OK. I am talking to myself so I don't get distracted by writing to others. I have worked for a few hours now and not really come up with much that is concrete. However, I have gathered my references, searched for a few new ones, and am probably prepared to begin writing. The Hard Part.
It is always good to write something ANYTHING, but it is so hard to get it out when you know it is not right. But I am going to try.
I was considering finding a thinking cap. Remember when people used to say such things? Maybe it was just elementary teachers, but putting on a special hat COULD give a person some focus. There is also the trick of a pencil behind the ear. Somewhere I have read that it actually DOES stimulate brain activity or something. That may be why glasses help or glasses make people look studious. My glasses are huge, but I do like them. I pretend that they make me seem artsy and intellectual--but of course I really AM those things (HA HA).
I want to get a lot of work done over the next couple of days. I do need to meet people, though. I have a lunch with a friend on Tuesday the 14th. I didn't realize that was valentines til just now! That night we go out with two other couples who are friends. We only get together this one night a year! But that is because we used to be in home group together and were a great comfort to one another with our teenagers all nearly the same age.
I am currently working on non-verbal behaviors in the movie 12 angry men and also in leadership. I had a VERY hard time finding anything on nonverbal in the academic journals. Took me about an hour plus. However, I tend to like the searching--a very fun part of research where you just go through tons and tons of information and along the way you learn about what people are focusing on these days. It seems that research just gets crazy on the minutae when we still should be looking at some big processes, but people need to get published and get their dissertations written, so there are tangents to go off on and microaspects of life to investigate--OR (something which I will likely do) take any research and apply it to some new or mostly unresearched people group. Like some native american tribe or some rural chinese group or some sub-group of americans-----women who birthed twins and have a mole on their left elbow. No wonder the Republicans are reducing money for basic research. PLEEZE! Has the field looked at the crap they publish and continue to approve?? And I feel caught--we all do---because you have to conform to the darn system if you want to be a part of it!
So what I really want to investigate is stuff that we already know about, but I am not allowed to do that. I want to experience that stuff for myself though---but instead, I have to read about it then come up with a new angle to look at it---and then THAT is what I have to study.
We'll see what my dissertation ends up being.
Off to work.