Ok, yes, yes, again a great deal of time has passed between the last post (in which I may have promised more regular postings) and this one, but what’s a boy to do? I’ve been… well, not exactly busy… perhaps preoccupied.

The big new is: I SUBMITTED MY THESIS. Yes, yes I did. Hooray. Took me exactly 3 years, which seems to have pleased my supervisor, but then, he’s in charge of my department’s RAE stuff so I guess it would do.

So, back on the 1st October I submitted me a thesis and then… I left Scotland. This made me pleased. I then spent a pleasant week or so in Newcastle with the Man-In-My-Life (MIML) before returning to Scotland, packing up my stuff and, finally, leaving.

I cannot tell you how glad I was to get out of St Andrews. Now, let me be clear: this has nothing whatsoever to do with the department, the course or the people in the town; I enjoyed my postgrad life in St A’s and have some great friends, many of whom are still there, but everything to do with the fact that St Andrews has three, count them, three streets and, once you have walked on the beaches and looked at the golfcourse, very little to actually do. Very nice for a weekend… less great for living in for 3 years.

So, it was with a spring in my step and hope in my heart that I returned to London in order to… do… um… well, quite.

Which is a problem.

I decided a few months ago that I do, actually, want to stay in the academic world doing the research thing… problem IS that such a thing is not exactly easy. There is a grant proposal being put together for a postdoc back up North, which is very, very exciting (please, please let it happen) and the project is fantastic, but in the meantime I have precisely no money (£0). What is a graduating phd student to do with his time to earn a bit of cash? One MIGHT expect the process of writing a doctoral thesis to make one eminently employable in pretty much any arena… but no, apparently not.

Moreover I heard yesterday that my viva is not going to happen until the 5th Feb. Great. Bust my buns getting a thesis in on time and then have to wait 4 months… anyway, mustn’t grumble. At least I have a date.

So, I set about trying to find gainful employment to tide me over until the postdoc etc comes together.

Some posts ago I mentioned these people who are a science communication company in London. Shortly after returning to town I contacted them again and asked them if they had any work going. They did. So I am currently working part-time and ad hoc for them, which is great. Not doing anything particularly challenging, mainly office admin and database management, but seeing what they get up to in the office is fascinating. Lovely people too.

Also, I got a job with teachable.net as an online resources editor. The site is a much-needed online repository for teachers to download multimedia lesson resources. All good. I find myself putting together slideshows for somewhat unfamiliar areas. Actually very interesting.

Of course, all of this is set against a background of living at home again. Which is nice, because it is nice to be back in London and nice to be looked after, although my mum does have a tendency to a) talk to me as if I am 16 and b) require me to account for my whereabouts and activities fairly constantly. This is taking some getting used to.

So, I guess it’s all going quite well, although I doe feel terribly liminal at the moment. Caught between submission and viva… not a very pleasant feeling, especially when a man has no money at all, but then… what can you do? It could be worse.

Also, MIML is coming to see me today, which is making me smile a lot. Christmas shopping and fun planned for tomorrow and a Christmas lunch with Kathryn and flatmates this weekend. Ah what larks.

Anyway, look. This time I mean it… more posts, more regularly.