shineslikerubies

dental plan.

ghoti - i understand the feeling of being trapped in a location (that's how i ended up in my phd to begin with actually)... but it is only transitory. three years is a very short time, really, and it will go quickly.

i think the isolation is probably one of the hardest things about a PhD. is there any way you can connect to some other researchers, who might help ground you? after getting to a couple of conferences and meeting people there, and then staying in touch online, i feel so much more connected to my research community. this has helped me feel as though my work is actually relevant, and has really helped beat through the isolation. blogging and twitter have both been a big part of this. do you think that getting in touch to other researchers in your field might help?

is she hanging out with her dad?

Am pretty sure she's actually hanging out/in the photo with a friend of mine from school.

atrouser - I know what you mean by feeling like a fraud; I know bugger all about it this stuff!

THIS! Totally how I am feeling today. As I near the end of my first year, I am feeling like I have just wasted all my time because I think everything I've been looking into has been wrong. On the plus side, feeling very motivated. Fear of failure will do that to you, I guess.

My actual conference presentation in the States was pretty horrible. I was way out of my league/over my head. But I met lots of amazing people, got great ideas, and am actually about to head back to the States to speak on a panel thanks to the conversations I got into whilst there. Totally life changing, even though I completely stuffed up my talk. So just being there is half the battle, I reckon.

I'll cross my fingers for you.

Ghoti-Max, I like and hate it. I love the development of ideas, and love the thrill when something seems to be really coming together. But because I think through writing, and my ideas really develop when I try to pull them all together, I feel like I spend a significant amount of time developing an argument and writing things, and then realise that my angle was wrong, or that I had failed to develop part of the argument that (later) becomes critical. It's all the whole point, but I just get a little dispirited at having written words that I'm really happy with, only to have to scrap them later.

And congrats on the conference Trousers! Excellent opportunity for you. Well done.

Something I hate about the PhD... sometimes I have thoughts about my work that feel good and complete and like I am actually getting somewhere. And then I read more/think more/come back and revisit those ideas later, and I realise that everything I thought was ok is actually naive/incomplete/illogical/incomprehensible. And then I have to start rewriting things.

And the writing goes ok, and I start thinking that what I'm working on this time is actually pretty ok, and definitely better than what I had before, and it starts feeling like this time I might have actually had a break through.

... and then I realise that nope, actually those ideas are naive/incomplete/illogical/incomprehensible. Again.

Thus the cycle continues, and I wonder whether I'm ever going to write/think something that can stand the test of even a few months - much less hold up over a couple of years. This is what I hate about the PhD.

And your on-time, if you can. I've been spending a bunch of time at conferences, unconferences and so forth lately, and it has made a huge difference to me, being able to chat to other people working in different areas of my (and related) field. It really helps develop new ideas and means that I don't feel nearly so isolated as I otherwise could/would.

It also means that I actually feel like my work could actually be important to someone, because I get more immediate feedback. And that's kind of nice in itself.

I DAFSFFS'd and this didn't seem to have been posted about, but apologies if this is a double up. Some of you might be interested in contributing to the Digital Culture Public Sphere. This is a chance to shape Australia's digital arts and culture policy, so it's good to get involved. Check the website, contribute to the discussion on Twitter (#publicsphere) or contribute to the Wiki.

yeah, we are a city filled with bogans.