bridge, from The Temple of Doom, with missing planks and a scary horde threatening to mince me at the other end**, but at least I’m stepping out.
* What Guides Me is a whole other conversation that could probably make for a string of posts. Watch this space.
**Let’s name but overlook the 80s-typical discriminatory representations in the film (archaeologist white male saviour; hostile, disgusting and evil “others” in every shade of brown; fragile, frequently screaming white female in constant need of preening and rescue; and stereotypical caricatures of East-Asian children.) Just focus on the bridge. Take me to the bridge. Even if it is a rope bridge. In the Temple of Doom.
Escritoire Noir 
