You Have to Write to Figure it Out

“So…just what can you do with a PhD in anthropology?”

Sometimes I want to slug the person who asks me that.  But author Daniel Pink (To Sell Is Human) has got my back.  Below is Attorney Pink addressing his alma mater, Northwestern University in June, 2014 on “Why the best roadmap to an interesting life is the one you make up as you go along.”  It’s excellent.  Then, after you’ve watched that and if you want a little more, below him is the link to a similar post I published on my blog, “Sherrema’s Shenanigans” three years ago in February, 2012.  In it, I said (basically) the same thing.

The day I wrote and posted my thoughts on three ‘take-aways’ I had discovered from living abroad in Shanghai for one year and New Zealand (at that time) for nearly two years, I was sitting in Auckland Airport.  That evening I boarded my plane with mixed feelings and departed NZ for the first (and I thought then) last time.  I was returning home to Flint, Michigan.  I had no way of knowing then that exactly two weeks later, I would receive my acceptance to the University of Otago to do my PhD in social anthropology of religion and gender, and do so on full scholarship.  And exactly six months later, I would return to NZ to begin said PhD.

I look back on the circuitous journey of my life abroad and how I got to where I am now and give a nod to Dan Pink.  As I sit down at my desk today on a sunny autumn Saturday to write my thesis, I take his words on board on more than one level: Sometimes you have to write to figure it out.

Peace.

Daniel Pink, “The Best Roadmap to an Interesting Life”, Commencement Address, Northwestern University, June – 2014:
http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/06/25/daniel-pink-northwestern-commencement/

On Risk-Taking and Planning One’s Life In Pencil (Sherrema’s Shenanigans):

Why Making Plans Can Be Detrimental, and Other Life Lessons Learned Abroad…

Data Analysis Done!

Data Analysis Results for ‘A Woman’s Glory’, PhD Research

So on Monday, 16 March, I finished and printed my PhD research analysis.  (And printed, and printed, and printed…)  It was a monster of a document that by the time I was finished, took me three days to print and was nearly three feet (1m) high.  As you can see in the photo, I stacked a dozen books next to the pile to give an idea of how large this mountain monstrosity was.  This represented all the data and stories I collected from about 55 interviews with religious women in two countries (NZ and Missouri, USA) and notes from my transcripts.  I analysed it all using Nvivo software.  The information within these leaves was incredibly deep, awesomely vivid, and overwhelmingly too much.

As the pile grew bigger, I was having ‘OMG!!’ moments all over the place.  I vacillated between euphoria (omg,omg,omg), denial (well, if I did really good research, the thesis will just write itself.  Right?!) and wanting to climb into the nearest hole and never come out.   The stages I went through while printing this monster mountain looked something like:

Disbelief:
I signed on for this??

to…Acceptance:
I signed on for this!

and finally…Resignation:
I signed on for this.

I was in my own personal blizzard.  Thursday morning, I dragged my Co-Supervisor in just to see the pile of papers before they were punched and collated.  Her hand flew to her mouth and her instant response was, “This is why you have to go through and decide which themes will be in your thesis and…

“…which will be used for later projects?”  I finished the sentence for her.  We’d already had our first meeting to start the writing on Tuesday back when the pile was only about a third of what it became.  I told her I hoped I hadn’t wrecked her morning.  She said that the pile of paper looked “just about right” to her.  I didn’t know whether to be greatly relieved or run.  It took me several hours to 2-hole punch and collate it all in no less than six 2in binders.

My primary Supervisor grinned in delight the next day on Friday when she saw the six binders organised in two boxes stacked one on top of the other on a trolley I usually use to carry luggage while traveling.

She congratulated me for going in, doing the hard work of analysis, and getting it done.  I told her I sincerely appreciated her accolades and then we got down to the business of creating the Table of Contents for my thesis.

Since my office is in my Co-Supervisor’s Department located off-campus, I usually have to walk about 1 1/2kms to my Supervisor’s office past Dunedin Hospital and the medical and dental schools, this time wheeling the wee trolley behind.  I noted the looks I received from passersby on the footpath which varied from, “What the heck is that?”, looking with perplexity at the burden I dragged behind me while others glanced down and then up again at me with knowing smiles.  Clearly, they had done ethnography too.  Or maybe I just looked totally like the beleaguered PhD student I am and they could relate.

