This Christmas

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse...well no one except me that is.  Today I started off this Christmas a little differently.  In the past you could catch me hiding in my bedroom wrapping gifts and preparing to play Santa for my kids at 5 in the morning, but today I woke up and worked on my dissertation.  Yesterday I finished my last interview and this morning I was bursting with a new concept for how to bring forth my personal narrative which is being included in my dissertation.  There was a sense of urgency as I pecked out the concept. I had to get it out of my head, before I forgot.  I'm not a young and vibrant student, so sometimes I do forget things and it will take me a minute to remember.  With this dissertation I can't afford to waste anytime waiting until a thought decides to come back to me, so over the last 3 years I've learned to write when the spirit moves me!
Inspired by the interviews from this past week, I had been on the grind interviewing a total of 7 participants since Saturday.  I am not going to lie, it's been a long process, from inboxing former students on Facebook, to having them fill out an online survey, to these interviews.  I've watched the number of possible participants dwindle from 20 to 9 and now 7, but I'm not complaining.  Unlike collecting numbers, hearing someones personal story just does something for me. I really enjoyed listening to them and seeing my research come to life through their eyes.  They added meaning to all the big words and theoretical frameworks and at the end of the morning, as I saw my dissertation transform yet once again, my participants made me remember why all of this was relevant and getting my PhD is so important.