Your Epistemology is [Insert Theorist Here]

So I'll be reading her books this summer.

Here I am back again, thinking about my epistemology. It is essential that I do this as I pursue the path of a qualitative researcher. (Then I think, "why shouldn't I just do quantitative?" Then respond, "Oh yeah, because I'm interested in stories"). I was perusing social media and found a link to a quiz to help one find their epistemological bent. "This is perfect!" I thought. I eagerly clicked on the link then the "take the quiz" button. The result was, well, surprising. And well, not that surprising at all. I already mostly know and have internalized my own epistemology. The trouble I have had with it since deepening my own qualitative research is actually putting this into writing. Moreover, it's been a challenge to align my research interests with my philosophy, and establish congruency between what I believe, how I see the world, and how I choose to do research with a topic.

Sure, the quiz I took was just a funny little quiz, but I think it can represent some indication of something about me. It reminded me of the time I was in the Minneapolis Airport in February, 2014, on a layover from Lansing to Seattle, and decided to take the quiz, "What State Should You Live In?" And yeah, well, it came up Michigan. Not joking here. This really happened.

Take the quiz and find out what YOUR epistemology is!

My result says:
"You are Patricia Hill Collins!
Author of Black Feminist Thought and one of the most influential voices in contemporary standpoint theory, it's not enough for you to question how social systems work, but you want to expose how those systems privilege and oppress various groups. You advocate for the reclaiming of lost voices in knowledge narratives. You not only reject the idea of objective Truth, but you believe that validating subjectivity is essential in the quest for truer knowledge. You believe listening to and validating the experiences of the oppressed leads to a more complete understanding of the world. Power to the people you critical theorist!" 

Two Toilets Makes a Happy Home

It has been a while since I blogged about the bathroom. It was once such a major part of my weekends. Now, it is like an old dream, and I rarely do work on it ever during the weekend. Spring break helped. I went away for a few days and when I came back, we had a working toilet! We worked very hard on re-doing this bathroom, and we now have two working toilets, people. This is very good news. Having two working toilets makes a very happy home. So below is a collection of photos from the work we did in the bathroom. There is still some work to do, some painful work of mudding and sanding the walls. But at least for now we have a second toilet, a beautiful sink, and quite a lovely stand alone toilet paper holder. And a white tub.

Major Imposter Part 2

This just about sums it up.

I had coffee with a friend today who is graduating this semester. It's very exciting to see him finish his dissertation, and even better, congratulate him because he landed a faculty position! Those are hard to come by. I am fully aware that faculty jobs are hard to come by. I am fully aware of this without my advisor reminding me every time I see him. I have always known this, yet when my major imposter is around, I struggle with feeling confident that I've made the right decision to try to be a faculty member. Then I struggle with feeling like maybe this is all wrong. This is what major imposter does, makes me shrink into a tiny speck of feeling like nothing. Or blow up into a giant blob of insecurity.

Despite my advisor's uncanny ability to describe a future that seems both desirable and impossibly difficult, he shared something that seemed to really hit home for me. (As an aside, don't get me wrong, I really like my advisor. He just, uh, doesn't beat around the bush. Or soften the blow). As mentioned in my previous post, when I take a new class on a subject that is new, I get really excited and then my brain wants to tackle every single question I have, even if my questions are completely incoherent. Something else that happens is I try to become someone else. Like pretending I'm interested in all the things someone else in my class is, or my advisor, or whatever. It's shiny! You like it! I LIKE IT TOO!!! LET'S DO RESEARCH!!! Unfortunately, this is a bad strategy. Not just because I convince myself I'm interested in something else, but because then I lose focus on what I really like, and why I came to MSU.

The story that my advisor shared was basically about figuring out what you're good at, what is impossible, and what is reasonable. Why try to stick yourself into something that 1) isn't a good fit and even worse, 2) you might not actually be that good at? I just kind of stared. Then blinked, and then thought maybe I'm trying to be good at something that well, just isn't me? And wow, doing this is a REALLY good way to make sure my major imposter sticks around for a long time. A very long time. Working through what my strengths are, and what I'm interested in without losing myself and continuing to turn in work (and write all this other crap because I am told every time I meet with my advisor that I really need to be writing and publishing) can be challenging. Or, it could just be grad school. Onward to focusing on my own strengths and research interests.

Major Imposter Part 1

The last few weeks I have been suffering from imposter syndrome. I have mentioned this before, the little gremlin, the I'm Not Smart Enough Blob, (Blob for short), the limits of my knowledge, etc. Most of this semester I have been struggling with feeling motivated, feeling excited, or even just finishing my reading. As a rational mind, I have tried to trace back why I have been feeling this way, and of course the two obvious reasons are 1) I finished my core coursework and now this means I'm all alone and on my own and 2) comps was a major pain and it took a few weeks to get over how horrible and terrible the experience was. Passing comps was a fleeing moment of happiness, and then quickly became anti-climactic as I had to get back to my studies.

