Journeyings of a PhD Student

ADRI Presentation

Sarah K. Trigger — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 04:47:56 +0000

Last week I presented at out internal seminar series at the Alfred Deakin Research Institute (ADRI). As usual I was quite nervous about it. After reflecting on it, however, I realised how little I actually read off my paper and used more as a memory cue, rather than reading off it fully which is what I have done in the past. It made me realise that perhaps I know more than I thought. Definitely a confidence boost! Or perhaps I have always known that I have the knowledge but just need some more practice to get what I know across to the audience. Question time has also been a concern. I am never sure what sort of curly questions I am going to get, and even if I can answer them. During this presentation, however, I surprised myself and could answer most of them quite easily. It is helpful when your supervisor is there though. It is comforting to know at least someone knows what you are talking about…then again they can also ask the toughest questions.

So as one paper is completed I begin another one, ready for the end of August. No doubt I will be nervous again, but I will just have to remember this experience and hopefully that will give me the extra confidence I need!

Will blog again soon!

Another year older, another year wiser…I hope

Sarah K. Trigger — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 02:27:24 +0000

What better way to continue procrastinating than writing a new blog post? While I am not short of tasks that I need to complete, I am finding it all a bit overwhelming. So I am taking a little break and enjoying a lovely coffee from Cafe Silk while I write this post.

Since my last post I celebrated a birthday. I’m now 23 and it feels so much better than 22! It felt like even more of a celebration because it meant that I survived the hardest/worst year of my life and I have come out a stronger and better person because of it. I have also learned a lot about myself and who I am. Life has become so much better after the battles of the past year! Part of that has been learning that it doesn’t matter what other people think and that I am free to be myself – I know it’s so obvious! – so I have been dabbling in a bit of (in the words of my mother) ‘self expression’. So to my Dad’s dismay I have continued to get piercings. While I do have the typical ear piercings in my lobe I have branched out and got my tragus and rook done as well. It is not something that I have rushed into. I have been thinking about getting a tragus piercing for about 2 years. I just had to work up the courage. I have to say thanks to Lisa at Purely Piercing in Geelong for doing such a fantastic job! I highly recommend her and I am planning to go back soon to get my other tragus pierced…again (it’s a long story) Let’s just say that I am pretty impressed with myself though – for a person who can’t stand needles and the sight of blood, having a needle piercing was a big deal.

Well, now that I have shared that it’s back to work for me…now that the coffee has kicked in

Finally, A Conference Paper Topic!

Sarah K. Trigger — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:36:37 +0000

Another week has come and gone and I have finally managed to get an abstract of my conference paper to my supervisor – it took me a long time to narrow down all the areas that I am interested in. So, my paper will (hopefully) be entitled “The War, it seemed, would call women, not to arms, but to knitting needles’: women’s voluntary, unpaid and unseen labour in Southwestern Victoria during the Second World War.’ I managed to get the inspiration for this piece when I was at the State Library in Melbourne. There is nothing like visiting somewhere full of history (and books!) to make you feel inspired and enthusiastic about writing. I have been to the State Library several times but I had never been into the dome (see photo on left). It was amazing to go into that space and work. You could feel the history around you. I truly love places like that. I think I enjoyed working at the State Library almost as much as I enjoyed working at the National Archives in Canberra.

In another attempt to put myself into a neat little historian box I have been debating a to whether I am in fact a feminist historian. As my thesis has progressed it seems that I have become very interested in this aspect of history. So for the moment, while my thesis does explicitly state that it is not a feminist examination of the time period I will have to resign myself to the fact that deep down I am a feminist historian just bursting to get out I’m also meeting Melanie Oppenheimer this week. I am really excited about this because she has written on many of the same themes as I am examining in my thesis. I also admire her work and find her and inspiration so here’s hoping I’m not too nervous when we meet!

Back Home!

Sarah K. Trigger — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:05:56 +0000

After my research trip to Canberra I am very happy to be back home. As nice as it was to spend hours toiling away in the National Archives and the State Library there is nothing as satisfying as coming home knowing that you have completed all the research you intended to. I will have to write a post about my trip. I had an amazing time and went to the Masterpieces from Paris exhibition at the National Gallery, and spent way too much time at second hand book stores (I think I went to about 15 in total) and did the usual tourist things such as visiting the museum, old and new parliament house and Black Mountain tower. I even went to a book launch for a book entitled ‘How to write history that people want to read’ by Prof Ann Curthoys and Prof. Ann McGrath. I got to meet them as well which was fantastic.

The day before I left for Canberra I had my colloquium. I was very relieved when I got through. The most nerve wracking part was when they sent me out of the room for half an hour. It felt a lot longer than that. I am so happy it is over and now I can really focus on research and getting my PhD completed. Although, I still haven’t thought of a topic for my conference paper to submit for the Australian Historical Association conference…best do that now I think!

I’m Still Here!

Sarah K. Trigger — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 03:09:12 +0000

No, I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth! I’m still here!

Another busy year has begun. I can’t believe that January is already over and we’re almost half way through February! I have my first year confirmation colloquium coming up later this month. I am a little worried about it but I have been reassured by both my supervisor and another PhD student that it will be fine. I really hope so – I’ll have to keep you posted.

It feels good to be back at uni and busier than ever. I have research trips to plan for, conference papers to give, more interviews, lots of newspapers and archives to read. You know what? I cant wait. Despite last year being the hardest of my life so far I feel like I have come out of it a much stronger, happier and well balanced person. Definitely less naive too – but I haven’t lost my knack of seeing the good in people. I learned who my true friends are and that no matter what happens your family is always there for you (let’s just say that things were a bit hard for a while and I stayed at my parents house for a month and a half. That’s the longest I have stayed there since I moved out to start uni when I was 17!) Needless to say last year was all about life lessons and I hope I don’t have to learn them again.

