Not too far away now...

Prior to the Roadshow I thought that I was more or less on track. Well, that was a bit of a wake up call, realizing all the gaps! These were evident in the way I often structure my thoughts. Besides that, I also needed to narrow down my topic as I tend to think of all the possiblities - do we call it topic overload? The Roadshow was for sure a good excercise to help me focus more. The road ahead I still do not think of as an easy one ... perhaps something similar to whitewater rafting?

Adacdemy is just around the corner

Hi. I have just been thinking that it is nearly two weeks before we head off to Stellenbosch. I have been doing interviews and trying to get my paperwork in order. The readings are something else and will be half my luggage!!
After the roadshow, there was some momentum to the project, but things slowed down a liitle ; very busy at work and found I was just too tired sometimes to do anything constructive on the project. Now its vac, and I am hoping that I energise myself easily after work.
The interviews have been great as the partipants have all been great, willing and very open. I hope that my project will be worth their while!
I am looking forward to the academy because I can really focus on research and what the academy stands for. At the moment I feel its all bitsy, because I have my job, my family and other things demanding my attention.
Still very positive and excited about my project though !!

New Participation from UJ Library

Hi everyone,

Myself (Pavlinka Kovatcheva) and Santha Raju from UJ, have been added recently to the list of participants. I'm quite excited after I saw the preliminary programme. I'm currently a subject librarian for 11 Sciences Departments @ UJ. I help students from their 1st year through their Postgraduate levels. I also support the academics and researchers for these Departments. It is a challenging job to balance and anticipate the needs of such a diverse scientific community. In the last few years I learned a new skills, such as to make use of Web 2.0 technologies. I adapted my traditional librarian skills to a new virtual skills and that "spiced" my services to users. Two years down the road, I have a single portal for my users to access subject related information. I make use of a wiki for a Sciences portal, blogs for current awareness and feedback, a twitter, a social bookmarking for "cataloguing or tagging" information, IM to chat with users, etc. My librarian life become exciting, but very busy.

For 2nd year now, I'm register for my Masters degree, but because of my "virtual developments" I have barely had time to make any progress. In practice writing a literature review or a chapter, become my nightmare (it is so much easier to explain the process to other researchers, than to do it yourself). I hope the research academy will help me build a strong research knowledge and skills, so I will be able to finish what I have started.

See you in 2 weeks time.

Introducing myself

Hi All

I am Santha working at the Library at UJ. Im thrilled to be part of the programme. looking forward to both the programme and meeting all of you.

regards
santha

Einstein and research!

Hi - just thought I'd share this quote that I came across : "If we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be research" - Albert Einstein (1879-1955). This makes me feel better about my moments of doubt and panic!
Cheers, Linda

Stellenbosch weather

Hi Julene

I can never remember from one year to the next what the weather is like at a specific time of the year! I think (hope?) we wil have lovely autumn weather, not too hot and not too cold. Do remember, though, that in the Cape one must always be prepared for rain and for cold. And now I have probably just confused you!

See you soon

Naomi

Hallo Everbody,
I'm Julene Vermeulen from UP and the Information Specialist for Political Science and Modern European Languages. I'm already working so long here that my personnel card has a barcode, HA HA. 1st I work at periodicals as receiver, then move to book ordering. Back to Periodicals at cataloguer. From 1999 I was cataloguer and Information Specialist and from 2003 just Information Specialist for Sociology + Modern European Languages, 2003 + Philosophy. 2008 Political Science, Anthropolgy, Archeaology and History. From Sept. 2009 Pol Wet + Modern Euro Lang.

I'm so glad I'm not the only person who had problems with the research question. It was terrible. Everything was a little fague. Then from last week, at last, I had a research question.

The Research Academy also initiated my enrolment for my Masters, and I thought while I was busy reading a lot, I could read once and use twice. So I'm also busy writing my proposal for the M. I'm reading now once, writing twice or 1 and a half. The reason for blogging now for the first time.

Can the Stellenbosch people tell us how is the weather in April please?

Looking forward to meet you all in April.

Regards
Julene

5 weeks and counting...

Hi all

After being fired up by the Roadshow last week, I've now had a couple of very lean days, but I suppose this is all part of the process. I'm so looking forward to the two weeks in Stellenbosch where we will be able to focus on our projects without the distractions of work and home! It would be great to hear how our colleagues from Pretoria and Stellenbosch are getting on.

Roadshow

Hi
I am so thrilled that we met with Karin and Colin. There have been many times while trying to define my context and research question, that I was totally off the mark, and am definitely not research material at all. I found myself reading articles which I thought were relevant, but then found that I was off the topic ; because the topic kept changing. Not only is this frustrating, and you think you are wasting your time focusing on the wrong selection of readings, I found myself losing so much confidence. After meeting with our CHERTL director, and also since having met with Karin and Colin, I don't feel as though I am so stupid, and for the first time, I have found sound direction, and am now very keen to start the research. Colin and Karin really want us to succeed and they have wonderful advice which is very encouraging. Five weeks to the academy so we are now going to get very busy.