MAY PROCRASTINATION STATION

[wildstrawberryplace]

You that stress where you get so stressed that you become almost paralysed, like a rabbit in the headlights?

That's me.

I'm procrastinating big time.

In fact, even though I have the house to myself and a deadline looming and nothing done, I'm going to watch John Simm on BBC iplayer right now

I cannot write! I simply cannot construct a sentence that I 'm happy with.

This TMA should be quite easy, but I can't even introduce the texts I've chosen let alone define romanticism.

I've eaten all the chocolate already

How are you getting along strawberry?

I'm in my second year of a BA in Education. And all the assignments are crammed up in the last 4 weeks, and I am finding it really hard to get my arse into gear.

And my landlord is coming to inspect my house on Wednesday and it is a TIP. My children seem to be allergic to putting things away, and the housework fairy must have been buried under a pile of stuff, as she doesn't seem to be keeping on top of things...

On the plus side, I got an A in the essay I had back on Thursday. :)

That's excellent Oakmaiden! What a good start to the month. If you do happen to see the housework fairy, can you send her round to mine when she's finished at yours

schroeder I'm doing terribly, I haven't started writing at all and keep changing my mind about which texts I'm doing. I'm thinking Byron and Delacroix maybe? Was going to do Byron and Wordsworth but it just wasn't working for me...but on the other hand, I'm better at literature, so maybe I should I play to my strengths? Argh. I need to decide.

Which texts have you chosen?

I've chosen a Turner painting, as I'm a poetry avoider, but I still felt I needed to mix the genres up a bit and one of Frederich Schlegel's fragments. The Turner is tutor approved, but I'm out on a limb with Schlegel.

Shit I still can't get myself started. Why did I start a bloody diet this week, no dairy as well, all I want is a caffe latte and I bet I could write a bloody masterpiece. As it is, my brain simply will not function. Stupid black coffee. Stupid brain.

argh I have just watched 40mins of the seven ages of rock

0 words

seriously

0 words!

Yes, the diet seems a mad undertaking before the last TMA and the dreaded exam, but I have a wedding to go to in July which I need to look un-frightful for, and as DH said, if not now, when? He also said "It will be nice to have little wildstrawberryplace back" but that's a whole other matter

Actually he's been very supportive and helpful other than that one comment, which I suppose strictly speaking, is nothing more than the cold stark truth...

And he also offered to help me start the TMA by taking dictation tonight! I won't take him up on it, but it was nice of him to offer.

Can I join. I have to submit a proposal for a research project and rationale based on current research. And I have spent today looking at mumsnet and arguing on some nutty M mcCann thread.

So I am looking at 'Womens attitudes to infant feeding and ideological dilemmas in constructing the 'good 'mother'' my literature search reveals this is a fairly well trodden path. But hey ho.

I am also nursing a serious West Wing addiction and a crush on Josh Lyman. Which is similar to my Malcolm Tucker 'thing' from last year.

MMM Josh

norm, are you familiar with mirci? (used to be 'arm' - association for research on mothering, but got disbanded last year after York withdrew funding)

www.motherhoodinitiative.org

everything you could ever want on mothering and more all in one place

apols if you are already a member - i just like to give them a plug as they are awesome! the journals and conferences are well worth it - andrea o'reilly pops up in the uk periodically.

are you actually doing the project, or is it just a 'write a proposal' assignment?

I will look at that, thanks
I am doing a small undergraduate project, analysing group discourse about motherhood and infant feeding. All about the construction of the 'good mother' and how women negotiate the inevitable ideological dilemmas of not being able to breastfeed etc ... I am still mumsnettingworking out the rationale. There's a plethora of survey based research into attitudes to breastfeeding but not much in depth qualitative research - survey research seems to throw up a fairly positive attitude to breastfeeding but this does not translate into action when they look out outcomes. I am trying to draw out why this might be. I am going to use breastfeeding promotional literature as stimulus to see if it throws up any interesting themes.

So I'm considering watching another West Wingplanning a small group discussion

OOOOH just looked at it. Ta very much.

yik. i avoid quant like the very plague, tbh. running your own focus groups using bf promo lit would be really interesting... are you trying to look specifically at mothers who have not bf, or those who have been 'successful' as well? where are you getting your respondents from? might be really cool to ask a local bf nzi nct group to take part, as well as a more diverse group...

how's your transcription? selective, i'd say...

Oh recruitment of participants is my headache at the moment. I actually only need 3-4 women as this is an undergrad study with time limits for transcription and analysis. My tutor is fairly relaxed about the make up of participants, she says the richness of the data is important rather than the sample, but I am trying to get a mixture of people. Everyone bloody breastfeeds round ere though

It's a bit of a leap into the unknown for me as I've never done this before but I am looking forward to analysing my own data.

grounded theory?

i'd call a couple of mother and baby groups locally and visit - hand out a flyer with details on and suck up hugely to anyone with a bottle...

it would be interesting to get a working mum or two, to see if they were more or less affected by the prevailing ideology...

you could interview me lol, but i'm blardy miles away and haven't had a baby in 7 years. my particular interest would be with mothers of babies with additional needs who often can't bf, even if they want to, and so wrestle with extended expressing (for a baby who might in theory need bf more than an nt baby) or go for ff with a double whammy of guilt... with the added complication that having failed to bring a healthy baby into the world you have pretty much automatically failed ideal motherhood 101 anyway.

...and that would nicely finish off your 'areas for future research' section.

see? i'd be really interesting. but i'm still a bfer at heart, so wouldn't really fulfil your dyed in the wool ffer criteria.

and nor would it get my work done, more's the pity. wanna swap? i've got a couple of nice statistical modelling assignments to do... mwah ha ha.

why not do online interviews instead of focus group then? i bet you'd find willing volunteers on the next bf/ff thread... are you set on face to face? could be telephone interviews too?

it would be really interesting to do covert observation at an nct coffee morning with an ff plant. right, must stop blethering nonsense and go to bed.

Madwoman I'm impressed-this is procrastination par excellence

Now get on with it!

Wildstrawberry-hope you're getting on nicely.

Proles, proles, proles [stern]

Mine is due on the 17th. Haven't started yet and MIL is here til tomorrow, so no chances of doing anything til tomorrow night.

Crap. And revision, too. Shit.

Proles-is yours due tomorrow?

Yes, good luck to everybody. I know I'll need it

Yes come on proles it'll feel so good to get the job done

I haven't written anything to day and everything I wrote yesterday was crap.

I'm off to try and take my own advice..... +

fuckety fuck

Spent entire morning researching parietal art at Chauvet, Lascaux etc.

Problem is, that's nothing to do with my course, and was merely an exercise in procrastination...

SOB

0 words still

Friday loometh