20190227

I started reading “How to write your Dissertation in 15 minutes a day” last night. The first chapter has certainly given me some good ideas, and I’m starting to implement them today, so here is fifteen minutes writing with me thinking about my thesis.
Firstly I need to consider the first hurdle, which is completing the paper I have been working on for six months about the relationship between the PID and the Big Two (Agency and Communion). I need to break the back of that this weekend so that will be my Friday night and Saturday after I do the laundry. Thinking about this even further, it would be interesting to consider the intersection between agentic and communal behaviour, moral foundations and vocation, again the thought would be that people in business-related fields would be more agentic, and those in the caring fields would be more communal. But I need a better measure of agency and communion than the dicky little scale I came up with for my Honours thesis. File that one and make it next week’s problem, after I finish this paper, or at least a first, very rough, draft of it.
So my game plane for Friday will be to check and double check my analyses, and make sure my method and results are complete. Saturday morning I will take an hour or so to draft the outlines of my introduction and discussion, then find some references to back me up till just after lunchtime, then polish in the afternoon. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got in terms of writing was from the author David Eddings in his book “The Rivan Codex.” In that, he said that in order to successfully edit your own work, you needed to leave it for a few days after writing it then re-read it with fresh and critical eyes. This means that after writing on Saturday, I will leave the paper till Wednesday or Thursday next week and then read to edit.
Between now and Saturday, I will continue to do school work and read for my thesis, at this point I am going over Graham and Haidt’s original work on Moral Foundations Theory to get a good understanding of it, since it is something that I need to become expert in, since it is now “my field.”

20190219

But God.
Two words in Scripture that change everything. Oftentimes, in the more narrative parts of the Bible, there is a detailed description of someone’s life turned to shit. Then two words, But God, change the entire narrative.
In modern literary parlance this device is referred to as “Deus ex Machina” or “God of the machine,” in other words it is a plot point used to get our hero and his crew out of danger, in often miraculous or unlikely ways. It is usually spoken of derisively because it is lazy writing, but when done well it is can open up a whole range of other possibilities to the author. One example that comes to mind is the Infinite Improbability Drive in Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, where Douglas Adams thought it would be funny to have his heroes, Ford and Arthur, thrown out of a space ship airlock. He ran up against a Deus ex Machina issue since everything he came up against was ridiculously improbable, then he realised, after watching some Judo on television, that if, like Judo, he used his opponent’s strength against him there might be a way out. His opponent was improbability, so the Infinite Improbability Drive was born, and a whole new series of things to write about followed.
The difference between the Infinite Improbability Drive, and But God, are vast, but they are essentially outgrowths of the same literary device, the difference is that when the Bible says, “But God,” it is talking about something real and tangible. Something that can make a difference not only in the lives of the characters in the narrative but in the readers also.
This is a long-winded way to introduce my “But God” moment from last night. I mentioned on Sunday that I had had an older gentleman at church pray with me on Sunday morning, and spoke of my struggles with my ego on that. Some more background to that situation is that I have been having a crisis of faith for much of the past two years due to the way I was forced to leave my last full-time teaching job, and our last substantive church as a family. I will not recount those details here, because those who need to know what happened do know, and the rest of you don’t! But, suffice it to say, I found myself sincerely doubting both the goodness of God, and His call on my life. Never intellectually, but more deeply in my heart that had been so badly hurt. So yesterday afternoon I’m doing school work and this gentleman from church drops by, you could have poleaxed me, but there he was. He had been praying for me on Sunday night, and God had given him a message for me, the germane part of it this morning is that God wanted me to know that I was His loved child, not in the general sense of God loves everyone, but in the election sense, that He chose me from before the foundation of the world to love and save.
But God.
Can you understand who a message like that can change your perspective instantly? I went from struggling to, if not living victoriously, having that attitude that Paul speaks of, in Romans 8, when he describes us as “more than conquerors.” That was an amazing feeling, and I managed to get a whole lot more work done last night, but I still have work to do, so that will be it for now. Remember, if God elects you, He will keep you.

