The day was great. Workwise. Even though I started late, having wasted my time here and there, trying to get into the right mood, the right setting, the right sitting, right amount of black tea and right music plugged in my ears - I finally resumed work after two days. Having watched one senseless comedy show or daily soap after the next (for my flu-inflicted brain specifically demanded that), I was surprised all I wanted to do today morning was to run to work lest I should laze or the medicines start to make me drowsy.
First I went to a computer shop right outside Thane station where I got this keyboard exchanged. As if it wasn't enough that my Mac's keypad went bad, mouse is tricky and mouse pad gives little electric shocks now and then; now the external keyboard also stopped working. I don't know how good this one is but it's making nice tak-tak sound. That's all I care about usually in a keyboard.
So well, the best thing to have happened yesterday was that I realized how much I missed work. Alas, how difficult, nay, offensive, it is to say to your friends. You see, It is against accepted social customs to enjoy your work, to look forward to office after 2 days of sick leave. You gotta have some life. Well, I don't. Not when I am away anyway.
As I sat analyzing the responses of a respondent I realized how interesting her story was. Add to it the previous 10 interviews I had analyzed, each woman's story, individual responses to similar questions were throwing up so many gaps, surprises, horrors and intermittent relief. And the more they were different, the more they settled into a particular theme. Each woman's present age, the age at which she got married, education, husband's education, household income and number of live issues and abortion history - the basic characteristics - would also tell a story. It was perhaps in the 11th interview that I finally had the data 'speak' to me. I had heard some researchers talk about this earlier. How their data is or is not 'speaking' to them and how the latter bothered them. Also whether their data is 'rich'. And I would be left wondering, half dismissing them as dramatizing their work. But it happened, it did. Making me wish it were a working saturday so the office would be open.
I will take my laptop and this keyboard to a cafe nearby that I like. I like the cafe owner too but that's an aside. There I would order my favorite– Chamomile Tea– and finish sorting and analyzing the transcripts that I have brought with me from work.
Soon I will post some pics from my field work.
