Last summer was a difficult time for my family and community. The 'mega-blaze' Gospers Mountain Bushfire circled our rural property from October to January, prompting me to evacuate several times. For four months, my packed suitcase remained in my car and our valuables remained at a friend's place. So when I officially started my PhD at Western Sydney University on 1 February 2020, the prospect of returning to postgraduate studies actually felt peaceful. The fire had finally been declared out, the choking smoke had cleared, and the onset of cooler, rainy weather had allowed us to breathe properly for the first time in months.
After a few days of rain we knew it would flood (we get a flood or two every year) but didn't anticipate exactly what was coming. Just two days after my first doctoral supervisor meeting the rain was no longer friendly. I evacuated again, this time in response to the largest flood our area has seen in almost a century.
The local roads were quickly cut off and at home my family progressively lost landline service, then power and internet, then all mobile reception. I was stuck in Sydney, thankfully with somewhere to stay, but with no real way of contacting my family.
In the end I was flooded out for a fortnight because even after the water started to recede our ‘road’ was more ‘mud puddle’, and we had unintentional water views for several weeks. Being able to drive a boat through a paddock over the top of fences is a strange experience...
In that same fortnight I had to attend an induction at the State Library of NSW (I had been accepted as a 2020 Visiting Scholar), HDR Orientation at uni, and a Library conference. At the very least, the PhD has given me something to focus on at a time when I was otherwise feeling rather helpless.
By late February I was finally back home and although the property damage had not been repaired I was able to start settling back into postgraduate research. I could travel into the State Library once a week to start the archival research that would be the backbone of my project. I love this part. I remember one of my undergraduate professors talking about his love of archives, proudly identifying as a ‘dusty’ historian. I wholeheartedly agree. For me, sitting in the Mitchell Reading Room, being able to read documents that are hundreds of years old, sometimes being the first person to handle them since acquisition, is a privilege. It is one of the most exciting, humbling and rewarding stages of historical research.
I also started to work on my Early Candidature Plan, mapping out a timeline for the next few months and years. The preliminary scoping task had revealed the size of my project (with an estimated 60,000 reviews in the collection) so this timeline would be important. Setting and meeting milestones would serve to reassure me and others that the project was achievable.
Things seemed to be on track. But in the past few weeks the world has been shifting under my feet. The country is rapidly shutting down in response to the declaration of a global pandemic. Last week the university and State Library closed, jeopardising the progression of my project. Suddenly, my timeline (written just a few weeks ago) is already out of date. The university has asked postgrads to complete Research Contingency Plan, but the prevailing uncertainty about the entire situation makes it difficult, prompting a lot of panicked emails and online meetings with my supervisors. Ultimately there is not much we can do other than wait and see.
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