Spring is the time of year for new beginnings. Now, I am not really in a position to pursue new projects while the PhD remains unfinished but, I can report that I have done a little bit of dreaming in that respect. So, I have prudently done some planning for the not too distant future when I will be free of my PhD yoke, and ready to join the dole queues of Cameron’s Britain.
I shouldn’t really discuss in any great details what jobs I have been considering, but I thought it would be a good idea to give some thought to some applications. That way, when I am really too busy in the coming months, I will have a CV ready to go! So that’s what I have done. I have given some thought to post-doc research projects I would like to undertake and put together three different versions of my CV. This was a difficult task, and I always find it awkward. For this reason, when I get back to Newcastle, I will take my CVs into the Careers Service to get some professional opinions on how they look. I think that tactic will pay dividends in the long-run! The job market will be a tough place, but I get the sense that there are plenty of opportunities appearing so maybe the dream of doing something else in the not too distant future isn’t so much of a pipe dream.
The only problem is that the word post-doc, implies having a doctorate that is very much in the past tense! Slowly but surely, I have made some progress in that direction in recent weeks. I completed a full draft of my theoretical framework chapter, all 22,000 words of it. That was a huge relief, it was a bit of a monkey on my back if I’m honest and it makes contemplating the remaining work which needs to be done on the thesis that bit easier. The theoretical framework, I’m sure will need some more work, but tinkering and editing is much easier when there are already words on the page. I’m sure I shall report on how the rest of the writing is going in my next post!
It was a hard slog getting that chapter finished, but I got it done by the end of March in time to go home for a few weeks. I booked my train and had no intentions of taking any books or materials regarding my theoretical framework home with me, so that meant that the deadline of getting it done before I leave for the station was some useful pressure! I wouldn’t have got there if it wasn’t for the encouragement and support I received. In my last post I made no secret of the difficulties I was having in writing. I was, then, really quite stressed. But I have received support from those around me and my supervisors were excellent mentors through this tricky time. I was welcomed to the ‘club’ of the academics who suffer from writer’s block and I know I am in good company.