Tag Archives: Dissertation

Bored Now …

palletsThere’s a dissertation-sized hole in my life.

After an initial frenetic and unseemly hedonistic flurry of trash telly, food, books and gossip magazines, I’m very, very bored and can’t face another jumbo-bag of Bombay Mix.

It’s time to Take Up A Hobby, especially as I will also become an Empty-Nester this year.

I want to reassure The Teenager that I have a fulfilling hobby/social life and won’t be eaten by a pack of wild dogs, at home alone, surrounded by piles of old newspapers and junk mail while he’s away at Uni.

I have many options, some more promising than others. Inspired by The Great British Pottery Throw Down on telly, I investigated clay. Sadly, I don’t have an outhouse where I can build a kiln or a pottery wheel. Undeterred, I looked into air-drying clay, but you can’t really do that much with it beyond napkin rings and small plant pots, so another idea came to a dead-end.

I looked into jewellery-making and bought a magazine all about it. I know how to use pliers and a blowtorch, a pretty good start. I just don’t know how I’d cope with fiddly beads and delicate bits what with my dodgy MS hands. So that was that.

I gave up knitting just after my diagnosis and I gifted my guitar a couple of weeks ago. My sewing machine was donated to a friend years back and crochet confuses me. However, I can make mini ghosts from toilet paper, a bit of thread and a black Sharpie but that’s seasonal.

Upcycling pallets was my next great idea. I see a lot of pallets in my line of work. What if I were to take one apart and put it back together to make seedling racks, coffee tables or outdoor sofas? After having a look on Pinterest, I realised it had already been done to death. The other thing I see a lot of at work are sewer pipes but I can’t see anyone wanting to buy a table made from the stuff, even with the ewwwww/exclusivity factor.

So I’m back to what I know a teeny-tiny bit about – writing. I shall write. I will suffer for my art, drink black coffee and pace the length of my house, anguished and deep in thought. I will produce the Next Great British/Brexit/Scottish novel.

I do have an idea in mind. It’s gathering pace and I think it could just work. So I’m going to put up all my failed-hobby bits and pieces on Gumtree and invest in some hand-ground extra-strong coffee. I’ll tell The Teenager I’ve taken up ballroom dancing, but between you and me, I’ll be writing. Watch this space …

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Goodbye, I’ll Miss You

mastersLast week, after two years hard graft, I handed in my dissertation.

As I pressed the ‘send’ button, I expected to be flooded with euphoria.

I envisaged cracking open the Champers, unwrapping a bar of Dairy Milk and viewing my cleared desk with bliss.

Reader, I cried.

I felt bereft. I couldn’t bear to leave my desk. My books were neatly back in their shelves, mounds of paper shredded or filed. I had a fresh page on my notepad. The scribbled ramblings I had wasabi-taped to my walls were in the recycling bin,.

All evening I wandered around the house, sadly picking up my stapler, stroking it and putting it back in its place. I opened a book about critical thinking skills for old times sake. I rearranged my Sharpie pens in their pot, light colours to the front.

What was going on?

The Masters has been a cruel mistress, luring me in then kicking me in the guts, leaving me anxiety-ridden and confused. At other times, I would be in seventh heaven when I manged to string a couple of sentences together that actually made sense. Many a conversation with The Teenager would be interrupted with me suddenly saying, ‘hang on, an absolutely genius point has just popped into my head, gimme a bit of paper.’

I struggled to write academically, my sentences more often than not beginning with, ‘I think my work is good and getting better’. Whole days, weeks would go by when I wrote nothing and every time I walked past the papers on my desk, I would sigh.

In the week since I pressed that button, I’m lost. I’m binge-watching trashy shows, reading trashy novels and eating trashy comfort food. I feel weird. I don’t miss the anxiety and I do feel chuffed I finished it. I just … miss it. I guess it’s because I nurtured it from nothing into something I’m proud of, despite the lack of long words and sentences.

The Teenager, my eternal sage, put it bluntly yesterday: ‘Are you sure you wanna do a PhD? Not sure I can handle it. Did you get the chicken nuggets in yesterday? I’m starving.’

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I’m So Last Century …

dinosaurSomeone asked me the other day how I get The Teenager up for school.

Easy, I said, just unplug the Wi-fi.

Sit down and wait for the piercing scream of abject agony.

It works – try it.

Anyway, as I’ve been jotting down my Master’s dissertation by hand these last few weeks, The Teenager has been streets ahead of me, organising his A Level files at the stroke of a button.

He laughs at my hand-drawn mind-maps. He chortles when he sees my scribbles, turning his ipad towards me, shining with beautiful study notes.

I take off my fingerless gloves and turn the heating on. I gently explain to him that Great Art involves Great Suffering. I am trying to channel words and images into a superb piece of writing. I could in fact be The Next Great Novelist, given half the chance.

Until I’m rudely interrupted:

‘Muuuuuuuuum. Mum. Mum. What was it like BI?’

‘Wha?’

‘D’uh. Like. Before. Internet?’ Where you deprived? Did you feel, like, sad?’

‘Ah. No. We went to a place called A Library and looked up an Encyclopedia. That’s a book.’

‘Sad,’

‘Not really.’

‘You mean, if you wanted to find something out, you had to, like, order a book? Really?’

‘Well. Yeah.’

‘Oh M’God. ‘

I am a dinosaur. The Teenager cannot comprehend a life without facts at his fingertips. I could be impressed, chuffed even. Until he sends me bizarre links of what is trending on Twitter.

Take yesterday. The Teenager should have been researching British Politics. Instead, I had a breathless text, ‘ya seen Twitter?’

‘Not yet, have you cleaned your bedroom?’

‘So funny, have you seen, OMG, hysterical.’

‘What?’

DamnDaniel.’

‘Oh really? A kid?’

‘S’fun, s’like real.’

I worry.

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