Friday 10th has come and gone.

Friday 10th has come and gone: the day all my work was due in. But time has become such a weird thing, this half life, when not working formally and only well enough to study sporadically that I have no sense of time or what it is. Today for instance I sat and read the information on extensions, something I have tried to grapple with before, but today I acted on the information, so rather than studying for a couple of hours, I have sort of filled in forms, and sort of approached people, but I have no real sense as to whether the information I am providing is right or adequate to get me this extension beyond a time that has already come and gone, and because I cannot get the request for an extension to the office in the due time then maybe none of this time has been spent for anything.

I would love to spend more time editing. I finally did some on Friday and it was great, love it. the whole reason I was here studying, or almost and it is only on the last day, that I finally do some.

Let's hope I get an extension and can do some more.

useful start and frustrations.

I was well enough to get to see the Disability Advisor so that was the very useful start, but then only had energy to spend a short time on the editing

Psychologically I have not been up to the challenge of editing so again a good sign health wise that I had the courage to walk into the department where I always get the feeling that I am greeted by some of the staff there with a sense of despondency and ask for their help. Despite the huge list of students waiting for help I was ready for the challenge and sat waiting for the staff to finish with them and come and help me. 40 minutes later I had tried everything I could try: I realised no one was coming and my energy was gone. I wrote an email to the staff to say I was going, popped back to their office to see if they were still helping other students, only to see everyone was working i.e. they had forgotten me, so I left fuming and belittled. When you have no energy and no money you can do without such editing days. It took two hours to get home because of the snow, and this morning I felt very ill again. But hopefully I can get an extension because of my continuing health problems and I can really confront my fears and get on with the editing.

1 bit almost done.

Yippee yippee I have almost finished one bit of my practical work, a book showing my son growing up, but accompanied by theory ideas. For me the two work in conjunction, let's hope an audience will think the same,

Got to spend the weekend writing so need to go. It was useful however, talking to the Disability section, if I had realised earlier that they covered problems like mine I would have gone to them ages ago, rather than now when it is almost too late.

M.E scuppers progress

For the last week my M.E has really kicked in: the wobbly woman is back. When my M.E is really bad I cannot walk without wobbling. My thoughts are also wobblng, here I am at home, in theory in a position to do some work, but my energy has been so low that I am capable of virtually nothing. I have done a little sorting of material and that is all. But I am aware of a mountain ahead of me: The editing. At the moment it is all I can do to walk to the shops, but the editing seems a much harder task. I think knowing that by the time I am well enough to do it I will also be well enough to work means that everything will have to come at the same time, which for someone unable to work for four weeks so far seems a hell of a lot. I know that in theory the M.A is part time and not really even that many hours a week, but right now I wish I had a couple of months free and could really settle and think and do the work justice.

Knowing that my income is shot to pieces, my health is shot to pieces, I contacted my tutor. The one thing that I hope I can do is actually finish this units work and come away from the year with something to show for it, but the deadline is hurtling towards me and the work is mounting and apparently if I can get any extension from the university it will only be for two weeks. So the fear is that the qualification will be shot to pieces too. Which reminds me I must ring the university disability section.

In fear for my mental wellbeing.

Wrecked. My financial security, fragile though it is, has depended for the last few months, on money through the working tax credit system that I get because of my low income and my disability. At the beginning of this week, I got a call from the DWP and they tell me, that because I have not sent them evidence that I was in receipt of sick pay 7 years ago, that I am at risk of loosing the benefit they send me. I dont know how to survive without this help, it is as simple as that.

Wrecked. Very scary, very good, more than scary. I lead a workshop for BHM and the emotional challenge of this has both empowered and thrilled me, that people would come, share discuss, and allow me to participate in their understanding of African Caribbean representations in the era up to Obama, is overwhelming. It is also almost too overwhelming emotionally for my fragile mental health.

Syncronicity and out of sync.

So there I am at South Bank University doing video capture from Nathan's childhood films as part of my Masters, now Certificate. There are lots of children there, including two girls, both of whom are now studying at yes, South Bank University.!!!

