Academic Dancing
As a child, where I grew up in north-west Tasmania was simply the place I grew up. On school holidays my siblings and I played at home, went to the local beach, went on outings with our parents, or stayed at our grandparents’ shack. At the time these were nothing special, they were just what we did. At the start of Year 3 our class went through the usual ‘what I did on my summer holidays’ reports, and one classmate … Read More
I started this blog a few years back to push me to write. I was planning to write about my PhD and the dancing about one has to do to meet the challenges of working in higher education. I wanted to push myself to write more and to write better. But from the paucity of entries in the last year you can see I’ve found it difficult – very, very difficult. I have in fact found writing anything at all … Read More
Throughout my life, I guess ever since I grew teeth, I’ve been a tooth-grinder. As a child, my elder sister, with whom I shared a room, would complain about the noise and my family would laugh about it. The grinding happens while I’m asleep so I personally remained unaware of it until in my 20s. Despite regular dental visits it wasn’t identified as a problem until I went to a new dentist at age 26 with a painful incisor. He … Read More
I just completed reviewing my fifth paper for the year. The fun of peer review is that it’s anonymous; the challenge is that you still need to write it respectfully. I wouldn’t like to get a peer review that was rude, denigrating or shallow. Instead I’d like to get something thoughtful, considered and helpful. The easy ones are where the paper is already very good and all you have to do is point out a few trivial things that need … Read More
This week I finished a draft of what I hope will be my first journal article. The current version is the result of three unsuccessful submissions of a previous version last year: two flat rejections, and the last inviting a resubmission with major changes; hence the rewrite. While it’s not quite finished, and I’ve invited feedback from two colleagues, completing it resulted in a major shift in how I see myself. Suddenly, based on a substantive piece of writing that … Read More
I noticed something incredible this week. The feeling that I was drowning in the literature has lifted (a bit). You can read about it, or people can tell you about it, but until you’ve puddled around in the pool of unsorted information fed by the waterfall of an infinite number of relevant papers to read, splashed by helpful friends with well-meaning advice and reading suggestions, you don’t really understand how overwhelmed you can feel. But recently I found a rocky … Read More
Last week I turned 50. No big deal really, except for the party. I’m not much of a party girl, despite dancing at many over the years. I’d much prefer dinner and deep conversation with a few close friends. The last party I held at home was for my 30th. My boyfriend at the time gave me a hammer, saying “Every girl needs a hammer.” He was right. I still have that hammer and have used it many times. There … Read More
A while ago I had lunch with my cousin (Cuz) and a few of her relatives from the other side of her family. It was delightful getting to know them over a delicious lunch and hear stories about my grandparents, aunts, uncles and father from a different perspective. During the course of the conversation we talked about our jobs and interests; my cousin is an opera singer, and I of course a (retired) belly dancer. Both of us are extremely … Read More
PhD progress: 15% complete, 85% to go My PhD is through Monash University, with supervisors Associate Professor Angela Carbone and Dr Phillip Dawson. I am investigating how academics learn to teach. Case study methodology will be used, with the case defined as the individual academic. As learning takes time, I’ll be tracking participants across two years through six monthly interviews. Critical points to investigate are how they view their own self and the environment in which they work, and the … Read More
Okay, I have to confess, I’m after my 15 minutes of fame just like everyone else. A few years back I auditioned for Australia’s Got Talent. My biggest fear was I’d be put on the television and humiliated by the judges. No such luck – I only got to the first round which meant (in Tamworth) doing my dance in front of the producer. Not a skerrick of interest however – a middle aged belly dancer doesn’t quite cut the … Read More
Some time ago I listened to a very interesting discussion on the ABC radio show Future Tense. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/futuretense/stories/2011/3283244.htm It initially caught my attention because I heard the short section about the urmadic university and discussion of the role of the university in general. The presenters went on to talk about design in general, designing objects that make our lives better and sustainability, but somewhat over half way through got to a topic I thought was really interesting –nothing! Craig Brenner, … Read More
I am an educator. I started working 20 years ago as an adult education practitioner, undertook a masters degree to improve my teaching, then through this ended up working in higher education while continuing to teach adult education part-time. Most people I meet do not find anything unusual in this combination, but occasionally I meet someone for whom it is a challenge. Recently, for instance, I was advised that if I want to be taken seriously as an academic I … Read More