Its Been a Long December...

Man oh man. What a crapshoot of a term Fall 2011 was.

I worked my butt off straight through summer, never had much of a break before Fall began.  I was exhausted when this term started.  And for the record, I didn't make it through unscathed.  This was one rough term for me.

Things started to go sour over the two week break I had between summer and fall terms.  My then-boyfriend made some off-color comments to me that really pissed me off.  Things stayed sour when I got back to school and within 3 weeks of being back, our relationship was over. His behavior since the breakup has been a roller-coaster for me and his immaturity has really taken its toll.  I have felt completely isolated in our department.  I tried to avoid social situations where he would be so it wouldn't be hard for him.  And in doing so, I have lost a friend or two.  Not to mention he couldn't be bothered to acknowledge my presence or not run and hide when he saw me at school.  So, yeah, he's been super awesome and helpful in the healing process of this whole mess.

On top of matters, my sister had her first baby less than a week before classes started again.  I've been home as much as possible to spend time with her, but its still difficult being away from home.  Molly is growing and changing so much I feel like she is a different person every time I see her.  So, while this has been a good life change, it is still a stressful one adding to the pile.

My comprehensive exams and dissertation have been a roller coaster as well.  My committee meeting kept getting pushed back until it was finally canceled altogether the first week of november.  To reschedule, I had to have my statement of purpose written, and during that week I was to be writing it, my advisor sent me an e-mail suggesting I look into a completely new direction for my dissertation. Well, needless to say, this paralyzed me since I had no idea what to make of this suggestion and it didn't help matters that we didn't meet again for almost a good month due to conferences and holidays.  So, over Thanksgiving break, I decided that since we hadn't had a committee meeting yet, I didn't have my reading lists from my committee members, and 4 weeks and Christmas break sounded like insufficient time to study for my comps, I didn't want to do them until the Spring term.  All of my committee members sounded pretty happy about this when I told them the news, and so I am happy too.  Now, I get to study for 10 weeks and do the readings that I want to do.  Unfortunately, during my last meeting with my advisor, some issues were raised and my dissertation focus is going to have to change.  I'm somewhat bummed since I've been so focused on this topic for at least a year now, but oh well I suppose.  Its one project.  A big project, but just one.  Things could be worse, I suppose.

This term was the first term without some of my really good friends here.  Christine and Whitney were my girls and they have both graduated and gone.  I am so thankful that Christine left me Lauren, because quite honestly, I'm not sure what I would have done without her here.  God has blessed me with such a good friend.  She is amazing and has been about the only support I've had in Columbus for a good two months.  Its been really hard having such huge life changes taking place and not having your support system available to you.  I've been struggling.  A lot.  I think I've remedied the situation though.  The past two weeks I've made my loneliness known to a few girls in my department and extended an offer to them to be friends.  They accepted my offer with open arms. :-)

I spent the majority of my time this term working on two research projects to get them ready to submit to ICA.  They got finished [for the most part] and submitted, but still don't know if either got accepted and I neglected my school work to do these things.

Classes weren't too bad, but neglecting to do the readings for the most part in all of my classes really had me behind for a while.  Not to mention, the advanced stats class I took with stats god, Andrew Hayes, was the first stats class I've taken in almost 2 years.  So, I was a little rusty in that area, obviously.  I was really stressed about my grades for a good portion of the last week and a half.  I had convinced myself that there was a good possibility that I might not even pass the stats class.  Thankfully, my worry was unfounded.  I passed all of my classes with flying colors.  In fact, they were so good I'm still in shock about my stats grade. :-)
To top off the good grades, I got amazing student reviews from my research methods labs.  So, that makes me feel wonderful.
I was also instructed to apply for a tenure track position at my Alma Mater by my professors from there.  Apparently the first time they wanted me to apply, they didn't understand what I meant when I said I had 2 years of school left.  Well, after the way this first term has gone, I'm applying.  I don't have to make any big decisions right now, but I'm applying.  Because if winter term is as miserable as fall term was, thanks to some really immature people in my department, and I am offered the job, I might just have to peace out of Ohio and head back North to make a big kid salary and finish my dissertation in the beauty of the Yoop.


I've had a rough term.  And when I say rough I don't mean its all been bad, its just that the stress load has taken its toll and my body is very unhappy with me.  I've learned a lot the past 3 months.  I've grown a lot as well.  I've learned that even if you try to keep things civil, people still take sides.  But thats just fine.  I know loss very well and even though it hurts for a while, everyone will move on and life will be okay without them.  I've started counseling and am working out some issues - some recent and some from my buried past that has resulted in some ptsd.  I'm going to keep working on it and keep working on me.  Because I will forever and always be a work in progress.

I've decided that even with all of the crying, this term is an overall win.  I'm still alive and I'm re-energizing to tackle my next big project: The Dreaded Comprehensive/Candidacy Exams.  So here is to a successful and prosperous 2012 with the ups and downs of life and the phd process.

:-)

Stop. Crying.

"Empty Rooms"

"I just called to see if you're loving anybody today.  If you're not loving somebody, you're wasting your time.  These are my words of wisdom, from this side of eighty." -Paul, on an answering machine (pg.153)

Ray, R. E. (2008). Endnotes. New York: Columbia University Press.

Direction...

It is good to feel lost... because it proves you have a navigational sense of where "home" is.  You know that a place that feels like being found exists.  And maybe your current location isn't that place but, Hallelujah, that unsettled, uneasy feeling of lost-ness just brought you closer to it. 
-Erika Harris

Welcome to Michigan = Welcome Home

During my first year of my Ohio tenure, the Welcome to Michigan sign went from this

To this

While most probably don't even notice since its not that big of a deal, it definitely made my heart sad.  Don't get me wrong - I LOVE the Pure Michigan marketing campaign.  Its amazing, and if memory serves me correctly, its one of the top ten advertising campaigns of all time.  But this new sign just doesn't have the personality that the old sign did.

