At least that’s the idea!

Scary to think that my studentship money will run out in less than a year now and I am supposed to have my thesis ready for submission by then! Scary, but not an impossible task! I mean I’m happy with what I achieved in Brussels and in Lisbon and am certainly in a position to do my ‘writing up’. It’s just scary that something which seemed an eternity into the future is now getting close! But then again, when I first arrived in Newcastle as a fresh-faced undergraduate some EIGHT years ago, I wouldn’t have thought that I’d be completing my doctorate within the next ten years!

So I am back in Newcastle again refreshed and ready for another year. A few changes but many thing remain a constant. The postgrad community in politics this year seems to have made an enthusiastic start to the year under the guidance of our new Postgrad Research Director Martin. Derek did a great job before and Martin seems keen to build on what we’ve achieved over the last few years and to get more of the PhD students involved. I am teaching again this year, the same module as I did last year the seminars for which start next week! So I shall report how that goes over the course of the term but it will be nice to meet a new batch of students eager to learn about the EU! (Or maybe not that enthusiastic as 2 of my 3 seminars are at 9am!!!!). With a new academic year means new faces in the department also, including a new face in our office and a new lecturer who has just recently completed her PhD (so there is hope of getting a job after all this!). And I have a new set of housemates this year, except for one of last year’s who has stayed on with me. All very exciting!

I should, perhaps, say a little bit here about my targets for the year. Obviously get through the teaching and try and do a good job there. I am also going to report my fieldwork findings to the Politics Postgrad Internal Seminar next month. That will be good as I stood in front on them November last year and told them what I was planning to do on my fieldwork! If nothing else it should bring home quite what I have been doing over the past year and hopefully they will see it as fruitful work!

Above all, my target is to get the bloody thing finished! I am, more or less, in a position to begin drafting one of my substantive case study chapters in the next week or so. I reckon concentrate on writing that up between now and Christmas. I want to be somewhere close to putting the complete thesis together by Easter time and then setting about the business of redrafting it all. That is quite a tight timeframe and it would be best to concentrate on getting the chapters in good shape first rather than rushing through it. But I do think I’ll be able to edit and rework sections better once I have completed all my sections roughly, only really then can I tidy up my theoretical framework, introduction and conclusions. So start with getting the guts in place and then build the nice-looking stuff around it! Well that’s the plan at least.

So lots to be getting on with. Now it’s time to get on with it…!