Abstract:
This autobiographical narrative relates the ongoing process of my "becoming" a researcher. Framed within the context of my life and the dailiness of full-time scholarship study, and set during a period when existing understandings of what it is to be (considered) a researcher are being challenged, my narrative introduces the influential characters, human relationships, critical incidents and events essential to my becoming a researcher. Stories of my serendipitous mid-life entry into the world of school education as an aide to a child with special needs, my subsequent urge to qualify as a teacher, and my decisions to undertake honours study and commit to a doctorate in an emotionally demanding area of study provide fertile ground for my contemplations of and reflections on educational research; process and product. In this paper, I out myself as an academic impostor by exposing my feelings of uncertainty and doubt. I describe those times when I feel most creative, most rewarded and happiest as a researcher; flow experiences. I use the notion of generativity scripts to position myself within the process of research mentoring and induction currently shaping and influencing my realisation as a researcher.