Sunday 26 September 2010

Ég er kominn heim.

Right! Five weeks in Iceland and a whopping TWO blog posts.  All about the beginning.  Epic fail.  Take this as a sign that good things happened.  I was so insanely busy all the time that I simply could not sit down at the end of a day and blog, even a little bit.  Now that I have come back to Britain, however, I have way more time.

So, I am going to engage in some retroactive blogging (okay, I know that all blogging is retroactive in some sense, but you know what I mean; pedants can go jump off a cliff).

As a bit of a cop-out, my first task is going to be to redirect you to something I have already written elsewhere.  While in Iceland, I met with writer of the Iceland Weather Report, Alda Sigmundsdóttir.  Alda is a fascinating person and it was great to meet with her.  At our meeting, Alda offered me the awesome opportunity to contribute to her blog by writing a post about Iceland.  As my topic, I chose the experience of learning the language and trying to use it while in Iceland.  This appears in two posts, which you can find here and here.  I also highly recommend the rest of the blog.

In other news, my summer of enjoyment and self-esteem boosting has more or less officially ended.  I had a horrid week where my supervisor manage to make me feel like I had the intellectual capacity of coffee bean and accomplishments to match.  This was a matter of not one but several episodes, the details of which it would be inappropriate to fully disclose without dealing with the matter between him and me and other relevant people first.  For now, I am trying to decompress and jump into hyper-productivity mode.  If this doesn't solve the problem, I of course have several possible routes to take to find a solution.

While this was perhaps a super negative week for me, it may have also been a necessary kick in the ass.  I am no longer comfortable with my status as a DPhil student.  I am burnt out on my research and cannot summon any excitement whatsoever for my work.  After a few intense wallowing sessions and a few really good pep talks, I realise that the only response is to make the Decision.

The Decision comes around this time (entering 3rd year) of a DPhil student's life, when they have had a shitty/frustrating time or are just feeling trapped. They Decide that it is time to Finish.  While this doesn't make you any closer to completing your DPhil, the wisdom and advice of many has been that once you make the Decision, you can complete a rather large amount of work in less time than before.  I am no longer sitting on a comfortable "2 year's left" plan and instead going for the "as soon as fucking possible" plan.  I am currently working toward a paper deadline that is coming up, and it should be a thesis-denting one.  After that, I think the supervisor might find that I am going from easy-going to irritatingly keen.  This term is relatively light on teaching, so I need to strike while the iron is hot.

As for Iceland, more entries (with photos!) to come about the amazing trips we took, because they are still work description.  Until then, all I can say is that I miss it, and I look forward to receiving my Icelandic citizenship in 2019 (hint: It requires 7 years residency ;) )