I work with the best people
Sep. 20th, 2005 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starzkiI'm feeling a little better
today. We had a research group meeting and we talked about
dealing with interviews. I didn't even talk about the anxiety I
was having about listening to them because my fantastic, brilliant
advisor (and the project chair) went on about the trouble she has had
with interviewing, dealing with them, having problems moving on from
them, working on them as research. She even mentioned that she
had thought about bringing in a psychologist to be available to all us
to work through our issues when we worked on this. So I no longer
felt crazy. It's normal to
be upset by this. But I think that because we're all such
overachievers and been successful with whatever we've done in the past,
we expect to get through this "better" than most people would. I
know it's definitely true for me, at least. I just thought that I
should be better, that being a better researcher, or a better student,
or a better worker would mean that I wouldn't get so upset.
There is this huge push as a student to get through the research, get it all collected, before the traumatizing time of having to write it all up to be judged. That's true for the most part, but this research, itself, is really hard just to get through. It's not the same as studying policing or gentrification in urban neighborhoods or migrant workers' experiences with racism. Those all have victimized populations, I'm not denying, but it's not the same. There is so much, beyond even the telling of it, that emphasizes impartiality and detachment with research. Fine, I do get that. And that's fine for a lot of research. But on some subjects, how much can you trust the research when the researcher doesn't care? I don't think I want to know the researcher that can listen to the things I listen to and not be affected.
It affects just so much more than my research, too. I suddenly become hypersensitive about everything. Newspaper articles and commentary throw me into complete rages. I can no longer watch my cop shows without yelling at the television or getting too upset to watch. If they portray something even close to "right," I can't take it and don't understand how it's entertaining for others to watch. Most of the time they sensationalize stuff so much that it completely misses the point and becomes almost laughable to watch. This makes me angry because the public at large sees this sensationalized drivel and thinks that's what really does happen or that's what should happen in real life.
And don't even get me started on the fanfiction out there. Sometimes I can see that the author is trying to get to a mood and traumatizing things like abuse, rape, or other extreme violence accomplishes it for them. And I fall into the same trap in reading these as I do in watching television. If they do it "right" and get the mood through the terrible experience by telling it "truthfully," I get upset or get worked up in some other way. If authors can do it "right" and with sensitivity, it's another story. It's still upsetting, but there is some value to having the story out there. But it's far more likely that the authors are young and only see these extremely terrible things as the way to touch on the dark side of life they want to explore. So they tend to do it the way they've seen it done (wrongly) on television or (wrongly) in other fanfiction. They may also rely too much on their own (wrong) socialized viewpoints on the world they haven't lived in long enough to fully explore.
So I'm back to my old angry self when it comes to work. I can work with the anger. It's the self-doubt that crushes me. It isn't just me. I'm not lazy or insane. This is hard. It's also the only thing I care enough about to spend several years of my life on to try and fix at least something.
There is this huge push as a student to get through the research, get it all collected, before the traumatizing time of having to write it all up to be judged. That's true for the most part, but this research, itself, is really hard just to get through. It's not the same as studying policing or gentrification in urban neighborhoods or migrant workers' experiences with racism. Those all have victimized populations, I'm not denying, but it's not the same. There is so much, beyond even the telling of it, that emphasizes impartiality and detachment with research. Fine, I do get that. And that's fine for a lot of research. But on some subjects, how much can you trust the research when the researcher doesn't care? I don't think I want to know the researcher that can listen to the things I listen to and not be affected.
It affects just so much more than my research, too. I suddenly become hypersensitive about everything. Newspaper articles and commentary throw me into complete rages. I can no longer watch my cop shows without yelling at the television or getting too upset to watch. If they portray something even close to "right," I can't take it and don't understand how it's entertaining for others to watch. Most of the time they sensationalize stuff so much that it completely misses the point and becomes almost laughable to watch. This makes me angry because the public at large sees this sensationalized drivel and thinks that's what really does happen or that's what should happen in real life.
And don't even get me started on the fanfiction out there. Sometimes I can see that the author is trying to get to a mood and traumatizing things like abuse, rape, or other extreme violence accomplishes it for them. And I fall into the same trap in reading these as I do in watching television. If they do it "right" and get the mood through the terrible experience by telling it "truthfully," I get upset or get worked up in some other way. If authors can do it "right" and with sensitivity, it's another story. It's still upsetting, but there is some value to having the story out there. But it's far more likely that the authors are young and only see these extremely terrible things as the way to touch on the dark side of life they want to explore. So they tend to do it the way they've seen it done (wrongly) on television or (wrongly) in other fanfiction. They may also rely too much on their own (wrong) socialized viewpoints on the world they haven't lived in long enough to fully explore.
So I'm back to my old angry self when it comes to work. I can work with the anger. It's the self-doubt that crushes me. It isn't just me. I'm not lazy or insane. This is hard. It's also the only thing I care enough about to spend several years of my life on to try and fix at least something.