I'm sidetracking from the point of this post.

I drove home yesterday for the first time since the school year began.  From my previous posts, its been obvious that I've been struggling with quite a few things the past few weeks.  Which sets me up for what happened during this drive.

I was a little over two hours into my drive - had already gotten off of 75 and back on to 23 to cross over and continue my trek north.

I was in the left lane, behind a vehicle when I looked down quickly at something in my car and then back up.

When I looked up, the SUV that had been blocking my view somewhat had moved over into the right lane.  There it was - the Welcome to Pure Michigan sign.  Within a split second, and with no personal control, an uninhibited, absolutely pure and unadulterated smile consumed my face and my spirit. I was so excited to see this landmark and to cross over into home territory.  After a few seconds, I realized what had just happened.  My whole being and affect flipped like a switch at that first sight of this simple landmarker.

When the realization hit me - I burst into tears.  

I don't want to be unhappy in Ohio.  I want to be okay wherever I am.  And I feel like I should be able to be.  But I'm not.  And I'm not sure how to change it.  But, I do know one thing.  Michigan makes me happy.  And there is nothing like being home and with my family.

I crossed the border with an amazing mix from my dear friend CfH - and with the windows down, the smell of burning Michigan leaves, and the fresh Michigan air in my face and through my hair - I was consumed by my emotions and Nickel Creek's "Jealous of the Moon".

Some Pants Will Never Fit

A wise boy/man told me that I am so happy when I'm home in Michigan and so miserable when I'm here, at school.  And that I was never going to be able to be happy until I stopped seeing myself as living two separate and distinct lives.  He said I needed to make them overlap if I ever wanted to feel okay in Ohio.

I've been thinking about this quite a bit.  I even mulled my 2 year perpetual unhappiness in Ohio situation over with a friend who is a little bit older and who started this program with me - only to leave it after 1 term.

Is this wise boy/man more than likely pretty observant and correct about my situation?  Of course.  Are there some extenuating circumstances that cause me to be continually unhappy here? Most definitely.

It all started when, at visitation - before I even started school here, when a faculty member told me that if I wanted to do that kind of research and those were my academic interests, I shouldn't come to school here.  Of course, I ignored him and came anyway.  And I didn't really have any other options.

Came to OSU, met my new cohort, and didn't click with anyone.  No one had any similar interests that I could really see and there was an unspoken competitiveness within our cohort.  Not to mention there was a very clear delineation of the "in" people and the "out" people.  I somehow made it on the "in" list, but didn't really feel like I wanted to be "in" with those people.  

Another impediment to my happiness was my Master's thesis and all of the ensuing bullshit that hung over my head my entire first quarter here.

Then my grandmother died.

Now - thats not to say that those things weren't resolved.
   -I finished my thesis and graduated in December from CMU
   -There was a certain amount of relief that came with the passing of my gramma
   -I met one of my best friends, CB, and I am so thankful for her friendship
   -I've come to terms with the fact that I do not fit in this department and I am making my education work to fit me instead [not to mention I feel somewhat responsible for a drastic shift in this department's outlook and have introduced a number of students to programs/course tracks offered outside of comm]

Fast forward to now and my reflections on this recently made commentary from said man/boy:
I've been struggling quite a bit with being in Ohio the past 3 weeks.  Its probably the worst its ever been. Again, there are some pretty logical explanations for this.
   -My sister just had her first baby and it has been torture not being around for the first month of her life
   -I am entering the third year of my PhD program - arguably the hardest year of a doctorate degree - I am taking my candidacy exams in 4 months. Scary. Shit.    Doable - yes. Still scary - yes.
   -This summer was hectic, stressful, and I never had any rest - I was exhausted before the new school year even began.


But I think what has been the biggest component of my unhappiness here is one simple thing:
I feel like a fish out of water in Columbus.  I've never felt like I've belonged here. This is the beginning of my third year here and I still just don't feel comfortable in this city.  And maybe that is it - this city is too big for me.  Or maybe its just that I don't fit in with the culture here.

Either way - I'm a square peg in a round hole.

Or maybe I'm just a square.

RBL

Obviously - life is full of difficult choices. Some choices you make because they're the easiest of the alternatives.  Some choices you make because all of the alternatives seem equally pleasant or unpleasant and you have to choose one.  And some choices you make because, even though its the hardest of all choices, you know it is the right thing to do.  Even if it means you have to hurt yourself and people you deeply care about in the process.

I made a choice a few days ago.  And even though I have been struggling with the overwhelming doubt and guilt that has been plaguing me - I know I did the right thing. [and when I say I know I did the right thing - I don't really mean that I know that.  I've had to have a countless number of talks with multiple people, me sobbing, to reassure me that it would have been much easier to let this go on longer and ultimately make the situation miserable, unfair, and that much harder when it came down to this same outcome].

I feel so broken right now. And this pain is magnified knowing I caused someone else, whom I so deeply care about, to be in pain.

I still feel like this may have been premature to choose this right now, but I know it would have been 10 times worse had I dragged this out and waited a few more months.  What I know of the complicated feelings, difficulty, and resentment that come with dragging things out [and the fact that it took me 4 years to resolve these issues] I would never wish on someone, nor could I subject someone to that.  Especially someone who I enjoy, appreciate, and adore so much.


I hope, someday, he realizes that I did this mostly for him.

SatC

 “[a] 34-year-old guy with no money and no place to live, because he’s single, he’s a catch. But a 34-year-old woman with a job and a great home, because she’s single, is considered tragic.” 


