MIDWAY POINT

My former work desk (but, is no more)

Alas, the first half of the first year of my doctorate program has proven to be rife with turbulence and conundrums. I have moved once again into another room, which has proven to be very unsettling for me. And, the introductory chapter to my thesis, the gateway into the rationale and instruments of my study, proved to be more challenging than imagined, wrestling as one does with the contents of this very important chapter to decide what information to keep out and what to include

The weather has not helped me to stay perky and happy, as the sky portends gloom and doom for what now appears to be every day and tomorrow. Sprinkles don’t hurt, but they do keep me inside, failing to beckon me onto my walking trails. I don’t like the moisture on my clothes as I walk; very distracting and annoying.

I did manage to make it out to Taupo about two weeks ago with other international students. The ride out there included a stop at Mt. Ruapehu and its accompanying peak, the name of which presently eludes me. The latter had snow on it so early in the year. Not yet winter, but the peaks of this mountain was already capped with a snowman’s winter hat. I can’t wait for winter; while the rest of the northern hemisphere is preparing for the coming warm months of spring and summer, I am taking out my winter coat and vest from their hiding place in the back of the closet.

Taupo is considered a resort on the northern island. Lake Taupo is fed by the Waikato River, home for a number of aquatic species and at least five hydroelectric projects. Taupo centre is like many tourist traps, but not as congested, and contains many of the same retail stores one would find in the streets of Berkeley. This aspect of the town takes away from what would otherwise be a very charming community. What makes Taupo centre unique is the harbour, which appears to be well-maintained by the environmentalist staff – who are called, rangers in the United States.

Another unique facet of Taupo are the number of Maori wood carvings; I noticed them right away. In New Zealand, the Moari culture comes to the surface. I believe I mentioned this fact about it in a previous blog.

So, this trip took me out of Palmerston North to another part of the North Island. My next trip will be to Rotorua. The international office also has a trip planned to there. According to the writings of the Lonely Planet, Rotorua is the capital of Maori cultural displays and is home to a number of hot springs. This must mean it smells like rotten eggs because of the sulphur released into the air. A little like the onsen baths I took in the wilderness of the Japanese mountains around Honshu island.

Before I end today’s blog, I have to proudly announce that I DID get through the introduction, all 11,000+ words of it, but not without more revisions. These days, I am plodding through the literature review chapter and making corrections, once again, to the paragraphs that don’t make sense and re-reading, verifying, and fact-checking the citations and paraphrases from my first, coarsely-written draft.

As promised in the last blog, I have uploaded photographs from my trip to Taupo and from the neighbourhood around Massey University. Enjoy to your heart's content!

Lower campus




Landscaping leading to the gardens in lower campus




My dream house - for now, it houses the office for extramural students (I think)




The fields along my walking trail not far from Atawhai Village




Sheep farm across from Massey University




University Drive leading to the registry building at the centre of campus




Same sheep farm across from Massey




Walking path connecting the natural gardens near Atawhai to the university centre




Panoramic view of the same sheep farm




Registry building (Massey Uni)

Playground at Taupo Centre

Mountain near Mt. Ruapehu

Landscaping at city centre, Taupo

Mt. Ruapehu

Panoramic view of Mt. Ruapehu

Raging Puka Falls (people white water raft here)

Yacht club, Taupo

City museum, Taupo

Bike path in the vicinity of the Waikato River



Gardens at lower campus

Road leading into the rose garden at the centre of campus

Bridge over the babling creek adjacent to lower campus

 




Puka Falls

 



STRESSING LESS IS EASIER SAID THAN DONE

I took a much-needed long, but fast paced walk, on Sunday. The same road that has taken me around the cow and sheep fields brought me this time on another well-worn dirt path, up and down over streams and undulating valleys, and eventually to Massey University.

The last month has been brutal. The introduction chapter is not going well as I’m having difficulty focusing on what I am writing. After plodding for a while through the introductory section to this first chapter (it started slow, then surprisingly, began to flow out through my finger tips and began to take shape), I suddenly lost all desire to discuss the historical and thematic context of the chapter. This was unfortunate for me because this section comprises a big chunk of the chapter. Hence, the writing experience has been akin to treading water with me barely staying afloat – even doggy paddling on the surface of the water - metaphorically speaking, of course.
 

