DAY 1: back in the saddle

So “the paper” is officially finished, turned in, returned, graded, and happily sitting on my desktop. You can read it in all it’s 6,000 (almost) word APA finery here. In the end, it was good and according to the audio comments it all turned out good (though I’ll admit I only listened to the first and last audio comments because in all honestly audio comments kind of still intimidate me and even though I say I’m not, I actually still feel like small pieces of myself are all over the paper and I’m kind of not quite ready to hear the hardcore critiques…I think I just need to get over it and listen to them all…with whiskey of course!)

I feel amazingly relieved that the first massive hurdle is cleared and I’m still trotting along. I’ll admit, this side of the paper beast, I feel slightly more legit and slightly less like a poser. Or maybe I’m just realizing that the divisions I thought were so hard and fast between “academics” and “regular people” are not solid at all rather exceptionally porous. Ha. And porous feels like an apt description of me through this season.

So now another week begins and there are once more journals to be read and noble thoughts to be expressed and all the other things that sound quite heady and intellectual but really seem to just boil down to lots of discipline and work and reflection….Oh, and lest I forget on the lists of tasks, there are also those 500 words of brilliance each day to be constructed. Tonight we shall easy in with 250…tomorrow, full. steam. ahead.

DAY 2: open space.

Today’s goal:
Avoid reading “the paper” at all costs in an effort to have even a smidgen of distance from it, not micromanage my proofreader, and most of all remind myself that my life is much larger than a single assignment even though how I’ve oriented my life in the past several days makes it fell pretty much that this assignment is the most important thing ever…It’s amazing how writing a 6,000 word paper really can give you tunnel vision…I can only imagine what might happen over the course of a dissertation if one wasn’t fairly intentional about not turning into an idea-hoarding dragon.

Evening Verdict:
Success.

Tomorrow’s goal:
Turn it all in and let. it. go.

Verdict:
eeek…..

DAY 3: Donald Schon, yet another academic bestie

Last night I finally took the leap and downloaded the Kindle version of the book that it seems like everyone who is anyone in the world of studio learning seems to cite pretty continuously, namely Educating the Reflective Practioner. It’s by Donald Schon and it’s fabulous because it’s all stuff that I know so deeply from experience and yet had no idea that anyone in the legit academic-stuyding world actually studied.

It’s late and I’m exhausted so I won’t try to give an erudite summary of the parts that I’ve already devoured because it would all just be rambley and incoherent, but I will say that Schon gives such dignity to a process of learning that I think can often be overlooked because it’s so far outside of the traditional means of academia. What I want to do is take that same idea of ennobling to these studios that can happen in places that don’t have physical walls but rather live in the wires and screens of the world. In a lot of ways, Schon demystified the studio learning environment and if I could be like Schon 2.0 with the online studio I think the repercussions could be pretty profound for not only design and art-based fields but for other fields too to bring in so much more reflective-learning via distance methods pedagogy.

So yeah, I think I too am going to jump on the book-quoting bandwagon because it is pretty amazing…and after I sleep for a long deep chunk of time, it will be interesting to see what emerges…

rough outline…with overzealous use of capitalization

1. Describe your area of research interest
(THIS WILL BE INTERESTING NARRATIVE, POSITIONING THE ISSUE IN A VERY BROAD FRAMEWORK. IT WILL BE FASCINATING AND ATTENTION GRABBING AND MAKE MY READER WANT TO KEEP TURNING PAGES AND KEEP ON LEARNING MORE. IT WILL BE RELATABLE YET THOUGHT PROVOKING…INTRIGUING YET NOT TOO ABSTRACT.)

2. Why is this area interesting and important from a scholarly perspective?
(THIS WILL BE WHERE I NAME DROP A LITTLE, ARTICLE CITE A LITTLE, USE THE MAGIC DEFINITIONS, AND SHOW HOW ME AND THE OTHER RESEARCHERS ARE ALL ON THE SAME TEAM.)

3. Why is this are interesting and important from a personal perspective? 

(THIS IS WHERE I GET PERSONAL BUT STILL KEEP IT IN THE BUTTONED UP, PROFESSIONAL RESEARCHER-TYPE MANNER. I AM HUMAN AND I AM WARM AND FUZZY BUT I’M ALSO GOING TO OBSERVE DECORUM AND BE TOTALLY LEGIT.)

4. What are my own ontological assumptions? 

(HERE’S HOW I SEE LIFE…I’LL SET THE STAGE (IN A CURATED MANNER) SO THAT PEOPLE CAN AGAIN GET TO KNOW ME A BIT MORE.)

5. What are my own epistemological assumptions?
(HERE’S WHERE I SAY HOW I SEE KNOWLEDGE BEING MADE (AGAIN…PERHAPS A BIT CURATED, BUT STILL)

6. Paradigm 1 

(HERE’S WHERE I WILL REVEAL SOMETHING BRILLIANT ABOUT HOW I’M MAYBE GOING TO BE DOING THIS AND REVEAL ONCE MORE MY OWN PROWESS AND THE PROWESS OF THE PARADIGM IN ADDRESSING ONE PART OF THE ISSUE.)

7. Paradigm 2
(DITTO ABOVE BUT WITH SOMETHING DIFFERENT.)

8. Research Questions for Paradigm 1 

(SHAZAM! THESE WILL BE NATURAL OUTCOMES OF PARADIGM 1 AND LEAD NATURALLY INTO MY ETHICS CONSIDERATIONS AND HOW I’M GOING TO BE TAKEN AS LEGIT AND NOT SOME CRAZY PERSON.)

9. Research Questions for Paradigm 2
(DITTO ABOVE BUT WITH SOMETHING DIFFERENT.)

10. Conclusion 

(HERE’S WHERE I’M GONNA WRAP IT ALL UP AND LEAVE EVERYONE WANTING MORE AND FEELING LIKE THEY NOW SEE THE WORLD IN A NEW AND INNOVATIVE WAY.)