I am very clever and far thinking. For instance when I left my job and went off to Senegal I made sure that I had had some experience of doing supply teaching locally and was signed on with the County for when I returned. And prior to deciding whether to hand my notice in to the Royal Opera House or not, I ensured that I had passed my appraisal and been informed that I was at the right standard and welcome to return to work with them in future. So why is it that my Plan B's have not ensured sufficient income to enable me to continue studying. Simple. When I returned from Senegal, Herts County Council went against their original decision and decided I was not able to work for them, and now the ROH has gone against their promise that I can return also. But with the economy inmeltdown, unless you are a billionaire banker, it looks like my present £10,000 a year annual salary and my £3000 a year transport costs will look good in years to come. It does however, mean, that continuing studying is absolutely out of the window.

Trying to pick up the pieces

A week on I at last have five minutes to try and actually do some work on the research. I have decided to try and retrace my steps and just see if there is any feedback to my posts on various blogs.

I could not remember which thread I had followed on Mumsnet, so started a new thread, asking for feedback on the topic and I immediately got an email from the organisation saying that I was doing research and therefore had to pay a fee? So when mums ask other mums a question that is not research, but when a mum asks other mums a question it is. Outed.

I have also tried re writing on the intermix site, but as always got an error message, so not sure if it will have gone on. And more frustratingly I cannot for the life of me remember a brilliant site I found. It had the names of loads of organisations working in this field. I wrote to everyone of these organisations asking if they wanted to be involved andmy intention was to follow this up with a phone call, if need be, but not one responded and now I cannot find their details for the follow up stage. Message to self on the minataur trail do not forget to lay down the string.

Seminar

I have a bad headache, one that just will not shift, but it is worth it. I think everyone on the Seminar had a good time. It really seems nice knowing we will meet, though I gravitate to the same people each time and I note other people do too. But that is okay. Everyone's work has progressed enormously. Wendy's works of art have been seen by several thousand people, Zoe's images, have gone from the rough paper, notes and concepts stage, which I loved, to a lean, clean, beautiful book. I would have liked to have looked more, Abisolah is as organised as ever and has a clear approach to her work with VB, I long to see Lara's work from Seven Sisters, but the talk was very interesting, etc, etc, Chris even presented a full 10 minutes video draft, which was of course brilliant. Compared to theirs my work looked very home spun, and even as I had made it I was worried about that, on the other hand it is a piece about domesticity in some ways. But as I drew it out of my bag and pined it up and talked about the relationship between it and the triptych etc, I realised that I do own this work and feel very good about it, even if I am not quite sure where it is going. It really made me just want to stay and work and work on it and not ever have to worry about mone or work again. One of the tutors responses was really helpful as he talked about a quote I had forgotten that I had dug out, I was too busy listening to write it down, but he absolutely nailed it. A couple of people gave me further feedback and I was pleased that my tutor also seemed to respond to the challenge of it. So I stayed for the Thursday afternoon session and crawled home to bed rather than heading for work. However, next day like most people I felt Daniel Rubinstein's seminar on Chomsky, Foucoult and Power was so good, so satisfying, that I felt that I needed some space so hurtled off to work and missed what was probably the most important part of the two days how to write the next piece!!!

The two/three days if I include Westminster have given me lots of ideas, and when the headache has gone,and the preparation for hours of teaching done, lets hope I can remember them and build on them.

Young People's Media Use and Creative Participation.

• Fatimah Awan, University of Westminster
• Alicia Blum-Ross, University of Oxford
• David Gauntlett
  
• Ranjana Das, LSE, University of London
• Reijo Kupiainen, University of Tampere
• Fiona Lennox, OFCOM
• Jane Rumble, OFCOM
  

A good day out in London. The University of Westminster held a special free day on Young Poeople's Media Use and Creative Participation. I had actually thought more young people would be in attendance, but it was more for academics, but it was good and very lively. I especially enjoyed seeing David Gauntlett as I have really enjoyed reading his books and look forward to reading his new book on creativity.

