Brunei Diary from 2001 june july

 

Friday, July 06, 2001

Even at this early stage, I was still looking for the next move. In order to do that i had to keep training my self up. One way to consider doing a doctoral thesis. I had started on in Brisbane, but had to stop because my supervisor went to Kosovo

 When I was at the water village school  before Christmas there was an interesting lady  there who was studying for a doctorate.  in those days I still thought a doctorate conferred high status and would give me more opportunities to get good work. I became interested in the idea . She was very helpful at first and helped me with documents on how to prepare a proposal for a Doctorate at Curtin University. After I came back at Christmas, I prepared my candidacy proposal which was a substantial document of around 5000 words. I sent her a  copy by E-mail and asked her for comments.

She did a very thorough job.

I was surprised though by a  curious comment fact she made about my draft in  which I referred to her article. She claimed I had not read it. This was not true.

I had in fact gone to the expense of buying conference papers from a recent conference Taiwan where she had presented the paper. When I casually told her of this in my reply she redoubled her criticism!

I was very worried by this turn of events. By now I had grave doubts about working with her. t I asked a  friend at the University of Brunei Darussalam for a second opinion. He reassured me that I had done nothing wrong and that she had "lost the plot entirely". Although I was reassured by this I was very disappointed that I could no longer work with her. The result was that I lost interest in the doctorate after putting in  a considerable amount of work . Disappointingly, my friend never read the proposal either!

P.S.A couple of years later I tried again . I liaised with a University professor at UBD and he thought I had a good idea about doing a longitudinal study monitoring the introduction of the International Baccalaureate into the International school of Brunei-the school where the children were.

I prepared a substantial document. The school rejected the proposal in a two line e-mail without giving a reason.

I suppose they were afraid of someone snooping around the school interviewing teachers etc.

Everyone in Brunei was afraid of their shadow-including me.

And with good reason.

That was my third attempt to do a doctorate.

My interest was rekindled three years later and I started an educational doctorate  by distance with a US University.

Diary

Sunday, July 08, 2001

  I have a particular interest in dreams and studied Jung's interpreation of dreams when iwa a yong man. Nighmares! Yes ...... its time I mentioned these. I had one around this time.  Maria says I've always had them. but I seem to remember them becoming more frequent and intense as time went on  in Melbourne , Brisbane and then  Brunei.  

In this particular nightmare,  someone told me that there was a man at the door. I knew he had a gun.I so I hid from him at the top of the stairs. But the door was transparent and he was raising the gun at me. As he raised the gun I screamed at him louder and louder in order to stop him shooting me. I woke up screaming and Maria was most disconcerted saying " the neighbors will have heard"

 I have been doing this quite regularly for the last few years. Poor Maria! it's always a different nightmare the theme is always the same –being attacked by someone or something . 

I feel a lot of this related to Melbourne where I believed myself/ourselves to be the victim of the owner of the school. There was also a conspiracy of silence often by those around us. The feeling of abandonment by friends and colleagues was so intense, whether real or imagined , and has never entirely left me . There is no doubt that there is an  element of paranoia in my psyche which takes over from time to time . When this paranoia takes over I feel depressed afterwards. I think the paranoia is often followed by a nightmare.This one was a genuinely frightening experience for Maria.



at this time in Brunei I was worried about what to do here in Brunei in my spare time and and whether I could  put up with the dysfunctionality of the system. I thought I could put up with it for two more years-until at least my eldest son had completed his International Baccalaureate.

But after a couple of years I think I would just start to 'deskill'  myself. so, I neede to keep training myself up. Then what/  Perhaps one more contract in the Middle East ?

Or, a contract in another international school ? 

My nightmares continued. I was treated by a homeopath for the last two weeks, for my frozen shoulder.

Just when I was feeling better I had a nightmare in which I shook my fists in my sleep  at my pursuing enemy and promptly pulled my shoulder tendon out again in real life!  (Dislocation) so, it was  back to square one and  painful especially at night.

What would Jung have made of it all?