As if by a miracle, my enrolment situation finally resolved itself on Tuesday. I landed head first in a big pile of administration and induction activities that should normally be spread across a good three weeks of a full-time student’s timetable. I’m supposed to be a part-time student so I certainly feel as if something […]
Induction week – 10 Oct 2020 Read More »
I would quite like to be talking about exciting, PhD-initiating things this week, but it ain’t quite like that. Let me tell you how it is. Monday I was still not enrolled. But that was OK (sort of), I had an appointment on Tuesday afternoon with the branch of my institution which is supposed to
Nominally, it is Fresher’s Week – 3 Oct 2020 Read More »
I was determined to get my MA dissertation off this week. At 7:00 on Tuesday morning, I became conscious of a genuine, sincere hatred towards my reference list. At 7:50, I submitted the dissertation. It’s a week early. At 8:00, I told my family never to mention the word ‘MA’ in conjunction with the word
I think this counts as week 0 – 27 Sep 2020 Read More »
It’s been a strange week, in which I’ve been torn between the desire to do fun, PhD-related things and the obligation to do tedious finish-work on the MA dissertation. As the week wore on, the amount of MA work that got done slowed to a grinding snail’s pace. I have about five references left to
Dragging myself round the corner – 20 Sep 2020 Read More »
It’s been a rough week on a personal level, with death, natural(-ish) disaster, and disintegration affecting my circle of family and friends. Meanwhile, COVID19 cases are rising again in the UK, so it looks as if our brief illusion of relative freedom may be over for a while longer. Sometimes stress shuts me down on
The end of the tunnel – 12 Sep 2020 Read More »
Almost unbelievably in this strange year, I set off on Saturday to go somewhere other my house, namely the Lake District for a week’s family holiday. I took my laptop with me, in case I was suddenly possessed of an overwhelming desire to organise my list of primary sources, or something like that. That part
My theoretical model for starting a PhD was as follows: having written a proposal and secured an offer and funding, I would wrap up my MA dissertation by April 2020, spend several pleasant months wandering around the planet, and begin in a refreshed and excited state in October. In practice, I probably bit off more
So I’m about to start a PhD, I think – 27 Aug 2020 Read More »
