Disclaimer: This is my personal journal and includes rough notes from my PhD journey. Some thoughts may be incomplete or not thoroughly researched. Please do not consider any content in my monthly notes to be definitive or final. If you have insights on any subjects I discuss or would like to start a conversation on a topic, please do get in touch!
As another year comes to an end, I find myself reflecting on the past 12 months - on both the good moments and the challenging ones. This year was big on travel, starting with an ill-advised trip to Poland for a week of writing, which didn't exactly go to plan and then travelling to Iceland for my birthday trip (40 this year!), which was by far the best trip of the year.
Nick’s work commitments limited the dates we could travel, but I managed to join him on a work trip to Rome in April. While he worked, I spent my days walking to my favourite locations and observing tourists take selfies near the Trevi Fountain. We also visited friends in Portugal and enjoyed a lovely day exploring Lisbon.
Towards the end of the year, we went on two long-haul trips. In late November, we travelled to Morocco with Alan—our first full family trip in several years. Then, in December, we visited the Dominican Republic. As always, our trips focused on ticking off animals from our must-see lists and doing as many local activities as time permits. A significant theme this year was standing on major tectonic plates: the North American and Eurasian plates in Iceland, the African plate in Morocco, and the Caribbean plate in the Dominican Republic.
I didn’t write a detailed account of the Dominican Republic trip because it wasn’t really the type of holiday we usually take. It might have been ideal if I enjoyed five-star, newly built hotels with private beaches, pools, jacuzzis, global cuisine, à la carte restaurants, and premium drinks. The Dominican Republic feels like the Ibiza of the Caribbean. It’s perfect for those who enjoy parties or golf - a truly effortless holiday. Most people we met loved it, and some were planning repeat visits. While we’re glad we went (it’s been on our list since visiting Mexico), we won’t return. Future Caribbean travel might involve a cruise where we can visit six or seven islands briefly.
You might think I’m spoilt, and that’s absolutely correct, but I also have a clear sense of the type of holidays I enjoy, and they rarely centre around good accommodation or hotel food. That said, every experience holds value. On this trip, we encountered amazing wildlife, including porcupine fish, tarantulas, hummingbirds, and an enormous octopus.
Every one of our holidays this year was extraordinary in its own way. However, we also witnessed the effects of climate change. We saw glaciers retreating at alarming speeds, the Sahara reclaiming Moroccan villages and Caribbean coral reefs bleaching as rising water temperatures push algae further out to sea. These experiences underline the urgency of global action, as local initiatives alone cannot address this issue.
One great experience we had was participating in a coral propagation initiative. We learned about the harmful impacts of human activities on marine ecosystems, such as wearing non-reef-safe sunscreen or make-up, breaking corals, and touching wildlife. The aim of this programme was to observe how a dedicated team in the Caribbean is working to counteract the damage to local coral reefs. They achieve this by promoting the growth of new corals using ropes, which are then transplanted to areas where reef regeneration is needed.
Anyway - back to monthnotes. The first fortnight of the month had limited focus on my PhD, although I did submit the second iteration of my Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) application for review. This month’s notes begin with a few personal experiences from my holiday but then return to PhD-related updates. Feel free to skip the initial sections if you prefer to focus solely on the research progress.
Vegan Rant
I’ll start by admitting that I’m not 100% vegan. There are a lot of reasons behind this, which I won’t get into now, but I try to live a conscious life. I don’t eat mammalian or bird meat at all. I stick to cheese from a local farm where I know the cows are treated well, and the calves stay with their mums. I eat eggs from happy chickens, again from a local farm where I’ve seen them running around freely. Occasionally, I’ll have wild-caught fish or sustainably sourced prawns. When I’m eating out, I go fully vegan and don’t stray from the path. But there are some countries I travel to where “vegan” is a concept that just doesn’t seem to exist. Once, in Greece, I ordered from a vegan menu and was served a dish with a dollop of Greek yoghurt in the middle.
On holiday, I try to stay as cruelty-free as possible without losing my sanity, which usually means shifting towards pescatarian options to get by.
On our recent trip to the Dominican Republic, we treated ourselves to Premium Class flights with TUI. I hate flying, so upgrading for more space feels worth it. Plus, it stops my 6'4" husband from complaining about legroom for the whole flight. Nick pre-ordered our meals: a “healthy” option for him and a “vegan” one for me. We figured Premium Class meant decent food. How wrong we were.
First off, Nick’s “healthy” meal turned out to just be “low fat.” I’m not sure what’s healthy about that, but okay. My “vegan” meal came with the added bonus of being “gluten-free,” which seems like a shortcut to lump all dietary requirements into one sad meal. It was the least healthy thing I’ve eaten in a long time. The ingredient list filled an entire side of the packaging, which says it all.
