Different when you get there

You know how surreal it can sometimes feel to finally make true on something that had been wanting to do for all your life? And then you really do it, you, in the flesh? ‘How incredible’, I sometimes think in situations like that. There was one such situation last week as I finished my PhD thesis. This was an incredible event in a way because I knew I needed to do this since I was a little kid at school and the teacher asked the class: ‘Who can you tell me what you want to be when you are grown up?’ Ever the bookling, I said eagerly: ‘I want to be a professor in mathematics!’ Because this was socialisam the teacher replied: ‘How presumptuous! That’s like wanting to be a princess! You can’t be a mathematics professor!’ (She was wrong. You could be even then. Though perhaps she meant that I personally didn’t have what it takes for mathematics, which is true.) I think I really wanted to be working at university and be learned more than anything else. That was my childhood aspiration.

So, last week I handed in my PhD thesis which is a good step closer to my childhood dream of working in academia, and what can I tell you: the experience of finishing it was nothing like I had thought it would be. To be honest, the submission of my thesis felt flat, sort of off, and until now I wasn’t sure why that was the case.

Months ago, as I was drafting the last chapters and tweaking theoretical bits in the thesis I used to think ‘once you have submitted this thesis you’ll take time off and you’ll really celebrate because this was a major achievement’. It really was a major achievement, always is, right? It deserves to be acknowledged in the form of breaking out of the daily routine and doing something special. But it wasn’t to be. About four weeks ago I noticed that my thinking on the matter had changed substantially. ‘Take time off to celebrate’ had morphed into ‘you really have to be finished by the deadline because you need to start doing the research for the book chapter on Scottish Tory women; I need to start with that because I need to be finished with the research by October. Simultaneously, I need to start working on a literature review for work. I need to start making plans for future publications, too. Where am I going to publish my PhD?’

The submission of my thesis felt very different from what I thought it would be like because, I think, in the process of writing it, I had become an academic. I truly think that’s how it was. Therefore, once I reached the end of the road I found myself ensconced in multiple projects and with various obligations and plans – a pretty normal situation for someone working at university. I grew up a bit especially in the last few weeks of working on the document, as I saw it all coming together and as I made everything fit together.

Without even meaning to I had become an academic simply by doing the things academics do. It was the active process that changed everything, and most transitions are processes after all, not singular events. This is a trite observation perhaps but easily overlooked. Spoiled in our imagination I for one tend to think of important events in a Hollywood sort of way, as in: ‘When you are in the moment you will feel how great it is.’ But mostly I think you don’t because many important events in life aren’t events at all but longer processes, or phases that one goes through that lead to an insight. There often is no focal point where it all happens and then everything is different afterwards.Think of marriage, for example: longer process rather than singular event; even the wedding is really a process too.

That’s why the mere act of submitting the thesis didn’t have the meaning I had assumed it would have. I am, after all, not a kid any more. I fit the size of the dream much better now than I did back then and I am not so stunned by the enormity of what happened there. Besides, once you get there the dream doesn’t seem so dream-like either. It’s a lot of work, in fact, and, at the end of the day, it’s simply my life now. And that’s actually a good development. Flat, uneventful, but still overall very positive.

(I still haven’t had time off though.)

I’m a LOTR fan…

…and that’s not always a good thing! I don’t mind it normally, not at all, except for right now as I am fumbling to fudge together the first few sentences for my thesis. As I pondered here recently, getting started is a bit of a tricky game requiring some creativity. Sometimes when no ideas as to what to write come to me I read other people’s first sentences, or any sentences really (i.e. I just read stuff). Sometimes I go a bit further afield. This is, for instance, what my introductory sentences look like at the moment. Can you spot the LOTR metaphor? (Just so that it makes sense: my PhD is in the Sociology of Values.)

As a recent special issue of Current Sociology (March 2011) on the topic of values and culture evinces “interest in values and moral concern is growing” (Bachika & Schulz, 2011, p. 107). Indeed, it could be said that values are ‘back on the menu’. Values are “part of the common-sense culture in which everyone lives” (Wuthnow, 2008, p. 339), and that common-sense culture is increasingly assuming centre stage in British and American Sociology (Alexander, 2003; Inglis, 2005).