My original intention was to stay all day and therefore see everyone, but the urgent need to find work meant that I had to rush to the Opera House and then to Haringey in the search for work. But the morning speakers on research of media use in Cumbria, and then young people; filmaking and citizenship were excellent and even the potentially dry OFCOM talk was interesting and well presented. I even had the courage to ask a question. David Gauntlett had talked about how positive creativity can be, I know that to be true as this course shows, but I aslo know that for me there is a downside for being like this, that the striving and the connecting that Gauntlett anticipates, have rarely happened for me, so I am always feeling that I am out there, but not getting reinforcement as a result of my activities. For instance printing my books to raise money for the Babito clinic, but having virtually sold none. This may be a reflection of my writing, b ut even I think the book is worth more than the price of a coffee which is all the book costs!!! So leaving one feeling well...... But maybe that is just a reflection of my eeyore personality. However, the research in Cumbria also raised the possibility that certain types of young people who live in the country and who do not want to live there, may find access to the creativity of the net, a sad reminder of all that they do not have, but want. She felt therefore that these few people were "double isolated" because they were physically isolated and emotionally if you like isolated. Some of this had reasonances for me. The last speaker I heard also talked of the defiency approach to much funding for creative projects with young people, one that assumes that there has to be a deficite, that the project will fill, before funding will be allowed. And that although all the participants really got a lot from the experience, some were disappointed by the outcomes. Her research I think had some more resonances, because I think that the element of deficiency comes into my research, and the outcome may also be relevant. I therefore asked if she had come across this double isolation, but she felt that the positive elements of the process outweighed the downsides.

Tomorrow I have to go the seminar to present my work, but and a big but almost everything I had hoped would be ready to show them by now is still unfinished. I have captured some video but not edited. I have some photoshop photos to show people, and some media images to show, and virtually no media quotes, so a very long way short of my idea of a finished film to go with a physical representation of me and my son and his media use.

Sitting in the Garden.

My son is sitting in the garden, reading The Hobbit and listening to Radio 3. The truth is young black British culture is much much wider than is evidenced in the media.

Meanwhile we have finished our last two interviews and I have done some work to capture the videos, but a long way to go and a lot to think about in terms of how to put the material together.

Time to dream and time to work.

I was supposed to spend summer working on this project, but with the demoralization brought on by my impending unemployment, a week away in Spain to lift the spirits seemed more in order. Normally on these trips the UK comes out very badly and the alternative culture very well, but actually for once it was all the UK bit of the journey that work and accomodation and transport in Spain that was more problematic. But I spent a good week away meeting Spaniards and trying to forget my troubles. The crisis there is worse than here, but we all had a good time. Madrid seemed to have more graffiti on walls even in posh places than London, but whether that is knowledge opening my eyes I do not know. And the art in the Sofia Reine gallery was huge sometimes disturbing and definitely displacing, but perhaps that is what it should be.

But I came home determined to catch up a bit and so spent the day at my brothers trying to get to grips with photoshop. I like what I have done, but had to come back home to print the stuff and was once again confronted by problems cos of the lack of memory left on my computer. I also seem to have lots of ink cartridges but none with any ink in them, so my print is very faded, but at least I have some sense of what it should look like. So thanks to bro for the lend of equipment and thanks to nephew for his patience and good instruction.

Not getting there

Today is the 4th of August. By now I should have a full scale photo of me and Nathan, back and front manipulated to contain media images. However, one I have not managed to get a photo of Nathan and myself, two the only photo I have is of me, and I realised after Jennie, my sister, had kindly taken it, that I only had the front. Three I have no memory left on my big computer with which to manipulate the image, and 4 I have now left work which is where I hope to laminate this lifesize image of Nathan and me that is supposed to be the centre point for my presentation in September.

I don't know how but last seminar this image just popped into my head of a kind of holy family, Leonardo type thing and I decided to try and create an image of Nathan and me in that triangular type shape, but instead of a child in my lap I was going to have a lap top, with the film on it. I wanted there to be an ambiguity cos how come the child is in the position of the father, I was also wondering to make a mask instead of Nathan's face, to reflect all the people in that positioin. I was very excited and wanted to share the idea with my tutor, but I never met her and when we had our phone tutorial did not feel I could quite express in case she dished the idea. Then at work I had to laminate some images and just happened to do it all in one strip, I loved the effect so much, that I decided instead of a stuffed model of me and Nathan that I would create life size picture of us, with our media references.

So a lot has not happened and originally I was thinking okay when I go back to work in September I can do it, but I really do not know if I am going back, so......

Also on the one day off and I had a chance to follow up sending my ideas or talking to groups to see if they wanted to work with me, I do not know I just did not feel ready for it. I have emailed everyone, some of them more than once a number of them like WAC I have a small connection with and only two organisation responded. The first one has not responded a second time, the second one Helen Barrett, from the Family Parenting Institute was kind enough to meet with me, and there may be things in the endthat can come out of the conversation, but at the moment the organisation is going in a direction that does not really chime with what I am doing.

