Project update (Monday 7th October to Sunday 27th October)

Hello lovely lovely readers,

I feel so bad for leaving you for three weeks.

That is honestly because I feel that I have done anything in the past few weeks. Well I have but i just don’t feel like it.

The week commencing Monday 7^th October, I pretty much just finished my proposal, adding theory context and more grounding to the evidence for my rationale. Which I really enjoyed to be honest, I’m really lucky that I get to study something I find really really really interesting. There are many who are not so lucky. So I am very grateful for that. Admittedly my topic is not rock and roll but I, hand on heart, feel it is important and could help someone somewhere someday, I have no clue who where or when, but I believe and  feel it could.

I handed in my proposal draft to my supervisor on Monday 14^th October and had it back on my birthday (16^th October) and was told that it was really well written and a joy to read, which is always encouraging. It made my birthday amazing, one of the best things on that day. On the Thursday 17^th I edited the draft in keeping with the recommended alterations, all of which were grammatical.

And for some reason I then did nothing, also because I had an amazing party in Wolverhampton on the weekend. So that is my reason for doing nothing.

Then on the 21^st of October, I sat in uni and worked on my proposal a little bit, and put in a little section on pilot study. 22^nd of October, hand in day, done. Sorted. Lovely. Great.

Then on the 23^rd I attended a workshop that I will write extensively about and then that pretty much took up the rest of my time until Thursday night. Late Thursday night.

Friday was full of me going to an open day for occupational therapy, and then singing in a choral choir for the best part of 8 hours. It was intense but I loved it. When I finally got the songs right.

Anyway that was a very brief breakdown of what I’ve been up to.

I hope any of that has not caused you to pass judgement on me. But of course you are allowed.

Take care kittens

Claire xx

Birthday Synopsis (written on my birthday!)

So today is my 21st Birthday. I am 21 years old as of 12:48pm today. I am 21. Number of years old: 21. 

This.

Is.

TERRIFYING!

Today is a day that I have eagerly awaited and while anticipating it with dread. Why? I honestly have no idea. 

21. Saying feels wrong, uncommon, and incorrect. I cannot be 21. It’s the wrong number there must be some mistake. It’s true; someone somewhere must have gotten the date wrong, I can’t be 21. there’s no way I can be 21 because 21 is an age where you become a grown up, you learn to live in a real world, with real world problems, and you live in a real house, not student accommodation, or student digs, you're meant to be all these things that I just don't know if I am or even can be.

Strong

Fierce

Independent

Mature

Did I strong already?

These are traits I can only have when others are watching, on my own I'm scared useless and a little bit of pansy. Okay, a lot of pansy.

21, not a chance. I’ve always been a teenager with the sense and worldly knowledge of a little old biddy and that’s how I like it. And it works for me, staying in, drinking tea, having my cats, I like it. And it’s ironic until you reach a certain age, and for me that age is 21. I don't know why. But I've felt as if there is some big change, obviously not physically but in terms of how I act and who I act. And I hate change. Seriously, I hate it. I do little changes, like wearing make up a bit better, looking after my mop of hair, and dressing nicely on a day to day basis.

Maybe I am changing now that I am 21. Maybe it’s already happening and I knew nothing about it.  I spent my first hours of 21 the same way I wish to carry on, helping someone to feel a little better just by talking things through with me. or anyone really but it is a nice feeling when you help a friend/relative through something, just by sitting on the other side of the screen, letting them throw their feelings and thoughts through the internet to me and for me to just read listen and be there. I am always there for those I care about, and I'm normally there for those who I don't even know. I think that says something about me, I have no idea what mind you. 

21. Its growing on me. Still weird though. Maybe I won’t get used to it until I'm 22. Now there’s an age I'm looking forward too. It sounds fun! I think maybe there is just such a social thing about 21 and that is what is freaking me out. there’s an expectation for you to party and to drink and to be wild and adventurous then to be mature and settled at the same time, mature and settled I can do have done forever!

So lets see what it will be like, come on then you cheeky age you! Let's rock this world! 

Take care kittens 

Claire

Proposal Update! (Monday 30/9 to Sunday 6/10)

Hello lovely supportive readers,

Last week (Monday 30/9 to Sunday 6/10) I actually got about starting AND completing my method section (375 words... Woohoooo!) and making a good start of my introduction (728 words down people!!) for my proposal. I didn’t get a chance to meet with my supervisor, who as I have said is lovely. And so so so supportive. Which is amazing, it’s like having a cheerleader that actually likes someone…

My method section consists of the standard methods layout.

Design- this being what type of study is it.

Sample- who will be taking part as a participant (being tested or interviewed).

Procedure- what you will actually do.

