Where have you been? What with personal/ family commitments combined with a sea- change of institutional restructuring at work, life has not so far allowed me any time to either reflect or realign my thought processes regarding my educational doctorate research.

Therefore, ‘Hello world, I return to you again,’ as I often feel no-one in my real-life context is listening or interested in listening. I am grateful for this platform to voice my thoughts, even if my methodological position has veered away from autoethnography my soul remains reflexive. Therefore although I have been somewhat absent over the last month or so, I have consolidated my framework, which is positive.

The data is waiting in digital files, waiting for me to reveal, analyse and write-up its’ contents. Why I am delaying this inevitable encounter, I don’t know for sure but trying to manage what seems like equal weightage regarding assigned ‘priorities’ at the moment might just have something to do with it.

I am going to London next week to talk about a forthcoming publication, entitled ‘Doing Text’ (Auteur) for which I have written a chapter entitled, ‘Making Text.’ In many ways the chapter is a re-imagining of what our pedagogic practices might look like without the associated boundaries and rules of curriculum, extending to ‘the subject’ itself for that matter.
My chapter is about hope and it is about not losing hope. In the same way my doctorate project is about instilling hope regarding media students’ readiness for employability. Sustaining hope is a key narrative I fully recognise now and a narrative I must not lose sight of.
The last few years have been a real test of patience and indeed a test of my own sense of hope as I try to survive and remain peaceful within conflicting agendas and tension-filled interactions.
Being a mum is tough, being a working mum is really tough. And being a working mum as well as attempting to establish and build a credible academic portfolio has, at times, proved excruciatingly (quite literally) tough. Now you might see why ‘hope’ as thing, is part of the assembly of my being at the moment.
HOPE – It is elusive and although I cannot draw a picture or take a photograph of it, I continue to hold onto it with all my might as I promise myself… I will prepare meals that don’t involve the freezer or a sprig of broccoli on the side (to make me feel better about being a good mum).

Taking about hope, it has been really interesting to contribute and be involved in, ‘The disrupted Journal of Media Practice’ online experiment: http://journal.disruptivemedia.org.uk with Janneke Adema and her team at Coventry University over the summer months. Engaging in this process has helped me feel connected to other scholars from across the world and it was an uplifting experience for me to read guest editor thoughts on my work so far. Their various acknowledgement(s) and support have given me hope to continue with the madness of this very personal academic journey. I am grateful for the editorial panels decision to accept my involvement in the project and for their interest and subsequent guidance from the onset. I see the online community that has evolved as a result of the experiment as something that might continue to develop in unexpected ways.

For now

E