Sense of urgency

Its strange how time changes things and how new titles, identities and labels have an impact of what you do, how you do it and how you see yourself in the world. I've been a 3rd year PhD students for just over a month now and I feel profoundly different. Other 3rd year PhD students also seem different too. We are all more stressed, anxious, directed, intent. We come to our working space more frequently - especially those of us who have preferred to work from home in our previous life. Well I've made the shift to working at the OU for very practical reasons; a) it's warmer there, b) I have limited space in my new 'room' so all my books currently live on my work desk, c) my work/life balance is so up to shit that going to the OU once a day gives me an opportunity to step outside my flat and at least have some social contact. I think in my fantasy of how I should be 'doing' this PhD I sit working in a warm cosy room, filled with all my academic paraphernalia, and through the window I can look upon the world outside.


The PhD and its deadlines seem to hang heavy on our shoulders. There is a shift in the dynamic that defines this thing called 'doing a PhD'. I'm particularly anxious about my looming deadline - I mentioned, in passing to my supervisor on Monday, that I wish I had an extra three months, she relied calmly 'Well you can have another three months if you want'. But can I really? And if I had those three months would I feel less anxious? At the moment I'm so deadline driven it's insane and I just feel all my time frames are completely unrealistic. This focus on deadline seems to take away and hide the 'juicy' bits , the exciting and explorative dynamic of working with the data and the interpretative and analytical process that I'm currently in the middle of. I know people always lament about the tedium associated with analysis - when you are wrangling with the data in a bid to make sense of it - but I rather enjoy this part. Anyway enough navel-gazing I have a deadline to meet - 18 November!