It's pretty hard going. I find myself right back where I was 12 months ago: A series of "promising" reactions formulated over Christmas either didn't work or are proving a nightmare to purify. I'm starting to feel the pinch of time constraints. Last year I was looking forward to kicking back over Easter and catching up with all the things I never got around to doing (of course, that never happened...), and this year I have the "excitement" of organising the best part of 250 journal papers into some semblance of a chronologically linked story and get started on my literature review. That's right, the thesis must begin. Add on to the search for a job which is planned to start at around that time.
Days just seem to be passing freely - already we're 1/3 of the way through the second term... The only thing I'm trying to do is not to slide down into a pit of absolute despair as all it will take are a few good reactions to get me back on track - and surely I'm due some of those soon? My first 2 years seem to be getting wrapped up quite nicely - the paper we've been writing since October is nearing completion (ah - I look forward to the day when I can search for myself on Web of Knowledge). The work has got me nominated to attend an organic symposium in York in April to talk about it (not too scared; for some reason I've completely conquered my fear of public speaking even though I'm sure I sound like a right spaz) and will also form the topic for a poster that will accompany me to Fπ7 in Osaka in May (take that tax payers!). I was beginning to think I'd be going alone (well, with the odd Ukrainian PDRA, so as good as alone), but thankfully my labmate, Kara, is coming with me. I'm planning to stay out there an extra week to travel around a bit - Kobe (setting for Grave of the Fireflies), Himeji, Kyoto (Former capital that escaped WW2 bombing boasting over 10 UNESCO world heritage sites) and Tokyo (for the happiest place on Earth: The Studio Ghibli museum). Of course, this will throw away even more precious lab time, but I don't care - I've wanted to go ever since I started ready the SNES magazine SuperPlay (all those years ago in 1992). I'll write a bigger section on Studio Ghibli in a few weeks time - there's a glut of DVD releases coming soon: Howl's Moving Castle, Whisper of the Heart and Only Yesterday. As always, the more I read about the films I haven't seen (especially Whisper...) the more I want to see them.
But that's enough of a Miyazaki digression. The MCR gave a talk to the finalists about postgraduate study last week; I wrote a quick powerpoint introduction and the last question to ask on it "Is it worth it?" is certainly very pertinent. If I can get through this - everything that's happening and emerge the other side as Dr Kiran then yes - it will have given me the determination to carry on through just about everything. Let's hope I get there...
1 comment:
You and me both, you and me both. I advise, strongly, to write as much up in Durham as possible. I find myself lacking in motivation at home, too many distractions, not enough people to relax with etc plus I get stuck a lot due to the nature of my work, and that means I spend ages trying to get past something that in Durham with extra resources and supervisor would be trivial. I guess the nature of a synthetic PhD means its not such a problem to be away from Durham, assuming you have most journal articles, but still...
Lue.
Post a Comment