Can you see how I went too far afield? ‘Values are back on the menu’ just ‘came’ to me in that unwanted way ideas sometimes come. The metaphor was of course taken from the scene in which Merry and Pippin escape the Uruk-hai/orks as these foul creatures get into a fight about eating the two hobbits.

And now I am stuck again. Pretty crazy this creative process. I’d love to keep that sentence in! Imagine, what if my external examiner is a die-hard LOTR fan? I already see my viva turning into a bit of a LOTR fan session!!!

Oops, too far afield, again!

The sentence will come out, of course, or rather it will be replaced by tedious sentences just like the other ones suroounding it. It’s sad the way I will effectually write a certain kind of culture out of my thesis. Every draft has to be more purified and less ‘contaminated’ by these cultural references than the previous one. Right?

Geeky superlatives

(If you don’t like the word ‘geeky’ you don’t want to read this post.)

• geekiest means of transport: by train because you can read a lot. You can also write heaps. This list for one was born on a train.
• geekiest way to fall in love: in the library in the English Literature or Philsophy section
• geekiest way to die: by a million paper cuts as described in Walter Moers’ The City of Dreaming Books ( which is a pretty geeky book about books)
• geekiest book to rank #1 on your personal reading list: Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain
• geekiest cause for suicidal depression: “No one reads my book.” Will be the case for most of us so we must be prepared. (That wasn’t the royal we but the realistic we.)
• geekiest existential fears: fear of paper cuts (justified!), fear that nobody will read my book (may also be quite justified)
• geekiest misdemeanour: not returning library books or your friend’s books
• geekiest degree subject at uni: Theology or Philosophy, or Systematic Theology which is a bit of both. Geeks all of them.
• geekiest café/restaurant: a book shop-cum-café, e.g. Books and Beans in Aberdeen or Café Tasso in Berlin (where each book costs € 1!!)
• geekiest place to live: no idea but I’d be interested to know. Also: Is geekiness an inherent quality? Because only then can we have geeky places to live.
• geekiest activity to pass away the time: making a list of geeky superlatives

I like the way I read

…sometimes abusive:

…sometimes reflective, stroking my imaginary beard:

…sometimes full of the joy of life, aka ridicule:

I generally like the way I am telling my later self how I initially felt as I read this material. Way to go, girl.

David Cameron may be able to calm the natives…

…which Paul Goodman, writing on ConservativeHome, the Tory grassroots’ blog, praises as a major advantage to the Party and the country, but does that mean that DC is the bee’s knees generally? A doubtful claim if I ever saw one. I also doubt the accuracy of the descriptive parts in Goodman’s assessment of Cameron as Prime Minister, to be honest, though I do enjoy his writing style and sense of humour. Goodman starts off with a few positive points about Cameron (e.g. as being the kind of colonial officer who is capable of calming the natives – a strong point in Cameron’s favour indeed….what is he on??? Gee-wizz!) and offers more critical insights later on; I am particularly intrigued about the suggestion that DC might be the pretty, likeable face of the Conservative Party and thus win votes etc. but George Osborne is the real man behind the scences, sort of the Brown to DC’s Blair, as it were.

1. David Cameron is the ultimate Conservative establishment politician. I remember being taken to lunch – at Whites! (of which his father was Chairman) – by Cameron, shortly after being selected as the Conservative candidate for Wycombe, some ten years ago.  The place and the timing were illustrative.  Cameron isn’t exacly a toff, but he’s posh, and the ultimate Conservative establishment politician.  No place could better have demonstrated where he feels comfortable.  He’s spent time outside politics – the dip into television, while waiting for a safe seat – but he’s a professional to his fingertips.  No run-of-the-mill action could better have shown his attention to detail than initiating lunch with a future colleague, who might perhaps be useful to him in the future.  I tend to divide posh people into two groups: the sort who won us the Empire (or at least governed it), and the sort that lost it.  Although I can picture Cameron signing away Hong Kong, he’s essentially one of the former.  One can imagine him being sent out to calm the natives in the Upper Nile or to sign death warrants after the Indian Mutiny.  It’s not hard to see that high-foreheaded, pink-cheeked, prim-mouthed face framed by a seventeen-century Bishop’s wig, or topped with a tricorne.

For the full article, click here.

