Whirlwind 2011

Almost 20 hours-worth of interviews audios, countless days, weeks, and months later, Alhamdulillah with a bit of assistance and patience, sheer luck and bad luck, the first draft of ALL my interview transcriptions is finally completed. Only Allah knows, how difficult it has been completing this task, using 3-4 of your senses simultaneously almost all of the time in the transcribing process. Sesungguhnya keluarga pun boleh berantakan kerana nya, otak bisa mereng, hati pula berbolak balik! My only caution to those who said it was ‘kacang peas’: Try and do it for FREE for only 10 minutes of the interview, and I’m sure you’d prefer to eat the ‘kacang’ instead of listening to all 20 hours of the audios!

The relief of actually finishing it, felt like I am almost halfway through this PhD jihad of mine. Although truth be told I have yet to reach that halfway mark. I am still in the data 'inundated' mode. Collecting and trancribing the data took longer than expected, and next comes the analysis stage.

With 4 datelines this month, 2 administratives and 2 more research related, 2011 will surely be a whirlwind year for me. Who said PhD life is boring. Happy new year everybody, have an excellent year :-)