Method of Analysis- how you will analyse the data.

This is normally the easiest part to do, as its all pretty straight forward. So here is a very simplified version of my method section:

Design

This study will be 5-6 single semi-structured interviews with a prewritten interview schedule (list of questions that you don’t have to stick to)

Sample

The criteria to be a participant in this study are:

A) The participant must have spent most of their life farming

B) Be willing to be interviewed,

C) Aged 55 or over

D) Runs or has run a pastoral farm.

Procedure

Essentially it’s just:

Find participants that are willing, interview them with the schedule at their choice of place and time. Their own homes probably and sometime over Christmas, as that will be when we are all free.

Method of analysis

This is hard because I don’t know yet what type of data I’m going to get if it’s a lot of experiential (experience based) data then I should use IPA (interpretive Phenomenological analysis) but if I get a lot of attitudes and perception based data I will use Thematic analysis.

So that’s a quick run-down of what I've done, I've read a few articles on farming and retirement.

Here are their references:

• Farming Futures Group, November 2001. Farming for the future: A new direction for farming in Wales. The Government of The National Assembly for Wales
• Errington, A.J., 1999. The intergenerational transfer of the farm family business: A comparative study of England, France and Canada. Paper to the Canadian Young Farmers Forum Annual Meeting, Regina, Canada.
• Errington, A.J. and Lobley, M., 2002. Handing over the reigns: a comparative study of inter generational farm transfers in England, France, Canada and the USA. Paper presented to Agricultural Economics Society Annual Conference, Aberystwyth.
• Ward, N. and Lowe, P., 1994. Shifting values in agriculture: the family farm and pollution regulation. Journal of Rural Studies, 10(2), 173-184.
• Whitehead, I., Errington, A., Millard, N. and Felton, T., 2002. An Economic Evaluation of The Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995. Newton Abbot: The University of Plymouth.
• Whitehead, I.R.G., 1996. Farm Business Tenancy Survey 1996. London: Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
• Potter, C. and Lobley, M., 1996b. Unbroken threads? Succession and its effects on family farms in Britain. Sociologia Ruralis 36 (3), 286-306.
• Office for National Statistics, 2003. Social Trends
• Office for National Statistics, 2004. Regional Trends

I hope you don’t die from boredom but if you wanted to see them there they are…

That’s it for last week folks,

Take care now

Claire xx

I Like to Hide

Right this very second I am sitting in an empty stairwell at university. Alone. Typing this.

I find solitude in quiet places, I love quiet places. I like to come here, away from people, away from too much noise and just take time to think.

Sure this is a good thing I hear you say... Ahh and yes, which it would be... if I also didn’t come here to "hide". And by hide I don’t mean trying to stay away from a person I don’t want to see, I mean hide away from the world.

This is how I ended up here (a chronological recall of events this morning that lead me to a quiet stairwell, NOT a metaphorical journey of sorrow that leads to me being a wimp and sitting on my own.)

I got to uni, got off the bus with a plan to go see my supervisor, simple. She wasn’t there, I start to have a mini flap because I feel I know look like I’m just wandering about the psychology block aimlessly with no friends. So I decided to head to Starbucks and get a coffee, which I did, however it was so hot in there I had to get out, I hate feeling too hot. Really hate it. The next plan was to go and sit in the seating area near where y next lecture is but there were some people, and I didn’t want to sit there, and I felt myself say "Where can I go hide for a while before class?" so I came here, to a very quiet stairwell that no one uses, I’m pretty sure it’s only here as a fire safety requirement, in the time it’s taken me to write all this, admittedly not that long, not one person has opened a single door to any of the flights of stairs.

What bothered me the most was not that I wanted to be away from the world to have peace and quiet to sit alone in my thoughts, I wanted to hide, and I called it hiding. I must admit this worries me a little. I know why I do it, I just feel so awkward and out of place in a conversation, if I talk I get told I talk too much, and if I don’t talk everyone asks me what is wrong, so I just feel it’s easier to come sit alone and write something, a song, a little letter to no one, a poem or now, a blog entry. It is so quiet I love this feeling, only hearing the builders on the other side of campus, and my keyboard keys clicking away.

I have to kick this habit of hiding and running away to a safe stairwell, but not today....

Take care

Claire xx

Living in a bubble: as romantic as it sounds?

So essentially I walk about all the time and I don’t know what I'm doing or really where I'm going, I have all these dreams and aspirations that I don’t really know what to do with myself. I live much of my life in one of two types of bubble. 

The first type of bubble: the one with a few people in....

