2012 was fruitful, filled with lots of writing. After many and even more improvements and reconsiderations, a co-auhtored article "Articulating the visitor in public knowledge institutions" was published in "Critical Discourse Studies". This year, at some point, the text will be published also in the printed version, but not it is possible to read the e-version of it.
I think I already referred to the article published in LIBER Quarterly. Then an earlier conference paper, also co-authored, appeared in "Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries". QQML used to be a conference name, but now it chooses some papers to be published as articles in a journal having the same name.
Couple of conferences - DREAM in Roskilde, Denmark, and ECREA 2012 in Istanbul, Turkey - gave me some more experiences in academic writing, presenting the work, and making new contacts. Just a little time was also left to see these places, and experience local life.
This year presents new challenges... First I need to finalize my Thesis. There's just a little more to go although sometimes, during bad and sad times, I've questioned the purpose of the entire project. When I've browsed in online forums for PhD students I've found out it happens to many of us. Especially nowadays, when even a PhD degree does not grant anything. It doesn't provide an academic position for sure, it means a lot of work, a possibility to get job and personal life so much in imbalance, causing depression, but even suicides at worst cases. So in addition to academic writing and presenting skills, teaching experiences, I'm also now well familiar with varying tactics to cope with the psychological problems that may occur during PhD studies;) The stakes are high in this game - higher than in bachelor or master studies. Today, for example, I discovered this piece: Finding a Successful Work/Life Balance. Good advices, but should be followed not only during stressful times, but already in good times - only then such recommendations help to avoid stress;)
Then I'm working. Working like mad, to prove myself (though I sometimes wonder, for whom - for myself?). I've assisted couple of courses, but this spring semester I'm going to have my first own course. A theoretical course about information literacy. And of course there's still quite some tutoring (of PhD students who participate in our information literacy course about academic databases), some organizing (as I'm also responsible for a course about research methods to be running smoothly), some assisting. I like it. It is different from academic writing which is also an enjoyable activity. You can feel and see whether you are working for the right thing much sooner - from students, from colleagues.
And I'm making plans for my new writings in Estonian language. There have been couple of short texts - one that was published in Estonian librarians' journal. Then a small chapter for a book for our museum professionals (this is a work in progress though). And then there's a bigger challenge, to write about my PhD projects results in some Estonian scientific journal or journal dedicated to popular science. I've been thinking that well, I can cope when I have to write in English, but writing in mother tongue is way more sweeter. So maybe at some point I'll try writing even scholarly articles at first in Estonian, and then translate these into English. As I can feel that the thoughts are way better, more focussed in Estonian.
Last but not least I discovered last year a blog kept by an Estonian lecturer. This person seems to work at Tallinn University. She or he (it doesn't matter anyway) seems to be way more experienced lecturer than me (I'm just in the beginning), but is also working to complete PhD thesis. What I love most, the blog has really good insights into advantages and problems of a lecturer in Estonia. In case you can read Estonian, try this blog. It's revelating, it's written in good style, it's sometimes about things I know already, but then gives some nice feeling of fellowship. Even though this person is not familiar to me:)
No comments:
Post a Comment