-Miranda Hobbes, Sex and the City, Season 3, Episode 9

Insight over the Summer

Things have somehow changed in my mind over the summer - like, my brain is literally functioning differently.  It has been such a dramatic change its been easily recognizable for me.

I'm actually remembering things.

I used to have a phenomenal, almost photographic, memory. Then sophomore year of undergrad happened - and my mind hasn't been the same since.  I have struggled so much to remember things that I need to - authors names, what information came from which article - among other things much more important.  But things are changing  - I actually feel confident in a lot of the stuff I've been learning.

It really hit me when I was speaking with Dr. Richardson and she asked me what approach I thought I was taking.  Without missing a beat I told her I was approaching my dissertation with a constructivist lens but that I'd eventually become a critical research scholar.

I blew myself away.  I honestly couldn't believe I had remembered those things from Fall '10 term.  Not only am I really bad at answering things off the cuff, but this was OLD information for me to have remembered and used appropriately!

I also had a conversation with Bobby the other day where I made a somewhat insightful comment - something I hadn't even considered up until then.  A lot of the important stats stuff that I learned twice [once at CMU and then again here at OSU first year, on top of my scary regression class with Andrew Hayes] I can no longer remember, and I think I know why. I was dealing with so much my first year here that the information that I was taking in was not being stored for the long term.  I was still finishing my Master's thesis that fall term on top of juggling some heavy health issues.  And then my gramma died.  I became an orphaned grandchild that winter.  I had so much other stuff to attend to when I wasn't shoving methods, theory, and stats in my head that those things never had the chance to stick.

Unfortunately, that means I have some catching up to do on things I already learned.  But, thats okay.  I forgive myself for not storing everything the first time around.  Up until this past year, I was in water over my head.  But the floods have finally receded and I think I can see everything again.

It feels good to be back folks.  Real good.

Who Knew?

Who knew that summer was going to be busier than the school year?  Who knew that I was going to compromise my mental and physical health doing 30 hours of work, 10 credits of class, and 2 research projects?!  

Oh. You did?  Right. Silly me.

Guess I should cut down on the job then, huh?  20 hours it is.

Born To Learn

"The more that you read, the more things you will know.  The more that you learn, the more places you will go."  -Dr. Seuss

I also found this and thought it was quite interesting.  I hope they put out more videos.

Figs, Paths Taken/Not Taken, Etc.

From Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar:

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet." 

I've picked my fig. I've always picked my fig.  I've never let figs fall to the ground and rot at my feet.  I pick the figs as soon as they ripen.  I've never wasted any time.  I may be missing out on the other figs [ie: marriage, children = midwestern expectations].  I'm okay with that.  Sometimes I wish I had chosen another fig, like traveling Europe/Africa/South America.  But I know that I'm where I should be.  And I can't imagine doing anything else than what I am doing right now.  And I sure as hell can't imagine being married right now.  In fact, that scares the crap out of me.  I'm so thankful to be unattached, free to do whatever I want, whenever I want to, and in the best company I know - mine.  


And while some may argue that I only had one fig to pick from [Only getting in to OSU for Doc school] I didn't necessarily have to pursue this terminal degree at all.  I'm not exactly sure of the reason that I only had this one type of fig to choose from and I may never know.  But, I've met people who have made an impact on me and who I've had an impact on.  I've made some great friends who I know will be my friends for the rest of my life.  And maybe that is all that really matters in life.  The people you meet and the imprint you make on each other's lives. 


The fig is sweet.

The Halfway Point

This week isn't going so well.  But, regardless of my levels of stress, the people I have been absolutely evil towards the past few days, and my feelings about my PhD career currently and how dissatisfied I am about the past two years, the following picture sums up how I feel overall.

Save the Best for Last

Hello.  I sit here on the cusp of what is going to be a fast paced, somewhat difficult, exam week.  And yet, I'm feeling pretty good.  Why, you ask?  Thats simple.

I had an overall successful second year talk. 

And the reason I still keep thinking about it is because I'm still shocked at how well it went.  Let me give you some context for why I'm so shocked.

Round 1 of presentation humiliation
Almost 2 years ago I had my thesis defense for my Masters.  My advisor fed me to the wolves.  My presentation wasn't that great because I had no idea what I was supposed to do for it.  But more importantly, my actual thesis was a piece of shit and I was subsequently torn a new one by one of my committee members.  My advisor sat at the table, nodded her head in agreement with what he said, and then after the torture was over, she told me to do whatever he wanted.  Wow. awesome.
Here is the "thumbs up, I failed my dissertation!" picture taken at lunch following the devestation.

Round two of presentation humiliation
Last spring, I had to give a presentation in my theory construction class on the models I had come up with to explain the theoretical/variable relationships I was proposing to test with subsequent research.  The presentation was all of 10 minutes and followed by Q&A with my cohort and instructor.  This didn't seem like such a big deal.  And in fact, once I had finished presenting, my cohort was spouting off how clear they thought my presentation was and how much more they understood my work!  I was feeling pretty good and accomplished.  Then, in the middle of the praises of one of my colleagues whom I deem incredibly intelligent, my instructor cuts him off and states "I'm going to stop you there and disagree with you all".  Pretty sure the air went out of the room.  My instructor then proceeded to go on what seemed like a 10 minute tirade.  I honestly don't remember much of it because it was somewhat traumatizing for me to be ripped to shreds in front of my cohort.  Not to mention I was the only one he did this to.  It seemed like all he thought was wrong with it was that one or two slides should have been in the front of the presentation instead of the middle.  However, this professor is known for pontificating, talking in circles, and being generally long-winded and incoherent.  So, to save what tiny scrap of digniity I had left, I tucked my tail between my legs and skipped the class I had immediately following and went home to sulk. 

