So, I finished my PhD thesis. Three weeks ago now, actually. It’s deeply odd – especially now I’ve stopped being quite so maniacally busy and actually get to sleep in and do nothing in the mornings. I’m trying really hard not to get lazy, but to get up and do stuff – even if it’s only reading through the really large pile of novels I want to read out in the garden with a pot of coffee.
I think I’m happy with it, the thesis I mean. It’s not quite the thesis I wanted to have written, I think; and it’s certainly not the thesis I proposed to write four years ago (which was going to cover constitutional evolution from Sulla downwards, in 80,000 words. ahahahahaa), but I think it should pass, and I’m mostly proud of it. I could have spent another month or two refining it, but you know what – I would have gone stark staring bonkers. So I let it go. I think by the time I viva I’ll be ready to go back in and really shiny it up. I *am* proud of the theory and I’m 99.99% sure it works – it’s just the expressing it in the discussion of the texts where the problems come, because there are two major-very-interlinking strands, and it all gets a bit complicated writing-wise.
Currently, I’m trying to get my brain enthused about new stuff, which is a bit harder. It’s had a tiny break now, so I’m started to get behind the idea of new projects and work. I had to go back into the office the day after I submitted the thesis to cook up a research proposal for a bunch of fellowship applications that are all coming up in the next month. I had to get it to the second supervisor so that he could read it in time to write me references before he gets caught up in moving to Rome. It was horrible. I sat at the desk and went, “Hi brain, I know you only just got rid of the three year epic project yesterday, but it is now time to kick in and come up with a new thing, in more than just broad brush strokes.” And then my brain fell out of my head and lay trembling on the desk. I got the ‘research completed so far’ bit drafted that day – a good thing, since I can’t do that now! My brain actually no longer wants to think about what it spent the last three years dealing with. At least till the end of November, when it’ll have to, in order to do the viva.
The applications are mostly done now – and for any others that come up I have a 2000 word block of recent work/proposal to edit as required (seriously, Cambridge colleges, you’re full of smart people and you couldn’t come up with a unified application form?). So I moved on to packing and moving and cleaning and painting and gardening, and all those things you have to do when you’re moving new lodgers into your house, and are trying to sort out what you need to take to Germany for the winter. And then I drove from Scotland to Cornwall.
Now I get to try that whole, ‘holiday at home’ thing. It’s been a while – since most holidays involve me running off across the planet with a duffel bag and a pile of camera gear. So I’m going to get back to that pile of novels now…
