In the mail

I received my academic transcript in the post a few days ago.  It got lost in a pile on my desk, and resurfaced today.  It has now been put in the filing cabinet, so I'll know where it is until the next time I move house.

When I received the envelope, I didn't really pay much attention to it.  It was only when I was putting the document away that I noticed that the transcript states that I now have the Ph.D., but is addressed to Mister.  The title doesn't become official until I graduate in August, although that hasn't stopped a few people addressing me as Doctor since the thesis result was finalized.

This little happenstance rather neatly sums up where things have been for a while.  The last twelve months or so have been a bit of a blurry in-between sort of time for me.  I submitted my thesis on the last day of August last year, and spent the subsequent three months in a vale of tears.  It was like coming to a shuddering halt, and the recoil was quite vile.  I recently joked that one spends the first six months after submitting a thesis getting through the emotional baggage that has been accumulating for the previous three years, and then the following six months are the time in which you finally get around to sorting yourself out.  In the meantime, you live each day as it comes, do as the University asks you, and just generally get on with things.  When people ask what I'm doing now, my answer is "panicking!"  The worst fight I've had in the last six months was with someone who thought I should be in a job, any job.  After four-and-a-half years of living in libraries, and with the computer attached at the hip, no longer having to do these things can be a bit like learning how to breath again.

The thesis is almost a memory now.  My graduation will be about a week short of twelve months since the original submission.  I've got a couple of writing projects on the boil, but most of my week is taken up with teaching children how to sing and read music, preparing repertoire for upcoming recitals, or heading off to play for a funeral (Deo gratias for Le Pine!).  This is all provisional, while I tackle some of the broader questions that surround me at the moment.  For various reasons, I didn't want to head straight into full-time work, although there have been some interesting opportunities.  I also soft-pedaled jumping in and making research funding applications, but that was mostly due to my thesis results not being final before the February funding round.  That, and I find the paperwork mind-numbingly tedious.  I find I can sell a research proposal more effectively in person.

Life at the moment is a bit like watching a duck glide across a pond: one doesn't see all the pumping that's going on under the surface.