'Hate My PhD' - Best Of

Recently, sitting on a train and having nothing to do, I pulled out my mobile phone and started rereading some of my posts on this blog.

I had a lot of fun rereading some of these. If nothing else, at least the one thing I got out of my PhD is this little collection of nice writings... (And I did get a whole lot more out of it, too.)

So here are some of my favourite bits from this blog (selected for you in one handy post - for your amusement and joy) :

It was fun rereading the blog post called 'The End'. This is my absolute favourite post on this whole blog (I think you all know why!) In the days leading up to this blog post, I was already composing it delightedly in my head, half unable to believe that I would actually ever get to write these words (when it's two days to the deadline and you still have an unfinished conclusion and about 2, 348 footnotes to straighten out...) I really couldn't quite believe that I would ever get to write this one. And when I finally did sit down to write it... I don't think I've ever enjoyed writing anything more in my whole life.

I also liked writing 'Violation of Rules' and 'I Have a Dream'. The PhD wasn't all misery and difficulty, and even some of the frustrating and miserable bits could be turned on their head, and mined for anecdotal gold. I remember laughing over the Violation of Rules scenario with a lovely friend over an afternoon coffee on a London terrace (ahhh, the life of a PhD...) and I remember coming up with the 'men in white coats' line whilst chatting on the phone, while I joked about how I could maybe just 'phase out the PhD'...

I enjoyed musing over the inns and outs of my personality in 'Lastminute.com'. I subsequently found all my theories on 'being a last-minute person' to be wrong, however, when I discovered the Procrastination Bible in March 2013. I began to think that maybe there's no such thing as a last-minute person. I also began to just do stuff.

And here's another one I like - here are my Top Tips for Doing a PhD.

Happy reading!....

CN