That is the necessary context for the lead up to Thursday night.  The night before my talk.

My mom ended up coming down [which I learned later was done purposefully to either be here when things went bad and I needed to cry/quit grad school or to help me celebrate] and the boy I've been seeing for about 2 months also came over so that I could practice and get feedback from an audience.

I was born to be in front of a crowd.  I love it.  I have been speaking/performing in front of moderately large crowds since I was in elementary school.  So the fact that when I was supposed to practice my talk for 2 people and I was having extreme anxiety about it makes a major statement to the impact that those two experiences had on me.  The practice didn't go all that well.  Bobby told me after I gave the talk at colloquium that the night before he would have rated my talk a "B".  I wasn't feeling too good about the whole thing the night before.

Friday I woke up and got ready.  Put on an incredibly awesome, kinda sexy, but still very professional, black and white dress with black pumps and red jewelry.  I went in to school to do another practice talk with my advisor.  That practice was MUCH better than the previous night and I started to feel much better about what was to happen in the next hour.  I made a few tweeks to the powerpoint that my advisor had suggested and then headed over to Journalism.

My colloquium was the last colloquium of the year.  I figured hardly anyone would show up, except my friends.  Here's the kicker, less than 5 people from my cohort showed up to support me.  But a whole bunch of the first years and quite a few faculty showed up to hear.  And here's the best part - from the feedback and observations from quite a few people, this was the only talk where people were not screwing around on their computers, everyone was engaged the majority of my talk [with head nods and comments to neighbors], AND Brad Bushman didn't fall asleep! 

People who asked questions included: Brad Bushman [rage and video games], Brandon Van Der Heide [computer mediated communication], Lance Holbert [political communication], Kelly Garret [new communication technologies and contentious politicis], Stacie Powers [Psychophysiology, affect, and nonverbal communication], and Jennifer Kam [interpersonal, intercultural, and health communication].

I had Kelly Garret for research methods my first term at OSU.  He is intimidating and scary.  He is so extremely intelligent and well spoken.  So, when he asked me a question I thought I might shit my pants.  My answer, however, after one first semi-failed attempt, with a follow up question and subsequent second attempt wasn't too bad.  And it was so not-that-bad that Kelly came up after my talk and waited five minutes after Brandon Vanderheide was done with me to tell me that as soon as I stopped trying to fight telling the story, and told the story, he could finally get in line with my research.  And THEN he told me good job.  I think that meant the most to me.

Others came up to me afterwards: Brandon Vanderheide [he seemed super excited and interested in what I was doing], Kelly, Susan Kline [who hugged me and looked very proud of me], John Tchernev, Jodi Whitacker, and Melanie Sarge.

It was a good day.  I'm happy with the way it all worked out.  And its over!  No more looming talk.  I can move on to the next big thing... one more term of classes and then my Comprehensive exams! [eek!].  But, I have a while until then [kinda].

Thanks for reading this long entry.  I know I ramble a bit.  I get it from my mother.

I'm Never Going to Present

And once again, I got rejected from a communication conference.

I have submitted now to three conferences and have been rejected three times.  The first two I'm not surprised at.  They were pieces of shit that I tried to throw in at the last minute.

This one I am crazy surprised about and I'm crushed.  I finally did an actual study, a good one too!  And I still didn't get in to NCA.

What is it about me that people hate?  My Master thesis defense couldn't have gone worse... I mean, how many people actually fail their defense?  I get torn apart when I present in my theory construction course last spring.  And I'm still not good enough to present at a conference.  I'm feeling a bit screwed at this point in time.  I was really banking on finally being able to present for the first time my third year of my PhD [and honestly, that is SUPER late in my career to have my first presentation].  I just think its never going to happen.  I am never going to be good enough for this flippin' field.

I am so devastated right now.  So devastated.

Thank you, Stephen King

"Harry Potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity.  Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend."
-SK

Some Professors still believe in Pedagogy

I just received an e-mail from Dr. Nespor concerning my disjointed first draft of my data analysis.  It is so refreshing and also disconcerting that he actually reads drafts and gives feedback [solid, useable, concreate] about where the writing is at, where it could possibly go, and any other thoughts he has. [disconcerting because he is about the only person I've had at OSU GIVE ANY real feedback, direction, etc. in terms of writing a paper.  All I get is criticism without any guidance or direction for improvement and bad grades from my school of COMM profs].

This first draft was basically my attempt at setting the context and background for the situation of dementia in a man as told to me retrospectively by three of his daughters.  I would use language to set up the situation and then pull quotes surrounding that situation from the interviews I conducted.  I then included a section that was a literature review of the theories I thought I would be using to further make sense of the data.  Here is the e-mail I received from Dr. Nespor.  I want to academically marry this man.

Hi Katey,
Well, yours was certainly more fun to read than some of these have been!

I have a suggestion on organization and form, and also a suggestion on theory (more or less)

1)  I realize this is just a 'not all together' draft, but perhaps you might take your theme -- sense-making among intimates in situations of uncertainty (or something like that) -- and reproduce it rhetorically for the reader -- that is -- instead of telling the family's history, lay out in short anecdotes the problematic 'clues' that the daughters had (but didn't put together until after the fact):  Pose the problem for the reader -- how do you make sense of this information?  What conclusions does one draw?  Create a puzzle for them and then solve it.

2)  Theoretically -- and here I think I'll be less helpful -- a few thoughts.

--   a)  We need theories to make sense of observation (or to know what to look for). I was reading a book I got from the $1 clearance shelf at Half-Price Books last night -- a collection of essays by the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, and it has a nice quote from Charles Darwin:

About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to
observe and not theorize; and I well remember someone saying that at
this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles
and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that
all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any
service!

