It’s a marathon not a sprint is a term often used when describing a challenge or task that covers a significant period of time. So for me I need to understand that embarking upon study is a long term activity which hopefully ends up with me achieving my goal of a PhD a few years from now. I can’t allow myself to get burnt out by going to hard to early.

My week is a packed with 4 days work a days annual leave to attend University and then the weekend with study packed in around some social activity. I’m glad I’m an early riser otherwise my bike riding would be going by the wayside.

This week has seen the submission of my first assignment only 4 more and an exam before 30 June. About 10,000 words by my calculation and heaven knows how many more journal articles and pages of text. It’s quite overwhelming.

Everything is new. Terms such as Grounded Theory, Levels of Abstraction, Constructs, Concept Mapping, and so on. I’d never heard of Strauss and Corbin three weeks ago and now they are my best friends or would be if I saw the as often as I read their contributions to literature on Social Research!

I also understand how important it is to identify the research question and to ensure that it is sufficiently tight to enable it to be answered, although it’s quite possible that the question that forms the central theme of my research proposal may not be the question I answer in my Honours Thesis, which is due late next year.

The decision to take Honours over two years was to fit my work schedule meaning two subjects this semester and two in the next semester. At one level this makes the study task easier, however there is assumed knowledge in the two subjects I am taking that I am taking from the subjects deferred to next semester! That’s just another challenge.

One of my colleagues asked me during the week whether I had bitten off more than I could chew. As I write this post sitting on the plane making my second trip to Sydney for the week it’s a pretty fair question!