Procrastinating by another name

I recall years ago reading a nice little magazine article ( in the days when i still read magazines...obviously pre thesis)
It talked of it being a good thing your teenager was bored.
It then very quickly reframed boredom into having a thinking space.
Its the moments of not doing, that give time for contemplation.

So when Im spring cleaning in the middle of winter, replacing the curtains, vacuuming the ceiling, its because the ideas are fermenting. Just like a nice cider, it requires a little bit of time to bubble...

There's the possibility that
1. I do not want it to end.
I dont. I like being a student. And I like having this intensely selfish undertaking of depth. I want to graduate at the same time as two colleagues....I want to go to a conference next year that i could only attend with uni funding for a phd student...
However even if i finish next week, its still going to be the status of a student for a while so those arent very real excuses.

2. I havent yet found the cure for cancer *sigh* I havent yet scaled Mt Everest! I'm a perfectionist who want the best possible, that would be a problem, but unlikely. Dont think Ive ever been one before so its not likely. However i do not like failing, and i do not like aiming for mediocrity, I havent got anything worthy of a nobel prize, nor a booker prize, nor even an Australasian thesis prize. Its not a bodice ripping good yarn (yet).
My friend Heather would say just put on your ordinary...
apparently ball gown and bustier not required.
And Bruno Latour says a good thesis is a finished one.
Many dont....mine will. I know this.

3. I havent suffered enough.
I havent. I dont hate it. At times this is too easy...maybe i have enough now but it doesnt look hard enough.
My little contributions to knowledge do not feel grand.
Sure ive studied something no one else has. Its new in the world. Others might want to know more of it.
And ive a tiny inkling that with distributed agency is distributed responsibility so there's a tiny bit of newness for a theory
And the methodology supports some brave new world stuff on the research processes of working with young people and with sensitive research.
Are my molehills big enough to constitute "new knowledge"
As with no.2....might just need to pull my head in and be satisfied with being a modest witness, a modest contributor....even some of my fav authors are this. They do not come across as earth shattering, so i too should stop trying to shatter the earth.


4. If i finished i would have to play with the big girls and boys in academia contesting funding...
I dont have to. I could publish the smaller things. I can hold it together when its short bursts on a theme.

5. My angst, confusion, curiousity are sated. Having satisfied my curiousity, its boring to retrospectively write the story of my thinking for others...especially if its only going to have a minute audience *sigh*
And i have already fed back to my site of study...and was well received...but is still owe them and the participants of this, completion.
Also there's the scope for what i talk of to be useful for others...and i know it wont be if its not finished.


Weird but some of these procrastinations could cancel each other out...if it isnt to be read...why the tinsel and polishing...points of tension get held, sufficient strands woven to nurture a space for completing


6. and even procrastinating gets boring...so back to fermenting...

my owner

This is where I am based, Auckland , New Zealand.

This is me

A summary of my intended study

Title
Exploring the use of emergent technologies in communicating care

Summary
What is the relationship between how people think about change and what they do to enact it? This question is explored with reference to the development of communication skills for health professionals, an area undergoing radical transformation from a need to respond to both current and emergent technologies.

The integration of computing and communication technologies (CCTs) within healthcare has involved, and continues to involve, significant change. In this research I will focus on how the use of emergent technology contains, constrains or constructs practice specific to the area of interpersonal skills and communicating care. Specifically, what are the hopes or fears held regarding how care is conveyed? What is the influence of these beliefs in shaping practice? And further, as much as we think we are the designers or directors of our own practices, in what ways might emergent CCTs be shaping our practices and/or shaping us?

Actor-network theory (ANT) has been chosen as a methodology as it provides a useful framework whereby changing practices can be studied. ANT allows for both human and non-human influences such as the technology to be considered. In this study I explore 3 sites where the communications of care is undergoing change as a result of embracing emergent technologies, these are:
1. Health professional education
2. A counseling practice, and
3. Within the wider community, an open electronic message board.
The intent is to uncover a range of voices associated with change, including but not limited to, the voices of hope and resistance; human and technological. These will be presented as narratives, workstories of change within a folio. The methods of eliciting these narratives will include journaling, interviews, and participant observations, over the course of one year.

Articulating the processes of change and what people do to enact change supports the development of reflexive practice. In giving voice to the multiplicity of influence and processes shaping practice, an opportunity is provided for discerning that things could also have been different. In this way, the study contributes to a critical social stream through which health professionals and health professional education may also consider shaping change as active agents. Possibilities in integrating technology in communicating care can then be actively constructed rather than contained or constrained by default.