Doctorate demons

It's no big secret that I suffer - quite badly at times - from lack of self-confidence. Although it's something I've experienced for the majority of my life I wouldn't ever really say I've 'battled' with it, in fact right from the beginning I've just sort of, well, dealt with it. It doesn't really bother me. It would be nice if it would sod off and blight someone else for a while so I can know what it feels like to be rid of it, but for the most part it doesn't actually hinder me at all.

Despite it causing infuriating levels of self-doubt which manifest themselves in some peculiar forms I can by-and-large ignore it. Now that's not to say I've 'cured' myself and it doesn't affect my thoughts anymore, it's just that I've found a way of getting round it.

You see, the problem I face is that I constantly feel like an imbecile. Whenever I speak to someone about my studies or what I'm aiming for I somehow feel they're going to haul me up as a faker, a bluffer, someone who has managed to blag their way this far thanks to a reasonable grasp of English and not much else. I accept that some people may think that's a ludicrous thing for me to think but the fact remains that I think it.

Take this PhD application for instance. I would absolutely love to study for a PhD and in my own little head I think I'm quite capable of doing it and succeeding, but I have this nagging little demon telling me that everyone is probably snickering at my clueless audacity. "What on earth makes her think she's capable of something like THAT??" they're saying under their breath. It's horrible, having people fictitiously calling you names behind your back. It unnerves me and often makes me want to hide away and not face the possibility of failure in the first place, but that would be stupid so I shrug it off as best I can, make apologies for my own petulance and just carry on. To quote Susan Jeffers, I feel the fear and do it anyway.

It works, for the most part. I suspect that had I not felt the fear but done it anyway I might not have taken up mountain biking - which led me to meet Gordon. I might not have got a place on a Masters programme at a top 3 university - which I still think was a fluke since I didn't technically meet the entry criteria. And I probably wouldn't have signed up to numerous things throughout the past few years which made me feel nervous - conferences, OUSA, Platform, Great North Run to name a few.

So I ultimately might be making a fool of myself even thinking about applying for a PhD. I might not be actually capable, intelligent or academic enough to do one, but I won't ever know that for sure unless I apply. There are myriad quotes I could cite to substantiate this theory: "shy bairns get nowt" (my mother), "if you never try you'll never know" (unknown but it's common as muck!), and my personal favourite "of course you can't become, if you only say what you would've done" (Len 'Steal my Sunshine' - one hit wonder).

I'm feeling the fear (for 'fear' read 'self-doubt'), but sod it, I'm just gonna do it anyway. I've not got much to lose when all is considered so I might as well. You never know, I might have just what it takes to do a PhD and I just don't know it yet. I might be a born learner. I'm very much doubting it but then stranger things have happened.

Two ideas but only one proposal, how do I choose?

I feel sick. No, that's not a theatrical exaggeration for the purpose of sounding more dramatic, I actually feel a bit queasy. My head is a complete whirl of thoughts and directions at the minute and it's making me feel dizzy.

So as I mentioned in my last post, now is the time I need to really get my game face on about applying for a doctorate. I thought I was really starting to get somewhere last week - I had begun drafting out some notes for the proposal, I had gathered together a heap of articles to sift through for a literature review, I had selected a couple of potential supervisors to approach and I had asked a lecturer friend of mine for some help in forming my bitty shards of ideas into something more cohesive. I really thought I was starting to get somewhere.

But now disaster has struck. Not quite disaster, but it's behaviour so utterly typical of me that I'm surprised I actually function day-to-day. A second proposal topic has come into my head and is now lodged so firmly I can't shake it, it's there, dizzying my thoughts into a whirling mass of incomprehensible gloop.

Both topics are of interest to me yet both are completely different. How do I choose between the two?

I feel sick.

Sixpenny mix-ups and my ongoing quest

Am I just lazy or can I cite being busy as the reason I abandoned this blog somewhat vehemently at the start of my Masters career? Sadly I feel laziness wins out in this particular battle but there's a slight sense of urgency slowly developing in my quest which I feel warrants its resurrection.