But I rejoice because not only did this signal the end of a 3month marathon of 12hr days, it was actually the end of 2 1/2 years of field work, travel around two countries collecting religious women’s stories (and feeling so privileged to do it), getting it all transcribed via myself and a team of 4 transcribers, and analysis using Nvivo software.  All the interviews and travels it took to collect my data has finally culminated in a collated pile of binders that hold such richness, all waiting to be written and stories to be told.

I couldn’t be happier.  Really.

These Fireflies Called ‘My Thoughts…’

While fixing my hair one morning before heading out the door, I think, Oh, I need to get my umbrella and put it in my bag in case it rains today.  I walk into the kitchen to pick up said umbrella from the table and pack it away.  But that’s when I realize, as soon as I thought it, the memory of what I was meant to do vanished.  But my body remembered because it walked me into the kitchen.  My mind cannot recall what I was meant to get.  The umbrella remains behind and sure enough, it rains.

I’m analysing a research transcript when I think,  Oh, I need to look up that reference for the article my Supervisor recommended.  So I quickly pull up my browser and…sit there.  (Like Mozilla Firefox, Well, this is embarrassing…)  I have zero recollection of why I’ve pulled up a new page or what I am meant to do with it.  But while I’m here, I might as well email that colleague/play that song on YouTube that’s been dancing through my mind the last few days/message my mother on Facebook/look up that website one of my interviewees mentioned…two hours later I’m still online and the thing I went there to do in the first place has flitted away into oblivion. Until I shut down.  Then it comes back.

I’m sitting at my desk, planner at my elbow when I remember an upcoming appointment I need to put in my itinerary. Oh! Let me write that down so I don’t forget… I immediately turn to my planner, find my pen and locate a blank space to write down…Now what was it?  I know there was something I needed to do…I put down my planner, muttering to myself, hoping whatever “it” was will return.

My favorite moments? Having these thoughts when I’m nowhere near my planner.  Like when I’m walking in to work in the mornings…or in the tearoom, fixing my lunch…or in the loo.  Those are the moments I have the most brilliant ideas but I can’t remember them.

And I think I’m losing my English.  How do I spell…I pull up dictionary.com and type it in, misspelled, of course.  It kindly corrects me.  “Did you mean…”  Ah, right!  How could I forget?  That’s i-n-c-o-n-s-e-q-u-e-n-t-i-a-l.

It’s always taken me an inordinate amount of time to write emails because I read them repeatedly for “voice.”  Lately though, while I’m re-reading, I notice my voice has been leaving words out.  Or adding an ‘s’ to the end of a word that is usually singular.  Or using homonyms incorrectly (i.e., ‘hear’ when I meant to say ‘here’).  Today in an email to a member of our department, I signed off with my usual “line of appreciation”, albeit a bit ungrammatically: I appreciate your help and hard works on my behalf and look forward to talking with again.  Golly.  Thankfully, my re-read caught the problems with my voice.

A new colleague introduces herself and for the next few weeks, we exchange pleasantries whenever we see one another, with me greeting her by name each time.  But suddenly one day I’m struck with a thought: Oh no!  Did I remember her name right?  Have I been calling her by the wrong name all this time, Caroline when it should have been Catherine?!  So I stop calling her by name.  And things get awkward when on break in the tearoom one day, I address a question to her but have to be heard over those speaking around us and she doesn’t look my way immediately.  I have a flash of panic that I’ll have to call her by name but do I have the right one?  She looks my way (oh good!) and the conversation continues.  I begin casually dropping her name in sentences to other people.  Is ‘Caroline’ here today?  And then gauge their response.  No brows draw together in bafflement, no guffaws at my expense that I’ve been saying her name wrong <heh heh> and I finally begin to realise after about a week of this, it was just another firefly moment.  I begin confidently using her name again and we move along splendidly, social faux pas averted.  I hope she didn’t notice…

~

The fireflies of my thoughts blink on.  Then off.  On.  Then off.  And I am left waiting for the on switch again.

My self-diagnosis?  “PhD-related Alzheimer’s”.

My self-remedy? Submit my thesis and get my brain back.

Still, my mother assures me that this is actually ‘normal’ and has nothing to do with my PhD.  It has everything to do, she says, with ‘growing older.’  I turn 40 this year.  Welcome to the rest of my life.