Tricked ya!! (or: And that’s why we shouldn’t have private schools)

Socialisation theory is pretty deterministic. The subject has no agency, or free will, and is simply subject to the external socio-cultural influences he/she undergoes. The sum of these influences produces a specific behavioural pattern that, in a reverse-engineering sort of way, reveals which socialising influences the individual in question was subject to.

Super-deterministic. Boring. Reductionistic. Stupid (for many pretty interesting reasons none of which I want to go into right now).

I’m going to show you what the socialisation paradigm leads to if you take it to its logical consequence. The example below is from an interview with a clever young Conservative girl who was one of my research participants. This is the point in the interview where she gets lost in revelry of the lifestyle of European aristocrats. Bless her using Sociology against itself in this ingenious way.

Interviewer: But when …Ok, this is one of my stereotypes: Wealthy people tend to be elitist.
Conservative Girl: …I would say: No ..because ..Ok: Yes, they are elitist, but no, it’s not their fault. They are raised like that. They go to- you know if you’re seven years old and you’re sent to a boarding school and it just happens to be Eton ..it’s not that child’s fault. If you hear the child’s personal views and his friends’ .they’re all wealthy .because they all go to Eton. So the contact that the person will be in .will all be elitist .but that doesn’t mean that they will generally like the class system .or anything like that. It just means they’re wealthy ..and they’ve had a great opportunity in life ..and they’re using their contacts and their friends to help them get on in life.
I.: So when they come out of these school and they uhm .have very sophisticated tastes .with everything in life-
CG.: Then that’s just a product of their institutionalisation. …It’s nothing about their person.

Almost put my foot in!

In case you haven’t noticed, I do have a bit of a penchant for drama and it’s got me into many scrapes over the years actually. (I remember the time I threw plates around someone else’s kitchen) Anyway, I will be leaving these British Isles shortly and I thought just a few minutes ago that I could jot down a few words about how sad it is to leave etc. The intended title of the blog post was ‘The time of the last things begins’, sort of ‘this is the last time I’ll go shopping at Tesco’s, how sad’ or ‘this is my last pint’ etc. Boring, I know. I’m really glad I decided that it would be way too dorky to write a kitschy post like that because just by accident, in choosing that title, I would’ve been talking about the end of everything! According to the Global Catholic Network, the “the last things are death, judgment, heaven and hell’. Yikes!

I knew the phrase ‘the last things’ was awfully familiar! From watching ‘Supernatural’! Which is the normal person’s access road to Christianity, or rather Christian mythology. How weird is that eh…but how absolutely delicious to watch too!

Gee, it’s been a long week. Anybody interested in learning about the Last Things, read below and look forward to the weekend. Cheerio.

Death is the separation of man’s mortal body and immortal soul. It comes to all men as a result of original sin. It is a temporary state, for at the end of the world, all men shall rise again to be judged by Christ. Thus the whole man, body and soul, will be rewarded for the good or evil that he has done, body and soul, in this life.

At the moment of death, each human person is judged by God based on his conduct in this life, and goes immediately to his reward or punishment.Moreover, at the end of the world, Jesus Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. At that time, God’s whole plan for the world shall be revealed, and his mercy and justice demonstrated.

Heaven is the eternal state of perfect happiness resulting from the face to face vision of God, which is the reward of those who have served Him in this life.

Hell is the eternal state of torment and despair which awaits those who, in this life, have freely rejected God and the happiness which He offerse.

Before the end of the world, there will be an intermediate state called purgatory. There, those who are bound for heaven, but whose love for God is still marred by some imperfection, undergo a temporary period of purifying suffering. When this purification is complete, they are fit to enter God’s presence and are admitted to the joys of heaven.

What does ‘everyday life’ mean?

Recently, I have been thinking about the possibilities of doing Public Sociology. This is in the first instance the idea that Sociology, though being an exclusively academic discipline, makes a concerted effort to make the products of its activities (i.e. research) relevant and accessible to the wider public. In other words, sociologists, if they want to follow the call for Public Sociology, should be looking for ways to get their message across in a variety of media outlets, including blogs. Because some topics are more difficult to explain and make relevant for a broad audience, the call to aim for a better connection with some sort of imaginary public usually includes the push to examine and understand the meaning of everyday life.