This is what I call my social bubble, as I have stated before I have few but amazing friends, which is great and amazing until they are unable to be in the immediate vicinity. Like France or Portugal or even Gloucester. I know so few names of the people on my own university course, I know them to recognise, about 50 of them but I don’t know more than 13 or 15 names? It’s really ridiculous. I do feel bad about it of course, but that has only been lately. My family are in my social bubble too, mother, father, sister and obviously Glenn. However I have a brilliant ability to not miss people, to switch of the sense of missing them and resume normal life. My psychologist mother calls it "compartmentalising" while I call it a super power. This I do with my dad as we are both hopeless when it comes to calling the other and we live fairly far away. Occasionally my super power breaks and there is the all-encompassing sense of loss. Like he is a million miles away and I'm never going to see him again. This social bubble is the most social part of me really and I don’t tend to stray from what I know and love. 

The alone bubble. 

This is the bubble I adopt for when I am actually alone, or walking down the halls at uni. I’m just there like "Oh don’t mind me I'm just invisible" and it’s pretty much being entirely self-absorbed. But I think I do this because at uni I am alone, I don’t tend to walk about with people or go the IT barn with people, I go to the library and I sit there are I work, or I read, or I sit in Starbucks and I read, or I go to the gym, the best place to be alone. I love the gym it’s the worst type of escapism.

However there are benefits to being a bubble person and there are many bad points. 

The good points include:
1) Being able to pretend your somewhere else.
2) Play games in your imagination, or play guessing games.
3) You’re totally allowed to people watch when sitting on your own. I think. 
4) You learn a lot by sitting back and watching others.
5) You can indulge your "woe is me" side. 
6) I have learned that if you leave the world alone, the world leaves you alone.
7) It can give you space to reflect on things.
8) It gives you a chance to take a break from being social.
9) It can be empowering to sit by yourself and have a coffee, or take yourself to dinner.
10) By letting your mind wander can often be a clue into what it is you really want, you know I often day dream about being in a job that helps people and is seen as a good person type job. That, was the exact reason I chose not to do law studies as a degree.

The bad points are actually many of the good points just pushed a little further like: 

1) Pretending you’re somewhere else.
This I have learned is actually a bad thing, because the only real reason you fly away to another place is to escape the one you’re in. And that is bull shit. You should stand up for your sorry little self and challenge yourself on what it is that you don’t like about where you are. Or if you can, challenge your environment. 

2) Playing games in your mind.
There isn't really anything wrong with this, it just may make you look crazy if you keep giggling every time you guess correctly what food a person will order....

3) You’re totally allowed to people watch when sitting on your own. I think. 
There is nothing wrong with that one. Honestly.

4) You learn a lot by sitting back and watching others.
Learning by watching others is the same as living by watching other people being alive. Sometimes watching some poor girl get her own heart broken by a beautiful but mean guy is not a good enough lesson for heartbreak and it’s just gonna have to be you who learns. You can’t watch someone else fall behind in their work and learn how important it is to keep on top, you need to be there with that underlying anxiety and a trembling hand that wibbles every time you take a sip of your 11th espresso of the evening. 

5) You can indulge your "woe is me" side. 
While this can therapeutic for about 10 minutes but anything more than that is just destructive to yourself and your day.

6) I have learned that if you leave the world alone, the world leaves you alone.
Again, I can’t help but notice that this is the easy way out and that sometimes you have to cause a stir and shake things up. Sometimes the world needs to you to pay it some attention too...

7) It can give you space to reflect on things.
Reflection is always good, if that sounds too sappy for you, call it evaluating your goals and motivational techniques. That should do it. 

8) It gives you a chance to take a break from being social.
Yeah this I guess is also a good thing; there is definitely a saturation point for how long I can be around some people before they start to get annoying. When you start to get fed up with everything they say, just go, sit quietly and breathe. Then go back.

9) It can be empowering to sit by yourself and have a coffee, or take yourself to dinner.

However you do look like a loner, but it is very fun to order a three course meal and share your evening with fine wine and a good book.

10) By letting your mind wander can often be a clue into what it is you really want.

BEWARE sometimes you aren't really ready to see what it is that your mind really wants, it can be a bit of a startling experience. Like ouiji boards but less satanic.

I think the most worrying part of living in a bubble is not being able to see people who need you when they are desperate. Like for example, I nearly went through a door without holding it for the elderly person who was walking (slowly) behind me. And while it sounds like a small thing, these are the little things that make me who I am and what I am, a person that always tries to help.

So there you have it, the pros and cons of living life in a bubble a far less exciting and much more introverted view of the world. Living in a private bubble will one day lead you to feeling you only live life 50%. Don't feel everything the way it should feel, you don't know half the things you should by now. Go on, burst your bubble and live a little. Throw yourself out there, and if people throw hate at you remember that people only throw rocks at things that shine. 

Take care
Claire xx

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