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So, my viva date is finally set for the 15th of March. Which is ... next Tuesday.
So I guess I better get started on my presentation, huh?
(long story, but basically due to Politics and Colliding Calendars, it's been kinda tricky to get a date. It was the 16th for a while, then it got moved to the 22nd, then to early April, so I relaxed a bit, and got on with some of the actual work I'm doing at, y'know, WORK. Then it was the 15th. Drop everything, write ~40 slides, rehearse presentation, flail.)
On the up side, I was footling with my CV the other night, and discovered that done right, the "Experience and past jobs" section I was leaving blank on account of not having left university yet actually holds an awful lot, if you look at it from the right angle. Front-line tech-support, both telephonic and over desk. Systems administration. Contract work for ... certain people. Embedded Systems research, design and implementation. So perhaps my CV isn't as tragic as I thought it was.
That said, I'm revisiting my thesis while prepping this presentation, and it's not as bad as I thought it was, either. Couldn't stand to look at it or read it immediately I'd finished writing, but now? Not so bad.
Maybe there's a lesson in that.
Another year, the last few grains in its hourglass spiralling away into the pinch, and out into ... the future? I can't say I'm sorry to see it go. 2010 has been a bitch of a year, what with one thing and another, and 2011 really has to be better, if I'm to maintain my faith in myself and humanity.
This was the year of The Thesis, the year of Winter in the Willows, the beginning of new projects and the end of many things. This was the year at the end of the decade in which I became myself, in which I Went to University, and in which an awful lot of things went right, wrong, both and neither. It's been difficult and awesome in equal measure, and while I wouldn't change it for the world, there are places along the way at which I'm looking back wistfully, wondering what the world would be like if I'd decided to walk the other path then instead.
Highs
Lows
2011 will be better. It has to be. 2010 is going away, and it's time for change.
So, people keep asking me to blog, and I'm not about to say no to some free validation and an excuse to rattle on about things, am I? Here we are.
I handed in on schedule, an hour before the deadline and an hour after my labmate Panos. There were 150 pages and change in the final submission, and while it's probably not my absolute best work, it's the best I could do in the time and conditions I had, my supervisor thinks it's good enough and so do my labmates. At this point, I think I have to accept that I'm too close to it to judge it objectively. After five years with my mental microscope focussed on this one, tiny field a lot of my conclusions feel so obvious an infant should be able to draw them: I need to remember that a lot of what I've seen and said is obvious to me purely because of the experience I have. I don't have to worry about it overmuch until the viva now, which is going to be in January of 2011.
My brain ... still feels badly fried. I'm coping better than I was in the few weeks before handin, but I'm still pretty weak and lethargic. I'm sleeping a lot and having difficulty focussing, which will hopefully change as I drag my sleeping and eating and exercise patterns back towards normal. This, too, will pass: I can only hope it does so quickly.
The week ahead should be interesting: for one, I have two days to do something I originally planned to do in seven, because I messed up the calendar and something that I had listed for next week is in fact taking place this week. This is going to be ... difficult, but I believe it can be done. My only concern is that it's going to eat what little brainpower I have available, and leave me a wreck when I get home again. I'd only just gotten past that. I could really, really, use a break.
I can actually see it.
Somewhere, in the next week, is my hand-in deadline. At that point, I take the document I've been trying to write over the last few months, and pass it over the counter in triplicate, then go somewhere quiet and fall apart for a few days.
At that point, the last five years (academically) and whether I am a worthwhile person (generally) are pretty much out of my hands. I have to wait for that document to percolate through the various levels of bureaucracy, for examiners to be assigned and for the viva voce examination, at which point they'll get to find out if I really know what I'm talking about. But that's in the future.
The last five years have been a hell of a ride. I've been a big wheel in two major political campaigns, I've been one half of the team that rebuilt a radio station from the mikes to the aerial in a week of nights, and I've helped drag the fencing club up from about-to-close to a-going-concern (simply by being competent and handy, which was a bit puzzling). I've made and lost more friends than I can count, in a huge range of circumstances. I've lost old hobbies and picked up new ones. I've moved house twice, moved other people's houses twice, presented at conferences, entertained crowds and built theatrical props for a variety of productions.
I've learned a lot. About engineering, about life, and about myself. I'm a real person nowadays, regardless of history: I have a distinct personality and a set of interests and I function as an individual, not just as part of a group. And the fact that it's Really Fucking Hard to get up in the morning and go to work at the moment is down to the stress, and the shitty sleep and subsequent exhaustion, of knowing that one of the biggest watersheds in my life so far is coming.
I'm still here. I'm still here, I'm still trying, and I mean to hand in, then schedule a nice long holiday. Out of interest, here's a todo list that I intend to keep to (roughly in order):
EDIT: Thank heaven for small mercies: the hand-in deadline is a week later than I thought, the 30th of September not the 23rd. This means I have an additional weekend, and don't have to stay up so late every night working. Instead of crashing in just under deadline, I should now be handing in well in advance :)
So.
I'm still here, as you've probably surmised from the fact that I'm talking, and it's been a busy few months. Doesn't look like it's going to get any better any time soon either, so while this is an update, it's not a return to the old frequency of posting, at least not yet. Sorry about that, if it bothers you.
Hell, some of you may be enjoying the break.
Anyway, yes. I'm currently writing my thesis, and it's draining pretty much any reserves I have of cope, happy and other useful things, so I'm ... well, not so much fun to be around at the moment. For that I'm sorry. I hope people will put up with me leeching sanity from them for a little while.
In my Copious Free Time, I am still gaming. Maelstrom event 1 was a few weeks back, and was a fair bit of fun - the wind and rain and mud weren't great, but the rest of the event made up for it, and next event promises to be better for a variety of reasons. Here's hoping.
Also, a group of friends (Firecat Masquerade) have started running a fest-larp system based loosely on Kenneth Graham's Wind in the Willows. Because I am mad, but also because they needed the help and it's a great way to burn off stress, I've volunteered to crew it. Event 1 was an astounding success by all accounts, and hopefully event 2 will be at least as good. Since E2 is set a little over a month after my thesis handin deadline, I may be slightly crazed at that point. But it'll be fiiiiiine.
Fencing ... is not going so well. Despite being on the committee, due to noone else standing for armourer and the club needing one, I've not made it to the great majority of training sessions this year. Feel quite crap about this, as they do rely on me to some extent, but there are people there who can repair most things, and two full evenings a week is simply more than I can spare at the moment. I managed to get along tonight, and they were only slightly pissed off, which is comforting. So it goes. Will persevere there, and might even fence again at some point.
To sum up, life is hard, real damn hard right now, but I'm still cracking on with it. I'm doing some slightly crazy stuff in an effort to stay sane, and trying not to neglect my obligations, tricky though that is in turn. I aim to write some more here soon, so stay tuned. Distinct risk of pseudophilosophical bullshit, but I guess we'll see what happens.
It's got to be better than total radio silence, right?