A quick update. It has been awhile between entries, I know and the longer I leave it the more ground I feel I have to cover. I think the Flinders Honeymoon is winding down. I am loving it there yet the rubber is hitting the road. The last months I have been working on a systematic review on academic literature concerning the perspectives of people with a congenital physical disability who have communication disabilities and their supporters on social participation and sexuality. I have the final selection of papers for quality appraisal by my supervisors and myself. They will appraise half of the papers while I will appraise all of them before summarising the results. The aim is I will publish the systematic review finally.
The one of the reasons of transferring to Flinders was to become part of the academic community of the disability studies and to get more involve with PhD students as doing a PhD can be a lonely journey. The plan was I would attend uni regularly to attend the various research presentations and seminars plus work among other PhD students. My primary supervisor politely reminded me of this again several weeks ago. So, after some somewhat major changes to my support at home I am now attending each Friday mornings. However, this morning I messed up and missed a vital presentation as I was studying in the PhD room. Also, from having a meeting today regarding my annual review of progress, I was reminded that PhDs are not just an exercise in undertaking a piece of research, it includes further learning in research and networking with other academics, which takes time, planning and energy.
I have thought about this several times this year, yet I think it would be good to move closer to the university. Close enough so I could drive my wheelchair into my office. At the moment I am using taxis which are expensive and time consuming to get to and from uni. I could put in for a housing transfer to Housing SA for a house closer to Flinders and it could take up to anything between a few months to years to get a place. I am not sure if I would like to move away from the community network I have here now and then having built up another one. I asked God about it and got a sense of Him saying that anywhere I go he always provide the support I need, so, I am thinking of putting the request for a transfer and see what happens.
There is more I could write yet I will leave it for another day.