I have, however, learned that I am still very passionate about my thesis and I really want to continue my PhD despite having many doubts and losing much enthusiasm last year. While I did spend a long time at home it actually worked out quite well as I managed to get many interviews completed – and I had a lot of fun doing them. I heard some amazing stories and experienced hospitality that I didn’t think still existed.

I had better get back to work. At the moment I’m trying to think of a topic for a conference paper that I am planning to give…just got to get my brain to function. Perhaps I need a coffee first I promise I will blog again soon.

Roller Coaster Month

Sarah K. Trigger — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 06:10:12 +0000

So here I am on a Saturday working away on my thesis on a beautiful spring day with the vague intention to catch up on PhD work. The past month has been a bit of a roller coaster. Things have been going well in term of my PhD. I have obtained approval to speak to residents at a number of aged care facilities and have placed advertisements in a few local newspapers which have received some replies. The local newspaper even wrote a small article about my project! So in regard to the oral history component things have been full steam ahead.

Nevertheless it has been a hard month and it has resulted in very little work being completed (my supervisor doesn’t know that yet…) I have been challenged (mostly by myself) as to whether I really want to complete this PhD or whether I am better to leave now before I have done a lot more work. But I have now realized that I am still passionate about history and I do want to complete my PhD. It has been a dream to undertake this since I was about 15 and I know that if I do not give this my best shot I will regret it for the rest of my life. I have spoken to a couple of people who say my feelings are completely normal. I’m glad to know that my feelings are normal and that I can get through this stage and become enthusiastic about my thesis again…and I think the oral history component will do that.

So here is hoping that the next month is not so crazy!

Thank God It’s October

Sarah K. Trigger — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:05:01 +0000

I am very glad that October is finally here! September was a crazy month with summer scholarship applications for the National Library and the Australian War Memorial, the annual review and sending out letters to potential interviewees for the oral history component of my thesis. Although the upside is that I finally feel as thought I am getting somewhere with my thesis now that I have written the introduction and have almost finished the literature review. Although I am yet to receive feedback from my supervisor…that is happening tomorrow. Nevertheless I feel as though I finally have something to show for all the hard work that I have done.

Well, I best get back to it. Hopefully I will have more good things to blog about soon!

Random thoughts

Sarah K. Trigger — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:38:28 +0000

I think that I am turning into a microhistorian. Microhistorians, asides from examining small groups of people also tend to focus on the outliers, that is not the average individual, those that did not follow the path of the average. Others see microhistory as focusing on local people and everyday events. In some ways I feel that I fit these definitions. I am very interested in examining small pockets of Australia and seeing how life changed for them during events such as the Second World War. In my case I am examining the mobilisation of rural women who lived in the southwest region of Victoria, Australia. Being able to say that I am possibly a microhistorian is quite exciting as I now have a label and you know how everyone loves those! When I mention that I am focusing on the mobilisation of women during the Second World War, I am often asked if I am a feminist historian. While I am researching womens history I am not going to be examining my thesis from the feminist perspective. It’s interesting how people assume you are a feminist just because you are interested in the experiences of women. Very strange!

For more information about microhistory click on the link for an interesting article by Sigurdur Gylfi Magnusson, who is the chair of the Center for Microhistorical Research at the Reykjavik Academy in Iceland (see www.microhistory.org for more information) Please also click on this link which I imagine will be one of many to be written about the 70th anniversary of the declaration of World War Two in Australia.

That time of year

Sarah K. Trigger — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 05:23:45 +0000

This post will be short and sweet!

Well that time of year is approaching. No it’s not tax time or Christmas, it’s Annual Review time. I am yet to experience one of these and I am not sure what to expect. It is coming up in September, so I have a little bit of time to prepare. Still a lot to do though! I am also working on my candidature agreement. Basically it is an agreement with the university about my candidature which describes the roles of the supervisors and shows a timeline of how I intend to complete my thesis within the maximum given time. Three years seems like a long time, but when it is divided up and you can see how much needs to be done within that time frame it is a cause for concern! So I had better get back to this research plan. I’m almost finished. I think that I might have a coffee first

Ford Discovery Centre…and cake!

Sarah K. Trigger — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 05:07:16 +0000

So I am finally blogging about last weekend…almost a week late! Last Saturday, my now ex-boyfriend, and I went to the Ford Discovery Centre. It was a lot of fun and I found it really interesting to see the progression of technology in cars from the models from the early 1900s (Model T Ford) to the cars of today. I was especially excited to see a 1960 Ford Prefect (above.) For some reason I love this car and I have absolutely no idea why! I have also included a photo of the Ford Escort RACV patrol van (see left). I can’t tell you how exciting it is to see the RACV van when you have broken down, although they don’t look like this anymore. This particular type of patrol van was used during the 1980s. The other highlight was learning about the inner workings of a car. While I can appreciate the aesthetics of a car, I know nothing about what is under the bonnet, except for being able to check the oil (thanks Dad!) However, I know now what a turbo charger looks like. Funnily enough it looks like a snail. One thing that I really enjoy is learning and I learnt a lot! After spending some time at the Ford Discovery Centre we went and had coffee and cake at Lamby’s. I really should have taken a picture of the cake. It was death by chocolate – yummy! If you are ever in Geelong I would highly recommend visiting Lamby’s for some cake. While you are there you might even like to visit the National Wool Museum. I had better get back to working on my literature review before I start sounding like a tourism campaign for Geelong!