Ello my peeps, it’s been another long stint since I’ve posted but again been preoccupied with life, been building my castle.

Started the year running. I spent New Year’s day and the days following working flat out. All good, all good. There was a reason. The reason was I presented my proposal at DUT on the 6th February (earlier this month). Before that I attended African Doctoral Academy from 11 to 22 January as well. I have a much better handle on qualitative data analysis and ATLAS.ti now. What an amazing tool uh. I’ll have to do a special blog post on just ATLAS.ti one day.

As the time got closer to the presentation, I started progressively tensing up. My neck eventually went into spasm…I am such an idiot. I do it to myself. But I kept chipping away at it. I even got as far as having a pre-pilot interview (aka a lunchtime chat) with Dr Abofele Khoele. Heaven knows I am so indebted to him. I don’t have words to entirely express how grateful I am for his valuable insight and input. He helped me chart the direction and built my confidence before the presentation. I hope that one day I will be able to pay it forward.

So then came the actual presentation and I nailed it. Kachow…kachow kachow..ching ching CHAhing! That morning the earth moved. Literally. There was a tremor in Durban measuring 3.2 on richter scale that morning – true story. And I didn’t even need to defend because no one challenged my work.

So then when I got back home, I designed the pilot questionnaire (here I’m grateful to Robin for always being so supportive and listening and being the logical voice even though it has nothing to do with his work), completed my ethical clearance forms, informed consent form and final tweaks to the proposal and off I sent it for HDC (Higher Degrees Committee) review. In other words, sent it off to be “marked”. If all goes well, my supervisor expects I will get approval in March but she told me to start writing my chapters in the meantime. Starting with Chap 1….tomorrow.

As I typed this, it strikes me more and more that doing a PhD is something one cannot accomplish on your own. The final thesis may have my name on it, but there will be many “nameless” contributors. I wonder……I wonder if I shouldn’t write a list of contributors, just for interest sake. Have it on record somewhere, maybe publish the list on my blog after I submit the final thesis. Just the name and what the person helped me with. I might just do this. It would be interesting to see how many people actually are part of the PhD development process.

And then I took my minions to Sun City for some QT time…fun in the sun

So like it’s been forever (2 weeks = forever in the drama queen dictionary), since we’ve chatted, and I have loads to tell you… I took a week’s leave last week and it was lovely. Have you tried the red bus in Cape Town? If not then it’s a must, and if you have, then well, let’s go again. What a fantastic adventure for the minions and I. There are 4 possible routes (all open top red busses) namely the Red Route which involves a tour around the city centre, the Blue Route which involves a mini trip around the Peninsula, the Purple Route is a little wine route in Constantia and the Yellow Route which takes you around Bo-Kaap. If you buy one ticket you can hop on and hop off these busses as you wish for the day. The Routes are interlinked so what the minions and did is started with the Red Route, hopped off at Stop 5 in Long Street, and hopped on a connecting bus on the Blue Route. We hopped off at Kirstenbosch Gardens, had lunch and went for a walk, then back on again, around Hout Bay and hopped off at Camps Bay for dinner. Finally hopped back onto a Red Bus which took us back to the V&A Waterfront where we originally caught the bus. It was a fantastic trip. Like the International City Tour busses, it was a guided tour, however as opposed to a real life tour guide, each person who buys a ticket gets a set of earphones which you plug into a port in the bus. Thus as the bus passes the different landmarks situated on the route, you get running commentary as you would with a real life tour guide. It was entertaining, informative, educational but most of all FUN!!! Give me a shout if you want to go sometime and I’ll definitely join you.

Minions on the Red Bus

Tourists in our own city

So the next thing we did was Disney on Ice. Again, another spectacular experience. It was a 2 hour show, but it felt like 30 minutes – it was that good. I was (we all were!) sad and disappointed when it ended. It was one of those shows that completely captivates you and swallows you in. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Pluto and all the favourites, TinkerBell, Peter Pan, Snow White, Belle and all the  princesses, and later even Toy Story. The costumes were magnificent. The tickets were a bit pricy but it was clear that so much practice and much more effort had gone into putting that show together. I would highly recommend it to everyone. The minions and I were beaming from ear to ear when we left. It’s such a feel good feeling. If watching Disney on Ice had that effect, I can only imagine what it must feel like to actually visit Disneyland!

Look at these amazing costumes! And just to think there is a skater inside the Rex and Ham costume too!

So then it was off to Knysna, and the Oyster Festival with the Femilyum. Great memories #familytime. The brothers and I again participated in the races there, Andre and I completed the Knysna Half and Jase did a trail run. Another exciting adventure for the minions:)

Missing Roberto Jones

High Five-ing the Femilyum as I run past

Found a cave at Knysna Heads. Check my Dad take a picture of my Mom taking a picture of us

So then the big one….The night we got back from Knysna, I finished my Proposal and I submitted the draft to Prof!  Whooop WHOOOOOP. That’s an amazing feeling, I am well and truly on my way to being a Doctor now:)  I am waiting on his feedback. I am actually preparing myself for the worst. But I have done my bit. Whatever he says I will say thank you, make the changes and grow stronger with every iteration.

And my final piece of news is I am going to present at a conference at the CTICC in August. The conference is for Women in Quality and I submitted an abstract, which has been accepted. My talk will be on Quality Circles. I am really looking forward to it. I have finished preparing my PowerPoint Slideshow and I’m currently completing the conference paper. I love my job, and I am just so blessed and grateful that my passion is my career. And my career is my passion. Two more days of school holidays to go and off we’ll start the new term with fresh impetus. Looking forward to it. Life is good:)