Fingers crossed...

The 18 March has now been mooted.

Oh please, please let this be the date!  I can totally make that; I will be 31/32 weeks preggo instead which is totally manageable.  I will have weeks to do corrections too. 

Please be the date!  A room has been booked for 10am so I really am hopeful this is it :)  I have my birthday on the 21st, then my bestest friends are coming to visit me from London in my new abode before I pop another childer and become a complete recluse...  and so we decided to also have our housewarming that weekend.  So will be a big celebration of loveliness (even tho I might have lots of rewriting which would be depressing.)  But then it could be nice to celebrate not having to do another viva?!  I guess I only have the one, and then do the corrections and get the degree?

Lordy, I don't actually know!

x J

Aw

Had an email from Sup, he is trying his best love him and has said that he is making it clear to the examiners that he will not let me undertake the viva at a time that is medically unadvisable or when I simply don't feel comfortable. 

I feel bad now.

Still a crappy situation tho :(

x J

viva shit continued

Apparently I have to do the viva at 36 weeks preggo or wait until June (when I have a one month old baby WTF) or September (with a four month old.  Still massively WTF). 

A) I will have to take my baby into the viva at that stage to breastfeed.  Getting my boobs out in front on staring stranges and my Sup, however discreetly, is not an option.  (especially with a one month old still working out his latch!!!!!)  B) I will have had no sleep since May.  C) WTF?!  It makes me sad no-one seems to think about how having a baby is a life changing event.  Like, I can't seem to be abel to say 'No, I can't do the viva in April or May because I am HAVING A FUCKING BABY.'  I don't have a nanny and I AM the bloody lactating mother so can hardly hand the baby over to someone else for a day or two.  It just isn't an issue in male-dominated aca-fucking-demia.

I know people could say 'oh well, you got pregnant it's your bed' bla bla but actually it is not typical to have a viva nearly five months after submission.  I was told the viva would be in feb/march - 2-3 months after submission which is pretty normal and I could ballet dance to that in this second trimester of pregnancy.  Nor did I baulk at doing it when 34 weeks pregnant (altho that would be shit too but far more copeable, with time to do the corrections before needing to focus on the imminent hell that is labour).  Now I could be facing a viva 6-9 months after submission which in itself is shit.  9 months after would be awful wouldn't it - you can't get on with your life while it is still there, waiting to be done :(  I couldn't enjoy my new baby and life.  You would forget what the fuck it was all about and feel a need to keep working a bit here and there to keep your hand in :(.  More lit would have come out so there would be that much more catching up to do beforehand.  And, tbh, by 9 months wouldn't anyone have lost enthusiasm for it?!  I am looking outside of uni now and even dislike going into my study for the stressy memories - and I only handed in a month ago!

FFS.  I am so gutted.  So I have had to chipperly say let's go for the April date.  It is the best out of a bad bunch.  I do NOT want this PhD anywhere near my baby.  It was so stressful last time with Bean and trying to bloody work and act like I hadn't even had a baby.  It really fucks me off.

I know this is tantrummy but then again, that is what this blog is about really.  I honestly don't bloody care about it, it is just getting on my bloody nerves now :(. 

Grrrrrrr.

I must think.  Could later be better.  If I go in April and come out with loads of corrections then what, exactly, was the point of going in April because I shan't be able to do them.  Tho I might be able to make a start and organise myself some to enjoy the newborn bit (or at least relax into the hell of sleepless nights).  I think knowing what is in store would be useful.  And yeah, Sept would not be cool.  I wouldn't be able to think about a viva until bubs is about 6 mths and life has settled down a bit.  My friends who have two children have been dribbling, crying desperate wrecks until about 6 months and they are on maternity leave!  DB and I have argued so much since having Bean about each having time to work.  I cannot and will not go back there (life is MUCH happier since finishing the PhD!)

Oh FFS.

x J

New viva date: nightmare

Oh bloody hell.  Now it seems my viva date is the week of the 15th april...  when I will be 36 weeks pregnant :(

I am insanely unhappy about this.  I had Bean when I was 37 weeks!  At 36 weeks I was pretty immobile and definitely very very stupid, absent minded, hormonal and in huge nesting mode.  I hated going out of the house let alone to the other side of the country,  For an exam.  With strangers.  This means I will have to travel 7/8 hours on the train, I will be huge and stressed and, if last time is anything to go by, in serious pain when walking :(  PLUS this means I will have no maternity time and might be doing corrections with a newborn.  My whole bloody fucking pregnancy will be about graft - finishing the PhD, moving house, hospital appts, and now the viva. 

Well, I shan't be doing corrections with a newborn and a preschooler.  The thing is I can't say this.  As a stupid bloody professional I have to pretend my life doesn't exist so I have to say yes, I shall do the viva, yes I shall do the corrections.  About to give birth or no, newborn or no. 

Bah shit fucking wank tits.  If my toddler wasn't in the room I would fully sob. 

x J

 

Viva Date

I have a Viva date!

It is on the morning of the 5 April :)  Ages away which gives me lots of time to move house and settle in and prepare which is great.  Does mean I will be 34 weeks preggers tho eek!  And if I have lots of corrections then goodbye last few days of 'maternity leave'.  Sup said it will be over by lunchtime which I know is pretty standard but does give me hope that it won't be a four hour grilling of how shit it all is.