I’m also disappointed to learn that the behavioural patterns I’m seeing from a few of the doctorate students who have direct access to my personal space as being not so different from that of people in Amherst. (While I was preparing my manuscript for the publisher, I found old versions of draft book chapters on my flash drive after having proofread them). Here, at Massey, on occasion I’ll discover my notations I've made on paper about readings I've completed and relevant articles I’ve printed containing comments on the sidebars and underlining of relevant bits disappearing from my office work space. As I try to meet deadlines and move forward towards the end of this first year, I feel mentally and emotionally drained from having to rewrite revisions I’ve already made. It’s frustrating and is a tremendous headache I don’t need, especially at this point in my program.

At the same time, I feel a little shut down because of important papers that have gone unsigned. With so many deadlines to meet, the bureaucratic side of graduate school should progress smoothly, but that’s not what I’m discovering.

At least there is the sanctuary of my room, where I can shut out the cacophonous, often troublesome, energy of the outside world. And, of course, I have those long walks in which I regularly indulge, when I can liberally vent and vocalize my angst, without the restraints of conscience, against those planned/strategized/intending to sabotage ME over which I have absolutely no control.

Oh, did I mention that I signed up for the free, stress-less workshops offered at the university. The e-mail announcement read that these workshops are good for those times when the battles seem insurmountable or bigger than they really are. Screaming hate and demanding, “off with their *%$&)&@*###@ heads!!!!,” is not the best antidote for these challenging moments, I’m learning.

During these times, my mind strays over to the doctorate students at the University of Auckland and wonder, “what are those guys doing over there; what seminars are they attending?” I even pine a little over all the events planned this year around Auckland city, gauging from the announcements that somehow keep dropping into my cyber network.
 

Next on the list – photos of my favourite places around town just for you.

PHASE TWO AND COUNTING

In the last six weeks, I’ve moved three times. In my last post, I had settled into the West End of Palmerston North, fulfilling a housesitting assignment that a professor had requested of me. Since then, I had moved back to my old Ruahine room, and then as of two weeks ago, I had reloaded and unloaded my stuff into yet another – this time in Tararua. Although this new flat is much closer than Atawhai Village, to which I was initially assigned, all this moving around is nonetheless a bit unsettling, especially in light of the deadlines ominously looming in the months ahead.

It’s a wonder, then, even to me that I managed to complete the bulk of my methodology chapter and survey questions two weeks before THAT deadline at the end of February. The literature review, the chapter that gave me the greatest trouble (mainly because I had never written one before) is finished for now and has even been revised a little to fashion the shape of my dissertation. There’s more work to be done there, but the changes will have to wait until after the completion of my fieldwork.

As the sun descends from the sky behind the distant Ruahine and Tararua mountain ranges (now you know the namesake of those flats) this quiet evening to gently guide the Massey campus into darkness, I sit in my self-made cubby in the Geography building, a fresh, steaming cup of filtered coffee at the edge of my keyboard and write – the simple luxury of a slice of quiet time in between the cacophony of academic words floating around in my head, ideas from one discipline mixing with those of another. Because of the late time – 8:42pm – the campus is desolate. Even my office companion, Ecka, is off somewhere on campus, possibly visiting another friendly doctorate student in another building, but probably praying at the mosque. There are a number of Muslim immigrants in Palmerston North, who probably decided to settle here after completing their studies. Palmy, I’ve been told by locals, has diversified because of the university and I can see their reasons for wanting to stay. The city is relatively staid and green compared to Auckland, the largest in area size, most populated, and probably most urbanized city in New Zealand. The Maori community is also very visible both on campus and around Palmy and as I expose myself to popular culture through the boob tube, I become acquainted with it. I credit Maori TV for all that I’m learning. The language lessons teach me words and phrases that I easily forget because I don’t use them in my daily conversations with people around me. I also find many words difficult to pronounce because of the triple vowels often sandwiched in between the consonants.

While housesitting, I tried my hand at making homemade jam. I found a relatively simple rhubarb jam recipe online. The rhubarb selection was the inspiration of an extremely large plant that begged me to break off its massive stalks. After gathering local ingredients, the cooking project turned out to be a success. I made an ample volume of jam, which I lovingly spooned into sterilized jars. It must be said, though, that eating from one’s yard may be more cost-effective than buying from nearby supermarkets. A news item that has gained some prominence here is the cost of food. The assumption has been, I suppose, that the high food costs are related to the lack of land allocated to growing crops. But, John Campbell Live has been showcasing the reasons and it appears supermarkets hike up prices. The price difference might actually be due to the huge taxes corporations pay here.