It is November. I am presently almost half way through the first term of the second and final year of my Masters degree. I still feel like a fraud. I don't belong in a lecture theatre with such intellect and I fear that one day someone will stand me up in the middle of the class, pull down my pants and proceed to point and laugh at me and call me an imbecile while I stand there, shaking from the horrific truth of the situation. My poor sense of self-worth obviously still haunts me, I fear it will never leave and we seem to have developed a strange symbiosis now. I am blighted.

Much has come and gone since I last posted but I shall edit out the gash and mention only one - I graduated. Almost nine years to the day since I embarked on my further education escapade I graduated with honours at Manchester Bridgewater Hall with my beloved in the audience giving me (I hope) rapturous applause. It was an emotional day filled with pomp and circumstance and for a lot of the students in attendance it was the final curtain on what may have been a lengthy and emotionally trying event for them. But for me it was simply a formality to confirm the permission to jump from one stepping stone to the next. It was a handshake that said "yes, you were allowed to make that leap 12 months ago, go forth and study harder".

In the time since my last mental out pour I have both progressed AND regressed. True, I am now halfway through my Masters degree. But also true is that I have begun another Bachelors degree. It occurred to me upon completion of my Open Degree that it resembled a 6p mix-up in its construct. Over the course of the degree I had picked up the following:

• DD100: An Introduction to the Social Sciences. This was my white chocolate mouse -1p - firm favourite and always a good starting point for a successful mix-up. 
• A211: Philosophy & the Human Situation. This is more a sour cherry - 1p - some people love them, some hate them, guaranteed to make your face squirm up in discomfort.
• AA308: Thought & Experience, themes in the Philosophy of Mind. This is like a sour fizz bomb - 1p - those who don't like sour cherries simply cannot understand why you'd pick a sour fizz bomb straight after the facial contortions of a sour cherry. I consider it a test of endurance.
• DD305: Personal Lives and Social Policy. Definitely the cola bottle - 1p - an average all-rounder, no one objects to picking one out but it doesn't really get your taste buds tingling.
• Transferred credit: Foundation Degree in Quantity Surveying. This is my pontefract cake - 2p - I don't even like liquorice but it got offered for free and I'm never one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

So no real coherence within the degree; no theme running through it, just a mash-up of bits and pieces that don't make sense together. So I've gone back to the proverbial sweet shop and started again. This time I'm concentrating my efforts on a BSc in Criminology & Psychological studies (would that be like a bag of chocolate eclairs - they look quite fancy and special but really everyone's eating them...). I wasn't even considering torturing myself again as an undergrad but I got caught up in the heat of the transitional fees moment and registered, somehow convincing myself that I'd be stupid not to do another undergraduate degree since it was being offered at the 'old rates'. My logic truly defies logic although I'm sure it made sense at the time. *sigh*.

So here I am again. I'm either an under-postgrad or a post-undergrad depending on which makes most sense to you. The time is almost upon all post grads aiming to take this madness one stage further - it's doctorate application time. Soon doctoral training centres and postgrad departments the length and breadth of the country will be inundated with proposals from students desperate to eek out their love of education just a smidgen longer and eager to dedicate three years of their lives to a quest for specialised knowledge.

I aim to be one of those desperate students. In that case I ought to decide on a proposal topic.

My fabulous new haircut and why I can't bring myself to like it

I got my hair cut today. It's quite a rare occurrence for me since I'm usually either too lazy to book an appointment or too skint to go. But this morning I awoke to the greasiest most uneven mop of lank locks dangling uninspiringly from my scalp and decided that today had to be the day.

I tried my usual salon but they had no available appointments until the end of next week (a sure sign that it's a good salon but didn't help me in my impulsive hour of need), so I found a salon in the student quarter which had a cancellation I could take. I explained to the stylist what I was after - a tidy up of the style but one which takes no maintenance. Now when I say no maintenance I MEAN no maintenance. If it involves anything more than pointing a hairdryer in its general direction for more than 10 minutes it's too much effort. I don't want to put any product on it and I don't want to have to faff about with brushes and straighteners, I just want to wash it and dry it - end of story.

The stylist seemed to understand what I was after and did it - no blunt lines, heavily layered, fringe just short enough to skim my eyebrows - job's a good 'un. I thanked her and reluctantly handed over the £30 for the privilege of her mad skillz (my usual salon is less than £20, how does a salon in the student quarter get away with charging 50% more?).

