Category Archives: Uncategorized

This time next week I will be a Doctor!

2 Replies

I have spent the morning ordering a bound version of my thesis and organising my academic gown. The puffy hat will finally be mine!

Last Monday, I received advice that I had fulfilled the academic requirements for my PhD and that conferral would occur on the 31st of July. As I read the letter, I had a feeling of joy and my favourite person one of relief!

It is the culmination of the first chapter of the journey thatI entitled “What’s Next” when I started this blog. It’s a theme I have returned to since, as a fifty-something, I contemplated retirement from the professional firm I had been privileged to have been a partner for more than 20 years. With the completion of my PhD, I feel that the transition is complete, and a new chapter of What’s Next will begin.

When I commenced the journey with the assistance of Michael and Tim, I had no idea where it would take me. Through many conversations with Michael and Tim and the benefit of Hermina Ibarra’s book “Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career”, I am now just over 7 years into that journey.

Across that time, my favourite person and I have been lucky enough to travel to Italy several times; I have seen my first EPL game live and walked the beautiful beaches on the Isle of Sandy in the Orkney Islands. Other highlights have been attending my first large academic conference and becoming a published academic author. Across that period, there has been the joy of two of my children marrying, the arrival of three wonderful grandchildren and my youngest daughter’s graduations.

So “What’s next”?

Continue reading →

Contemplating What’s Next – My thesis is nearly done!

6 Replies

I’m nearly there. My PhD thesis is with the copy editor for the second time. I know there will be yet more typos to fix and references to correct. I know my supervisors will make a few more suggestions, but I’m nearly there. In a few weeks my PhD Thesis will be in the examiners hands.

It’s almost six years since I started my PhD journey and eight since, in contemplating what’s next, that I commenced an academic journey. At that time I was exiting my career as a partner in a global consulting firm and I had to think about what I’d do next.

With the benefit of some wise counsel from two colleagues and after reading Herminia Ibarra’s Working identities I had a plan. I didn’t want to pursue the non-executive director route or remain in the corporate space. I thought I’d be an academic and explore a completely new path.

That was the and this is now.

All of those years later, I am close to completing that journey and I’m feeling a bit lost. What’s Next?

Continue reading →

An IOU Christmas

3 Replies


Well, that’s Christmas done. An awesome day with family and such benign weather after last year’s heat and fires had such a disruptive impact.

Our family Christmas table a year late!

When I said that Christmas is done, I meant the day is over not so the present giving in our case. My favourite person’s main present is in transit. It seems to order it six weeks before Christmas just wasn’t earlier enough. It should arrive next week.

As for me, my children have told me they hope my presents will arrive soon! Again ordered weeks ago, the pandemic has struck.

My youngest daughter thinking on her feet hastily altered cards for a couple of small gifts so I received something from my other daughter and a bottle of Rhubarb Gin from my son and his wife meant I didn’t feel I’d missed out at all. As for my favourite person, she didn’t miss out receiving a new bag hastily arranged with the help of one of her favourite stores.

The lack of gifts made absolutely no difference to a wonderful day Christmas.

We were so lucky that we were able to celebrate with all of our family when so many people in Australia and elsewhere were denied the opportunity.

Thirteen minutes to the Moon

2 Replies

There are two events that I count as the most significant historical events in my life. One is the bringing down of the Berlin Wall and the other is Man walking on the Moon. If I had to rank them, there is no doubt that Man walking on the Moon in July 1969 is the one I would rank highest.

In 1969, I was in Year 6 and like so many school age children I was captivated by the voyage of Apollo 11, in fact the whole space program.

Continue reading →

Puff the magic dragon

3 Replies

As I was working on the last section of my Research Methodology chapter which at the time of writing stands at an absurd and definitely to be edited 63 pages before appendices, a childhood favourite came up on the Spotify playlist – Puff the Magic Dragon.

My parents loved Peter, Paul and Mary and as kids, their music was regularly playing on the family radiogram. There aren’t a lot of music artists that I have in common with my now late parents but Peter, Paul and Mary was one of them.

Continue reading →