Now there are a lot of books written on this topic – the ‘everyday’ has been around in Sociology’ for a few years now – and I won’t try to summarise any arguments. Suffice it to say that there have always been strands interested in phenomena lifted right out of everyday life. The Chicago School was all about understanding how individuals make sense of events, as was American Pragmatism, so the Sociology of the Everyday actually has a really long history.

Having said that, what is the everyday? What belongs in that category and what doesn’t? When I talk about the everyday in lectures, my knee-jerk example always is: brushing your teeth. For me, that’s apparently as quotidian as it gets. Once I start, I wax on about the meaning of brushing one’s teeth for ages, so much so that I’m sure all my past students think I have a problem with dental hygiene. Brushing one’s teeth is a good example though – it’s something that we do every day without ever thinking about it; it’s morally meaningful; it’s a cultural norm; it comes in a variety of ways and thus fits in nicely with all sorts of lifestyles; and it’s utterly mundane and lacking of deeper meaning (unless you’re a Freudian – knock yourselves out on this activity!). That’s why I think brushing one’s teeth is representative of the everyday.

On the weekend I decided to ‘hunt down’ other everyday life phenomena, so I took my camera and started sneaking through the flat with a watchful eye. The everyday, I thought, must be primarily at home. I found it in tea cups, glasses, bottles, fruits and all sorts of clutter in the kitchen and elsewhere. I was looking for things that don’t possess any intrinsic value basically because that would explain why we don’t look into the everyday every day – because it’s thought to be meaningless.

Looking back on my photo trip I now think that maybe the everyday is meaningless unto itself; glasses don’t mean anything unto themselves but what counts is what you do with them. Here you can see a Glenlivet glass. If you know Scotland, then you know what kind of whiskey we’re talking about. What kind of person do you think drinks Glenlivet? Or the water jug: It’s actually a former Jura 10 Years bottle; what kind of person are we talking about now? What’s his/her income? Is it a he or a she?

The argument in favour of the everyday as a subject of study is that we can learn so much about the individuals, groups or phenomena that we’re looking at when and if we also look at the everyday context. I lost this out of sight whilst I was on my picture hunt to track down the everyday, I admit. All I was thinking about was how to find hidden meanings in seemingly meaningless objects. My thoughts eventually drifted down the line of ‘hidden because it’s dirty’ which had me consider dirty laundry and rubbish bins as subjects of study. I kind of realised that I wasn’t on the right track there which is why there’s no photo of my dirty laundry here. Again, what’s important here is ‘who does what in connection with the washing’? And who doesn’t? (You can tell that I have gender on my mind, can’t you.) What kinds of clothes are we talking about anyway? There’s heaps of social information here, and sometimes it might come in really handy.

The everyday has been sidelined because it’s common-sensical and ordinary. It’s the norm, not the exception, and sociologists usually look at the exception and then work back from that to learn something about how the norm comes about. That’s why starting with the everyday wasn’t really the done thing. Also, there are methodological difficulties here, not to speak of what belongs in the category and what doesn’t. For all these reason, the Sociology of the Everyday is basically a very rich field of study and one that can reveal all kinds of hitherto hidden gems! (Geez, what a geek I am!)

It’s strange but I find myself wanting to go on and on about this topic…if others also feel this way, then this would explain why so many books about the Sociology of the Everyday have come out in the last few years. This is one of the best and most recent publications:

Michael Hviid Jacobson (2009) (Ed.) Encountering the Everyday: Introduction into the Sociology of the Unnoticed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

(I think the book cover is kind of where I get my tooth brush association, as well.)

Tasmanian devil relaxing

I saw a short programme about these wee creatures yesterday morning; I can’t believe they’re some of the most vicious animals on the planet. Apparently, once they get their jaws around something…well, they basically eat whatever it is they got.

Copyright by Wayne McLean at http://www.waynemclean.com

Here’s everything you ever wanted to know about Tasmanian Devils.

Swimming through the sound barrier

Did you hear about the new Supersonic car that came out this week? It can do 1000 mph. Crikey eh. What kind of person drives these things? Royal Air Force pilots, apparently. The current world land speed record holder is a Brit, in fact. This video here doesn’t capture so much the technological greatness of these things – though it does show the car breaking through the sound barrier. I felt a bit like watching aliens do alien things in an alien environment; quite strange, this supersonic racing…