Now that I'm home I'm checking it in every mirror I walk past and just can't quite bring myself to love it. It's exactly what I ask for in a style and everyone will probably think it looks great but somehow I just can't love it myself.

I put this inability to love it down to the fact that I'm incapable of thinking I look good full stop. No matter what I wear, no matter how my hair looks, no matter whether I've been to a professional stylist or make-up artist and have been glammed up for a photo shoot (never happened) I will still never think I look good. It's just the way I am.

I want to love my haircut, I want to swoosh it about in front of the mirror and flash myself a winning smile knowing that I look like a presentable member of the society in which I live. But I can't at the minute. I'm overweight and underfit and it's dragging down every ounce of confidence Gordon has helped me gain in the 5 years we've been together.

On Wednesday I start something new - I take up running. I'm joining a beginners running group organised by Active Newcastle in the desperate hope that it will change my opinion of myself. I don't want to have to put more effort into my hair, I don't want to have to start wearing make-up, I don't want to suddenly start forcing myself to wear dresses and heels every day to make me feel more confident because that's just not me. I'm not really interested in changing the things about me that everyone else sees (although shedding a few stone would be more than welcomed), I just want to not think all day every day about how much of a mess I look. I want to be more interested in doing something which takes my mind so far away from what I look like and makes me feel great for a completely different reason.

I want to go to my usual salon, only pay £20 for a haircut then not think about it for the rest of the day. Wish me luck.

School's Out

Well. That’s me finished now until October. No, seriously, I had my last lecture a couple of weeks ago and don’t have any more until Michaelmas term. I have two summatives to hand in on 2nd May but I don’t have any more attendance at Durham this academic year. This probably sounds a bit strange or confusing, but the reason is pure and simple – it’s because I’m a part timer. The trouble with this course is that it’s not really a part time course – it’s a full time course which I’m ABLE to do over 2 years instead of 1. This means that during the summer term the full timers are busy doing their dissertations so that leaves me as a part timer with pretty much nothing to do until the NEW full timers start in autumn.

Before I get lambasted, I’m certainly not complaining. But I don’t plan on wasting my summer. A fellow classmate has offered to give me copies of the reading lists for the modules I’ll be taking next year so I can get a head start over the summer (as well as having Open University study to carry out too), but it gives me the opportunity to do a bit of extra reading as well.

For now though, I have summatives to think about and oh boy, it’s all I’m gonna be thinking about until they’re handed in. Luckily (for my studies that is, not for me), I have 3 weekends in a row of pure study potential – my better half is at work Saturday and Sunday for the next 3 weekends so that’s my chance to hit the library and get 14 hours of study and revision in. 14 hours of pure uninterrupted study is a LOT for a part timer but in truth it’s still not really enough. I just need to make sure I make the most of that time and try and fit in a bit of extra study/think-time alongside it. I’m absolutely determined to do well.

So Durham will be without me for 6 months and it will seem strange since I was only just starting to get used to the twice-weekly pilgrimage. Not to worry though, on the plus side it means I’m better off financially as it means I don’t have to take unpaid leave from work to get to lectures for the next 6 months, I don’t have the 120 miles worth of fuel to account for each week and I don’t have the £4 of parking charges to fumble about for either. I know it doesn’t sound like much but all-in it equates to about £50 a week on top of the cost of fees. Actually, when I look at it that way this MA is costing me a bleedin’ fortune! Makes me all the more relieved for my 6 months off.

Although I say '6 months off' but it's not really the case. I have 2 Open University modules starting up at the beginning of May to keep me occupied, and either excitingly or stupidly enough I've just reserved myself a place in the Great North Run in September so considering the fact that at present I can't run for more than about 30 seconds I have a LOT of training ahead of me. More details to follow on that, but for now I just wanted to reignite the blog and say hello - I'm still here.

My first day of school

I sat huddled in the corner of the lecture theatre trying to pretend I was invisible as scores of third year undergraduates poured into the pews pushing me further and further into my seat of ageing oblivion. I don't belong here do I? What am I doing in a lecture theatre surrounded by twenty year old students? I must stick out like a sore thumb, sat there with my bought-not-borrowed course book and the keys to my mortgaged house and bought-outright car in my bag right next to the keys that let me into the building I've worked in full time for the past eight years.

