My Bump In The Road

I am having a bad day today.

I was supposed to Confirm on Monday. Today is Wednesday. Monday came and went and I only noticed once that I was supposed to confirm that day but didn't. Confirmation happens a year into your candidature, where you have to submit a research plan outlining your PhD research. In it, you must include the literature, identify the gaps, demonstrate how your research addresses those gaps, explain your theoretical and practical contributes and show how you will get it all done in the remaining 2 years. Most people I know take more than a year to confirm. One person I know took 10 months. If I confirm in 12 months, that's still better than most. Still, I can't help but compare myself to those who do it in less than 12 months. It makes me feel like I'm not as bright a star as others.

What bugged me at first was that I had the confirmation document done and ready to go. I went to see the statistics advisor who shot my entire research design to hell and wiped out any dream of confirming in December (10 months). Fine. I'll confirm in February then (12 months). Up till that point, I knew where I was going, what I was doing and how my research was going to look. But after seeing the stats advisor, I had no clue.

So I left for ANZMAC, hoping I could get some feedback and some much needed help and advice as to which direction I should consider or what approach I might take. Instead, I had some people who could have been nicer tell me that my research was a consultancy project and not a PhD (an insult). Mind you, I wasn't upset. I don't do upset much these days, I just do frustration. So I was frustrated. I didn't get the help that I wanted or needed. So I told myself that I would just see my supervisor when I got back to Brisbane.

Saw her I did yesterday afternoon. We spoke about the research and the research design. I started out in a state of uncertainty and then moved on to confusion. Then I experienced despair and thought, "What am I doing? I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know why I am doing this, maybe I should just quit." I could not see an end in sight. I could not see any outcome to my research and for a moment, I wondered what was the point. We kept talking until I regained some clarity and I left feeling a lot better than when I started. I now had direction.

Today, I step into the office and find an email with a logic structure and proposed method quite different to everything I had understood from the evening before. So I got upset and frustrated. Everytime I finally get my head around things, something gets raised that confuses me all over again. Tomorrow is my last day. I will come to the office, I will invigilate an exam, I will work on my research and then I will have my meeting with my supervisors. The next time I will be back in the office is at the end of January. I would have three weeks to finish my confirmation document then. So I got frustrated. I just want to know what I'm doing, how I'm doing it and have an agreement with everybody over this. No more mucking around, no more changes, because there is just no more time. We can do all that after confirmation.

What do I want to achieve out of my meeting tomorrow?

1. Don't cry
2. Be strong
3. Be firm

If I don't understand it, I won't put it in because there is just no time. No time for me to gather the resources, read through them, understand them, form my own opinion and then write about it. I am open to exploration after confirmation, but not before. If I don't agree with anything, I won't put it in. Because at the end of the day, this is my research and I will have to defend and justify it to others. If I don't agree with something, why would I put it in? I cannot justify something I fundamentally do not believe in.