Busy Bee

I was going to say that I've become a bit of a hermit lately, but I haven't. I've been preoccupied with writing my thesis since I have 4 months left before I'm due to finish (omg!). Being so close to the end, I've had to streamline tasks and really decide what my priorities are. I'd identified thesis, health, and friends as priorities in that order.

I seem to be on track with completing the thesis. I've written the first 3 chapters and have most of the fourth and fifth chapters down as well. I've just had to be a bit of a writing machine. Last week's task was writing Chapter 3 (methodology for my qualitative study) and this week's task is editing Chapter 1 (introduction) and Chapter 2 (literature review) based on supervisor's written feedback. I've let go of a lot of teaching, which is tight financially, especially when I don't get paid half my scholarship because people are too incompetent! But this has freed up so much time and energy, not having to teach and deal with students. I'm down for some lectures, but it is so much less effort and energy, which is wonderful.

I started personal training at the gym and am really trying to get fitness and diet up there. I always tend to believe that we need to take care of ourselves, otherwise we're just useless human beings. Well, what I really mean is that we can't expect to be the best we can be if we're not looking after our well-being.

I've also been busy trying to spend time with friends and doing all sorts of different things on weekends. Having no family and no partner to support me at the end of this thesis process, I've come to really rely on friends for that support and people have been awesome. But apart from support, the idea that my days in Brisbane may be numbered has propelled me into making a greater effort in spending time with people and doing interesting things with them. I think it's good to have a break sometimes to recharge and reconnect with others. It just makes you more productive.


So speaking of breaks, I'm heading to Coolum this weekend. So now I HAVE to finish my chapters by Friday!

Oh yeah

I've been feeling a little blah lately, but am a little more excited today. I've completed three interviews this week, with another one scheduled for Friday. This will bring my tally to ten interviews altogether. Yay! It's making me feel like the ball is really rolling and that my study is really on its way. I have a meeting scheduled with my "partner organisation" tomorrow, so hopefully that will go well and I can collect a further ten interviews through them. Yay!

I've also started writing thesis chapters, which is very exciting. I tried to do my introduction and literature review chapters for months but was really struggling like you wouldn't believe. So I gave up and started writing my method chapter for my study 1 and it worked like a dream. It was so easy to write and I now have a full draft and I was so inspired and pleased with myself that I started writing my results chapter. I started writing the results from my focus group phase because at least all the data for that has been collected and I could easily do the analysis. It's been great so far and I'm very pleased.

In other news, I'm freaking excited that rugby season is starting soon and I've got tickets to see the cricket. YEAH! Will be heading to the Gabba on the 13th of Feb to watch the ODI between Australia and New Zealand. Can hardly wait!

Off to see K-Rudd!

I am going to Canberra on Sunday

For a statistics course - boredom meets more boredom!

At least I have marking to take with me... it just keeps getting better and better!

Monday

I had a great day yesterday where it was one of those days that things just seemed to work out right. I had finished analysing my exploratory data some time ago and having some preliminary results have kept me in better spirits for the last few weeks. I was ready to progress to the next stage of data collection, which is individual interviews and have been trying to get participants, which is always quite a challenge. I managed to organise my first interview for yesterday morning at Toowong Village and it went really well.

I caught the City Cat back to the office and just as I reached my desk, my phone rang and it was a lady asking if I wanted to interview her. The Wellness program put in a bit about my research, requesting for participants and she'd seen it there. We organised to meet later that afternoon - two in one day! Just as I put down the phone, I received an email from another lady saying she'd be happy to participate. Another interview scheduled for Wednesday. How cool is that? The luck will probably dry up and I will have to painfully search for more participants after this, but am quite happy with having 3 so far. I'm meant to have 2 more, but I'm just waiting to hear back from them about their availability.




I hit the gym yesterday to do Morphosis and Ride, a combo I hadn't done in a while given I was fasting and then I was away. I felt like I needed to do some cardio as I've decided that I'm too fat (or at least big, you can't argue with big). Am annoyed that the longer I stay with the gym and the harder I work out, the heavier I get. It's just so unfair. I find my only comfort in the fact that I've significantly reduced my body fat percentage since I started at the gym a year and a half ago. During Morph, I really went for it. I was jumping like I'd never jumped before, swinging my arms like I had all the energy in the world. I was so pumped up, it was weird. I'm usually more lifeless than that. I was surprised at how much energy I seemed to have, or at least how hard I was working.