However, I am still reading a bit and enjoying that, and on Monday I spent the whole day looking through home movies to see if I can use some in conjunction with Nathan's interview. I did that at the university as I no longer have a video editor it was nice, now I need to film a second interview with Nathan so have to pin him down

I am just as difficult to pin down In my search for work I may have found something, but it is Spain, so what will that mean for my studies. I do not know I have summer to get on with things and will just have to take stock at the end of summer.

Stress is not good for studying.

I almost studied for this qualification a year ago, but I was so worried about money and my lack of work that I could not focus on it. So delayed a year. However the sad truth; this year my financial situation is even worse. In a couple of days time my work ends. When I switched to this work I had hoped that my temporary status would become permanent and things would be okay or I could try and treat the summer holiday as that despite being unpaid and therefore a time in which to study like mad before hopefully finding work in September. Instead I am just getting more and more demoralised. In fact worse than that.

On Saturday I was supposed to be visiting a conference on my research topic. Various disasters on route,where I thought I needed an Oyster card top up, then could not remember my pin number, took an hour to get the top up,then realised that I did not need it in the first place meant I got to the conference two hours late. The bits I heard were worth hearing. But it means a great opportunity to make contacts was probably lost. I was lost too I tried a different route home and landed up going back on myself. Stress. So on Sunday I was too shattered to attempt another trip to London to catch up with the rest of the students. I am not sure who was supposed to be there, but I was hoping to see two students who have offered to help with my research, but have not sent me anything so far, unless they have done my online survey.


Some of the participants at the event included artist Gloria Ojularia Sule. http://www.gloarts.co.uk/. I asolutely loved some of her work, large murals, just the kind of thing I would like to paint. She was not brought up by her Nigerian dad or her British mum, being put in a home instead, but the power of her heritgage and the need to engage in it, shines through her work, as you can see in the picture above.

I also heard Dr Kevin Searle, I don't know enough about his story, but he said that he was not a great achiever, working in Tescoes when the lyrics of Rap made him start to really engage in education. He now has a PhD in the subject. He delivers his views a bit like a rap artist, young, energised, passionate, a bit unco-ordinated and very interesting, definitely a different type of academic. Though most I come across are infinitely more hip than I remember last time round. I gave him a copy of my research questionnaire, but do not know if there will be a chance to follow up on it with him.

One good thing on the rare occasions I get around to reading I really enjoy the information I am gaining. A book on Masculinities had a lot of illuminating stuff and amazingly the chapter I have just read on research ethnography in another book was also good. I feel I am really updating my theory knowledge in this field, just massive amounts to go.

taking it quiet

Not too much to report. A few more people have done the Monkey Survey including people I do not know at all, so that is very nice.

I am thinking a lot about how to do my presentation next September and still following up with more organisations trying to find a group of people to work with, but most of the time there is no response at all.

So treading water really till the holiday comes and I can try and do some real work on things.

Survey Link updated.

Hi I am having a few problems with Monkey Survey so this is a new link. I have also updated some of the questions as a result of seeing how some people have answered the questions.

Meanwhile a big thank you to those who have responded and a plea for as much depth as possible from those who are thinking of particpating. And if you are interested in taking part in more in depth research please do get in touch.

I have contacte a number of organisations hoping that they may be able to suggest ways to develop my research especially with my key target group. These organisations include Family and Parenting Institute, Intermix, People in Harmony, Mixd, Generation Next, WAC, Learning Trust. Some of these organisations I have links with however, at present I have not really been able to establish a dialogue with any of them. However, I do know I also need to follow up some of my emails with phone calls so still hoping that something may come of these occasional blasts of emailing people, meanwhile if you want to take part the link is below.

New link:

Can you help with my creative media research?  Thanks.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2CJF5GP

Untutored.

Could someone tell me why it is I finish work at 1pm, only have to eat lunch, have a rest, pop into see Nathan in Camden and get to South Bank by 4.30 that I get there at 4.45!! I did rush up to my tutors office, tapped on the door and then realised her doorwas locked, but her coat and bag were inside, so patiently waited . At 5.5 I realised someone was in the room. My tutor, but she had to go!!!! It is the hottest day of the year. I was carrying a bag weighing about two tons, I urgently needed to see her. So why did I bugger it up?

