(Less about my thesis, more about the experience in this one)

So I have been fairly terrible at documenting how my honours journey has been going so far… I suppose since my friend Brigitte passed away I have struggled to feel connected to this project. But I am in my third week now, I am narrowing my research focus bit by bit, becoming more confident and excited while simultaneously more disconnected and scared. So I guess here is a little timeline so far… because I know Brig would have been heavily invested.

O-Week: Our Trip to Deakin Downtown!

The journey up to Melbourne and back was an exhausting one. I don’t know what it is about Melbourne, but my little small town country heart can’t take more than a few hours before my head begins to pound. Buttt, it was a bittersweet day, finally meeting the rest of our online cohort face-to-face so we’d have some connection to the people behind the screens. A lot of the time my thoughts were consumed with: ‘I wish Brig was here,’ and ‘she would have loved this.’ There was also a lot of ‘oh fuck, omg, how am I going to do honours, am I even capable?!’ But hey, we got to dress up and be corporate for the day. And I tell you nothing felt more badass than strutting off the train with a coffee in my hand and asking for ‘the honours panel’ at reception.

Week 1: How tf do we use Zoom on one screen?

Our first week started with a lot of ‘fucks.’

Oh ‘fuck this,’ ‘fuck me,’ ‘fuck that,’ and ‘I’m fucked.’

We reserved our usual study room in the library, excited to get started with our oat lattes, hot chocolates, almond flat whites and banana bread. So anyway, we had the brilliant idea to cast our Zoom seminars to the TV so that it was on the big screen and then we could all work on our own laptops respectively. Well false, try again. That was an utter disaster. Only Burwood devices were showing up (somehow), the keyboard wouldn’t work, AND there turned out to be no mic or cam set up on the TV. Sooo we logged on with the virtual keyboard, still watching Zoom but then had to use my phone as our ‘camera,’ and ‘mic’. And since we had to fit four of us in the frame, the phone was on like the other side of the table, and muting-unmuting was dreadful. But now we’re known as The Geelong Gals, or GG– so we’re obviously the cool kids (I’ve never been cool in my life so this is a new concept for me).

Week 2: The first communal breakdown??

No surprises here, surely… it was a BIG week. It’s been a big couple of weeks. But that’s okay, we’re all in it together. Going through the motions…

Enjoy some breakdown photo documentation :,)

Week 3: Our first assignment for Honours?!

Wow this was crazy. I have NEVER felt so stupid in my life- breaking myself apart over a poster. That’s right. Our first assignment was to create a poster- a concept map outlining important schools of thought/literature/quotes etc that is relevant to our thesis, but not actually our thesis. So you could imagine the confusion. But voila! Here it is:

I managed to submit it on time (for once) and the relief was like nothing else. But I immediately broke down. All I wanted in that moment was to show Brigitte. There were a lot of emotions. I wrote a dumb poem about it in my other post, ‘Confessional Poetry: A Eulogy.

But anyway I’ve written too much already. And for who? Nobody. My own comfort I suppose. Stay tuned for an actual thesis post soon, where I dissect my current train of ideas and how its changed from my initial proposal 🙂 xx

Take care and much love to you all ❤