I got the bound thesis through the post the other day too, it is HUGE!  I can't bear to look at it and spot all the typos and horror within, tho I know I have to.  Not for a good month yet tho :)

Anywho.  I love my new life without my PhD!  Moving house is so easy without feeling like I need to work all the time too like previous moves.  I just get up. dither around with Bean and pack some boxes, eat some chocolate, dither a bit more and then read my book and sleep.  It is rather pleasant :)

The viva is definitely hanging over my head tho, and the threat of corrections is terrifying!

x J

Viva

Dear Sup

Please stop talking about my Viva.  I am pretending, for a few blissful weeks, that the PhD no longer exists.

Thanking you

x J

Life post-submission update

We have pretty much got the house in the South so will be moving away from studentville for proper next month!

is crackers and exciting and strange. 

But mostly I wanted to say that now I have been finished for a couple of weeks, I feel differently than I thought.  Because people ask me 'ah!  Do you feel much better now you have finished?!'  And I say, 'oh yes'.  But actually, I don't feel 'better' as such...  I feel sane, my brain feels cleaner and I am a lot happier to be around.  I really am much better company.  But mostly I feel NORMAL and wonder how on EARTH I ever did my PhD and live my life as I do now!  :)  I am knackered after looking after Bean all day, how on earth did I do this and then work in the evening?  And at the weekend?!  How did I do house stuff and watch Beanie and worry about him like I do, and worry about work at the same time and not go crackers?!  I honestly don't know how I did it.

And I thought i would miss the time to myself that I had as part of the PhD, while beanie was with the childminder.  But I really don't.  When I do have time to myself I do relish it/wonder what to do with myself but in the main I am really glad I don't have to take him to the childminder any more.  I love taking him to nursery (he started preschool this week, his first 'institutional' daycare experience) because he loves it, and it is all about him - not because i have to work when I know he would rather be with me...  But I am loving my freedom to try different groups with him and take each day as it comes.  It really is lovely.

But yeah, rather than being grateful to NOT be doing it, mostly I wonder how I ever did do it!  If anyone said to me now - work on a PhD and do what you do now - I would baulk and say absolutely no way could I do that!

But I did and thank GOD it won't come back.  even corrections cannot be the same as writing the bugger :)  Finishing is brilliant! 

x J

March Viva and Other Things

Soooooo!

My Viva is looking likely to be in March, which is great as Feb feels too soon (!) and gives me confidence of a sort (that is most likely misplaced) that I can't be up for too many corrections...  Sup knows my baby is due in May so I doubt he would send me to a viva in March that needed lots of work...  or would he, I don't know.  Arf.

Life post-submission is delightful :)  Well, in theory it is.  I don't have to work, I can watch tv all night and not feel guilty and every day is saturday.  I do feel a bit worried but now I know the viva won't spring up on me next week I feel better.  Like am on a long holiday.  Am not worried about the viva now as I have asked around and really there is nothing I can do about it now, and a few people even said that try as they might they couldn't read the thesis or books or do ANY more work between submission and the viva... so went in and just dealt with the questions and realised they knew it all anyway.  I feel this.

In real life tho it has been a busy and sad time.  My PhD friend died last week from a shitty cancer tht she was only diagnosed with last feb.  Is so bloody sd and am incredibly pissed off about it.  Is hard to think that this time last year we were both admitting that we had shed a tear on New Years Eve thinking about how this will be Submission Year...  then she got cancer, left uni and bloody died.  I submit, she passes away.  We were meant to submit and graduate at the same time.  Is awful :(

In less dreadful news we have applied to rent a house in the South and should move next month.  This is also a mixed bag of news...  it is wonderful to be moving closer to friends and family so we have help with our young family and be near the sea.  And we aren't yorkshire folk so it makes sense to move now uni is finished.  But at the same time we have lived here for about 6/7 years now and live in a fabulous village and we just love it.  And it is all our son has known.  After a trip South to see the houses this week he is clearly delighted to be back in his homeland, so taking him away from it all will be a wrench.  But this is the stuff of life eh?  And it will be sad to leave where I knew my PhD and my PhD friend.  Quite a few endings at the same time.  I will be back tho, for the viva and (fingers crossed!) graduation, so maybe it won't be too harsh an ending.  And we will have a new baby and a brilliant new home and life to be getting on with.  I just have to deal with the ending first, to move into the new beginnings.

Hehe, I have had a dilemma this week as I had to fill in the application for the house and I was ITCHING to tick the 'Dr' box :)  So close and yet so far!  As it stands I am an unemployed housewife.  Not much of a prospect when it comes to applying to rent a housey.  But if I was an unemployed housewife that was a Dr, well, that means I did something doesn't it?!  It means I worked so hard, and yes, I look after my son now, but I worked once and will again.  It is so prestigious, it definitely brings the snob factor out in people and lends a certain amount of security to me as a person (or non-person as stay-at-home mums too often are) and will give me such a leg-up when I re-enter the job market in a few years time :)  So much better than a Masters, because they are only useful for a small window of time.  A PhD shows so many skill sets and, over all, a determination and will to succeed working on a project for a loooooong time (they don't know how I whined and dithered my way through it ;)).  Do it peeps, stick at it!

Anyways.  Am glad I know when my viva is likely to be now and that my submission made it to the office!  Now, erm...  off to make bagels and spend my day feeling pleased, lazy and completely surprised that I really had the determination to complete :)  Do it people, life on the other side really is all you think it will be!

x J