A few kind friends have said that they will do the survey monkey research, but sadly all attempts to click thru to the site have failed. I am hoping that they will be kind enough to try again via this blog.

Lots of ideas.

At three o clock last night I suddenly had an idea. Perhaps I should contact a few schools and colleges, especially ones I have a link with from my exam work and suggest that they run the Media in the Mix concept as an induction assignment for their media and multi media students. Of course I got all excited and even envisaged a Media in the Mix trademark as the whole idea of media reflection boxes gets embedded in media studies.

The first day of the seminar also gave me a chance to reflect on what to do if I cannot get enough participants. I have foolishly tried to persuade my "friends" to get move involved with my project. I have done this cos really they are the heart of my idea and I thought if I could answer all their questions their resistance would melt, but it did not. I started out as a single white parent with a black child over 20 years ago and they did this journey with me so of course I wanted them to share it with me. I thought that they were on board and that it would be a great excuse for four women to get together and reminisce. Instead it has turned contentious and I have plain given up on my friends. Clearly there is something about the research that they do not want to engage in. I don't know what I would have done if I had realised this before I applied for the Masters as their support had encouraged me in my application, it was not full blown or in depth, just there. But now apart from the third friend who delivered immediately and without questions my "friends" input is very limited. But when I gave my seminar presentation in which I acknowledged that I hit problems, my tutor handed me another approach. I could go back to my own experience and really build on that. As a result I have decided that I will try and do somekind of installation that involves my video, the video I did with my friend and then take it from there.

I have also managed to negotiate something with my local library that is not quite what I started with but will add to my knowledge.

Seminar was inspirational. This time I enjoyed all the presentations and it was really interesting to listen to the ideas of my colleague students and see how they organise their work. There are some very impressive ideas out there and I appreciated the thoughtful input of the tutors. I also came across absolute resistance. Not the first time on this research. Some white people bristle and say I do not see difference, some mixed people bristle and say, I am not black and I bristle when I think people are being prejudiced. I have to bite my tongue and remember sometimes help comes from unexpected places so not too feel too alienated and judgemental at this point. Three people have also said that what help they can give me they will so I need to follow up on that right now.

What the Dickens are we up to?

A good end to the first day of the June Seminar, which consisted of us all updating each other on our projects. I benefitted from going last and being able to take my rather unorganised thoughts and put them together in the way my colleagues have done theirs. We then had a fantastic and inspirational talk by someone who showed us their performance/poetry website. Before being taken on a literary walk to seek inspiration in Dickens footsteps. I am absolutely shattered but seeing everyone's ideas and how they have developed since January was lovely.

Tomorrow we have to think about where do we go from here.

Survey Monkey

I have been recommended Survey Monkey: a way of producing a simple survey and get responses. It does not enable me to target my audience, but I think it is worth trying so if you want to try it, hopefully it will work, click here: Click here to take survey

Stand and deliver

Of course I have paid for it. I want to do the research, now I have just got to do it.

Progress.

Good news. The two friends who backed out, are half way back in. They have answered my questions in their own way in writing, and even though it is not ideal in that that makes a comparison with others more difficult, what they have said, is of great use. I am just praying that they will change their mind and agree to a recorded interview so I cna learn more.

Re the camera, I have spent a weekend in the company of my brother and that seems to have established that the mic is not working. Meanwhile I have downloaded half the 77 pages of the manual!!!, but that has not really told us more than we had worked out through trial and error.

Re the MA blog I still do not seem to have access to it. And I do not know if I have passed the first unit. I have also lost the details of the unit somewhere!!!

So should I pay and stay in the Masters or not I have to decide and pay tonight.

What do our patterns of behaviour tell us?

According to a recent book we need about 10,000 hours to become good at something, yet every year I try more and more ambitiously to get familiar with videoing techniques and yet as my previous entry shows I am not much closer to success. Does this mean, a ) I am never going to get there so give up now, b) I going in the right direction, but it is so slow and incremental that it does not feel like it or c) I have not put enough time in or had enough support to judge the situation accurately?

If I follow a I should give up the Masters now and all attempts to be a more technicially artistic person. This will be a money rich and time rich solution as it will give me more time and I will be able to spend my money elsewhere. But I will also feel a certain dissatisfaction as myself.