Ooo…look at the pretty fireflies…

Bikram Yoga: The Test of Endurance for Any PhD

“You’ll feel as though you were dying,” several people promised me, laughing as they fondly recounted their first experience of Bikram Yoga.  By the end of mine, I knew what they were talking about.

It started innocently enough. I was planning a few weeks of conference travel in Auckland from Dunedin, and as any academic knows, conference conversations keep one in their head waay too much.  I thought that maybe Bikram Yoga would be the perfect way to get me out of mine and back into my body.  Bikram is a form of yoga that goes for 90minutes in extreme humidity, temperatures of more than 40°C (104°F).  I once had a friend of mine from Ireland describe Bikram to me as being “like a Native American sweat lodge.” Since I am part Native American and her description resonated with me (enough to drown out those warnings from my laughing colleagues), I was keen to try it.

It was early on a bright November Saturday morning, the last of spring, 2014, in fact, when in Auckland I walked into Bikram Yoga. The instructor standing behind the desk checked us all in before class.  When I got to the counter, he asked if I’d ever done this before.  I foolishly told him “yes.” I’d just attended a 60minute yoga session at his studio, albeit with a different instructor, two days before.

I was about to find out the hard way though that that 60minute yoga session, although done in the heat, was not Bikram. Blissfully unaware, I grabbed my towel and mat and headed into the studio. As the class began and the yoga teacher gave instructions in mellifluous tones that flowed us like a lazily winding river, carrying us along in peaceful postures, I focused on form and fitting in, as one does.  I stole glances at those around me.  Doing what they did took effort since some of them had clearly been doing this a long time. I refused to feel intimidated, however, especially during the one-leg stands when I managed to hold my balance while a few other, far more seasoned yogis around me didn’t.  They showed their experience though when they managed to make their few unbalanced postures look graceful.  Still, I allowed myself a little arrogance.  Carried gently along by the instructor’s directions, I not quite-so-effortlessly strained to keep up.  So far, so good.

The arrogance segued when at the end of 60 minutes, I began priding myself on my endurance.  My thoughts went something like this:

I may not be the most agile or very quick, but by golly, I’m still doing these postures!

I chuckled to myself; no sweat.  Well, not literally.  I’ve never sweat – excuse me – glowed so much in my life.

But suddenly, I hit some internal threshold.

Oh god, I think I’m going to vomit.

Which eventually led to,

Does this instructor never shut up?!

And the final step in that parade was,

I’m not going to vomit but I am going to lie here and whimper.

Great big crocodile tears squeezed out the sides of my eyes while I blinked in rapid profusion, the yogis around me all serenely dripping and following the instructor in fluid movements that made my great lumbering attempts look like the bull who came to tea in the china shop. I’d been told by those laughing, reminiscing colleagues of mine that sometimes you can spot the newbies.  They’re the ones lying on their mats, gasping for air like dying guppies.  I was determined not to be one of those.  I managed to make it to the end without giving in to the screaming of my muscles, begging for me to stop.  When the instructor’s gentle, soothing tones – so grating on my nerves – flowed away, he bade us “good day” and released us to our lives.  I collapsed on my mat, trying to whimper in sotto voce.   Out of a class of about 50, I was literally the last to pick up my mat and (eventually) leave the room.  But at least I got up.

Bikram Yoga, I learned, is not for the faint of spirit.  Neither is the PhD.  I think I’ve found the other’s perfect complement.  In fact, it seems that Bikram is a great metaphor for the PhD process.  Sometimes it feels as though the writing is flowing well and I’m rushing along the river of ideas streaming from my head through my fingers onto the page.  But then I hit some internal threshold and it all comes to a sudden, blinding and dramatic halt, leaving me…well, whimpering and begging…words, please, just come!  Bikram is a good way to condition my mind and body to handle what the PhD throws at me.  Or is that vice versa?

Whichever way it goes, I am going to be incredibly conditioned by the end of this thing.  Why, I’ll just pick up my mat and serenely leave the room.  No sweat.

