Beginning of the end

Here we go. Last year of my PhD, not much of it on paper yet, not much money left, and not the slightest idea of what to do next.

But, I am pretty sure I will pull through, I always have so far. I have this weird sense of optimism and self-confidence that seems to emerge when things look bleak to the casual observer. They'll probably engrave "It's going to be OK" to my tombstone, as well.

I'm not sure about life after death, but there will be life after PhD. And this blog is mostly going to be about me getting there. Project 'Get A Life 2007' here we come!

For me, producing anything worthwhile on paper takes time. Idle time. Procrastination in between drafts. Reading stupid stuff, writing funny stuff. Since I also wanted to leave a trace of the write-up process somewhere, I thought I could combine the two things and write a blog about my last year as a student.

(Actually, I've been reading my friend's blog and have wanted to start my own for a while now, and the bollocks above is just me rationalising and making up fancy-sounding "proper" excuses for spending all this time on writing a stupid blog rather than working. Well, at least I didn't claim I'm writing this for academic purposes...)

Day 1, sanity status: self-sarcastic but optimistic

(Photo © Mike Sandells, www.mikejs.com)