Late last Friday afternoon I completed the final step in my PhD journey when I resubmitted a short abstract that for some reason the University could not find. It had originally been lodged at the time I submitted my thesis for examination, so lodging it again was not a big deal. However, it was a bit of an anticlimax from submitting my thesis with all the sign offs which I’d done the day before.
In any event, it’s all done now and conferral of my PhD should occur at the end of July.
Knowing it is all done, was a liberating feeling at first , followed by a sense of excitement that led to a difficult nights sleep helped by having the Tour De France to watch until the early hours of the morning.
As I wind down from completing my thesis, I have been reviewing my WordPress Draft Folder, as I have many posts that were nearing completion but weren’t in my desire to complete my PhD.
This post did not make it past draft while travelling through Italy.
Lecce was wonderful, and it was hot. Afternoons when the town closed allowed me to work on the book chapter I was writing based on my research. It was also a time when I could participate in the “Shut Up and Write” sessions with my study buddy. We were early adopters of Zoom!
With nearly two weeks in Lecce, we could take it easy and live our slow travel mantra.
Our Airbnb apartment was delightful with a superb host. It was more B&B than Airbnb, with the traditional home-baked goodies our host provided an added benefit. Our apartment was ideally located near the train station, a bus stop, and a short walk to the old town. The entrance to our apartment was through a small door that did not indicate what was inside. Of course, our apartment was up multiple stairs, which is always a challenge with suitcases. At least it was well lit. The apartment had been our host’s home until she and her husband had children, at which time they moved to a farm just outside the town. We were the beneficiaries of the farm with fresh produce each morning, along with those baked goodies.
I used this pen for months after our visit to Coimbra. Although its long since run out of ink it still holds pride of place on my desk
Hitting the send button on my thesis manuscript wasn’t the feeling I’d expected. I thought it would be eeuphoric but instead it was a a flatness that comes from sheer relief.
It was early. I’d been up since 5 in the morning, tidying up formatting, which had been the bane of my life in the last few weeks. I had been pulling my hair out over headings, renumbering themselves for apparently no reason – of course; there was one which I found with the help of a colleague for whom I am eternally grateful. Full stops were missing in my final run-through, a random page break, a bold line in a table, and an incorrect reference on the second last page of a 365 page document. And of course, there was the conversion to pdf process that saw the pages slighting alter, meaning a few tables had to be reformatted.
What I thought would take an hour took two and a half hours, so at 7.30 in the morning I hit send and into the examination process my thesis goes. I’m hoping that will be straight forward but I can’t be sure.
Thre was no one else in the house awake – how to celebrate? Upstairs and a 45 minute bike session on Zwift. I’ve racked up countless hours on the bike over the course of my phd. It along with the gym have been a welcome release from the daily phd process.
It was quite nice to have an hour or so my own to take in the fact that it was done. The countelss journal articles I’d read,the more than 1 million words written of which nearly 115,000 found there way into the manuscript.
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?
Graham Edge – source ABC.net.au/AP Photo/David Richard
From my first listening to Every Good Boy Deserve Favour, there is no time that I have not enjoyed listening to The Moody Blues. I was introduced to them by a school teacher who proved to be the biggest musical influence of my life – he also introduced me to Dylan and Springsteen and sparked a mini revival of Richard Harris’s version of MacArthur Park in my home town. Edge who died aged 80 this week was pivotal to The Moody Blues.
Edge was a founding member of The Moody Blues, who when formed in the early to mid 1960s had a typical Mersey beat style about them. Their hit Go Now was the most memorable of that incarnation. The band progressed to be an early proponent of Prog Rock.
The Moody Blues were distinctive. Edge’s poetic introductions to songs were part of that, but as I realised when I saw them in concert for the last time a few years ago, their distinctive style was the drumming. Yes, there were soaring vocals, and harmonies but through it all the drumming was central. Just listen to the drum solo to I’m Just a Singer if you need reminding.
Justin Hayward is quoted in The Guardian saying “Graeme’s sound and personality is present in everything we did together and thankfully that will live on.” Just as his drumming was central to the Moddies sound, he was central to the band’s very existence.
I was lucky enough to see the Moody Blues twice. They still had it even in their early 70s, when if my memory is correct Edge said perhaps my favourite ever concert line, that he’d been lucky enough to live through the 60s twice. At 80 his time has come for which I’m very sad but also grateful for the music, his drumming, his poetry and the Moody Blues.
