One week more...

Today was the deadline day for Michael’s PhD. After working almost solidly for 48 hours, he came to the conclusion this morning that there were three possible options:

(a) Hand in the thesis today with new data added and mistakes ironed out but not enough discussion which was a major flaw last time.
(b) Not hand it in at all to save wasting the examiners’ time and therefore walk away with nothing
(c) Ask for an extension until Friday.

Fortunately option (c) worked out and the final deadline is now Monday. Fingers crossed that this time he will finally finish!

Ode to Michael's PhD: One Day More

A shortened version inspired by “Les Miserables”

One day more
Another day wrestling with Chemistry
Tomorrow I’ll hand in my PhD
And then perhaps a little wait;
Examiners will seal my fate
One day more
I’ve hardly slept for several days
Red Bull and caffeine are my friends now
One day more!
Exhaustion’s left me in a daze
But at least I can see the end now!

Tomorrow is the judgement day
I pray that it will be okay
Please let me get this doctorate that I’ve worked so hard for
One more dawn!
One more day!
One day more!

Indian summer

Having Indian summer weather at the moment has led me wondering as to where the phrase originates. Unseasonably warm autumn weather in England, used to be called St Martin’s summer (it usually ended by St Martin’s day – 11th November) before the American phrase “Indian summer” gained popularity early in the 20th century. Suggested reasons for the origins of the phrase are:

• It was the period when Native Americans first harvested their crops
• The haziness during this time was caused by prairie fires in the autumn
• Raids on European colonies by Native American war parties tended to end in the autumn.

Church concerts

Every other month, we host concerts at church for local musicians and tonight’s concert featured a male voice choir. I was rushing around organising things so didn’t get to sit and listen much, but what I did hear sounded good. Michael usually controls sound and lighting at the concerts, but as he has been working frantically on his PhD, his dad stepped in (just as well really - it would have been quite basic if I’d had do it!) It’s nice to see the church so full on these occasions – now if we could just manage it on a Sunday…

Sleep pod

I spent some time today at a spa which offers treatments aimed at new mums and mums-to-be. One of the things I got to try out was called a sleep pod. Basically, it’s a vibrating massage chair enclosed in a pod. You can choose different types of relaxation music, choose aromatherapy and oxygen enhanced air if you wish and when the door of the pod closes, the chair tilts back and you spent 15 minutes relaxing in the pod. It was very relaxing, but unfortunately was followed by driving home in rush hour so the effects wore off very quickly!

Church unity

There are times when we spend lots of energy arguing about what we think God wants us to do, instead of taking the time to listen to what God actually wants us to do. For the last year, our local churches together group has felt like we spent so much time arguing amongst ourselves that we were becoming churches apart instead of together. Tonight we spent so much time praying and focusing on God instead of politics, that suddenly God’s presence became much more apparent and now it finally feels like being churches together is no longer an impossible dream.

New faces

Having attended a couple of church meetings in the last three years where concerns have been raised about aging congregations and dwindling membership; it is refreshing to be discussing the fact that there are quite a few new people coming to share worship with us. The challenge now is to be welcoming and friendly, without being off-putting! I have attended services at churches where I felt “pounced on” at the end of the service because I was a new face. Sometimes we are so glad to see new people that we can be a little too enthusiastic with our friendliness!

Reverting to childhood

Autumn is a time when I think it would be great to be able to revert to being a child again – just for a few moments. There’s something about piles of fallen leaves that makes me want to kick them about; and sometimes when it’s raining, I still have an urge to put on wellies and jump in the puddles. The trouble is, people give you very odd looks if you give into these urges as an adult (particularly if you don’t have any children with you to give you an excuse!) Sometimes it is very boring being a grown-up!

Renewed hope

It’s funny how much better things seem in the morning. After being in the depths of despair about his PhD last night, Michael has been much calmer today and has just focused on doing what he can before next Tuesday. Even though nothing has changed in terms of how much work he still has to do, somehow a good night’s sleep makes everything seem much better. Fingers crossed that Michael will manage to do enough work to get his PhD. Whilst neither of us are completely confident that he has managed to do enough, we’re still trying to be optimistic.

Impending deadlines

With nine days to go until Michael’s PhD deadline, things are getting very stressful. It’s been a series of delays and hiccups since he first submitted two years ago. It took nine months for him to actually get a viva, during which time he was busy trying to run a business and had completely got out of the mindset. In the months since then with deadline after deadline being extended, work problems have made it more and more difficult for him to spend time on his thesis. I feel that all I can do now is pray for a miracle.