THE SANCTITY OF HOUSESITTING IN LOW-KEY PALMY

After two days of hot and humid weather, Palmerston North finally cooled down with late afternoon showers yesterday, which alternated between steady droppings of rain that made soft, pitter patter sounds on the roof and drizzle throughout the night. The weather couldn’t seem to make up its mind. I thus awoke at 6:30 this morning to birds singing and a strong island breeze. Realizing I had to take the recycling and garbage bins to the curb, I stepped out of the house and dragged all three to the end of the driveway, relishing the way the breeze whipped my hair around this way and that. Last night, I anticipated another humid and sunny day, but the sun hasn’t wanted to greet Palmy residents today.

I spent Christmas alone housesitting for one of my supervisors. Not one to sit in the house all day (though I’ve been known to sit in my office reading for the large part of the day), I spent some of the gorgeous sun-filled afternoon outdoors, weeding out the competitive plants that seemed to have proliferated while I wasn’t looking. Later, I meandered into town and decided to peruse the list of upcoming movies at the Downtown Cinemas. Having given into my movie craving a few days before with “I, Anna”, a Charlotte Rampling indie, which cost me a whopping NZ$16.50, I began creating a mental list of movies to watch, an event that lasted exactly a minute.

The day was overall quiet, like a ghost town that was keeping residents hostage in their houses. The Sunday before had the same impression on me. No one milled about in the streets as they normally do, save for a few stragglers scattered on the grass in the Square just behind the mobile soft serve ice cream truck.  I figured everyone was at church. Not seemingly a Christian place, I slowly learned that many people actually celebrate church day in this town. Although, I must say that perhaps, it should not be so surprising in light of the new information I acquire from documentaries on the telly that teach me about New Zealand’s conservative history. One example of the right-minded (in political terms) tendency of the parliament, I learned yesterday through a documentary broadcast on the Heartland channel on Sky TV that the Kiwi parliament imprisoned many peaceful protestors of World War II. Perhaps in response to the unwelcome attitude of the parliament, many decided to set up an organic, independent commune for pacifists, to which many people even today still gravitate. But, I was surprised to learn about New Zealand’s version of America’s “Red Scare” during the McCarthy era, that the Kiwi government would commit such a heinous breach of civil rights. During the “Red Scare”, hundreds of people were blacklisted and arrested for their association with the US Communist Party.

Still on Christmas Day, walking about the centre of town, I began noticing landmarks and features of the city that I hadn’t noticed as well before. I go to the City Library on occasion to have a coffee at the indoor café or to peruse the books that I want to read after completing the two I already have on loan, and I pass down this street a number of times. But, on this day, without the usual visual distractions of throngs of people, I noticed the number of quaint, independent coffee shops along this street called George Street, which is apparently highlighted in the Lonely Planet as the café centre of Palmerston North. I peeked into the cafe store windows, the Red Tomato, Cuba Café, and some others, the names of which I can’t remember to get a glimpse of the ambience. Each displays a variety of motifs and colours, reflections of the owner’s handiwork and personal taste.

Most of Christmas Day, however, as has been the case over the last several days since starting the housesitting task, I’ve sat at the kitchen table, surrounded by rows of windows and scenic backyards, reading journal articles and re-writing parts of my literature review. Slaving away is too mild a term for such a mundane task. My mind drifts in and out of my labour since chunks of the discussion about resilience, which I might have mentioned in another blog post, has been dedicated to discussing the food system, a topic I’ve covered in previous academic pursuits. But, just as I think I might pass out from the redundancy, I find something that adds some insight to the literary discussion as a whole. Luckily, I’m not scheduled to write the "Introduction" chapter, which is really my research framework, until March 1. I’m happy with the flow of my work, thus far, and am pleased with the emerging outcome of my review. I realize I owe much to my supervisor, who "lent" me her house for some two weeks because the sanctuary of living alone in a quiet neighborhood (even the barking dog next door renders me companionship) at the West End of the Square has given me the mental space to think through my literature review.

 

A MONTH OF MORE LEARNING

Two weekends ago, I explored the road running along Moginie Village, a highway that inhabits sheep and dairy farms. I set off after reading and writing for what seemed like hours to me in my room.

This Saturday morning was quiet in our flat, the loneliness of it manifested in the hollow echo of the hallway, made known to me as I walked the short, carpeted distance to the exit door.