Worlds – and words – of difference between Kiwi and American English, No. 1

So below is a list of words I have compiled and of course, a discussion about them.  (Hey! I’m a PhD student.  It’s what we do.)  These words are used for the same thing in both Kiwi and American English.  The Kiwi word or phrase comes first followed by the American word or phrase.  See what you think too. 🙂

___

In transportation:

amber vs. yellow (stoplights): for one thing, “amber” is much more poetic than the mere “yellow”…

footpaths vs. sidewalks: on this one, I’m a bit divided because the word “footpath” makes me think of a dirt forest path meandering through the trees.  There’s birdsong and dappled sunlight overhead and I feel the cool breezes blowing across my…[screech!] Alright, alright.  I’ll admit it: for some unbelievably strange reason, this word takes me to my happy place.  On the other hand, “sidewalk” fits because it is both on the side of houses and buildings (or if not on the side, it is at least outside them) and it is where we walk.  Both are accurate.  One, however, is more whimsical while the other suggests straight and concrete edges.  (To me, at least.)

Windscreen vs. windshield: Except when I’m in conversation and quickly trying to translate “windshield” to “windscreen” without causing a break in the sentence (which I’m almost never able to do because I find that “windscreen” does not quite roll off my tongue like “windshield” does), there seems to be virtually no difference between these two other than the sound of the hard “c” in “windscreen” rather than the soft “sh” sound of “windshield.”  Otherwise, they both conjure up the same image and effectively use the synonyms “screen” and “shield”.

Of course, anytime I use the word “screen” I automatically think of the grey metal screen on our back door in the house I grew up in.  I used to stand at that door looking out while glued to the phone that hung on our kitchen wall.  Ah, the happy, bygone days of phoning friends on land lines!  Perhaps then “windscreen” should bring up more nostalgia for me than it actually does…

boot vs. trunk: Okay, on this one, I think the American has it.  In English, a trunk is something that holds something else, whether it’s on a car, an elephant, or a big box packed with stuff bound for the attic or a trip, you pretty much know what a trunk is and does.  Unless the word is being used as a euphemism for a woman’s posterior; aka, The Black Eyed Peas with “My Humps”.  On that, I got nothin’.

A boot on the other hand, is not readily accessible in English since it can be something you wear on your feet, something you give someone (i.e., “she gave him the boot and he was outta there”), or something on the back of a car.  “Boot” bears explanation, whereas a “trunk” holds its meaning therein (hah! no pun intended).  A “boot” has such wildly divergent definitions, it seems to become slang for all of its meanings, except the thing you wear.  But that’s just me.

In sports:

“Who’s ahead?” or “Who’s doing well?” vs. “Who’s winning?”:  This distinction is usually made in cricket.  While I know next to nothing about the game, I learned this when I said, “Who’s winning?” to my friend’s father who was watching it on TV.  He patiently explained that that question – which I took from baseball – does not apply in cricket because things can change in the game so quickly.  The team you think is “winning” may very well not be at all.

Hmm.  Sounds like me on this PhD; one step ahead, five steps back…

So there you have it, just a few words that make these two forms of English worlds apart when trying to communicate.  It’s different Down Undah!

This post is No. 1 in a series.

If the reader is interested in more about communication break-downs and hick-ups in daily experiences living abroad, check out my other blog on WordPress, “Sherrema’s Shenanigans”, on which I write the Anti-American Sentiment Chronicles.

 

2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 410 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 7 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Money & the PhD: The Real Skinny

This blog series would not be complete if I did not talk about the challenge that money presented during my field work and which I have consistently had to work around. First let me lay out what was strongly in my favour. With my acceptance to the University of Otago I was awarded a Doctoral Scholarship of $25K/NZD ($20K/USD) which paid me a non-taxable living stipend every year for three years while I conducted research and wrote up my thesis. This money in New Zealand Dollars (NZD) met my living expenses, even covering my ongoing personal financial debt in United States’ Dollars (USD) which I paid every month via electronic transfers between my bank accounts in both countries.

I was (and continue to be) profoundly grateful for receiving this funding.

It came with no requirements to teach or conduct research for others and the payments were deposited monthly so long as I remained active in the research. I was also awarded two separate Departmental Research Fund (DRF) grants from my Department of $3K/NZD each. One of these allowed me to conduct research around New Zealand, the other I took as far as it would go in my research in the USA. Finally, I had access to a budget of $1K/NZD each academic year from my co-supervisor’s department in which she is the Head of Department (HOD).   This budget from both academic years of 2012-2013 paid most of the fees for my round-trip flight to the USA from NZ. And because the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics at Washington University in St. Louis had graciously agreed to host me for the US Phase of my research, I had no other academic expenses outside of fieldwork.