In other words, you only 'see' in terms of a theory.  So perhaps the question is to delineate the 'theories of their father' that the daughters were using to make sense (prior to realizing what was going on). -- This may be a dumb suggestion and no problem if you delete it!


--   b) Think in terms of turning points -- what were the turning points/transition points/gestalt shifts where the uncertainty suddenly collapsed into realization (or was it gradual)


--   c)  I've attached a piece that may be irrelevant, making a distinction between biography and case (not the sense of 'case' I use in class to talk about case analysis).  Perhaps what's happening is that the daughters shift from understanding their father biographically to understanding him as a 'case' of something.  I'm not sure where that would go.


It's an interesting study you've got.

Dead Like Me

"You can't.  You can't save any of them.  All you can ever hope to do is make it easier. And that may not seem like a lot, but it is."
-Rube

Be Still My Academic Heart

My infatuation with Nespor's, self-proclaimed crap, writings to elaborate on his ideas and world views once again has me enchanted.  His ability to weave his thoughts with the thoughts of other scholars in such a down to earth, eloquent, and cynical manner has me screaming "YES! YES!  YES!" [in a 'I couldn't agree more' kind of way -- get your heads out of the gutter people]

So - here is his take on academic writing and the use of theory.

The orientational use of theory, on the other hand, means using a certain vocabulary or citing certain authors we make a public claim to belong to a particular academic club: It’s a way of saying "these people are our friends, those who speak differently, our enemies." The problem here is that sometimes it’s a very cliquish club, or even a cult, and theory functions like a kind of secret password. In fact, this is one reason that orientational uses of theory are common in graduate studies – precisely because graduate education is partly an initiation into disciplinary thinking. As Lutz (1995) argues , the "difficulty" of theory, the high jargon and complicated syntax, not only distance the writer from the text, but also push readers away, creating a kind of exclusionary discourse reserved only for those willing to devote the time and psychic energy required to imagine meanings for the text (or those who are lucky enough to be able to study with the authors themselves). As Gouldner (1970: 202) explained, “obscurity makes a work relatively costly,” which keeps most people away and turns it into a “cult object,” membership-symbolizing language (the obscurity allowing it to operate both to strengthen within group ties and to serve as a boundary object, Star & Gereisemer, 1999, that can spread across fields). This creates a status differentiation within the field – theorists become flying saucer pilots (to borrow Bruno Latour’s (1987) metaphor) who occasionally (in their writings at least) swoop down to abduct a bit of empirical reality for analysis.

 

And here is a little bit of insight on the effects of scholars wearing blinders [which sounds QUITE A BIT like the department I am in - since we can't write a research proposal WITHOUT having some sort of theoretical frame to guide it... boo to that.  BOO I SAY!]

The potential pathologies here are 1) that it makes you as mere earthling students feel like you can’t theorize; it also turns theory into an academic language game, and pretty soon we’re no better than the people who think the world’s made up of “variables” and instrument-generated constructs like “self-efficacy.” Theory then functions like Vaughan’s blinders, allowing people to see only those things which can be described in terms of the theory. More fundamentally, it misconstrues the whole purpose of theorizing, which is to explain things/events/crap actually happening. This is what the best theorists do:

As Foucault explained, his purpose is "not to formulate the global systematic theory which holds everything in place, but to analyse the specificity of mechanisms of power... to built little by little a strategic knowledge" (Foucault, 1980, p. 145) and, as Bourdieu often argued, he wanted his readers to read his works as "exercise books" rather than theories and was keen to "remind us that 'theory' should not be valued for its own sake" (Karalayali, 2004, p. 352). He felt strongly that we need to be reflexively aware of the implications and effects of theory in relation to the social world we conjure up in our work. (Ball, 2006, p. 4).

 

Great social theorists are "data-heads" as Abbott says somewhere (and you could say the same of methodologists) – if you can’t find places where people are actually engaging with empirical problems – describing specific cases, explaining things – be skeptical of their theoretical and methodological writings.

I would like to point out that I laughed my ass off when I read the line - "and pretty soon we’re no better than the people who think the world’s made up of “variables” and instrument-generated constructs like “self-efficacy.” OSU School of Comm anyone?

Analytic Induction

This mutability of the case/pattern/description is not a problem but rather something you strive for. One approach to this is sometimes called “analytic induction.” In Jack Katz’s (2001) definition

Initial cases are inspected to locate common factors and provisional explanations. As new cases are examined and initial hypotheses are contradicted, the explanation is reworked in one or both of two ways. The definition of the [thing you’re trying to explain] may be redefined so that troublesome cases either become consistent with [your hypothesis or explanation] or are placed outside the scope of the inquiry; or the [thing you’re trying to explain] may be revised so that all cases of the target phenomenon display the explanatory conditions. There is no methodological value in piling up confirming cases; the strategy is exclusively qualitative, seeking encounters with new varieties of data in order to force revisions that will make the analysis valid when applied to an increasingly diverse range of cases. The investigation continues until the researcher can no longer practically pursue negative cases.

At its most productive, analytic induction needs to be on-going as you’re doing fieldwork or interviews – it guides what you’re asking and looking at. Thus Lindesmith (1952) argues that:

The principle which governs the selection of cases to test a theory is that the chances of discovering a decisive negative case should be maximized . . . This involves going out of one’s way to look for negating cases. (p. 492)

[This is the core idea that Glaser and Strauss (1967) later formalized into “theoretical sampling”] A negating case – or an anomalous case – requires you to revise: you keep doing this until you can’t find any more negative, inconsistent, discrepant, anomalous evidence, until then you constantly revise your explanation to encompass all your evidence. If you have “disconfirming” evidence left over you haven’t finished your analysis or done it well, or you have more work to do in the field.