Another less obvious reason for my malaise is the challenge in moving into new realms of knowledge formation where I feel completely uncomfortable. It is easy to lose myself when I take new classes because I get excited about learning new things, and then kind of lose focus on what I already know and don't tap into that. I throw myself into completely unknown territory (which isn't all bad) yet what happens is a crisis of knowledge. I begin to have doubts about what I know, what I need to know, how much I know. Then questions about how much I have learned, why can't I retain anything, why does it take me so long to learn something, and why does it seem to come so easily to others begins to drown out what little confidence I had at the beginning of the course.

This semester the course I was most excited for has become the source of my imposter syndrome. It is a course on organizational stratification and organizational change (sounds really cool, right?!?) and for the life of me, I cannot get my brain around this. I am unable to move my thinking process into the upper echelon of scholarly thinking and then connect it to what I have learned and what I have questions about. I am paralyzed.

So I'm working through the imposter syndrome this week, partly because if I remain paralyzed I will not write, which means I will not do any work, which means I don't turn anything in. Not turning in papers is bad business for a PhD student. I'm working on it.

Downsizing

I took pictures from online catalogues so we
could keep track of what went with what

It was Spring Break last week, and I made a last minute trip out to visit my parents. They are moving out of their house in Spokane, into a community that, according to the website, is "a refreshingly new option for the 55+ crowd!" I'm excited for them to move, and they are eager to be in an apartment where they can "lock and go" (that is their new phrase, which means when they leave town on a trip, they don't have to worry about prepping a large house, or having mail stopped, or whatever, they just lock and go!) I was in Spokane to offer my support in the design realm. The furniture they owned in their house was much too large for their new apartment. So my mom and I spent a few days picking out upholstery, finding just the right funky side chair, looking for coordinating throw pillows, sketching floor plans, and buying four bar stools (buy one get one free!) for their new eating area. It was so much fun! And also amazing to see how my parents have downsized from a large house on the eastern hills of Spokane Valley to prepare for a two bedroom apartment on the South Hill on Spokane.

A Weekend of... No Bathroom Projects

This last weekend was a first in many weekends. With the tub being reglazed on Friday morning, there wasn't much to do in our bathroom. No tiling (check, it's done) no grouting (check, it's done) and can't calk yet (tub is drying). All that was left was to go for a wintry walk in the woods with snow. We did this in part because it's been a while since we went for a nature walk, and also because we were getting kind of high off the fumes from the tub refinishing. Indulge me now, while I discuss the weather.

Lake Lansing Park with snowy trails

Last winter was my first winter here in Michigan. And although it was considered a mild winter compared to the previous year (google "Michigan winter 2014" and many images of a massive ice storm will appear) it was still a major adjustment for me. I felt trapped in my house and blogged more than once that I felt trapped in my house because walking two blocks to the bus stop proved dangerous to my fanny due to falling. This year didn't seem so bad. All I hoped for was just clear roads. Clear sidewalks. It can snow, that's fine, but it needs to leave in a reasonable time (like, within 48 hours it should start melting) so that I can walk around and not fear I might break my wrists as I fall to the ground. And indeed, this year the weather has answered my request! There has so far been a fair amount of snow, but it all seems to be behaving pretty well. Doesn't clog sidewalks, or roads. And it's been warmer, so our walk in the woods on Friday afternoon was really quite pleasant, unlike a year ago when we walked through the woods in very chilly temperatures.

Goodbye Blue Tub

Today was a major step forward for our bathroom! After months of working with and around the blue tub, we had a couple of guys come and reglaze it to a wonderful white. They arrived around 8:30 this morning, and after a lot of chatting and taping and more chatting, they left around 11 and our tub was shiny white and new again. I'm so used to seeing it blue it was hard to believe it had changed color. As I looked at it I kept thinking it was still blue, at least in shadow. Alas no, it is white and it looks beautiful! We also installed some pretty awesome shelves into the tub enclosure. We had hemmed and hawed about how to do this. Initially we were planning to put corner shelves in, but uh, our walls are not square so the corner shelves did not line up with either wall from the corner. And frankly, the corner shelves looked a little cheap. Then we considered buying a nice stainless steel shower rack and installing it through the tile. That would have proved much more work since a lot of things rust in Michigan. So we found these great shelves that look like bricks, and chipped out a few tiles and cemented in the shelves. They are wonderful. Each of these little jobs makes a huge difference, especially now that we are closing in on having two working bathrooms again.