Music to edit by

Lately I have been preparing for publication my thesis, which I finished writing five years ago. Yes, that's how long these things take. As you can imagine, the topic is a little stale for me now. I don't hate it and I am pleased with myself to get it to this stage but going over the minute details of several hundred five-year-old footnotes, for example, has been a little on the tedious side. To help me along, I have been scouring You Tube for as many upbeat and often downright silly 80s clips as I can lay my hands on to play while I do it. I am very sensitive to my environment and to noise, but if I like a song, I am quite happy to have it playing along quite close to my ears as I work. So that's by way of explanation for...

Uh-huh.

Finalisation on a Friday

Phew...sent off two major pieces of work today, one of which I have been researching for the last 3 months, and the other I've been working on on and off for 3 years! I hardly know whether to laugh or cry! Have a lovely weekend :)

One door closes...

Perceptions are a funny thing. And if I had a dollar for every time I'd been distrustful of my own reading of a situation, I'd be...well, I'd have a bit of money. But today I am firm in my opinion. It's a pretty significant day for me. I taught my last tutorials. I am no longer teaching and, in many ways, this signifies the end of my almost-decade-long pursuit of an academic career. I won't bore you with the whys and why-nots of this pursuit or with my view on the current state of academia. But, this year, I just realised that enough was enough. It wasn't going to happen and it was time to look at the whole career/job/profession/what-am-I-doing question from a new perspective. It is sad in a sense that things haven't panned out as I thought they would. But I also feel just a little bit excited. Out on my own. Gotta work it out. No more grand plan to plod along with. If it's going to be, it's up to me, as they say.

A colleague accused me today of having a 'defeatist' attitude, of being negative for 'letting go of my dream'. I was suprised how two such different perspectives could be read into the same situation. Am I being defeatist? From my perspective, I gave it damn good shot. But now, a new perspective is in order. Wish me luck :)

Above some impressions as I 'left the building' for the last time. Like all universities, stairs, stairs, nothing but stairs...but look closely: an exit! And a shelf from a section of the library I got to know very well (and very happily) while writing my thesis.