Writing the Case Study [because this is so salient to me currently]

A good explanation, then, which for a qualitative researcher usually means a good case analysis, ties events, situations, and people together without making them lose their distinctiveness, their narrative richness, or reducing them to theoretical constructs, vague catchphrases, or statistical generalizations. As Stinchcombe (1978) argues, without the description we can never work out the deep consequential analogies that connect cases:

Far from it being the case that the most powerful general theorists ignore the details, the precise opposite is true. Social theory without attention to details is wind; the classes [categories] it invents are vacuous, and nothing interesting follows from the fact that A and B belong to the class. . . .

If conceptual profundity depends on the deep building of analogies from one case to
another, we are likely to find good theory in exactly the opposite place from where we have been taught to expect it. For it is likely to be those scholars who attempt to give a causal interpretation of a particular case who will be led to penetrate the deeper analogies between cases. (pp. 21-22)


[Nespor, 2011, Case-oriented analysis writings, pg 2-3]
*Italics added by me for emphasis

Making light of Case Studies - more ramblings from Nespor

Because apparently I have a HUGE academic crush on my qual methods professor and could listen to or read him for hours.  A snippet from one of his weekly elaborations on what we're talking about - this week, the case study:

In the actor-network take on pattern explanation, Latour (2005) contrasts this relational view of
explanation-as-description (which Latour just calls “description”) to the more familiar use of the term to refer to accounts meant to supercede and replace descriptions with statements consisting of abstract nouns, variables, psychological construct, or conceptual categories (a kind of explanation which Latour just calls ‘explanation’):

The opposition between description and explanation is another of these false dichotomies that
should be put to rest. Either the networks that make possible a state of affairs are fully [described] . .. and then adding an explanation is superfluous – or we ‘add an explanation’ stating that some other actor or factor should be taken into account, so that it is the description that should be extended one step further. If a description remains in need of an explanation, it means that is a bad description. (p. 137)

Latour is not rejecting the idea that we need general terms and phrases to describe theoretical
mechanisms – he certainly introduces many of them in his own writing. We need them in part because everyday vocabularies are often inadequate for characterizing connections and relations – indeed sometimes hide relations. As the anthropologist George Marcus (1998) argues, many key “relationships, connections, and indeed cultures of connection, association, and circulation . . . are completely missed through the use and naming of the object of study in terms of categories ‘natural’ to subjects’ preexisting discourses about them”
(Marcus, 1998, p. 17).

More of Nespor's Used Cabbage

I'm currently trying to get over the debilitating hurdle of writing up a rough draft of analysis of my interview data from last term.  This qual methods course is really challenging me to think outside of the box of normal analytic convention.  So - needless to say - I'm struggling. Immensely.  I have no idea where to begin.  So, here I am, sharing with you all, the intellectual ponderings and offerings of my favorite teacher so far, Jan Kent Nespor.

Analysis as a Dialogue

There's a nice interlude in EP Thompson's funny and instructive critique of Althusser in which Thompson basically lays out a synopsis of the logic of historical inquiry.  His metaphor of analysis as dialogue or argument is useful, I think.  For Thompson, inquiry is a  A dialogue between concept and evidence, a dialogue conducted by successive hypotheses, on the one hand, and empirical research on the other. . . . It is this logic which constitutes the discipline’s ultimate court of appeal: not, please note, ‘the evidence,’ by itself, but the evidence interrogated thus. (52-3) an argument between received, inadequate, or ideologically-informed concepts or hypotheses on the one hand, and fresh or inconvenient evidence on the other; with the elaboration of new hypotheses; with the testing of these hypotheses against the evidence, which may involve interrogating existing evidence in new ways, or renewed research to confirm or disprove the new notions, with discarding those hypotheses which fail new tests, or refining or revising those which do, in the light of this engagement.     What we are saying is that the notion (concept, hypothesis as to causation) has been brought into a disciplined dialogue with the evidence, and it has been shown to ‘work’; that is, it has not been disproved by contrary evidence, and that it successfully organises or ‘explains’ hitherto inexplicable evidence; hence it is an adequate (although approximate) representation of the causative sequence, or rationality, or these events, and it conforms (within the logic of the historical discipline) with a process which did in fact eventuate in the past. (Thompson, 1978, pp. 58-9)

Nespor's Used Cabbage 967

I'm stealing this from my qual professor - because I absolutely adore him and his biting and crass ways of teaching qualitative methods.  But this isn't so biting or crass.  Just a wonderful lens.  A different lens.  A lens we never are exposed to in The School of Communication at OSU.

Analysis considered as a Canoe Trip in the Open Sea without a Compass

Gladwin (1964), as summarized by Berreman (1966) (in an interesting essay in which he's using the contrast to characterize different forms of research -- I'm borrowing not just the quote but  the analogy), describes the practices of Micronesian navigators who can sail out of sight of land without a compass: [Gladwin] points out that the European navigator begins with a plan – a course – which he has charted according to certain universal principles, and he carries out his voyage by relating his every move to that plan. His effort throughout his voyage is directed to remaining “on course.” If unexpected events occur, he must first alter the plan, then respond accordingly. The Trukese navigator begins with an objective rather than a plan. He sets off toward the objective and responds to conditions as they arise in an ad hoc fashion. He utilizes information provided by the wind, the waves, the tide and current, the fauna, the stars, the clouds, the sound of the water on the side of the boat, and he steers accordingly. His effort is directed to doing whatever is necessary to reach the objective. If asked, he can point to his objective at any moment, but he cannot describe his course. (Berreman, 1966, p. 347; Gladwin’s account is now known to be wrong in some ways, but not in ways that reduce the value of the analogy; see Lewis’s We, the Navigators) Berreman gave yet another example of the European navigator's (1) ... Once the European navigator has developed his operating plan and has available the appropriate technical resources, the implementation and monitoring of his navigation can be accomplished with a minimum of thought. He has simply to perform almost mechanically the steps dictated by his training and by his initial planning synthesis (Gladwin 1964:175). The analogy, if not clear, is this:  the researcher using an experimental or population-analytic type of research design works from an operating plan, like the European navigator.  The qualitative researcher, by contrast, operates more like the Chuuk navigator

 

INRI

I am watching The Passion of the Christ to help me experience one of my favorite days of the Christian calendar.  I feel like you can really only watch this movie when it is dark out, and a special treat for me this year, it is storming out currently- to top it all off.

