Almost holiday time…

Winter is almost here. Currently sitting inside with chai tea, watching As Good As It Gets with the heat-pump on – and we aren’t even in June yet. Thank goodness I am going to be away for the majority of winter. 

Updates – I have handed in a draft of my literature review (from which I generated themes from literature using a very hands-on approach) – see the photo below.

 

I have handed in all my assignments for my research paper and have one final ‘contribution’ to make to a discussion forum. This one will be a bit tricky because we have to sum up a whole semesters worth of work in one posting and do it in a creative way ! My current ideas are a poem, static image or making a crossword/activity – something practical. I am interested to see what other people will do – has to be in by the 9th June.

For my research, things are progressing nicely and I have booked a place to do my small research group. I am excited to do the data collection when I get back!

I am off to Europe early June so there won’t be many postings while I am away. I am presenting at a symposium as well in August when I return so might be doing a bit of work on that during my holiday! Talk soon x

This is turning into a procrastination tool…

H i e v e r y o n e !

Have been absent recently due to Easter celebrations, holidays and work. Coming up to a number of assignment submission for my other papers which seems strange as I only really feel like work related to my dissertation is most important. This particular paper is a tricky one, going over quantitative and qualitative research and writing essays based on a formulation of a research question and then a research study using one of each of these design principles. This is hard for me as I am definitely a qualitative person, I think my 6 credits in NCEA Level 3 maths would agree. It’s laborious to cover information that isn’t going to be directly relevant to my dissertation.

In other news, I am loving my practice reality paper, particularly because coming up with ‘good waffle’ material is somewhat of a specialty of mine. We have just covered information about critical social theory which is about considering power, oppression and money and how all of this influences us and our patients in hospitals, private practices, within MDT teams etc. Thinking thinking thinking …

So I have an assignment due next Friday .. motivation is at about 2% and 98% of my energy is spent doing other stuff!! I just spent most of my day watching Drop Dead Gorgeous and eating pancakes. I did some study for practice reality yesterday but only so I wouldn’t have to work on my assignment. Agh!

🙂 Happy Anzac Day #newzealand

B A R E F O OT C O L L E G E

Barefoot College

Such an interesting video that I viewed as part of my paper which is currently about exploring critical social theory. Kind of blows my mind that there is such inspirational people all over the world doing such life-changing things that we only find out about when they come and present their stories on websites like Ted.

The Barefoot College is a new institute that was built and is maintained by the community. There is no certificates for completing learning and all the teachers are experts in their communities such as a traditional midwife. Also, the college is completely solar-powered using technology developed by illiterate grandmothers!

ETHICS – CHECK

My ethics application has been officially submitted as of today! Complete with participant (parent and children) information sheets, confidentiality form, recruitment poster and consent forms. PHEW very glad to have that submitted and now can focus on my other papers which have been kind of neglected while I have been prioritising these applications! I found some awesome resources along the way though – particularly the website by the McMaster University which has all sorts of exemplars ranging from consent for audio-recording to transcription confidentiality agreements. My university has some of these too – which I found out later. 

This coming week I am:

– Submitting my research proposal

– Uploading my Hermeneutics contribution in our online discussion forum

– Starting my literature review in preparation for my dissertation

– Attending yoga! 

– Possibly working at a Wedding Expo on Sunday (PHEW).

hly

What is everyone else up to this week in our busy lives??

Would love to hear from you 🙂 

This week ..

This week has been pretty relaxed, I have had a chance to have some sleep-ins, explore some new cafes and ‘potter’ along with honours stuff at the moment. Tomorrow I have a two day workshop on quantitative research (for my integrative research paper). This is going to be a bit of a struggle as I am NOT a quant person – but perhaps I might consider it after this weekend?? Who knows. Its hard to attend to something when it doesn’t directly apply to you – I’ll just get a coffee on the way into town to help with the concentration.

Here is a quick snap of some cafe adventuring feat. Little and Friday

Possibly the best donut I have eaten in a long time accompanied by a hippo cleverly disguised as a table number. x

Body of self and others.