The meal itself? It looked like it had been vomited out by a goat and tasted like… well, nothing. And don’t even get me started on the fact that for the last three trips I’ve taken, every vegan meal has been some version of Moroccan tagine. Is couscous with overcooked vegetables the pinnacle of vegan cooking?
And seriously, who thought it was a good idea to serve everyone beans on a 10+ hour flight in an airtight container - by which I mean the plane itself? After a few hours, the smell of farts started to become quite unbearable. It’s like no one thought through the consequences for everyone on board.
For me, veganism - or, in some places, conscious pescatarianism, as I like to call it - is about trying to live in a way that reduces harm and cruelty to animals. But instead of feeling good about this choice, I often feel like an inconvenience. Why does trying to be more ethical make you feel like a burden?
This experience with TUI left me feeling genuinely insulted. It’s like vegan options are an afterthought, thrown together with no effort. I’ve learned to pack my own food when I travel. For this trip, I brought sandwiches, and thank goodness I did. Relying on what’s provided is rarely an option if I want to eat something that’s both edible and satisfying. But why should it be this way? Surely, creating a decent vegan meal is not hard, especially when you’re paying for a “premium” experience.
In the end, what should’ve been a treat, felt like being penalised for making a conscious choice? And I’m still haunted by the thought of eating another bland Moroccan tagine.
Technological Mediation
Technological mediation is a theory from postphenomenology that looks at how technology shapes the way we experience and interact with the world. The idea is that technology isn’t separate from the world; it’s actually part of how we engage with our environment. It also suggests that technology influences our values and norms, and in turn, changes the way we act. This is something I’m really interested in as part of my PhD, so I always look for opportunities to observe how people use and react to technology in everyday life.
I had the chance to do just that during a recent holiday. The first example happened at the airport before our flight to the Dominican Republic. My husband and I are what you could call travel snobs, so we always visit the airport lounge before our flights. This one was busier than usual for December, though I’m not sure what that even means anymore. With so many travel options, it feels like tourism is a year-round thing now.
While we were in the lounge, I spotted a pancake machine, one of those automated devices that’s supposed to make life easier but, in reality, is more amusing than efficient. There was just one button, and you pressed it the number of times corresponding to the number of pancakes you desired. The guy in front of me pressed it three times for three pancakes, so I followed suit and pressed it five times to get some for both Nick and me. I chatted to the person in front and behind me as we waited for the machine to slowly dispense the pancakes. The progress was slow, though I guess the idea is to save on human effort, not customer time. We spoke about how much faster it feels when someone is making your pancakes by hand, even if it doesn’t save that much time. Watching someone prepare food seems to make the process feel quicker, even when it’s not.
At one point, the machine jammed, and we started to smell burning pancakes. To prevent the airport's evacuation, I quickly called over one of the staff members, who opened and closed a few parts of the machine, much like a mini IT support session, hoping to fix it. Eventually, with the staff member’s help, the burnt pancakes started to come out one by one. It was interesting how many people were watching the situation unfold. In the end, the machine didn’t save any time or effort, and it still needed a person to step in and fix it.
Another memorable tech moment was at the fancy hotel we stayed at. I’m an early riser, so I usually wake up before Nick and find somewhere to sit and wait for him while reading, writing, or doing a bit of craft. In the Dominican Republic, the temperature stayed pretty consistent, whether it was day or night, so it was warm enough for me to head down to the beach each morning. On the way there, I’d stop at the coffee machine in the lounge (supposedly where the “better coffee” was) to get a tea in my keep cup. It’s funny how something as simple as a coffee machine can make or break someone’s holiday. Every morning, I’d overhear people complaining about the cafeteria coffee and then rushing over to the lobby machines. But those machines weren’t perfect either—they’d break down, take forever to make a drink, or sometimes run out of paper cups (“How will I get it up to my wife?!”).
Watching how people interact with these machines made me think about the role technology plays in our daily lives. Whether it’s a pancake machine or a coffee maker, technology is central to how we experience things. People’s reactions—whether they’re happy or frustrated—show just how much we depend on these devices. It’s fascinating how something as small as a broken coffee machine or a slow pancake maker can have such an impact on someone’s day. The more we rely on technology, the more it shapes not just what we do but how we feel about our experiences. It’s a reminder that technology isn’t just something we use—it’s something that, in many ways, defines how we interact with the world.
HREC (Human Research Ethics Committee) Application Form.
I submitted the first version of my HREC application in November, just before heading off on my last holiday of the year. To my surprise, the team came back with feedback in just four working days. The revisions were minimal, which allowed me to send the second version back within two days of returning. The process has changed slightly, so I had to reapply to the data protection team and submit my data management plan. Thankfully, there are excellent resources on the OU intranet, including templates that are easy to complete. Having supportive teams to work with has been a great help.