And yet it was of course the ethnographic fieldwork which presented the most challenges in terms of time and finances. Because I relied solely on my monthly income in NZD currency which is slightly weaker than the USD, throughout the US phase of my research, all expenses and personal bills were paid in USD and the money usually did not go far enough. It took a great deal of ingenuity on my part to make my needs met but as they say, necessity is the mother of creativity and so creative I was.  After I left NZ to begin the USA phase of my research, I had a hiatus at my parents’ house in Flint, Michigan.  My mother, the most gracious, generous person I know, is a couponer and my parents have more boxed and canned goods in their pantry than they could possibly go through by themselves in a year.  So they stocked me up.  When I moved to St. Louis, we brought with us in my dad’s cargo van 10 shipping boxes of dry and tinned goods from my mother’s pantry.  What I took from her pantry hardly made a dent in the supply.  (She is a very good couponer.)  All of this allowed me to spend far less on food at the supermarket and I only needed to purchase supplemental items (i.e., fruit and vegetables, etc.).  My parents’ generosity therefore ensured that I never went hungry.

Rent for my studio apartment near Washington University was roughly the same as the room I rented in the International Postgraduate House where I lived in Dunedin.  Just before I moved to St. Louis, my grandmother passed away and I inherited some furniture from her.  My little studio flat of three rooms was completely furnished with many of my grandmother’s household goods including kitchenware in the form of pots, pans, glassware and other useful items; lamps, a twin-sized bed, dresser, and the Victorian-style dining room set of table and four chairs that I inherited.  When I moved in, all I needed to purchase was a full-length mirror and a spatula (or pancake turner, as it is also called); all of my material needs were thus supplied.  I often sent a prayer of thanks into the ether to both God and Grandma.

On the downside, in St. Louis I had to pay utilities on my studio flat as well as transportation costs, both of which I did not have to pay in Dunedin because at the house I lived in, we did not have utility costs and I was just a few blocks from campus.  I tried to make my grant stretch to cover my transportation expenses which were by far the greatest expenditure of the work. Because I was a visiting scholar at Washington University and not a student, I was therefore ineligible for the transportation vouchers students were allotted which meant I had to pay all transportation costs. Since my fieldwork took me around St. Louis for interviews and church services and day passes to ride the subway and buses cost $7.50USD ($9.20NZD), these added up quickly conducting what I “fondly” came to call “projectile research” around St. Louis amongst the pop. of 320,000 residents (more on this below).  To save money, if the destination was within two miles and I knew how to get there I usually walked. I often traveled by Greyhound or MegaBus when I left St. Louis to travel around Missouri or to other states for field work, conferences, or home for the Thanksgiving holidays. (Accordingly, while in New Zealand, I joined a discount club with NakedBus for just $20NZD that made my first trip free and a 10% discount on all bookings thereafter. This resulted in great savings on my New Zealand travel.)  Taking a bus was usually far cheaper than renting a car or flying.  I also gave a $10NZD ($8USD) koha or offering to my interviewees for their time in the form of drinks if we met at coffee shops or bringing them some special chocolate, a journal, or something else I thought they might like with me to our interviews.

After being involved in the US phase of the field work for some months, it became apparent to me and my supervisors that I would have to hire transcribers for the interviews I had conducted thus far if I wished to keep on schedule for my thesis completion date. These costs too were out-of-pocket but it could not be helped; I had too strong of a workload and could not get it all done on my own. It was a question of spending time I did not have to do the transcriptions myself or money to pay others to. We reasoned that I could either spend a few thousand dollars now to get the transcriptions done or tens of thousands of dollars later in tuition costs if I exceeded the three year timeline on my scholarship. The choice was an easy one but the timing was not. The transcriptions averaged about $130NZD each and there were several tens of them.

