Monday, 8 April 2013

Erm... have to defer for a year!

Oh my crackers.

Sup has sent me a very kind but firm email saying that I have a lot of work to do that normally would take three months (as is normal for minor corrections) but I have only one month...  so without stating the obvious he wants me to crack on with it all smartish!

Only problems are that erm, I am going to have a baby in a few weeks (two to five weeks)...  and I have no childcare for bean (nurseries are full until September and even if I could get him in there would be a two week settling in period for him)...  and I am too tired/poorly for evening work.  Even if I had no child or pregnancy I would be up against it.  I have realised that to do these corrections (or, as Sup put it, not insubstantial revisions/rewrites) properly I need to actually WORK, not do a bit of plaster sticking here and there.  I can't hand something in that the examiner then says 'eh?!  this is shit, redo it!'

So I have decided to pack it in for now, go on maternity leave and come back in a year and finish it all off in the three months.  I don't have a choice, but actually I don't even mind.  I am not going to 'need' the doctorate over the next year as obviously I will be looking after the baby.  The work I am coming back to is straightforward, just time-consuming, no massive brain work as such.  I have written the thesis so can easily catch up with where I was, I will also have the viva report by then too (I haven't even got that yet!).

Uni will be cross with me, and so will Sup :(  I feel shit about that.  But I actually love the idea that I can stop worrying about work so much (at all!), spend these last few precious weeks with Beanie before our lives implode with a new addition, go to pregnancy yoga to prepare for the birth (eek!  I haven't gone so far because I think 'if I have time/energy for yoga I have time/energy to work!) and, for once, put the baby before work.  And then after a year I shall come back, concentrate and just blitz this in the three months... and then get a job :)

Is weird to realise I won't finish properly before the baby is born but...  needs must!

x J

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