The other scenarios suggest that I do have a certain ability, but that I have not yet managed to progress that ability for various reasons.

When I trained years ago as a radio journalist I was about half as good as the best person technically and twice as good as the worst person. So some ability, I especially enjoyed editing and went on to do some engineering work for BFBS. But never got work in the field.

When I did my Masters I was involved a bit with the editing of a video, but morning sickness stopped me doing too much.

As an amateur I have put together a couple of films of Nathan and edited a small piece on the school in Senegal. This was very labourious then the computer lost everything.

I have also tried at times to capitalise on the fact that for many years I was a media lecturer,but despite my annual pilgrimage to the update my skills exercise by engaging with existing material or trying to get the technician to help me set things up so I could spend real time with the material, somehow the little time available would disappear in a stream of minor technical problems that I do not have the skills to solve. And I suppose that is the nub of the problem with all the technology I have access too, I have a lot of theory about what can and cannot be done, I have doneHTML courses etc, but rarely have I been able to get said technology to work when I have tried doing independent work to consolidate my fragile learning.

Hence signing onto the Masters to try and really finally have a go at something. But and here we go again. If the technician does not provide technical assistance and if I do not know how to make the machinary work, how do I progress. And is it worth struggling on to see if I can?

To try and help me with these thoughts. I swallowed my pride, decided I would deal with the weird kind of attitude I get from the technician and ask for his help. Talking virtually through out to his computer screen, rather than me, he talked me through what may have been the issue. Simple stupid things really. And one good pointer, but nothing that made one feel more secure. Basically if you are one of these people who can read digest and use a manual, that should be accessible on the net, then you are okay on this course if not then woe betide you. I mentioned that last year some students had asked for some input to which he said I bet they did not show up, I suggested that as working students they may be juggling, but his eeyorish response was we are all juggling.

So juggling and struggling I am have tried downloading the information three times to try and work out in more detail what went wrong with the camera, but the computer keeps crashing. One good bit of news though. If I give up the course and just buy the camera it will be cheaper in the long run and I would get a copy of the manual. I am sounding as jaundiced as the technician.

Education is supposed to be fun.

The other nice thing was that I bumped into Jessica, the daughter of a friend. I have known her all my life and now she is studying for her degree at the University. Seeing her cheered me up no end and made me enjoy being a student for a little while. I saw her whilst I was in the students union putting noticing up about the research. Afterwards I realised I should have put the details of this blog on my research participants wanted notice!!! So much to learn about this process, makes me appreciate how much work is put into all of this. Unfortunately my one other lead with regard to participants has come to an end as all emails to them are bouncing back. So I need to get back online and see if I can find some participants and quick otherwise there is no point in even trying to get to grips with the camera.

On the kindness of friends.

I have been to my friends and tried out the camera and my questions. Two outcomes an hour of lovely conversation between mother and daughter, visually too much head room, but otherwise quite nice. Sound wise a disaster. The camera tested and all running perfectly on Friday night did not record the sound. Perhaps I left the mic out or there was another electrical cable somewhere near by, but soundwise it is unuseable.

A sad traveller.

As I come out of the Elephant and Castle tube station, I soar. I see all the other people most young hanging around, gathering for their buses, discussing and I know that they are students, and I feel a rush of pride that I am considered worthy to be a student. But with the responsibility of hope comes its reverse for I set out like a tourist visiting a new town happy to be looking around part of the crowd but also vulnerable, wanting to be a real part of the scene and not just a visitor.

The staff on the desks are nice, I have lost my pass, typical. The media technician remembers my name impressive, but the discovery that I have to pay for the tape to go into the camera I have rushed down to pick up throws me. Anything that adds to my insecurity adds to my insecurity and the sudden thought that I will have to find somewhere to buy one throws me. I do not do buying things especially if I do not know where to go. His assitant throws out the name of a place, when I press for more accurate information, I feel he is dismissive. The chip on my shoulder is gigantic. I taken my swollen pride off to the place, find a very helpful shop person who sells me the right product and rush home too tired to stay, but my mind a ferment as to whether this is all the right thing to do.

Of course if I were not spending a fifth of my salary on this, and if I were well enough to work for full time and study, rather than struggling to do either, or if I knew I had more work coming in after the end of July, I suspect these knock backs to my waivering confidence would not impact, at least not as much, but coming in the wake of my friends defection I leave the Elephant dispondent. But at least I have a camera.