When doubts and fears about money threatened to overwhelm me, I would pray through them and try to remember the small miracles that had brought me thus far in meeting all my needs. I had my own apartment in St. Louis and a bed to sleep in. I never went hungry or unclothed because I had also inherited numerous clothes from my fashion-conscious grandmother’s well-stocked closets. During my years of living abroad, I often had to offload clothing and other items to meet luggage weight restrictions so my own wardrobe had been in a state of flux for quite some time. My grandmother and I were close in size and most of the clothes I inherited had been purchased in the last decade.  Many times I breathed a prayer of thanks for these small miracles and the funding that made it all possible and for the blessings that I get to do this work.

My leave taking in February, 2014 from St. Louis, a city that I loved,was bittersweet. I had met incredible people, some of whom I hoped would remain friends. By the end, however, my time in the USA had the effect of making me long for my life in Dunedin. I came to realize that in New Zealand where my funding went farther in NZD, I actually enjoyed a relatively stable financial life. It was valuable to come to this realization since due to the personal debt load I had accumulated by three years spent living abroad before starting the PhD, I now had a new way of looking at my finances. Living in the USA and paying research and personal expenses as well as ongoing monthly bills converted to USD from my NZD bank account showed me that I was actually in a place of financial relativity rather than stability: my funding did not go far enough. Other anthropological scholars have written about how expensive this vocation is and it is the truth (Behar 1988). But lessons learned, especially those that come at great cost, are ones (hopefully) not repeated. What I have gained in life experience traveling and conducting research in the currencies of the two countries in which I live has been priceless. Following my spiritual call and collecting women’s stories has been a special time of growth in my own life and has provided me great clarity and tools for handling personal and research finances better in the future.

The Dual Isolation of Obtaining a PhD and Doing So Abroad

Climbing Mt. Fyffe, Kaikoura, Feb, 2011

Social anthropologists come and go from other cultures and countries – it’s what we do. Some enter their chosen demographic for years at a time and in these days of internet connections, email, and Skype we can at least be marginally connected with our offices, homes, and loved ones. Still, the work is isolating. Although I knew even before graduating with my baccalaureate degrees that I would one day seek a PhD, I had never considered before how difficult the journey to obtaining a PhD really was, nor did I know all the extra iso I was signing on for by doing it abroad in a country where I am not related to a single person. (I mean, seriously. Even Margaret Mead and Clifford Geertz brought their spouses along!)

When I first considered obtaining my PhD in New Zealand, I interviewed several leading faculty members at Universities around the country. One pragmatic academic asked me at the end of our Skype conversation if I had really thought through my decision to go for the PhD. He told me in only half-joking tones that I was signing on for sleepless nights, low wages, loneliness, moments of low confidence, my family and friends almost never seeing me, and isolation. I appreciated his candor, especially since no one before him or since had expressed the challenges of the PhD journey to me in such a no-holds-barred way. Turns out, he knew what he was talking about, especially the isolation.  During this PhD life I have found that isolation distinctly comes in dual ways: 1.) obtaining a PhD is an extremely isolating process anyway, and 2.) doing it abroad far away from loved ones. I have found the sense of iso that comes from each can be both fluid and mutually exclusive.

It is loved ones not really understanding what it is I do, becoming an “expert” in my own research topic, or having very little money for “extras” like social coffees or seeing a play. It’s feeling alone in a crowd, shaking new hands every day, and going weeks and months, sometimes more than a year without being in the physical presence of someone who really knows me. It’s making “strong acquaintances” because I am not able to invest in the geographical and emotional space to find and make a true friend. It’s being in a time zone 16-19 hours ahead of loved ones so that we are not often awake at the same time but when just one hour separates us in our own country it feels like a revelation. It is constantly thinking in numbers and conversions not only in time zones but also in seasons (summer in one country when it is winter in the other), currencies, miles to kilometers, pounds to kilograms, Fahrenheit to Celsius.

It is translating American English into British English and back again, constantly navigating the red lines and autocorrect when I am writing in opposition to the language set on my laptop (and I have two of those, one bought in each country). It is my accent setting me apart in New Zealand where I live but am still a foreigner in (and it is the “wrong” accent since being American these days is not very mod). It is navigating the variety of accents and dialects of other native-English speakers in my adopted country but understanding perfectly the English of non-native speakers. It is the instant guard I feel when entering a social situation, waiting for the question, “where are you from?” when my accent “Others” me yet again and feeling my guard come down when the question does not come or when everyone’s accents are just like mine. (And when I lived and taught in Shanghai, it was making myself understood to taxi drivers where I wished to go or order lunch in the University canteens, usually by pointing at plates full and steaming as they passed by me in the hands of those who had already ordered and had language with which to do so.) It is having loved ones who do not live near me when I am in my own country and who have never been to my adopted one except through my stories. It is being in one country and longing for the other so that even when I am “home” I am never truly there.

