Who am I?

Trying to work out what being a doctoral student means to my professional identity....

On one hand, I'm aware of playing it down, keeping it hidden. I feel justified in saying to students that I am studying too, that I can empathise with assignment stress, deadlines etc., but I'm not disclosing exactly what I'm doing...

On the other hand, I'm dreaming stuff...waking in the middle of the night with thoughts and ideas racing around. It's obviously more prominently in my mind than I think.

I've been invited to a conference tomorrow on digital media and youth work. Really exciting and I'm hoping to get some Assignment 2 focus. However, I still feel that I'm a bit of a sham, that I perhaps shouldn't be there, that I don't really know anything...

The photo shows the next performance to script: different roles are illustrated. I think that the circus analogy is important because it implies flexibility, accountability, comedy and risk and this might be the link to identity?  Important question was about 'who the ringmaster is', who's in control? The answer is of course, me, but it doesn't always feel like it......

I've got a comment!!

Interesting question - that of whether blogging and putting your thoughts out there actually changes what you are trying to say?? Getting feedback from someone on what you've written is phenomenal but scary at the same time. Got to learn to manage it somehow 'cos it's nothing like Facebook!

Pirsing in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance says that "When analytic thought, the knife is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process. That is fairly well understood, at least in the arts. Mark Twain's experience comes to mind, in which, he had mastered the analytic knowledge needed to pilot the Mississippi River, the discovered the river had lost its beauty. Something is always killed. But what is less noticed in the arts - something is always created too. An instead of just dwelling on what is killed it's important also to see what's created and to see what is process as a kind of death-birth continuity and is neither good nor bad, but just is."

I don't think it matters whether people are looking in or not... writing it down will cause you apply the knife in some way. Otherwise, why are you doing it?

Penny dropping....

 I think that I'm beginning to understand what this is all about and it's not like any 'course' of study that I've ever followed before. Always a believer in trail and error or experiential learning, this is it action.

Just when I think I'm on the right track, new questions arise. Huge learning about how to go about the process - I'm just going to throw out any previous practices or habits in order to free myself up to do it differently.

Really enjoed the last 2 days with colleagues and it's unfortunate that I haven't been able to make all sessions because I benefitted from the discussion and the laughter.

Really looking forward to getting stuck into the next bit as its more practical and judging by the assignments I've seen, should be much easier.