Tonight I put it up, no instructions nothing. Its good this paying over a thousand pounds to do a course so that I would get real detailed knowledge only to bring home a camera I could have bought for half the price and get an instruction book thrown in for good measure. I cannot help feeling that my already amateur efforst to make a video will be even more amateur. I have not really got the money to go on, but emotionally I am definitely thinking is it worth it.

Let's hope the recording goes well,cos I know the subject is okay.

Starting point: general conversation interviews to get the lay of the land.

What do you do, when the people you were going to start your research with suddenly pull the rug from under your feet?

I don't know yet. I finally got my proposal together and handed it in on time. In it I said I am going to start my Masters with a recorded focus group with some friends to give me an idea of how to further my research and an interview with a friend's son. Again to help me iron out any issues and give me direction. And then if any of them wanted to participate further that would be great.

But now they do not want to particpate like this. So I am not sure what to do. If I have not got them and I have not got any other participants that sort of leaves me in the shit.

So being a student can be quite painful.

Tomorrow I tackle the mountain that is the final draft of my first piece of work for the Masters. And it is a much greater mountain than I anticipated. My first draft has been trashed. My tutor was very polite about it, but it was trashed never the less. Not good for the soul but sometimes necessary, but I could not understand the notes she sent me about my work nor could I establish a way to get hold of her to talk through things with her instead. I emailed to say I was available to talk this morning so sat by the phone in urgent hope, as the suggested time came and went I checked a few other things out. When I went back on line there was an email message basically asking where I was as she had been ringing me. While I was downstairs by the phone waiting, she was ringing my mobile upstairs!! And would be going out in 15 minutes. When I rang her the tension between us both was not concealed, she seemed as stressed by the situation as me. I have talked to her and now feel a bit more able to proceed. I still do not have any participants for the project, my son, who is to be my starting point, is impossible to get hold of, I have got to re-write the whole draft in two days and a lot of the time I feel incredibly guilty about spending money on such an indulgent pursuit and that the whole thing is a waste of time and money, but I guess I will continue to try for the time being and get it sorted.

Progress or otherwise

In a week or two's time, the first bit of work for my Masters is due. The refined proposal.

The good news is that I have done some work towards this. The bad news is that the process has been more difficult than even I at my most negative had imagined; partly because of an astonishing ability to procrasinate and all forms of displacement and because actually trying to put into words what I am trying to do has turned out to be quite a challenge.

However, there are two main concerns, assuming I get past this first stage. One I am still very very very anxious about how to fit all this work together and combine it with my life and health. There are also so many ideas that I have that I want to do related to the study, but that remain wonderful voyages in my bonce, but so far no where else. And two I still do not have a group of people to do my work with. So if you are black, or mixed identity, race, heritage etc however, you define yourself, and about 22 years old with with white mum and brought up in a lone parent home and want to take part in some research please get in touch.

However, I am enjoying most of my reading and finding it amazing that there is so much work already out there in this field. I went for instance the other day to a book launch in conjunction with the Runnymede Trust and South Bank University on the topic of White Lone Parents with mixed kids and made some useful contacts and meet others doing research. So that was very positive. On the other hand my little computer seems to have swallowed much of the little work I have done, so I will have to repeat a lot of the work of summarising my readings, which is a pain if you are like me and difficult to motivate.

What the project is about

The aim of this project is to work with a group of young black British people ((approx 15 - 22) from white single parent households to assess the impact and use of the media.

The project is just developing but at present the idea is to interview everyone about significant media and why it was significant during the young person's life. Each participant family where possible will be invited to attend a workshop to develop their own understanding of their media use through the preparation of a box with significant media references in them and to commentary. It is also hoped that each person will want to develop their understanding further through the development of additional media products that reflect on this process e.g. a video, a song, posters. It is hoped that all this material can be included in an exhibition that the public can attend and give feedback on. Participants will then be interviewed a second time to get feedback on the whole process.

It may also be that a website, or CD, or research report will be presented on the project, but this will depend on how it develops as I urgently need participants and possible location and maybe even funding in order to develop the project fully.

This blog is an attempt to reach potential participants and to record the progress of the Masters.

Welcome to this new site.