The end of an endless project

In late October, I successfully defended my PhD… finally... after working on it for what felt like forever. (Here's an optimistic summary I wrote back when I started).

Post defence felt anticlimactic, like little had changed. Even a few weeks later, I still feel this way--especially since the last couple of weekends have been consumed with dissertation revisions (these changes are a normal part of the process and all minor, but they take time as it is a long document). So far, having a phd hasn’t changed my life in any way. 

Before I seem too gloomy, I did have a lovely celebratory post-defence dinner put on by my supervisor and my friends banded together and sent me off to the spa (a fantastic surprise). My lovely co-workers took me out for a nice lunch and my husband presented me with an aged bottle of scotch.

What I’m struggling with is getting my head around being finished with a project that consumed a big chunk of my life--eight years of plugging away, three of which I had a full time job as well. And I had a kid in the middle of all this--a side of extra chaos. At times, the project felt hopeless leaving me wondering what the point of it all was (a common feeling of phd students). 

When my dissertation is finalized and sent to wherever such documents go (yep there’s a step I still need to figure out, no doubt a deep dive into the universities website will give me the answers I need), I need to conduct a celebratory purging of related documents from my home office. Well… it’ll have to be more of a boxing as I do intend on publishing papers out of my dissertation so a bonfire in the backyard is definitely out.

While I’m cleaning up my office, I think I’ll paint the walls a nice Mars orange to set the stage for future fun writing.

Note--the image up top is me looking out into Cumberland Sound, one of my study sites.