For one of my papers, there is a strong philosophical underpinning where we explore different theories and paradigms which underlay our clinical reasoning (not that I have alot of that yet!) and how our worldview influences this. I have come across one article so far which really resonates with how I have observed the experience of disability in numerous patients across different settings.

Max van Manen (1998) presents a fascinating look at the human body and how we experience ourselves, others and how disability or illness impacts on the bodily experience of self and others. It is an interesting read and almost every sentence I was imagining previous patients and clients and how they are experiencing themselves. The main point of this reading that resonates with me is the notion of “body of self experienced as encumbered” which is relating to the person’s experience of their body as an object that is unreliable and diseased; as well as the notion of “body of other experienced as call by other” which is about the health professional and their moral and ethical connection to their patient referred to as the “vulnerable other that ‘bursts’ into your existence”.

Ref: Van Manen, M. (1998). Modalities of body experience in illness and health. Qualitative Health Research, 8(1), 7-24.

Powerful, thought-provoking stuff. The main message being that health professionals need to consider what modality of the body is being considered in intervention and what has the most impact on the person and their ability to re-establish the ‘livable relation’ where body and self are no longer separate and objectified.

 

Grad and other things.

So, I know it has been a while since I posted anything on this page but I have had a very few eventful weeks. I had my graduation in recognition of my Bachelor of Occupational Therapy in which I got my Bachelor’s degree with distinction and received an award for academic achievement and placement ability. It was a very hectic couple of days full of photos, quick catch ups and spending time with family in my home town.

Honours is progressing along, have had one draft of my research proposal reviewed and am feeling good about my progress. One thing I need to firm up is the consistent use of language – e.g. if my participants are ‘young people’ and ‘children’ then I need to keep referring to them as such. The same goes for when I am describing the ‘type of group’ whether I call it Health Promotion, Preventative Health or Primary Health – this is something I need to investigate as I will be exploring this theme further when it comes to writing the dissertation. 

But for now, my main priority is getting my ethics application completed … I am completing an ‘EA1’ and this will be sent to a commitee for review regarding my processes of recruitment, where the data goes etc…

Talk soon! 

Workshops, timetables and Endnote.

Good morning all, have just spent the last couple of days attending workshops on managing long texts e.g. my dissertation (the workshop was about using Microsoft Word 2013 and all the techniques you can use to better manage a text that is over 80 pages long!). This workshop was so useful, but slightly overwhelming. It was strange to be in a room with all these academics completing their masters and doctorates – I was the only person who was in their 20’s and who was doing a dissertation.

Because I am taking three other papers – Practice Reality in particular (which is all online) it is so key for me to be able to time everything perfectly so I can complete all course content and post on the forums in good time with the rest of the group. Organizing myself involves using a diary, wall planner, weekly timetables (with allocated study hours), a to-do list app on my phone and Google Calendar. Crazy??!! I also went through all of the course content online and divided it up into the weeks before the assignment is due – I now know that I have about 2.5 weeks to complete each learning block which is great for me as I work really well to deadlines!

Slowly, the Endnote library is building! It seems so unnatural to manage my references this way but it makes it so much easier to download the resources whilst I am searching databases – it is so quick and effective I wonder how I managed before. The trick will be when I need to use this in an assignment situation.

What is coming up for me: my PGR1 Application is underway and I want to give myself plenty of time to get this done to a high standard. I am pottering away with my online courses, and everyday am spending some time on Google Scholar/Databases to build the library!

Keep you posted x

The perfect thinking spot.

Getting started..

Welcome.

I am very new to this blogging experience – please excuse current theme and content as I get my head around WordPress.
Reasons for blogging about my year as a honours student —–

1. Motivation
2. Preventing writer’s block
3. Connecting
4. Reflection
5. Being able to think out loud

Please comment, chat with me – would love to hear from other post-graduate students and honours students out there! I am specializing in Occupational Therapy but am so interested in other disciplines and your research experiences!