The trip over to Bingley went relatively smoothly and several minor disasters were averted with surprising ease.
- I accidentally got onto the train with Michael’s work key card in my pocket, but managed to post it back from Oslo train station in the fifteen minutes I had to spare.
- I couldn’t find the charger for my English phone but my cousin Richard in London lent me a spare one of his.
- I forgot my power adapter! I forgot it last time too, and last time I had to buy an expensive multi-adapter plug from a computer shop in town because Boots in the train station didn’t have any Europe-England ones. But this time they did! I was so happy I thanked the check-out lady profusely and she admitted she remembered me from last time…
Anyway… Everyone is taking such good care of me. I stayed with Richard for a night in London and he cooked me dinner! This is a first. His fiance is having a good influence on him. It was also just lovely to catch up (haven’t seen him for months and months). So nice to have at least one person over here who has known me my whole life! We stayed up till two drinking wine and were a bit wrecked the next day, but still…
Am now staying with the lovely Vic who thinks nothing of surrendering her lounge room to me for three weeks. Waiting for me was a parcel from Mum, ugg boots stuffed with fruchocs and cherry-ripes! Bliss! (So am nice and toasty wearing ugg boots and the jumper she knitted for me. ‘She likes to keep you warm, doesn’t she’, said Vic. And very thankful I am too.)
And my wonderful Michael is doing what he does best and planning a holiday in the midst of the five million other things he has to sort out at the moment. So – yeah. I’m pretty lucky.
Two weeks left for the thesis! I cannot believe it. It’s just the strangest feeling. When I put it all in one document for a trial run, and saw chapter four beginning on page 180, I felt what can only be described as vertigo. Like I’d been climbing a massive building without looking down, and I suddenly realised how high up I was.
I met with both my supervisors this week and they were very impressed with the new stuff I sent them. I pretty much re-wrote chapter two and they loved what I did. Supervisor one said it would have been good enough before but that it was much better now. I wouldn’t have been happy handing it in as it was before I fixed it, but now I am. So… hooray! It’s ready! It’s fine! There’s still plenty to do to it over the next two weeks – final editing of chapters, conclusion, and smoothing over chapter four, but two weeks is definitely long enough. I started putting together my contents page today. Strange, strange, strange…
northern lights 
Congrats on your great progress! I fear mine will never get off the ground. London and cherry ripes, too! What a way to finish off your PhD!! 🙂
That is truly, dizzyingly wonderful.
Everything is aligning itself for you…paving your way!
Good Luck with the finish!
From the chapter I’ve seen, (admittedly the only thesis chapter I have looked at pre-pub, and from a personal interest POV only) sounds like you’ve done a fabulous job. Brava signorina, enjoy the view from the top of the mountain.
and those cherry ripes!
Hey Mel, welcome to England! I’m glad everyone is looking after you so well and everything fell into place when it could have gone so horribly wrong.
Congratulations on the good feedback – not long now. It’s the niggling bits now, checking footnotes, punctuation, chapters beginning and ending where they should on the paper and then the big print out. Do you have to see you supervisors again before the hand in?
hopefully you won’t need the Ugg boots as the weather seems to have decided to warm up a bit at last!
sorry if that comment sounds a bit odd, what I mean is that I do not have a professional perspective to offer and should not be commenting on what I’ve read as though I have. SILLY ME.
But I loved the chapter on Mr Stow to bits. Go get ’em.
no no no didn’t sound silly at all! and i am so pleased that you loved it! and that you read it in the first place! so thank you!
(and you obviously know lots about oz lit so i don’t know why your opinion would be any less important than anyone else’s…)
and thanks everyone else for your comments, it really feels very strange right now. (despite the fact that all this last minute finishing and polishing is rather boring and time-consuming.)
lizzie – i’m going to get them to read over my conclusion once i finish it – got to get my money’s worth! more for peace of mind than anything. apparently the conclusions of my kind of thesis aren’t terribly important – it’s not going to make or break me. but i would quite like to make it pretty. this weekend i’ve been chugging along slowly ticking all the boxes for what a conclusion is supposed to do, but i haven’t made it pretty yet. there’s always tomorrow.
well there are some pretty whopping black spots in my coverage, but what I have read I have read with some attention I suppose. And Randolph has certainly had a bit of that 🙂
probably a very good sign that it feels strange, though – you “must have done something, something good….”
HOORAY.
Congratulations Mel
I was trawling back through my posts and saw your comment – thank you kindly – I will see if they still have any copies of NP7 at the next FS meet.
I enquired about you and Maggie Emmett suggested you were a friend of Steve Brock’s? I love his work.
A thesis wow, I still baulk at 3000 words.