food notes

The whole of last week was devoted to revising a chapter. I am used to rushing to meet deadlines and working intensely for long hours, but I found revising, going back over content repeatedly, much tougher than writing the first draft. The longer your to-do list, the more you tend to avoid it. Spending time read more

This week wasn’t as productive as last week, but it was wonderful to have a coffee break with my colleagues. We discussed our research progress and gave advice to one another. I explained that I have been setting up a provisional framework and also reorganising my literature review chapters. One of my colleagues, who is read more

On Tuesday, I had a face-to-face meeting with my supervisors, which was very productive. Through our discussion, I suddenly realised my misunderstanding of a topic I had tackled over the last month, which had actually given me trouble when writing about it. Sometimes, we students take weeks or months to figure out a matter that read more

Finally, I submitted my draft to my supervisors after a three-week struggle. I cannot remember how many times or how many people I asked about the right place to provide conceptual definitions and the correct structure of the discussions. The content of this section will also be part of my presentation at a conference in read more

I have been reading key studies and working on a section to define a concept. Maybe I am struggling a bit with it, how to structure different definitions of one concept proposed by different authors, and eventually, how to logically link discussions to a conceptual framework. The most striking thing for me is how different read more

This is my fourth time in Birmingham in the past 4 years. Every time I visit, I feel that the redevelopment of Birmingham New Street station is stunning and that it’s increasing efficiency.     Conference This was my first conference ever. The university campus was very nice and beautifully organised. On the first day, read more

On Tuesday, I had a formal meeting with all three of my supervisors for the first time in six months. Before going to the office, I was extremely nervous, more so than in our previous meetings. That morning, I was woken up by a bad dream in which I was really late for the meeting read more

I have returned to England after spending 18 weeks in Tokyo conducting fieldwork, which included observations, audio recordings, one-to-one interviews, focus groups, and reviewing local sources. Combined with my preliminary fieldwork, I spent a total of six months collecting data. I also sent a box of books from Japan to my address in England. At read more