20190217

Ok so two days in a row – Yay me!!!!!
So as I sit here on a Sunday evening, listening to the not so subtle rumble of trucks along the New England Highway, I am left with the dilemma, What to write about? Yesterday’s post started personal, and then became very professional, rational and practical, while last Tuesday’s was very much a cry from my own soul due to my feelings of loneliness. Today I find myself not being in either state of mind, so I think I will reflect on the sermon I heard in church this morning. Now, candour forces me to admit that sometimes I can get distracted during a sermon, and this says more about my … ooh look a squirrel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

it was my fault not that of the pastor or the sermon.
So today’s was out of 1 John 5 and the focus was on how we as Christians are kept by God, sealed for salvation, due to our election in Christ. Unpacking the text from verse 1 John speaks of our new birth in Christ being an act of the Father’s will, and that our ability to love our brethren in Christ is an action that is predicated on our being “born of God”, and this birth allows us to overcome the world. To unpack my unpacking. Verse 4 is, I feel, key to understanding this, that our ability to overcome the world is predicated on our new birth from God. And I don’t believe that overcome here is a once and for all thing, but rather a continual and ongoing process of overcoming, otherwise, the admonition about Christians sinning (vv 16 – 18) would not make sense here. We are called to live lives of overcoming and when we fail, as we all will, then we need to pick ourselves up, with the help of our brethren, and start overcoming again, it is not a one-time thing, but an ongoing lifestyle.
The part about our brethren helping us, verse 16 highlights this in terms of praying for a brother committing sin, the exact wording is “If anyone sees a brother committing a sin not leading to death,” (if a Christian gets to the point when they are not hiding their sin, then they are on very shaky ground indeed as this degree of brazen behaviour is not that which one would expect of those born of God, and here, I think, John is talking about the last chance olive branch to those who may not at the present moment be elect.) I was challenged on a number of things in my life during communion today, which I will not share here, but after the service, a retired minister came to me and asked to pray with me, my personal challenge was to be humble enough to accept the offer, something I do not do easily. The good news is that I did, and I made a new connection which is good for me since I am here on my own. Never underestimate the value and power of older saints, they may not have seen it all, but they have probably seen most of it!
Verses 6 – 12 speed of the testimony of Christ, His baptism (the water), His death (the blood) and His resurrection (the Spirit). This is such a neat encapsulation of Jesus’ redemptive ministry, water, blood and Spirit. He was baptised to foreshadow His ministry, He died for our sins, and He rose that we might have new life. This one little phrase in verse 8, “the Spirit, the water and the blood” is a statement from a man who has been deeply reflecting on these things for over 60 years at this point, and realises that people need short statements of faith, that are easy to remember, and that is what I think this is. When we are challenged on our ability to overcome, remember, water, blood and Spirit, that was the example of overcoming Jesus gave us and it is the one that we can use in our everyday lives.

20190216

So four days ago I promised a discussion on fatherhood, clearly that didn’t happen, as I was dealing with bigger demons this week, it has taken till now to write again, so sue me. Really the purpose of this blog is to get me writing and to do some long-form formal thinking about my research. Of course, in order to do that, I need to be doing some research, and that is a real challenge at the moment. I get to the end of the school day and I am either a) still doing school work, or b) so tapped out from doing school work, and emotionally drained for being by myself, that I have nothing in the tank for research. This was my fear.
Really being a researcher, and being a writer, are two sides of the same coin. You read every day, and you write every day. So far, since Australia Day, I’ve managed about twice a week for both. So the positive take away is that I haven’t stopped altogether, but the downside is, my progress is very slow.
So what am I thinking about in the context of my research? Well, Study 1 and Study 2 are pretty firmly established in my mind in terms of their form and function. Their role is to look at how moral structure and vocational choice are linked, with a possible consideration of how personality structure may be either up or downstream of moral structure. I need to do some more reading about moral frameworks and their relationship to personality traits in order to establish a theoretical basis for my thinking on this. The Christian theologian in me would say that the moral structures are superordinate to the personality ones, probably. However, since in order of creation, personality came first and morality came after the fall, the reverse may well be true, except we are judged on or moral failings and not our personality type, making moral structures more foundational than personality ones. It is an interesting theoretical perspective to consider, but I don’t know how I would turn it into a publishable paper, maybe in the Journal of Psychology and Christianity.
One of my points at the moment is which personality model to go with, my supervisor is a fan of the Five Factor Model (FFM), while I personally feel a greater affinity to the HEXACO six factor model, since it includes a measure of honesty/humility (the “H” in the HEXACO) which adds a dimension that I think will provide greater clarity to my research, as it would be interesting to see how the honesty/humility dimension correlates with the Moral Foundations dimensions.
Moving on from the first two studies, which will be done at arm’s length using a digital survey system, study three, at this point, will have a look at the staff of a single school as a microcosm. I think I can begin with the question, “are teachers more the same or more different?” And starting with the school I’m working at, at the moment, since I envisage being here for a number of years at this point, I would do an electronic survey of the staff, but also do some face-to-face interviews with staff from different faculties. This would be to get some more rich data on the personal choices that went into their becoming a teacher, and more importantly, why they chose that path, when their abilities may have opened other routes to them. On this, I am particularly considering teachers of IT, science, mathematics and business/economics, as these are all fields that provide more lucrative opportunities for graduates.
Study four would build on this and I would like to do an online survey of the entire teaching service, using the results that I developed at a single school to see how unique that school is. The data that I could collect from even ten per cent of the NSW public teaching service, let alone that, that I could get from the private schools via Facebook advertising in teaching groups, would be amazingly rich, and allow me to consider how geographic region, school type and subject discipline are impacted by the moral structures of the people who go into the field. It would also be interesting to look at the generational differences in the results comparing teachers of my age, candour compels me to admit that, at nearly 50, I am in the upper end of the teaching age range, to those of the millennial and Get Z’s that have followed me into the profession. These results would be very interesting when considering the future of teaching in Australia, as well as the rest of the Anglo-sphere.

