I didn’t completely steal The Participatory Dispatch from The French Dispatch, in fact I thought of the name before I remembered the movie, but I liked the sound of it, so I figured that I might as well address it head on. This is another attempt at blogging, in which I am convinced that it will go differently than it did with Tumblr. Or Wordpress. Or Blogger. Or, and this is going back a decade and a half, Xanga. At any rate, given that we’re practicing physical distancing, I’m building in some time to write each day, so this might actually work. With a few exceptions, I’m limiting myself to a half an hour on each entry, so hopefully this will stop the daily act of writing from becoming insurmountable in my mind.
What is The Participatory Dispatch?
This is an attempt to hone my non-academic writing, and may include:
Updates from my research (really, the participatory part)
Philosophical musings and reflective meditations
Attempts at humour writing along a similar vein of McSweeney’s, but I am too afraid to submit to McSweeney’s
Anything else to get us all through the indefinite isolation at the hands of Covid-19
In which our heroine dives into data, takes a walk in the forest
I’ve made myself an ambitious schedule for the social distancing period, though I will not be sharing it because my purpose for making it was to keep some semblance of normalcy and to move forward with some projects, and I don’t want it to be misconstrued as part of Academia’s toxic productivity culture.
This morning I immersed myself in some data from a Youth Participatory Action Research Project I’ve been working on with one of my mentees, and it was refreshing. When I started I was halfway through coding the data, and in the hour I had set aside for it, my mind was alive with exciting connections and I already know this paper is going to be better than I had initially expected, and I was very proud of the initial result, so in about 18 months (not joking, academic publishing is slow), look for this article (don’t worry, I’ll talk about it sooner). This particular data was refreshing, because I could directly see the impact of my work with students. I think that
In an effort to balance all of the work with exercise and creativity, I went for a walk in the forest across the woods today, exploring a trail I’d never walked before. My plan is to investigate all of the trails, though I worry my desire to approach everything systematically will present challenges. In addition to the surreal feeling of being the only one outside, the trees have yet to get their leaves, so the forest seems largely empty, and I could see a clear path forward. I will document more walks in the future, as early spring is a special time for me.
Unsolicited Podcast Recommendation
Today the mid-season finale of my favorite podcast aired. It was amazing. If you don’t already listen to Unwell, I highly recommend checking it out. The second half of the season airs on May 13th, so you’ve got time to catch up!