My last post was in July, I think this takes being a slack blogger to a new level. So what's happened in the last 3-ish months? A little and a lot I suppose. A contradiction you might think...perhaps. That's just how it feels. Some things have happened, but on the whole most things are the same. I suppose the two biggest adjustments I've had to make is dealing with a death in the family and the fact that a friend has moved to town.
My Grandmother passed away from cancer a couple of months ago. This event forced me to confront death in a way I never have before. This is the first close family member I've had who has passed. It was an odd experience. One thing I am quite sure of is that in the last couple of days the essence of who she was as a person was gone. The body was there but the soul had gone. I think perhaps this helped. It would be worse to see a loved one who is in pain and who is aware of their pain. This was not so much a life cut short, as it is for so many, but the end of a beautiful life. Philosophically the concept of death is probably more troubling for me now than it was before. And I've probably avoided thinking about it as much as I should, but I admit it does creep into my thoughts, so as much as I would like to avoid the questions and the implications, I guess in a way I'm haunted by them.
The second adjustment is one that would ordinarily be a good thing, however, one of the things I valued most about living in Dunedin was my anonymity. It was refreshing to know that walking around the city would not mean running into 50 people who knew me and had some sort of opinion about who I am or what I'm about based on who I was. Moving here was a fresh start, the cliched new beginning. I feel like that's been taken away from me. So while in some respects it feels a little, I don't know, 'safer' knowing that this person is living not far from me, it also feels like they've rained on my parade. You may read this and think I'm terrible for claiming this person is a friend and then being ungrateful that they've ended up in the same place as me, but of course with any real story there are far too many details to fit into one little post. Suffice to say I move swiftly from happiness at the thought of having an old friend in town, and resentment.
So what else is new? I had my 6 month review (obviously a couple of months ago now). It went fine, I didn't think it wouldn't. In fact, it was almost a mere formality. The next review will be at 1 year and will mark the transformation from provisional to fully-fledged PhD candidate.
In regard to the PhD, I've already written a chapter (well, it does still need a bit of work) and I'm now working on turning that into an article. I'm not sure which journal I'll be submitting to, but it'll be something to do with applied philosophy and ethics.
I've also been kept very busy finishing of the year's tutorials for the Med students, formatting articles for lecturers, and working on my research assistant job.
And now, low and behold, we're in November, which is of course a hop, skip, and a jump from Christmas. I'll be travelling home nearer to the 25th (Decemeber), then I'll be spending the New Year on the Sydney Harbour watching a firework display above the Opera House. Then it'll be back to work early January. At which point it'll be 2011, I'm already thinking WTF?...Where is my life going?
With that, I'll end my new post and I won't promise to write again soon, but I will write again.
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