Summer, a time for walking hand-in-hand through fields and meadows, drinking beer in the sunshine beside a picturesque river, sitting back and watching an afternoon of cricket in the sun and, of course, redrafting chapters of a certain PhD thesis.
So I’ve got a busy summer ahead, which will include the usual trips to the cricket and a few beer festivals. At the moment the sun is out and it is nice weather and it has been unusually dry this Spring. But I have a very clear work schedule for the summer months and this will include redrafting two chapters and writing a new one from scratch. So lots to keep me busy! It certainly won’t be all easy living!!! Not least when the end of the summer approaches and I need to get all my teaching preparation and admin done ahead of the start of term.
In other news I am a very happy guy again. I have got to know someone truly amazing and I am very much bowled over by her. She has been a real ray of sunshine in my life and I am so happy with her. Sorry for being glum and depressed a few posts ago, everything is fine in my world again now. I do not think I have been happier and although I shall miss her over the summer, I think a happy PhD student is a good PhD student and I am relishing the prospect of getting on with the work tasks I have to do. She’ll give me the strength to get through the next few months that’s for sure!
I have also had a paper abstract accepted for a conference in Lisbon on ‘Portugal and International Organisations’ which is right up my street! And basically any excuse to go to Lisbon and hopefully I will have a lady friend to show around the city that I love! I have already started to get my Portuguese food cravings so it will be good to return to Portugal, but maybe I will satisfy these cravings in London when we go down later in the month. My new biometric passport arrived in the post today so I can now go away at the drop of a hat!! If only I had the money.
The final bit of news to update you on is the visit of Prof. Richard Whitman which I mentioned in my previous post. It was great to have such a distinguished speaker talking on a topic so close to my own interests. This meant that I got to ask some interesting questions and my supervisor made a point of asking a question that she knew I would appreciate. He was also fine company for the lunch that I was invited along to.
Anyway, I have lots to be getting on with this summer. The best thing for all concerned is for me to get on and make some progress on these chapters. Hopefully, I shall be able to write in my next post that there has been decent progress!! If not, then I will have been sat in the sun too much and might be turning a nice shade of lobster red!