Okay, I am taking my courage in my hands and writing my first blog post. I can't make the budgies do all the work for me any longer. But as I type they are chirping encouragement to me.
The truth is I don't yet have a clear idea how this is going to pan out, what I'm going to write, who I am writing for and all that sort of stuff. So I think I will probably just have to jump in and see what happens. Maybe I'll just have to do what Philip Pullman does: I heard him talking on the radio recently about how he doesn't think about his readers at all - he just writes for himself, and just kind of have a chat with myself, and hope that it might be interesting to a handful of people. Although it is supposed to be a blog about my PhD, it is highly likely to meander off into other subjects. But that is in the nature of things, I find.
One thing I have done in the last week is buy a book about creating a blog. Whenever I am unsure about something it is a good bet that I will go out and buy a book. I'll maybe say something about the book in due course.
Oh - I have just thought of something I might do: write in dialogue. My self-talk often takes this form. It is as if I am explaining something to someone who is interested but not able to access the world directly.
Anyways, thanks for reading this. Please bear with me until I find my way.
The 'proper' start of my first blog post:
I am about to embark on the third year of my part-time PhD. I think term officially starts on Monday, but I am a bit in the dark about such things being the kind of student who doesn't know when term starts. But I have been saying 'I am about to start the third year of my PhD' to myself quite a bit recently so that I can usefully absorb this information but without getting into too much of a panic about it.
I'm not going to try to summarise the last two years here. I know myself well enough to realize that going down that route would be the end of the blog project! Different strands of all that will probably emerge, but for now I will just write about something I have been thinking about currently.
I started off this PhD thinking that it was all going to be about 'flow' and people with dementia. It has now become clearer that although flow will be part of it, I have stepped back from the position of thinking that optimal experience = flow, and am looking at other ways of understanding episodes of heightened wellbeing or so-called peak experiences etc. My initial reaction to stepping back from flow was to feel a bit sad about letting go of the idea that this would be the main thing, but now I can see it as a sign that my relationship with the project is maturing.
In a paper on the subject of 'quality of life' in dementia (a body of literature I have approached with heavy feet) I came across a great quotation and now I have the source. It is from Cynthia K Russell (a nurse) who in 1996 (a very long time ago where thinking about dementia is concerned) said the following:
"An individualised approach challenges us to go beyond the narrow idea of dementia as a contraction of life to a new and more complex vision of a unique and creative world of those persons living with dementia. This new vision is one in which people with dementia may actually have a more personal, unique, and individual experience because of their dementia. Similar to Sacks' description of cases of persons with autism, amnesia, Tourette's syndrome and other neurological conditions, could certain qualities of the mind of persons with dementia be preserved, perhaps even enhanced?"
This was a really heartening find - thanks, Cynthia!
The truth is I don't yet have a clear idea how this is going to pan out, what I'm going to write, who I am writing for and all that sort of stuff. So I think I will probably just have to jump in and see what happens. Maybe I'll just have to do what Philip Pullman does: I heard him talking on the radio recently about how he doesn't think about his readers at all - he just writes for himself, and just kind of have a chat with myself, and hope that it might be interesting to a handful of people. Although it is supposed to be a blog about my PhD, it is highly likely to meander off into other subjects. But that is in the nature of things, I find.
One thing I have done in the last week is buy a book about creating a blog. Whenever I am unsure about something it is a good bet that I will go out and buy a book. I'll maybe say something about the book in due course.
Oh - I have just thought of something I might do: write in dialogue. My self-talk often takes this form. It is as if I am explaining something to someone who is interested but not able to access the world directly.
Anyways, thanks for reading this. Please bear with me until I find my way.
The 'proper' start of my first blog post:
I am about to embark on the third year of my part-time PhD. I think term officially starts on Monday, but I am a bit in the dark about such things being the kind of student who doesn't know when term starts. But I have been saying 'I am about to start the third year of my PhD' to myself quite a bit recently so that I can usefully absorb this information but without getting into too much of a panic about it.
I'm not going to try to summarise the last two years here. I know myself well enough to realize that going down that route would be the end of the blog project! Different strands of all that will probably emerge, but for now I will just write about something I have been thinking about currently.
I started off this PhD thinking that it was all going to be about 'flow' and people with dementia. It has now become clearer that although flow will be part of it, I have stepped back from the position of thinking that optimal experience = flow, and am looking at other ways of understanding episodes of heightened wellbeing or so-called peak experiences etc. My initial reaction to stepping back from flow was to feel a bit sad about letting go of the idea that this would be the main thing, but now I can see it as a sign that my relationship with the project is maturing.
In a paper on the subject of 'quality of life' in dementia (a body of literature I have approached with heavy feet) I came across a great quotation and now I have the source. It is from Cynthia K Russell (a nurse) who in 1996 (a very long time ago where thinking about dementia is concerned) said the following:
"An individualised approach challenges us to go beyond the narrow idea of dementia as a contraction of life to a new and more complex vision of a unique and creative world of those persons living with dementia. This new vision is one in which people with dementia may actually have a more personal, unique, and individual experience because of their dementia. Similar to Sacks' description of cases of persons with autism, amnesia, Tourette's syndrome and other neurological conditions, could certain qualities of the mind of persons with dementia be preserved, perhaps even enhanced?"
This was a really heartening find - thanks, Cynthia!