It probably seems odd that Good Friday is my favorite.  But if you think about it, we focus so much on the happy things.  The bible lacks imagery.  It lacks what this day and age needs to fully grasp what it means to suffer and die.  The Passion does a good job of reminding us what our Lord had to actually endure for our salvation.  "Suffered, died, and was buried" is easy to say without having any concept of what it really means. And so to be a Christian is easy.  To have a relationship with Christ is easy and superficial - because we have no conception of what he did for us. 
But I think even more so than that - it is so easy to focus on the happy things.  Yay, Jesus is born!  Yay, Jesus is Risen!  It is so easy to skim over the hard stuff.  But Jesus got the absolute shit beaten out of Him.  His suffering really did end all other suffering.  We have no right to complain about our "problems" in comparison.  And then He died on the cross.  And then he descended to hell to beat Satan.  And I can't imagine that was an easy battle.  I can't see the devil being like, alright Jesus - you got me this time, here is my handle on the souls of human kind.  But we don't focus on any of that really.  We don't have sermons that paint a picture of what happened.  But we sure do focus a lot on The Resurrection of Christ.  And understandably so. 
Good Friday strengthens my relationship with the Lord.  It reminds me of what love really means.  And it reminds me that this life, no matter how painful, is only temporary.  Good Friday also reminds me that I am weak and that I am consumed by sinfulness.  It gives me initiative to strengthen myself against my weaknesses, and though every year I fail horribly at not giving in to temptation, I still try. 

What have I done to you, O my People, and wherein have I offended you?  Answer Me. For I have raised you up out of the prison house of sin and death, and you have delivered up your Redeemer to be scourged.  For I have redeemed you from the house of bondage, and you have nailed your Savior to a cross.
-Good Friday Service Meditation

Forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Words of Wisdom from Qual

In keeping with Kaplan's warning (1964) about "premature closure" and his stress on the importance of "openness of meaning", we continue to treat them as hypotheses to be further elaborated in future research.  While greater specificity is one hoped-for goal (in terms of both clarification of theoretical notions and the limits of their applicability), greater ambiguity is another.  Each case analysis will consist of intricate, interconnected detail, much of it perhaps unexpected.  It is the "loose ends", the stuff we neither expect nor can explain, that pushes us toward theoretical breakthroughs.  If the guiding theoretical notion truly is used heuristically, case analyses should raise additional questions relevant to understanding the concept, model, and/or theory being considered.

Vaugh, Chapter 8- Theory elaboration: the heuristics of case anslysis, pg 176


The bolded emphasis added by me to highlight the point of this post.

Welcome to Maine - The Way Life Should Be [Part I]

I just arrived back in Michigan after a 3.5 day trip to Portland, Maine.  Kerry and I left on Thursday evening to visit cousin Chad at the current site of his semi-suspended nomadic adventures.  In true "Kerry" form, St. Patrick's day decorations were very important even though we were going to be traveling for 4.5 hours.  She even brought a bow tie for chad to wear when we got in.  Observe -

  Friday morning I spent finishing up 3 finals [and I will elaborate more on this in my next post].  This ended up being alright since Chad had a meeting to go to at 11 anyway.  Friday was pretty laid back overall.  Chad finally got back and we walked to downtown Portland along the Promenade.  Here is a view of Promenade from just around the corner of Vesper St. -

  Yup - the name of the road down by the water is called the Promenade - or, The Prom, as it is affectionately called by the locals.  We stopped at a little hole in the wall place for some seafood chowder.  Kerry and Chad got the seafood chowder in bread bowls and I got the Crab roll.  Let me clarify - I'm not a big fan of seafood.  So, the fact that I ate safood over the weekend is a big deal.  My stomach turned, however, when I found a less than desirable piece of crab in the mix of crab meat.  It took me a few minutes to get over the the nausea before I could finish my lunch.  Kerry and I parused some fo the little shops in the area and then met up with Chad at an awesome little bar that had a TON of awesome beers.  We had one then we walked back to Chad's place.  Kerry and I bit it and napped until a little bit after 8.  We got up, went to Whole Foods [beeteedubs - that store is brilliant], and then made an amazing dinner of grilled chicken, red and white cabbage sauteed with onions in peanut oil [um - yum. Making this most definitely], and barley.  The three of us dined with Lauren [Chad's artsy fartsy hippie dippie roommate].  We played a round of Fill or Bust and we hit the hay.  Next up - Acadia National Park.

