Just when I thought it would never happen, I have finally, finally … finally …. conducted my last research-related interview. After weeks of agonising anticipation and endless insanity-inducing moments, this has finally arrived.

Sadly I can’t say I’m actually heaving a huge sigh of relief yet. I don’t know why though… Perhaps it’s because while the work is done (at least at this stage), I’m still living out of a suitcase. Perhaps, it’s because I’ve started thinking about structuring the information I gathered over the last 12 weeks, an exercise that will have to begin within the next two or three weeks. Perhaps, after living and working at such a “heightened” level of being for such a long time, it will take more than an hour or a day to decompress and actually breath “normally” again.

I’m really looking forward to going back to Canberra and Australia, both for all the “right” and “wrong” reasons. I’m quite excited about picking through the results of my fieldwork, structuring the material and starting to draft the thesis. I’m really excited about the onset of Summer Down Under and having long hot, but dry, sunny days in Canberra, hopefully sunning in a cafe or on a lawn. I can’t wait to sleep on my own bed again, have showers in my own lovely little bathroom, make lattes from my own espresso machine or just “be” in a space that is comfortably and familiarly mine. And then… there are… the men…

Coming back to the present, the fieldwork has been good in many ways, but that’s a post for another time when I am more relaxed and feel more inclined to be reflective and generously positive about the last 12 weeks (that’s a quarter of a whole year!!) of my life. Meanwhile, I’ll point you to this other view of the experience fieldwork that isn’t too different from mine - read it here.

—

And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
- “The Blower’s Daughter”, Damien Rice 

—

There’s nothing like a series of religious festivities and spending 20-minutes circling in the carpark of a shopping centre (1Utama) to remind me that it really is time to go. The alternative to spending my penultimate day in a shopping centre (albeit only to sit in a cafe and surf the internet) is to stay indoors with no television, no (real) internet access and nothing to do in my mum’s house. The very few I would want to spend time with are either fasting (because it’s ramadhan), on their way back to their “hometown”, or already celebrating (Deepavali) with their family.

Only one more sleep now… and then, it will be well and truly over… for now anyway.

Posted on October 21st, 2006 by jl
Filed under: Life!, VivaVoce