Fuddland
Not so much as a meteor drizzle. Must have missed us — lucky escape.
So here’s where things stand at the moment: it now appears that things are not on track to finish my PhD at the end of March. The end of March would have been a good time to finish because:
that’s when my funding runs out
that’s when the house I live in is going to be put on the market, so I need to move out
Just to summarise those two points: in three months I will be homeless and penniless.
Of course, that’s being rather melodramatic. But it does mean I need to figure out a few things on top of trying to finish my research as quickly as possible. Do I take on more teaching to earn more money — which will then eat into the time I can do work? Or, do I get myself a loan and devote all my available time to calculating how much interest it’s accruing every second of the day getting my work finished?
And depending on which of those options I take, I’ll either need to find somewhere else to move into in Leicester on a short-term contract, or think about moving back home for a few months [the second of these being viable if I do no teaching, but denying me handy access to my supervisors’ offices for clarifying meetings]. And since “home” is my nation’s capital, any loan I take out won’t last as long down there as it would up here. Oooh but then I would probably spend more on rent up here.
Oh yes, and there’s also the small matter of sorting out a job for when I do eventually finish — no sense in handing over my thesis and then deciding what to do [other than get my credit cards changed to say “Dr” on them — which is obviously the only reason I started this thing in the first place]. So that’s a CV to prepare, application forms to fill in, interviews to attend, rejection letters to burn, hexes to cast…
Bah, it’s too much to think about all at once. But sod it, it’s Christmas. I’m going to not worry about it all for now, and instead spend most of next week in various states of drunkenness with people that I love. I do hope you’ll all be doing the same. Merry Christmas, one and all.
