Versailles kir

Nice trip to Versailles with nearest and dearest to finish off my PhD with a celebratory glass of kir at the Open University degree ceremony.

That's my third trip to France this year.

PhD viva done

Now what shall I do?

Six years ago as I applied for a PhD scholarship, the last of the children were on the point of leaving home, one going to university, another starting sixth form. I'd completed that job and had to relinquish it.

On Tuesday 17th May, I successfully defended my thesis against my examiners' questions to be awarded the PhD with minor corrections.

Today I have to do

• no PhD work
• no tutorial preparation or assignment marking
• no research for my new job
• no children to mind

In the next few months I shall tidy up a few ends, enjoy my temporary job and sort out further cancer treatment. I have to relinquish the research that has become my baby, and find a new project.

Life again

Son facebooks me to ask why I'm not blogging, but I've still been writing, writing my PhD thesis. I've just given my supervisors a full draft, all 80,000 words of it, which is the size of a book. Who knows? I may yet submit the final thing, and face the viva next spring and get through with only minor corrections! And get to be a doctor by summer!

Here's hoping.

Trudging

My PhD research trudges on. Or I trudge. Slowly. It's time it were finished, and

"progress is slow"

so said my supervisor this week, so I'm abandoning everything (well almost everything) in order to submit by Christmas. I've just postponed this drama course I was going on in October, and am doing it in January instead. I will have have submitted by then.

Won't I?