The sun was shining blindingly as I stepped out onto the miniscule foyer that greets entrants paying a visit, a fact I hadn’t understood from the darkness of my bedroom. Cushioned at the far side of the flat, my room is hidden from view by the bushes that protect me from being seen by people crossing the courtyard, and thus doesn’t see direct sunlight. From the vantage point of my room, my senses were deceived, as I discovered.

Walking briskly, taking care to step away from the cars racing down the highway, I pursued the distance with a vengeance, like a woman with a mission to learn what was on the other side. I approached a sign orienting my location in Palmerston North to surrounding towns: Masterton, 28 kilometers; Levin 18 kilometers. Was I going in either direction?

After walking for what seemed like hours, I finally descended upon another valley, which dipped up and over another hump. A sign attached to a wooden fence read Silver Fern Farm. Unknown to me of the distance I had fastwalked, I asked a little girl living in the house on the farm how to get into town. She said, “you have to keep walking that way,” in her soft New Zealand accent. I followed the direction of her finger and began to see familiar sights, ane eventually a roadsign directing me back to Massey University.

This December was busy, filled with activity, one in particular of great importance to me (the Agrifood Network Conference), where I learned that early scholars can start networking and showcasing their research that was, like me, beginning to materialize in the early stages. I learned that conferences are a good place to do that and a good place to network with more senior scholars. I hope to present my findings at the XXI Agrifood Network conference. The venue of that one will be decided at the one next year, which will be in Melbourne, Australia.

The conference was new to me, but it exposed me to the food network research goings on in Oceania and Southeast Asia. Massey University, being a land grant, agricultural research university, is right in the thick of it. Massey U has some of the highest funded food research projects in the country, I discovered. The topics on provenance and Bourdieu’s habitus engendered some fresh perspectives for me, revelations that are always good for researchers – like a fresh breeze after a moment of stale, dinner wind. The food security scholarship, which I have been re-reading . . . and re-reading, and re-reading  . . .  was starting to feel like the latter to me after polishing up my book manuscript over the last three years. Needless to say, my literature review is proceeding and progressing much better than I thought. I spent the last week doing more re-writes, becoming almost obsessive over “getting it right” that I couldn’t move to the section on planning, which is important to establishing the planning perspective in my intended research.

I finally got the Christmas care package from my folks in Massachusetts this afternoon. Tropical nuts are sold by the grams here and are too expensive for my student budget, so seeing these nuts in my care box was very exciting. The dried fruit are an added plus.

I read Yahoo and CNN to stay on top of news in America. My heart broke, along with everyone else’s, after learning about the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. Those beloved children. New Zealand also experienced a gun massacre in Ala Moana beach, which changed gun ownership laws around the country. There has not been another gun massacre since the legislative change. Something to think about for American policymakers and voters.

NOT A TYPICAL SATURDAY, BUT TYPICAL ENOUGH

My interactions with the outer world has been reduced to cyber space, where my greetings are restricted to an over-active finger that clicks “like”, “share”, “logout”. No conversations except the ones I have with myself, commenting and exclaiming out loud. Facebook it has to be for the budget-minded student for a while, I’m afraid.

If I haven’t mentioned this before, the skies above the north island are inherently temperamental. Being an island climate, grey clouds roll in and are held at bay by the warmer rays, which descend on the rolling hills of Palmerston North and beyond.

I experienced the morning market on Church and Albert today (Saturday) for the first time, where mostly Asian and Maori sellers showcase the green thumbs of the farmers. (Don't know yet where the vegetables come from.) Designed for early risers, it was not as busy when I strolled in around 11-ish. To get there, I decided to cross Victoria Park at the bottom of the bridge on Fitzherbert Avenue. Birds calling out to each other in the course of swooping from branch to branch, fluttering wings barely missing my alert ears, are a welcome sight compared to the cars zipping on the road. The sounds I heard were only those of wildlife. Civilization was a muffled cacophony in the distance. I sighted British elms, gum trees and wild cherries along the gravel road.

At the end of this brief traipse, I stepped out onto Cook Street, in the area where the Aquatic Centre sits, only to discover that I was at the other side of the Square, a fair distance from Church and Albert streets. Because I had completed rewrites of my literature review, I decided to view this errand as a half day off before I return to my desk and shave off unnecessary bits of my review.