This isolation can become stifling if not paralyzing so I have had to find ways to counteract it. This may involve making a friend or two out of my interviewees since they are the ones I am the most often with; finding the equivalent of USA National Public Radio (NPR) existing in the form of Radio New Zealand (RNZ); or learning that in both countries, riding public transportation looks exactly the same, just different street names. It is discovering movies and shows on Fatso in place of Netflix, the BBC instead of PBS, or that Bones and Downton Abbey are on the air and well-loved in both countries. It is discovering new authors like Patricia Grace from whom I’ve learned much about my adopted country and its people in their books and introducing my favorite authors like Toni Morrison or Fannie Flagg to new friends.

It is discovering in all three of my cities (Flint, Dunedin, & St. Louis) a nationally recognized farmer’s market and frequenting them. It is inviting others over for a meal because cooking (especially in NZ) is cheaper than dining out. It is the irony of carrying greetings from a Dunedin acquaintance to her son who is a faculty member at a private university just one mile from the house I grew up at in Flint, Michigan. It is calling my mother at 6:00am when my own is ending at 10:00pm because she is the only person I know in the world who is not only already up at 6am, she is cheerfully so. It is navigating time zones between us when both countries “spring forward” and “fall back,” doing so oppositely and at the same time.

Isolation can be dividing and in the case of one doing their PhD while living between two countries, a constant companion. But I have found that every form of isolation has an opposite to counterbalance it. A little creativity is all that is needed. I have always appreciated the candor of the faculty member I spoke to that day and have found what he said to not only be true but wise. His words were spoken in passing but they carried preparedness with them.

Language Loaning

This post first appeared January, 2012 on my blog, “Sherrema’s Shenanigans”

I am constantly encountering “deer-in-the-headlight” moments as an American living in New Zealand when it comes to language.  The other day my friend J who is a Kiwi asked if I’d fed her cat his “biccies” (with a “k” pronunciation).

I just stared at her, wide-eyed.

I then said (slowly over-pronouncing, mind you), “I fed George his cat food from the IAMS tub in the utility room.  Is that what you mean?”

She nodded and said, “Yes, his biccies.”

Just so we were clear, I walked <strong>over</strong> to said IAMS tub, opened it, and showed her the food inside (as if she didn’t know what she was feeding her own cat) and said, “The food in here is what I fed him.  Is this what you mean?”

Finally getting that I had <em>no clue</em> what the he** she meant by “biccies”, J finally clarified, “Yes, his cat food.”

Later, however, I quite inadvertently turned the tables on J when we were talking about the rhubarb she had just boiled up to serve for our brunch.  I told her quite happily how glad I was that she had shown me a new way to fix rhubarb.  She looked at me with a confused glance and said, “What?”

This time I looked at her and said, “I never knew how to fix rhubarb before unless it was in a pie.”

J just stared at me blankly.

“Fix…make…cook…bake?”

“Oh yes!”  Her eyes lit up.  I didn’t know what you meant by ‘fix.’”  That’s when I realized my use of the word “fix” as it pertained to food was apparently an Americanism.

This was confirmed a few hours later when I shared the “biccies / fix” exchange with another friend of mine who is also a Kiwi and she nodded and said that I’d used the “fix” expression with her before and it had momentarily confused her but she’d figured out what I meant.

Huh…who knew? 🙂

All the time, I hear words and expressions that are unfamiliar to me here in NZ but I usually try to keep my complete confusion to myself and just try to figure out what it could mean.  Usually, it’s explanatory like,

Sweet As! (“Cool!”  “Right on!”  Except for those who pronounce “as” with a drawn out “s” sound so it sounds like that other word)
chin wag (long conversation)
bum (*ahem* not a homeless person :));
wee (little or small)
wop-wops (“out in the boonies”…yeah, zero frame of reference on that one.  I had to read what the word meant in my Lonely Planet guide…)
lollies (candy)
cuppa (a cup of coffee or tea with a friend)
dearer (as in expensive – not how close you are to someone)
…and on and on.