What am I doing here? I feel like such a fraud. Any minute now someone is going to turn around and ask what the hell I'm doing here, then they're gonna call security and have me escorted out like a charver caught shoplifting in JD Sport.

But then the Professor walks in and launches rather excitingly into an 'Introduction to the Social Policy and Society module' and my fears quell as everyone's attention is thankfully shifted to him. He's quite a lively fella and I immediately get the impression that I'm going to enjoy his classes. He's the Professor of Social Policy at Durham University and introduces the module with an eager infectious vibrancy; just what I need to get me right into the thick of this course.

I know there aren't many postgrads on this module compared to undergrads but I only recognise one other person, Rachael who I met at induction on Tuesday but my corner-huddling worked against me as she'd managed to come in and sit down without having seen me so I'm transported back to my first day of school where no one knows me and no one wants to speak to me because I'm the weird looking kid who doesn't belong.

Professor Greener is still introducing the module and announces that he has a module guidebook to hand out but that there are different ones for undergrads and postgrads. I already have one, I printed it out at work thanks to my continuing paranoia that I've forgotten something drastically important so when I saw it on DUO (Durham Online, Durham Uni's version of Blackboard) I printed it off along with every other minor snippet of information available for my course at that time for the fear that I'd be castigated and given a dunces hat if I didn't. As it turns out I was far better prepared than many having already read through the introduction lecture and module guide and having already bought the set module book which Prof G has just told everyone they need to get hold of before next weeks lecture.

He hands out piles of the undergrad module guide and asks the students to pass them round and then announces that the best way to hand out the postgrad ones is for the postgrads to make themselves known so he can give them individually.

I put my hand up along with the five other postgrads in the eighty-strong room. A mixture of embarrassment, pride and hubris wash over me all at once as for the first time the magnitude of my situation hits me. I'm a postgrad.

I really am. And I made it into my first choice university without any question of my abilities. I think that justifies my brief moment of self-importance, don't you.

Freshers

Today is the day after yesterday, and yesterday was my inaugural trip to Durham University.

I had to take a day off work (unpaid) to attend the postgraduate induction day during which I was introduced to the department staff, got the chance to meet some of my fellow students and collected my campus card which gains me that all important access to the library. However yesterday was also the first day of the Freshers Fair and never having been to any freshers events (with never having actually been a fresher) I felt almost obliged to pop my head in and see what all the fuss was about.

Firstly let me just reiterate that I'm 31 years old. Now despite not feeling it, I probably look it so being surrounded by 'real' freshers was a daunting prospect for my ageing neurons to cope with. But nevertheless I persevered and set off on the surprisingly short pilgrimage from the SASS (School of Applied Social Sciences) building to the students union building. On the way I passed numerous young-uns handing out flyers and free stuff to the hoards of excited teenagers roaming the streets like the already owned the place, but no one was handing flyers to me. I'm old. I can't be a fresher, surely. I wanted to have a name badge on saying "don't ignore me, I'm a fresher too!" but alas I fear I would've looked like even more of a plonker and so carried on my merry way until it happened. Someone stuck their bounty filled hand out in front of me and said... wait for it... "free condom?".

*sigh*

Oh well. I'm never one to turn anything down so I sniggered, took it graciously and then sniggered again at the Durham University sticker on the packet before sealing it away in my handbag.

On my entry into the murky depths of the students union building I was hit by a wall of warm dampness oozing from the hundreds of students trying to cram their way through the various halls and rooms to sign up for everything they could and blag as many freebies as they could. I imagine if you spent enough time wandering round and talking to all of the stalls you could probably blag enough free stuff to keep you going for a while, certainly in pens, notepads and sweets at the very least.

I must admit though, I didn't bother grappling with the kids to get freebies. Despite my usual 'owt for nowt' attitude I didn't fancy my chances so all I bothered with was a Durham University Library pen and a free slice of Dominos pizza (I hadn't had breakfast so it came at just the right time). I did however sign up for a couple of societies and have my eye on a couple of others so I'll see what happens with those and report back with any exciting news.

I suppose I had always thought that the whole freshers experience had passed me by so I'm glad I got to go to the fair, if for no other reason than to see how utterly mental it was! And here's me thinking that Durham Uni students would be all civilised and sensible. How wrong I suspect I am.