20190212

20190212
OK So I’m back at the pub, but the good thing is I’m not drinking, but I needed to get out of the flat after spending the better part of four or five hours there yesterday afternoon doing school work.
Routine is good, but it can also be stifling, and the difference to being at home and up here is huge, at home, because there are other people to constantly interact with the routine has some generally unpredictable elements as a key part of it due to that interaction. When you are on your own, as I am, that “predictable randomness” does not exist, and so the need to get out.
The great thing about Glen Innes is there are a good number of places to “get out” too, such as the Grand Central Hotel, where I first stayed when I arrived in town, which has a wonderful cafe as part of its suite of offerings. So here I sit with a coffee and being alone in company, and I think that this is the key, I can deal with being alone, as long as I am not by myself, and I don’t think that I am, pardon the pun, alone in that position.
I think one of the reasons that my second industry, psychology, has ballooned so much over the period of my adulthood, is that people have lost that circle of friends that they just used to be able to hang with, so now, we tend to be solitary in groups. What does this mean for a species that evolved from pack animals, and, as a result, are the supreme social organism on the planet? This is a matter of great concern moving forward because psychotherapy cannot cure loneliness, only company can. Cities have become places of such desperation because they are places of such isolation, while surrounded by groups. I’m guessing that part of my reason for coming here might have been to cure my own loneliness.
One of the issues I have always had to face is that I am a little odd. Okay, some would say that I’m looking at odd in the rearview mirror, but be that as it may, my oddity has been one of the reasons that I have found it difficult to make friends, and that my career has always been on the transient side, I’ve never been able to put down roots in a school, and really do what a colleague today highlighted is my greatest skill, teaching teenagers. It was rather nice to be told that, I must say, but it reminded me that for much of the last decade or so I was chasing the mirage of promotion within the teaching profession, not really because I wanted it, but because it was a path to greater revenue. Right now I am actually rediscovering how much I love teaching, and I really do love being in front of classes of teenagers, especially when I am on top of my game and able to teach from what I know best.
This post has rambled, but I think if I look back over my stream of consciousness I really feel like I am returning to the real me. The day before I left my parents came to see us, and my dad, never one for emotional display, said that he felt that this was a good choice for me, and I really think he was right. Father’s words have power, we must never forget that, and one of the reasons that we have such an aimless generation around us is that so many grow up absent the power of a father’s words and counsel. And there is the topic for my next blog post.