The Mini-mart, which sells Indian spices, was along the way. So were several coffee shops. Unfortunately, after Victoria Garden the remaining distance of this route was pretty drab, offering little in the form of vegetation. Soon, I was engulfed again by a steady stream of asphalt, Pacific Island architecture, and oh yeah endless coffee shops.

At the end of the day, I look upon this day as my having discovered the must-dos, bucket list items that I had been putting off for weeks because of my preoccupation with the literature review (notice how I treat the litreview as a third peson so as not to get too emotionally involved with it). Oh, and I managed to sneak in a few hours at a café, where I nursed an Americano while perusing through magazine articles about artists, musicians, and actors. The orange-lemon infused water, a signature quencher for this particular café, did its job, the perfect partner to my parched throat.

I even borrowed a library book about the Kennedys from the City Library, where I used the card I applied for on Friday for the first time.

After a long six-hour nap at dusk, as I had stayed awake through the night, I was back to the grind again, slicing through my paragraphs and consolidating thoughts and themes to make my review more readable.

I’ve moved to the other side of campus to Moginie Village, another residential hall for mature, postgraduate students. I am still on top of the hill, but the sights are different. Instead of looking into my neighbours’ kitchen, bedroom, and living room, I now see birch trees when I open the shades from my bedroom. When I cook, I see birds, possums, and other trees I don’t recognize. When I take a short route towards the cherry trees fronting a cow paddock, I see sheep, some already sheared in preparation for the heart of the summer. A different sensation, indeed.

DAILY TRAVAILS OF AN EARLY DOCTORATE STUDENT

I received permission to continue my doctorate program at Massey, having earned approval for my research topic and acceptance of my DR2 application by the Graduate Research Committee (GRC) around mid-October. Currently, I am in the throes of the literature review.

There are a lot of interesting synchronicities in the literature relating to discussions about resilience in the human development, ecology, and social-ecological systems, but I'm struggling to coordinate the themes discussed in them because I’m not sure how much I should cover in the review. I’m already starting to select the key concepts that will need elaborating in the final confirmation paper due later towards the end of my first year.

Doctorate studies is more isolating than I had imagined because my topic is really unlike anyone else’s here or even in the literary world made up of ecologists and food system scholars. My particular research area has not been covered extensively by such scholars and, therefore, there are virtually no studies of food systems in the province, where I expect to be later next year. Thus, I can’t really discuss the fine points of the literature review with many of my peers – or colleagues, which I think is the preferred name for doctorate classmates.

There is definitely an air about being a doctorate student at Massey University. Here, I feel like a researcher than a student more than when I was a masterate student. We are also seen as such, as professionals navigating their own ship than students still being guided by assignments.

I’m the most recent arrival here. Many of the doctorate students have been progressing through their seminar report and confirmation for at least one year, already. For some, the time has been at least two years. One of my colleagues returned to Pakistan to do his fieldwork. He passed his confirmation seminar and left some weeks thereafter.

The next most recent doctorate arrival is a researcher from Mexico. He came in June or August, I can't remember which month. That time seems like aeons ago, which means the time has flown here for me.

The weather remains temperamental; lots of intermittent sunny days, interrupted by rainy ones. The rain never lasts, though. The day might start out sunny and then give way to rain and grey, cloudy skies in the late afternoon, or vice versa. Parts of Palmerston North are in the valley, and when I walk in the basin of the valleys, I can see the elongated mountain ranges. There is a wind farm along one of the gorges here. The white, rotating windmills sit atop what look like green, chocolate drops when viewed from far away. But, the truth is, these sceneries are never very far away. Generally, they're outside my window, where I can easily gaze at them. 

Because my literature review due date is the end of January next year (2013), I spend most days studying – in the morning, afternoon through lunch, and into late evening until about 11pm, sometimes 1am. In between these long, studious hours, I squeeze in some walking time. My trek is usually the same, down and up some hills, and then up the "1000-steps" stairs, the name I’ve lovingly given to the ascending, winding structure that’s much worse than a stair master.

Television shows allow me to vegetate for an hour or two. TV time is usually when my creative juices flow most prolifically and actively. Since the beginning of October, I’ve also attended the occasional fellowship event with postgraduate students from the Philippines. Through these events, I've met other New Zealanders, Pacific Islanders, and various people from around the world, who’ve come to Massey U or New Zealand to settle.

While my life might appear mundane to some, I’m happier than I’ve ever been, nestled in my carrel, reading through my research material. Meanwhile, the minutes tick away unnoticed by me.