15 days
15 days. That’s what my many countdown-timers on my Facebook profile and Google Homepage tell me is left to the time I have before leaving Australia for fieldwork.
15 days. It sounds so soon. It’s just a day over two weeks.
15 days.
It may not appear to be so on the surface but I’m seriously in a panic deep under.
This will be my second fieldtrip for the PhD but I feel, nay I know I am, so much less prepared for this one than I was for the last one although ironically my research project is on a much firmer ground now than before. There’s so much more I should and need to do, both academically and practically, before I leave but the compression of time isn’t going to make that possible.
15 days.
I’ve been so caught up with the stress of the fieldwork that I will be doing in Seoul that it’s almost slipped my mind that I will be spending 3 days in Kuala Lumpur enroute to South Korea. It’s been almost a year since I was back in Kuala Lumpur, the last was for 6 weeks of fieldwork, back in October 2006… I wonder what it will be like this time around… Kuala Lumpur - a city that’s no longer home, a past that’s not quite history and a place that refuses to eclipse into the cobwebs of my memories. Nevermind fieldwork in Seoul, I’m stressing about being in Kuala Lumpur for 3 short days right now…
15 days.
Aside from the many tasks that will not be finished before leaving Canberra, I’ve also carefully avoided thinking about many things that will soon rear their heads once I’m on my way. My short stay in Kuala Lumpur is one of them. The state of my research is another. One other is my budding relationship with MJT. It’s been seven months since we first met and in that time we’ve grown much closer. Although we don’t see each other everyday, or every other day for that matter, he has nevertheless become a significant part of my life. I’m not sure what’s going to be of these three months that I will be away, how I will hold up or how it’s going to affect our relationship… This separation will rear its head, ugly or otherwise, soon enough…
15 days.
It’s not the fieldwork that I hate so much as the going away and not being “at home”, especially for this long a period of time. I have so much to do, so much to think over, so much to worry about and so much to attend to… It’s all becoming a bit too much. The time to do it all is frittering away and the stress is weighing on me.
15 days.
It’s just a day over two weeks.
Posted on September 5th, 2007 by jl
Filed under: Fieldwork, Life!, love
I was talking to CRS and apparently fieldwork has been cancelled and he has finally decided that as fee paying students we dont need to do anything except pay a lot of money and we are assured of a PhD. We did this at my 5 hour long supervisory meeting where he heaped praise on me and said how very sorry he was for being quite so aloof thus far. It was a lovely moment
and then, a pig flew past the window!
I might not have -15 days, but -x days, but I feel the same about so many things. Our lives continue in their spooky parallel.
Chin up, yes it sucks but ummmmmmmm, insert positive thought here!
I’m so happy for you that you actually had a supervisory meeting. Perhaps you could arrange for champagne celebration the next time it occurs.