I also finished my marking for Consumer Behaviour yesterday, which felt like a great effort but I took less than 2 weeks to mark it all so that was quite surprising. I am back to marking again for Services Marketing but only have 45 to mark, which isn't so bad if I do 10 or so a day. Unfortunately, I am feeling incredibly uninspired and distracted so my marking progress is not really there yet. I'd rather be transcribing than marking. Ho hum...

Mid-week ramblings

I can't believe that in 2 weeks I will be in Singapore. Actually, in 2 weeks, I will still be in London but making my way to Singapore. In 2 weeks, I will:

• be having lunch at Gordon Ramsay at Claridges
• taking a trip on the London Eye
• making my way back to Heathrow
• getting on a plane (not the A380 thank god) and heading to Singapore

I leave Brisbane on the 27th of September, and arrive in Singapore with enough time to check out the Geylang Serai Bazaar, have some food, and then go to sleep so I can wake up at 5am the next day to go to the airport (duty-free shopping here I come).

I arrive in London on the 28th of September and have the arduous task of finding my way to Brighton. I have enough time in Brighton to check-in, have dinner, and then go to sleep.

I have conference on the 29th and 30th of September (cringe). I think I present on the second day, but it looks like there will be so many people that I anticipate not many will show up to my presentation. If there are so many other concurrent sessions happening at the same time, why would anyone come to mine when there are more prominent researchers presenting their work at the same time? I'm not bothered. In fact, I hope it will be quite easy for me to go relatively unnoticed at this conference. I guess I'm hoping for this 'cos I don't really have my game face on.

We're in the third week of Ramadhan now and I'm still fasting. I haven't been waking up at 3.30am for sahur the last few days because I've either overslept, or I had a big dinner the night before. I must be the only person I know who can put on weight while fasting. It's really very upsetting and depressing. I like to say that I'm one of those people who have to starve to maintain my weight. Regular diet and exercise will only see me get fat. God forbid I should let myself go. I would probably end up looking like a blimp. Yeah, I make jokes but it still hurts inside. Life sucks, whatever. I'm just pissed off that nothing I do seems to work. I'm bitter and angry.

I'm still feeling like I'm in a bit of a hole with the research, but I also suspect that Mondays are just exceptionally bad for me somehow. Every Monday I get so incredibly depressed to be where I am - stuck in a PhD that is going along too slowly, doing research when I'm not even sure I'm cut out for doing that, upset that my glorious weekend is once again over, depressed over feeling like I'm stuck with a questionable choice because I'm poorer than pensioners (who Kevin Rudd himself says do not get enough from the pension to live - and they still get more than me!!!).

I have no career, no money, and no idea what sort of job I should do that will allow me to be happy and be with the people I want to be with.

Today is a struggle

On Mondays, I usually feel so spent that all I want to do is skip the gym and just go home to hide. Last Monday, I forced myself to go to the gym and felt better for it, but today proves to be a little more challenging. I feel so overwhelmed to the point I need to hold back tears.

This morning, I had a sad thought. I have sacrificed so much to do this PhD. On some level I feel disheartened that most of those nearest and dearest to me have no idea how difficult this all is. You constantly feel alone because it often seems like you are the only person who can see the value in doing what you are doing.

My entry into the workforce has been delayed by at least 4 years, and this delays everything else someone like me typically expects to experience in life; buying your own house, lovingly furnishing your own home, enjoying the fruits of your labour, enjoying life and taking care of yourself, saving up for retirement, making smart investments, then slowing it all down to settle down and start a family. Everything gets delayed. I feel like I have pushed my life back by a great number of years, just to get a PhD.

On days like today, it becomes more of a struggle. There are moments of feeling that it is so hard, mixed in with moments of how there is just so much to do. At the end of the day, you just want your friends and those close to you to comfort you because you really don't have anyone else. But they don't because they either think you're being overly dramatic, or they think that you're fine.

Perhaps it is time for an update...

