Hands getting dirty

I am finally digging into my interview data a bit more. I like saying that..."interview data." It's a nice feeling to have the majority of the data-collection process behind me. Wow, that's different!

The act of transcribing interviews is tedious at times, but after a while of practicing it, the act becomes almost automatic. I can start thinking about what I'm typing as I'm typing it. It's kind of an energetic experience, actually. I find this surprising, as frankly I've been dreading doing these transcriptions. Now that I'm doing them, it's not so bad (you'd think that after all these years of being in school that I'd be able to take on a daunting task without procrastination, but NOOO I still hate just thinking about a big task like that in front of me. Oh well). I'm thankful for the bit of help I'm getting with a few of the transcriptions from a former colleague in SCT. If I can just type up half of the interviews and leave about the other half to Former Colleague, then there's a chance we could be finished with the typing in, say, about three weeks? We shall see.

I'd like to say "After the transcriptions are finished, then it's onto the Data Analysis," but that would be inaccurate. The data analysis has already started; I just need to work to be aware of it and document everything I'm doing. I suppose that's more natural. I mean, do we really ever just do one thing at a time? I think not. The act of being able to think about the participants' responses as I'm typing them up is the first part of the analysis. And for me, as a pretty major extravert, talking about my findings out loud is extremely helpful to my analysis process. My friends and colleagues have been supportive of listening to me and reacting to the things I'm finding, so that's been good. I miss working closer to them in SCT, although I certainly don't miss living there. LOL.

My posts here are getting less frequent. I suspect that will pick up again when I'm in the analysis and writing process some more. Lately I've been conducting interviews (which involves commuting to & from SCT) and doing this minor thing (note my sarcasm) of learning my new job. I'm going to write a separate post later on about the things going on at home with Moose's diet and such (or you can look at Wife's blog for more details). Exhausting, but our lives in general are good. I'm grateful to finally feel some fast motion in the dissertation department again. Yay.