20190209

Ok, so by tomorrow I clearly meant Saturday. So it’s Saturday night and I have had enough alone time. Weekdays it is not too bad, as my job has me around people all the time, so by the time I get home I have had enough of them and am looking forward for some alone time. Last weekend wasn’t a problem either, I was just too busy. But know I am all bunked in, I unpacked my bags today, so I am officially “here,” and the loneliness hit me with a vengeance, that need for someone to talk to and not even deep, just talking shit can be a pleasant way to chew up some hours.
So it’s not that my day was unproductive, I read two papers while I was doing my laundry, I don’t have my own washing machine yet, so I’m stuck using the laundrette, but productive use of down time. Out of that I got some new ideas about how to tie my current research to the broader personality/morality discourse. My concept is that I will look to see what the personality research says about vocational choice, then look at how the Five Factor/HEXACO Models have been associated with Haidt’s work on Moral Foundations Theory. Tying the two of those together should give me a firm theoretical foundation to launch my first two papers. So that is my goal for this week, by next Saturday to have a block of my CoC done that deals with the existing theory, and how my work, should, fill it.
My biggest challenge is to find that balance between my first job – teaching, my second job – my studies, and sleep. Next weekend in town we have the “show,” which is one of those things that exist in rural Australia, where the farmers show off the best of their produce, in NSW the “Show Season” starts in February, and ends at the Sydney Royal Easter Show. I’ve been told I need to attend and have a good look at what is happening, it should be interesting, I will probably go and have a walk through on Friday night, then work on Saturday.
In two weeks I will be back in Sydney with my family, that will be interesting in terms of the amount of travelling it will entail (1250 km, and 14 driving hours in 2 days) along with all the emotion of seeing my boys for the first time in a month. No work of any kind will happen that weekend!
That’s it for tonight, let’s say that I will make my best effort to do another entry tomorrow.

20190205

Well, it didn’t take me very long to get out of the habit of writing, but the fact that I am now back to it shows that the experiment has been kind of working. I have the desire to write, even today when I am completely tapped out after a late night and two huge days at school and a ton of lesson planning being done.
Teaching. My biggest fear about taking this job has proved true, I love teaching, I love working with kids, even the ones who try me to the end of my patience, and I have missed it over the last two years. My reasons for getting out have nothing to do with the mechanics of the job, and everything to do with life goals. In Sydney, I felt it was impossible for me to continue teaching and keep my sanity intact. Here in the bush? Well, far too early to make any predictions yet, but it is just, different, and I think that, that “different,” is a good one.
What does this mean for my studies, well, I want to get my PhD, and I am still aiming on presenting my CoC in about 10 weeks, which means that I will need to get my skates on and get myself sorted in terms of doing my research and everything else that goes along with that. Right now my challenge is to adjust to my new environs and work situation, and make sure that I do a good job so that the $$$ keeps coming in, I think I am good enough at my job to manage that. So I am giving myself this week to get the rest of my shit in a pile, so that I can start working on my CoC again starting on the weekend.
There are a couple of things that will result from this; firstly, the paper that I am currently working on will need to park itself for a couple of months while I focus on preparing my CoC, that needs to be my focus, not my first lead author publication, as important as that is, I can take it up again in early May after I am approved. Second, a key part of the CoC needs to include my ethics application to the university as well as a second one to the Department of Education, since I want access to it’s students and staff to complete my second and third studies. Finally, I need to come up with a really good fourth topic to write on, that will let me complete a mixed methods study in the field. This is the one that is really giving me a hard time at the moment, as I can see clear to the first three studies, which are definitely migrating towards a school education focus, but the fourth is still out there in the fog, I catch glimpses of it here and there, but it remains just beyond my clear sight, I need to read more to build my foundation.
Reading is going to be my main evening occupation most nights for the foreseeable future, I have a television, but I do not have access to the shows I really like to watch, so that is a good thing, I just need to come up with a balance of school-work nights and uni-work nights.
Talk tomorrow.

