The Evil European

Retrospective on the last year, which can be summed up in one word....SHIT!

Your life tends to orbit your Ph.D...though my PhD turned into a blackhole and started to drag me in!

As can be seen from this blog things started to go wrong (or rather really wrong) in April. The whole Ph.D was simply going from bad to worse with it dragging the rest of my life with it. My supervisor left the previous year and it simply felt as if the bastard was never going to get completed. By April I had run out of steam. Only the help and support of my family, friends and the department (among other things) got me through.

The most amusing point in the whole PhD thingy was the viva. Hand on heart, I was not nervous until around three days before. Then the night before my viva, the main electricity substation for the university exploded cutting power to a large chunk of campus. It was at that point I discovered something worse than doing a viva....not doing a viva and having to wait another three months! Thankfully an alternative venue was found and three minutes into it I found my stride and actually ended up enjoying the whole thing! I came out with minor corrections (completed within 2 hours) and a huge sense of relief, really upset stomach and a three day migraine!

I have handed in my final copy, I am no longer a student. I have to admit I fill rather numb and hollow (I also feel that even though I have a BSc, MSc and now a PhD that I know jack shit and am only qualified to collect trolleys at a supermarket!) I have found picking up my life which has in reality been on hold for the last two years very hard. I have got my work cut out to reconnect with those that mean most to me, as well as meeting new people. I need to get one of those job things too!

I shall use this blog as an outlet for what interests me in the world, and to document my reconnection with it. It seems half arsed to doings things to put in a blog, but I need to a kick up the arse.

I came across a Latin phrase the other day; "Audentes fortuna iuvat", fortune favours the bold. I find the use of bold and not brave most interesting....even if you are scared, it does not mean it will stop you from trying. Something I am going to try and remember.

Later,

R.I.P
Matt's PhD
2001-2007