PhD Research: The Loneliest Road

I miss classroom interactions.

I miss the beginning of each semester in grad school where someone would inevitably set me off by saying things like:

"But at least the women in the Bangladesh sweatshops don't have to be prostitutes anymore!"

Or:

"Who are we to put our values on another culture that practices female circumcision?"

Or:

"NAFTA wasn't that bad in Mexico..."

And then the sparks would fly.

In order to fill this great void in my life I have taken to picking fights with random people who leave irksome comments on Gawker, Jezebel and New Zealand's Fairfax Media aggregate "Stuff.com."

When a commenter on Stuff made a daft remark about Mexicans who emigrate to the U.S. I couldn't wait to type out a nasty response.

My angry keystrokes must have given me away because Nick leaned over and said, "You're attacking someone in the comments section, aren't you?"

The PhD process requires independent (lonely), original research and the only time you can geek out about it is when you meet with your supervisors who are probably (accurately) going to point out that your theoretical framework is a bit weak and that in New Zealand the word "program" is spelled with two "m"s and ends in an "e."

In the beginning I was going to study indigenous autonomy with ethnographic studies of the Maori and Mapuche but there were some logistics and theory issues that I couldn't resolve so I changed topic.

I was quite amused though when one of the other PhD students who is from Iran asked me if I was still going to study the "Capuchins."

I immediately had images of Amy Farrah Fowler and her nicotine addiction in primates study.

Instead, I've decided to look at young urban Maori's attitudes toward farming. I plan to study schools in Auckland to see what sort of programs (programmes) and career counseling they offer in beef, sheep and dairy farming because there is a high unemployment rate for young Maoris in the city while the farming industries mentioned are hurting for employees.

Regardless of the actual opportunities, I think it's the perception that these kids have that matters most because if they see farming as standing around in cow poo all day it doesn't really matter what sort of perks the jobs actually offer.

There is also the lure of big money in Australia's mining sector which has caused a huge exodus of young Maoris to that country.

Most importantly there appears to be a pretty huge knowledge gap on the subject which will allow me to do what PhD's do; nerd up on one subject and become insufferably pedantic about it.

Anyhoo, I'm in the proposal phase now and if everything gets approval I'll have the future pleasure of working with sassy urban teenagers. Huzzah!

Why didn't I study ornithology again? I could be performing a Jane Goodall out in Arthur's Pass with Kea if only I had aimed my focus more toward ethology.

Sigh.