Only a Month Left!

Oooooh, so I have only a month left of my Maternity Leave... Work is playing on my mind. I am getting rather stressed! I am so happy to have my blog to come back to and let it all out :0)

Soooooooooooooooooooooooo, I hope everyone has been well while I have been away playing at being Mother. I am out of the woods now I think as far as the 'baby' part goes, my son is now 7 and a half months old and getting rather grown up! We don't have any of the sleepless nights, the endless worry about his health, is he warm enough/too cold, no worries about how to feed him or why is he crying... we are just all rubbing along nicely. He is having a nap at the moment (I think it is a nap, he could be asleep for the night but who knows... Not I!) And so work and little dude... well, I am not putting the boy into any form of nursery. I don't want anyone else looking after him! And I am not, as far as I know, going to be working part time. What I think (naively, I am sure) is that I worked before, pretty hard, but skived a bit and had hangovers too... so I hope that without skiving and hangovers I can do full time work in part time hours... DB and I plan to share his childcare between us, so he works say 7am till 2pm, and I work from 2pm until 7pm. So we do almost a full day's work, just without leisurely breaks or chats. Just plain hard work, then back to chill time/family time. I wonder how this will work out? I am quite stressed about it, but that is because I stress about everything.

I am also stressed about how I meant to finish this PhD EVER, let alone in *drumroll* nine months. I know, nine months. How on *earth* is that going to happen?! I have found out that I have nine months of the funded time left and then a year afterwards that I can use for writing up - though no funding and really, that is dragging it out somewhat. I don't need that long, though am sure if I started to eat into it I could spin it out for that long. OR I could apply to go part time. This would be lovely and is my ideal option. BUT then my funding money is cut in half and so I would be relying on DB to help me financially a lot and at the mo we are trying to save up to buy a housey for after the PhD - and get wed! And again we have the issue of dragging the course out... So full time it is then. I have asked my Sup about going part time, I don't know what he thinks. Probably that it is not a good idea. He has left Uni by the way. I am sad! he is still my supervisor though, thank goodness, but that he won't be there to see and talk to when I go back in September is quite hard. Feel very unmoored and unsure. Who will help me stay on track?

I read somewhere that the PhD takes as long to complete as you have left. I should remember this and JFDI!*

So far I remember that I have written quite a lot and planned the rest. I need to read this and refresh my memory. I am currently getting my translations done from the interviews I did in India (this time last year - so soon and so far!) by someone very reliable which is fab. I am nervous though about what is in them... Thehn when these are done I can start thinking about what the Indian voice is, and the chapter that is for.

I am worried about all the reading I have to do to catch up for my lit review, but just to be abreast of current thinking. I suppose this can be sorted out by going to the library and holing up for a couple of days and reading through journal articles and racing throught the recent books. I suppose I only need to know as much as I need to know - sounds obvious but wow you can get bogged down in the reading and ponder over every chapter and nuance. Jut get the gist and move on I reckon.

Oh my baby cries :0( I have to go. I do feel better for thinking about this a bit though. Am so rambly in my head and really want to enjoy this last month as I'll never get it back.

x J
*JFDI: just fuc*king do it!