20190129

Well, I have completed day 1 at the new school, interesting day, as I have also put in an application to rent the property that will be my home for the next year, and possibly more.
Change is an interesting thing, right now it really hasn’t hit me that I have moved. At the moment the reality of what I am doing is gurgling away just below the surface of my consciousness. To sum things up I am feeling whelmed. And right now, whelmed is probably a good thing, if I were underwhelmed then I would be some kind of sociopath, and if I was overwhelmed, I’d probably be curled up in a corner in a foetal ball. So whelmed is good.
Thinking things through the reality of my situation probably isn’t going to hit me until this weekend, since that will be moving to the longest I have been away from my family without being in a hospital. The other thing that I think is protecting my psyche at the moment is the fact that I am staying in a hotel, and have not yet set up my own place. With a bit of luck that will be happening tomorrow, the good thing with it is that is that I will have my own place and be able to start moving forward with my studies because I will be able to empty everything out of my car. The bad thing will be that I will be face to face with my isolation. I’m not sure how I will deal with that.
I have exposed myself to huge risks here, given my notoriously fragile mental state, I’m not sure how this will all pan out over the coming weeks and months. In spite of this, this was the best decision that I could have made, so I need to persevere with that choice and trust that things will work out for the best, or at least the least worst!!
One of the real issues of being on the upside of a depression cycle is that you can remember what it was like to be on the downside, the irony is that the reverse is not true, and this is the nature of depression. Perhaps it is the psyche’s way, when more healthy, of defending itself, allowing the MDD sufferer to be more metacognitively aware of potential triggers and, perhaps, allowing them to avoid them, or take steps to minimise their impact. It sounds plausible anyway.
One of the problems with psychology is that daddy Freud and uncle Jung, as brilliant as they were, built much, if not most, of their theories on case studies, which is fine when you are treating patients, but it is not a good position from which to build sound theory. At the moment I am using myself as a case study to help myself avoid another relapse. So in the last seven years, I have had my initial bout of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), followed by a mild relapse in 2016, due to me not being medicated, followed by a major relapse in 2017, due to losing my job. My studies in psychology over that period have helped me to build my “metacognitive toolkit” a lot more, especially given my ability to reflect on my own mental state within a research-based narrative. So now, when I am encountering downturns in my affect, instead of falling in a heap, I am trying to analyse myself and work out where I am, not only in terms of my thoughts, moods and feelings but where I am in terms of the current theory about depression. I’m hoping that writing will help.

20190127&8

20190127&8

Well the last three days have been quite hectic, and strangely relaxed. The busyness of packing means that I have missed two entries, sorry about that.
It’s really hard to think of something substantive to say as I am feeling quite numb at the moment, I’m having difficulty it processing my emotions, as I am trying to defend my children from the worst excesses of their own emotional trials.
My big boy has had a bad afternoon today trying to cope with what is happening to him, while my little boy is coping a little better in terms of his frank behaviour, but is acting out a little and starting to realise that daddy is going away.
I don’t really know

I kinda lost focus last night, my mind was just all over the place. Today was a huge day, started at 7:15 with minimal sleep (< five hours) then the final packing, breakfast and the goodbyes, Then a seven and a half hour drive. I got here at 4:30 and got to see some truely beautiful country along the way. What I didn’t get to do was take a lot of pictures as I was focused on getting here, maybe, at the end of the next school holidays, I will take a bit longer and take some photos.
Right now I am sitting on the upstairs balcony of the pub that I am staying at, it is one of those classic old country pubs, and sure I could have gone for a more self-contained room in a motel, but part of me wanted this uniquely Australian experience, of the new teacher in town setting down in a pub before finding more permanent digs. I’m going to go back to my room now and have a shower, then I think I will be off to bed. Have a huge day tomorrow, as I am looking at accomodation, so with a bit of luck I will be in my own place by Friday/Saturday.
Stay tuned for some more tomorrow!

20190124

Well, that was an interesting 24 hours! I now have work for the year.
It is amazing what changes a day can bring. I spent most of yesterday working on my R data science course, but was watching my email for the JobsFeed message from the NSW Department of Education, when it came through there were two jobs on it that were worth looking at, and after a 5 minute phone conversation with the principal at Glen Innes High School I was offered the position, which I have just formally accepted. So big changes.
For those of my readers who do not live in Australia let me explain the magnitude of these changes, I live in Sydney, Glen Innes is around 600 km away, as the crow flies, so I have a seven-ish hour drive on Monday to get there to start work on Tuesday.
This has a huge impact for my family since it means that my wife will be a single mother for much of the year, my sons will have to lift their game majorly, and I will be putting a lot of miles on my car travelling back and forth from Glen Innes every fortnight/month. So big familial changes. The real benefit of this, that makes it doable, is that the money that I spend in rent would be equivalent to what I would spend in fuel travelling to and from the other school that I have an active application with, so that is a bit of a zero-sum game.
Regarding my studies, this is a huge win for me, as I will be saved a significant amount of wasted travel time each day, which will give me that much time back to devote to my studies, as the only person I need to manage on a daily basis will be myself. In terms of access to materials and everything that goes along with that, can I say “God bless the internet!” Similarly, thanks to Zoom and Skype, meetings with my supervisors are very manageable so that is all good.
Right now I am writing to try and calm myself – I have passed day 21!!!! And the writing has become a bit of a solid habit now, I actually miss it when I don’t do it. I need to keep moving forward and carrying on.

So just a short post today, I may or may not be able to put some up tomorrow and over the weekend, but I think my psyche will need me too.
Cheers.