Technically, I started my new job on January 1st. In reality, most of the month was spent desperately writing and re-writing parts of the damn thesis. I honestly didn’t really care; I was just looking forward to the regular pay cheques that would keep the wolves (or HSBC, and they are more widely known) from the door.
I only panicked briefly when I saw Tom in the middle of January, and asked if I should have had some paperwork (such as the customary employment contract) through from personnel. Suddenly he looked rather concerned, and said he wasn’t sure if anyone had told them I was starting work this month. Oops. Fortunately, the whole mess did get smoothed over... eventually.
Anyway, by the end of the month, the thesis was almost ready. It was never supposed to be like this. When I started as a postgrad, I viewed some of the theses I read with a certain level of contempt. I was appalled at the numerous typos, obvious omissions, formatting and grammatical errors (they obviously never had a sister/proof-reader like mine). I know it sounds arrogant (in retrospect, delusional even), but I honestly thought mine would be fantastic.
What bollocks!
The original plan was for me to drive to the book-binders, while supervisor Tom provided directions. I pointed out that I’d slept for two hours - the night before last - and his self-preservation instinct kicked in. He commandeered the departmental 4x4, sat outside my flat with the engine running, calling me every five minutes to point out the binders would close before we got there. I was inside googling for references I had lost and/or misplaced.
Finally, I got home, drank a bottle of Bailey’s, and slept for about 24 hours.
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3 comments:
Yeah, that's kind of par for the course. I took my thesis to the binders after about three hours' sleep the previous night, handed it in that afternoon, and nearly got run over outside the offices afterwards as I completely failed to look before stepping out into the road.
Come to think of it, that was the day I went to visit another friend of mine who was doing a PhD relating to vision in some manner. She was looking for volunteers to view some slides while her software tracked their eye movements to see what they looked at first. I was so tired that apparently my eye movements were on a par with people with advanced Parkinson's.
I remember you telling me about nearly getting run over before, so I think that was in the back of my mind!
Regarding your eye movements, did you re-take the test after you'd recovered??
Maybe they're always that bad ;-)
I think my optician might have commented before now, if so ;)
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