Things I MUST Share [with the mythical people reading this]

Since Facebook and Twitter have gone by the way of sacrifices and discipline for the season of Lent, I have to say - I honestly haven't really been missing it all that much.  This could be for a few reasons:
1) I have friends in REAL life that keep me occupied
2) I'm totally kidding - my only friends are research articles and grad school.  They keep me cold at night.
3) It is finals week currently.  This means any stalking and tweeting would put me further behind than I already am
4) I've been housing a friend since last Friday due to some marriage infidelity [the spouse not squatting is the slut] and this has caused me to throw all of MY needs, emotions, routines, and priorities into a tizzy and out the window.
5) I'm leaving for Maine tomorrow for a mini-holiday with my sibling [okay - this has nothing to do with it. I just wanted to brag]

Regardless of the reason, there is only one thing I do actually miss.  It is sharing things that are SUPERLY awesome with the rest of the world.  So, to the leprechaun that is actually reading this - I present to you the awesomeness I have either stumbled upon or been led to over the past few days.  Behold:

This first one was sent to me in an e-mail by my nomadic cousin Chad as the opening to a message about the activities we will be partaking in while my sibling and I visit him in Maine [which is where he currently has set down his nomading]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cds7lSHawAw


This next one is brought to you courtesy of the love of my life, [future] Dr. Robert Beckmann, M.D.  Rob called me yesterday after one of his many weekly med school exams a little bit on the tipsy side.  He entertained me and made me laugh as usual.  And then over the course of the day I kept getting questions about music - that is until he offered this one up to me through a text.  "Frightened rabbit u know them?"  "I don't think so. Music?"  "Yes YouTube them.  Swim till u can't see land.  This is a Katey band or I don't know you at all" [color coding coincide to my phone dispaly]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzjERZU3wbY
May I also suggest [mostly because I adore the video - for obvious reasons]:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1Lf7mriehU&feature=related

And as the worn out saying goes - I've saved the best for last.  Ladies and Gents, I knew that this video was released a few weeks ago.  I saw the tweet that it was available for viewing/listening pleasure and, once again, grad school got in the way of who I used to be - a really really cool person.  This album comes out in a few weeks and I'm more than a little bit excited about it.  And even though Davy and TayTay are looking a little [okay a LOT] rough around the edges these days - I would still happily bare each of them as many children as they would want.  So, from those fighters of foo:
Rope.
http://www.foofighters.com/us/videos/rope

But for now kiddies - I still yearn for new episodes of Pushing Daisies so that I can drool over the wardrobe I hope to have someday [insert Charlote Charles - aka "Chuck"- costumes]

And the Pie Maker I dream of calling my own someday

 And just for good measure - one of my favorite kisses ever [that didn't happen to be mine]

I'm Inferring A Positive Correlation and, [gasp] CAUSATION!

I woke up yesterday with a bump on my eyelid.  Just between my eyebrow and the crease in my eyelid.  Here is what the bump probably closely resembles:

Here is what I perceive the bump to look like:

 And here is what the bump feels like if I forget and actually touch my eyelid:

I'd like to point out that I'm pretty sure whatever the hell is causing my eye to be somewhat swollen and painful is in relation to my current level of stress as it is now finals week, not to mention the NCA submission deadline WAS this Wednesday, but THANKFULLY got pushed back a week [because apparently thousands of people dying in Japan warrants an extension].  It could also be plausible that some menacing insect decided to feast on the delicate tissue that protects my orbital structure.
Anyhow - not only has some disgusting deformity appeared over my left eye, but my acne count has also increased, which, in all honesty, is no surprise to me.  This is a recurrent theme in my life.  As the quarter draws to a close, my skin gets even worse than it already is.  And while I do expect this to happen, I still have yet to build up a tolerance and self-esteem buffer for my terrible skin. [which seems odd since it's been bad for around, oh, you know, 14 years].  So, here is what my skin probably looks like in reality:

And here is how I perceive myself to look [making me want to sport the oh-so-fashionable bag over head look]:

So, I can safely say, from years of repeated observation of stress levels and amount of acne, that there is a positive correlation between the two.  And in fact, I'm going to go so far as to say that indeed, the former causes the latter.  Years of evidence allows this causal inference to be made; as the quarter/semester comes to an end and all of the course finals are due in a three day span my body revolts by producing excessive amounts of oil and betrays my cover of this imbalance of hormone levels by wreaking havoc on my face.

Mind you, I'm coming to these conclusions through my own research, not because medical science has already proven, with REAL science that there is a casual link between the two.  I'm just saying.

So, the moral of this disgusting story kids is that grad school is detrimental to your health, causes you to have the skin of a teenager, and ages your skin faster than normal.

kp.

Writing for Social Scientists (Becker, 1986) - "One Right Way"

"Harvey Molotoch put the point like this in a note to me:

     A problem that writing people have is the idea in their heads that a given sentence, paragraph or paper must be the right one. Their training in a land of 'facts,' in the celebration of 'right answers' - including the 'right' way to approach their Chem lab book or English theme - immobilizes them at the typewriter keyboard.  Their problem is that there are many right sentences, many right structures for an essay... We have to free ourselves from the idea that there is only one CORRECT way.  When we don't, the contradiction with reality absolutely stifles us since no sentence, paragraph or paper is demonstrable [to ourselves] as clearly the right one.  Students watch their words come out, but of course these words - in first draft - are not even meeting the test of 'OK', much less CORRECT and PERFECT ESSENCE OF CORRECT.  Not having a vision of tentativeness, of first-draft, of n-draft, they can only feel frustration at the sight of failure.  After a while, one sees the first tentative thoughts of a paragraph or paper as obviously failing this test - and so one doesn't even start: writer's cramp.  The fear of failure is an accurate fear, because nobody could pass this self-imposed test of getting the one correct version, and the failure to do so is especially [and distressingly] evident at the point of first-draft.

Some very common, quite specific writing difficulities have their origins in this attitude: the problem of getting started and the problem of 'which way to organize it'.  Neither one has a unique solution to be discovered." 
(pg. 48)

I like this book.  I didn't read near enough of it over this past term.  I will, however, be reading it over break.

Also - once all of these finals are turned in, I will begin writing more about my experiences sans facebook and twitter - among other things.  But, I've got too much "one right way" writing to do in the present.

kp.