But it was while teaching English language learners (ELLs) at an English language school in Dunedin that I learned one particular NZ word from one of my Korean students.  He asked me for “twink.”  I asked him to repeat himself and I still had no clue what he wanted.  I thought he was using a Korean word that he didn’t know the English for and I totally couldn’t help him.  Finally he got up, left the classroom, and came back a few minutes later with  – wait for it –  White Out.

Twink?  Well…the word didn’t sound Korean…and I have to admit, the phrase “twinking it out” suddenly made sense.  (Unless I just invented that phrase?  Not sure.)

It certainly is different down here. 🙂  Loving the language loaning!

 

The Kindness of St. Louisians

My PhD research is cross-comparative and during my fieldwork, I conducted more than 50 interviews with Pentecostal women in two countries.  I conducted the New Zealand Phase of my cross-comparative research from September, 2012 to July, 2013 when I then returned to the USA.  From my return until my departure in mid-February, 2014, I was based at Washington University in St. Louis while conducting the Missouri (USA) Phase of my research.  I then returned to Dunedin, New Zealand and the University of Otago to write it all up. 

On Tuesday, 17 September 2013, while returning to my office at Washington University in St. Louis from a meeting on the other side of the city, I lost my phone on the Metrolink (otherwise known as the subway).  I had only disembarked about 10 minutes beforehand and was walking through Forest Park on the way to my office, enjoying the lovely walking paths, water fountains, and golf courses of the country’s 2^nd largest inter-city park.  While walking, I reached for my phone to check the time.  Putting my hand in the pocket of my bag where I usually keep it, I was mildly surprised to find my phone wasn’t there.  I reached into the bag itself, my hand floundering around the various books inside.  No phone.  I looked in the other bag that held the purchases I had just made at a bookstore.  Nada.  Now I sat down next to a huge, gorgeous waterfall in front of the Art Museum and did a thorough and painstaking search through both of the bags I was carrying.  While I still managed to notice the ducks waddling up to the human infant in a stroller or swimming on the water and the fountain leaping heavenward, I noticed most of all that my phone was gone.

I didn’t panic exactly but I tried not to think about all the phone numbers I was going to have to replace.  As smart phones go, I have a dumb phone.  It has no bells or whistles and I pay as I go to talk and text.  But I’m a researcher and conducting research between two countries is not as simple as it may seem.  The numbers in that phone were more valuable to me than the phone itself.   Well, almost.  I had just paid the bill a few days previous, a cool fifty dollars to enjoy another month of staying connected.  Being on such a strict student budget, I tried not to think too much about that.

Oddly enough though, I felt peace.   I had an assurance I couldn’t explain that I would see my phone again and that before the day was out, I would know where it was.  I hurried on my way and when I got to the office, used my colleague’s office phone to call my cell.  It rang, which was promising, meaning no one had turned it off and kept it.  Still, I went to voicemail.  I hung up.  Almost instantly, the office phone rang.  Still, I gathered my things to go.  When numbers are called from the University, they usually register on caller ID as as ‘Private Number.’  I had no reason to believe this phone call was for me.  But my colleague who answered it, gestured for me to wait.  Handing me the receiver, I heard a voice on the other end who said her name was Peggy and that she’d picked up my phone in the Metro Link.  Quickly, I thanked her and we set up a time to meet the next day.

I was so grateful!  But it didn’t stop there.  Filled with relief, I gathered my things, bade my colleague adieu, and went to my office.  There I checked my email to find a note from my mother with a message in the subject line saying that my phone had been found.  How did my mother know my phone was missing?  Wow, moms really do know everything!  Then I realized the person who had found my phone had obviously called my mother and the email confirmed that not only had she called my mom but my Dad too.  Her kind efforts to reach me left me feeling quite touched and I wanted to give her some kind of a reward.  I decided to engage in a little irony: I bought Peggy a gift card to Subway since she had after all, found my phone on the subway.

My Good Samaritan and I reunited two days after my phone was found and she returned it to me.  The phone was now backless since it had gone flying from my lap in three different pieces.  This was easily remedied with a piece of packaging tape to hold the battery.  It looked pretty Podunk but the phone still worked – yay!  The kindness of strangers makes paying it forward a task worth looking forward to!