It has been, and continues to be, a very busy week this week. On Sunday, Bernard, Lindsay, Joel, Damien and I went to Little Hong Kong in Sunnybank for lunch. I thought we could check it out since I hadn't been since it opened. Bernard and Lindsay have been there before, which was good to get some recommendations from them. It was alright, there were a lot of pork dishes and I usually am not fussed but in some Chinese eating places, the smell of the pork is just too overwhelming for me. It makes me feel sick.

I've started teaching again for Semester 2 and find myself with seven classes this semester (compared to the three last semester). Eeks... I initially wanted to do 6 but one of the tutors wanted me to take one of his classes. I said yes because I had a gap between 2 of my classes and figured it was a better use of my time this way. I quite like my Services Marketing students, many of them I've taught before in Consumer Behaviour. I'm still doing CB and funnily, I'm in the same classroom for 3 tutes straight. That's never happened before! They usually make you run around, so this is a welcome change. I teach again today and tomorrow. Where did the week go???

I finally feel like I'm making some progress with my PhD research as my Ethics application was approved yesterday - after THREE submissions! It was scary sending out the email to half the people I know, begging for participants for my study. Incidentally, if anyone is reading this, I am looking for volunteers to participate in a focus group discussion. Volunteers must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• Female
• Aged 50-69 years old
• Must have used BreastScreen Queensland (BSQ) breast cancer screening service (i.e. mammogram) at least once before

Volunteers do not have to be current customers of BSQ, nor do they have to be regular users of mammograms - as long as they have had a mammogram at BSQ at least once. The details of the focus group is as follows:

• Date: Tuesday 26th August or Thursday 29th August (depending on which date suits the greatest number of respondents)
• Location: QUT Gardens Point Campus, Faculty of Business Z Block
• Time: 6pm to accommodate volunteers who may work office hours
• Parking: can be arranged for those who drive

If you know someone who is interested in participating but is unable to make the suggested dates for the focus group, they can still participate in an individual-depth interview. Interviews can be conducted at a location of greatest convenience to the volunteer, and at a time that best suits them.

Ok, so that's the end of my plug. In the meantime, my supervisors want me to provide a descriptive chronology of the value literature in 2 weeks. Erm... okay... I really hate doing trawling through the literature. I just don't have the patience or the attention span. It just makes me wonder constantly if I'm really cut out to do research :(

I probably won't be able to get much done this week. I feel like I just have too many things to do. I've started going to the gym during lunchtime on Fridays, and today will be the first time I am going on a Wednesday at lunchtime. I've been to see Liz (a trainer at the gym), who recommended I follow a certain program and hopefully I will start to see some changes.

Dad will be in Brisbane tomorrow morning, but I'm teaching all day so will only see him for dinner at Pane E Vino. Yum! I quite like that place, but there's one waiter who works there that I just can't stand. He's the guy with the ponytail, gruff attitude and perpetual frown. He's rude on the phone, he gets orders wrong, and one time I called to confirm my booking and he cancelled it!!! Thankfully, the owner was there when our party arrived and managed to get us a table.

Friday, its gym at lunchtime and then after-work drinkies (and hopefully dinner). Saturday, it's off to the Powerhouse Markets in the morning to get eggs, vegetables and maybe some meat. The markets are great. So fresh, so much fun and so much better than supermarket stuff! Then, it's the getting ready bit for the National Day Ball! I'm really looking forward to that. The theme for this year is Bollywood and Lindsay and I have got saris and bindis and bangles. It will be fun! I'm still trying to decide how to wear my hair, but as long I look okay, I don't think anyone will really care.

An Ethical Wait

Since returning from conference a week ago, I knew that I needed to start my data collection. The first stage of my research involves interviewing women 50-69 years of age to find out about their experiences with breast screening services, particularly with BreastScreen Queensland. I submitted my ethics application last Tuesday and 6 days later, I am still waiting...

I don't really know how long I'm supposed to wait. Some people tell me she (the ethics person who approves applications) works quite quickly and will get back to you in a matter of days. I'm starting to wonder what's happening with my application. I need to start my interviews so that I have some data to take with me to Brighton, otherwise I'm going to look like an idiot. The perils of going to conferences too close together *sigh*

Once ethics approval passes, I will still need some time to recruit participants and organise the actual interviews. I'm not looking forward to how much time it's going to take to get this done. I still don't know why there are people out there who can't understand why it takes so long to get a PhD completed. I am sad. My progress is taking too long :(