Burn This *&$#@-Thesis Down Writing Retreat –Day 1

4 days and a 40,000 word PhD thesis to write… Totally do-able right?? Of course, I am not starting from scratch- I’ve got about 30,000 words in a very messy, chaotic mess of a draft… I’m hoping being here (looks pretty ideal, right?) Will just push me over the “get this sucker done” huge wall thatContinue reading “Burn This *&$#@-Thesis Down Writing Retreat –Day 1”

Rejection Perfection

Loving this article by the writer Kim Liao about having a rejection goal for the year. She shot for 100 rejections, and while she fell short of that goal (she got 43) she did get 5 acceptances- which, as she points out, would have felt like a daunting number to aim for. A little reverseContinue reading “Rejection Perfection”

And the winner is…

Here’s a little in the spirit of “sometimes it IS worth it” or it gets better…” or “keep going even if you think your research is rubbish”. My very first published article won the Voice and Speech Review Forum Article of the Year Award. I was absolutely floored that I had won. Countless times overContinue reading “And the winner is…”

making the familiar strange – two book recommendations

Originally posted on patter:
Today, as this post publishes, I’m giving a talk to postgraduate researchers. One of the things I will talk about is why it’s important for all researchers to practice seeing things differently. We already have ways of describing this imperative in research literatures. We talk about reflexivity. We talk about criticality.…

Sh*t just got real…

OK- so I am not really sure that “the sh*t just got real” thing works in this context– I just really wanted an excuse to say that. But, if it means that I need to really get my rear in gear– or my submission date is looming (September 29!!!) and I still do not have aContinue reading “Sh*t just got real…”

Cha-Cha-Cha

There was one of those Facebook posts going around not too long ago that said something like this; “Optimist: Someone who figures that taking a step backward after taking a step forward is not a disaster, it’s a cha-cha.” (I later found out the quote is attributed to author Robert Brault) And at the timeContinue reading “Cha-Cha-Cha”

Build Me Up Break Me Down

I’ve realized I spend an awful lot of my time trying to form habits… the good ones, the productive and creative ones. Whether it is with my running, my health, finances, or my academics, I would say I am a bit obsessed with habits, and rituals. In my first year of my PhD I readContinue reading “Build Me Up Break Me Down”