Given the holiday season and many people taking time off for end-of-year festivities, I won’t have everything finalised this month. However, I’m hopeful to have everything wrapped up by mid-January, which will allow me to start posting my recruitment campaign that I've been working on this month.
By the end of December, I managed to get both my DPIA (Data Protection Impact Assessment) and DMP (Data Management Plan) sorted and approved. Both teams were responsive and quick to provide feedback and approval. It’s interesting how the process is divided between various teams, some of which don’t fully make sense to me. For example, the DMP is approved by the library support team. There are also a few discrepancies, such as whether it’s acceptable to back up data on a personal drive (two out of three teams say it isn’t). Despite these minor issues, the process wasn’t as complicated or difficult as I had been led to believe.
I’m still waiting on the final approval for my HREC form, which I hope to hear back about in the first half of January, after which I can start recruiting and speaking to participants.
Other things that happened this month
I started a new role at NatWest as a Senior Solution Designer (UX) within the P&TT (People & Transformation Technology) team. I'm excited about this opportunity and look forward to the challenges it will bring.
I watched a fantastic event on writing great research questions, where the speakers introduced the IDEA-ARC Model. What stood out to me was their acknowledgement that research questions can evolve during the research process. This is a reminder that it’s completely normal for questions to shift iteratively. Many PhD students get stuck thinking they need to have the perfect research question from the start, but experienced researchers know that this is rarely the case.
Another highlight was attending a TOFT event at the Natural History Museum, where we started making the Darwin doll. This was the second event like this, and I was thrilled to participate after missing the first one. We even had the chance to see the octopus that Darwin himself discovered and preserved in a jar. As part of the doll, there’s a mini octopus, so I took a photo of mine next to Darwin's. The finished doll now sits on my bookcase next to one of Darwin’s books.
In November, I volunteered to do a book review for the Design Research Society (DRS). The deadline is 8th January 2025, so I need to get organised. This is my first book review, and with no template to follow, I looked at examples of other reviews and created my own template, which I hope will work.
I had a wonderful Christmas with my family, including two friends who came over from Poland. It was a full house, and we had a great time. While we couldn’t do all our usual activities due to Christmas closures, like visiting exhibitions or National Trust properties, we still had lots of fun.
December is always a time for reflection. Every year, I hope I’ll say, “This year was easier than the last,” but unfortunately, this wasn’t that year. It’s been an eventful few months, and I’m ending the year feeling quite worn out. However, I’m really excited about the upcoming year, particularly for the more hands-on part of my PhD – the empirical study. My focus for the year will be on recruiting participants, conducting and analysing interviews, and writing up my findings as I go. I also plan to do some auto-ethnography, keeping a daily diary of my experiences and how my views evolve as I engage in research conversations.
Looking ahead
For the past few years, I haven’t set myself any major goals for the upcoming year. I’ve tried anti-resolutions (focusing on what I’ll stop doing rather than start), bullet journaling, and other methods. But this year, I’ve decided to return to basics and set a few goals for 2025. Here’s the list:
Run/Hike 1000km: We bought a treadmill this year, which I plan to use regularly. I’ll also count any walks or hikes over 5km towards this goal. I don’t use a smartwatch anymore, so I’ll manually track my distance daily and tally it up each month.
Write at Least 100 Words a Day: While I’ve been fairly consistent with writing, I want to establish a daily habit. Whether it’s a diary entry, a blog post, an idea, or a section of the fiction book I’ve started, I’ll aim to write every day. I also plan to prepare for November’s NaNoWriMo challenge and create weekly mini-essays on ethics theories as part of a larger project on my website.
Read at Least 20 Pages a Day: I’ve come across a great sketch illustrating how reading a book a week could lead to reading 3500 books in a lifetime. While a book a week might be a bit ambitious, reading just 20 pages a day can help me finish around 30 books a year. I want to get back into the habit of reading books alongside papers and news articles. If I come across a book I’m not enjoying, I’ll stop reading it to avoid blocking myself from reading altogether.
Food and Beverages: While I’m not committing to a full year of sobriety, I want to cut out alcohol types that trigger migraines. My options are already quite limited, so it won't be hard to cut down on the booze. And while our diets are currently quite good, we will focus more on veggies and protein rather than carbs and try to keep ultra-processed products out of the house.
No Fast Fashion: I don’t enjoy shopping for clothes, and most of what I own was gifted by my mum. This year, I’ll wear what I have for as long as possible and only replace items when necessary. When I do buy something new, I’ll focus on sustainable, eco-friendly clothing. I also plan to buy basic clothes and use my crafting skills to make them unique, such as adding embroidered pockets.
This list is intentionally not exhaustive; I want to keep things achievable to avoid overwhelming myself. I’ll track my progress daily and review it each month.
And now, back to the book review due in just over a week. It’s my first one, so I’m both excited and nervous about it.
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