Thesis = Submitted!

As any regular Just Frances reader will know, my PhD Dreams began a few years ago. And my actual PhD studies began nearly five years ago. And now, I have finally submitted my PhD thesis for examination. (Yay!)

(And yes, this Big Announcement is the reason that I haven’t shared a post in two months. I’ve been too busy PhDing to think about blogging!)

Of course, submitting the thesis is not the end of the journey and there are still a few more steps until I am awarded my PhD. The first of these steps is my viva, which is an oral examination of my thesis. After that, I will be given corrections to make to the document followed by a re-submission of the final, hard-bound thesis. Only after that can I officially graduate.

But I’ll bore you with all of that stuff later. For now, I just want to talk about finally submitting my thesis for examination! Or, more importantly, I want to talk about my life post-submission.

The closer I got to this big milestone, the more all-consuming it became. Even though I wasn’t working on my thesis every moment of every day over these past two months, I was pretty much thinking about working on it. And I was so overwhelmed with the amount of work to accomplish that I found myself unable to relax or to do anything that wasn’t related to my PhD. Of course, that really just means that I would sit in front of my computer at times – unable to do any PhDing, but unable to unwind enough to do non-PhD stuff.

But now I find myself with a bit of free time. Free time that I will spend catching up on all of the fun and adventure I have missed out on over the past couple of months.

What does that mean for you? It means I will be posting a bit more often. (An easy promise, after a two-month hiatus!) It means that I will be sharing stories about walks I have planned and even a few public talks I hope to attend. And it means that I will be catching up on a few of the “musings” blog posts that I have half-written.

What does this mean for me? Well, it means that I get to enjoy all of the things I just talked about. But it also means that I can relax guilt-free for the first time in a long time. It means that I can catch up on my sleep. And on my letter writing. And on my me-time. And that is really something to celebrate!

The celebrations won’t last for long though, because I have to prepare for my viva now. And that is a Big and Scary Thing that will be quite emotional and gruelling. With luck, it will all go well and I won’t have too terribly much work to do on the thesis before my final submission. (Fingers crossed.)

In the meantime, keep your eyes out for some fun and exciting adventure posts.