Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Setback

I have 16 rough pages of my thesis done. It's getting more and more difficult to focus on writing because the weather is finally getting good. Also, academia and I are not on good terms at the moment, as I just got my penultimate rejection email. I applied to four PhD programs and one MA certificate program and so far, three of the PhD programs have rejected me. It's not that I'm actually very sad about the rejection, (I could have written the best proposal in the world, but if they don't want my topic/profile then that's that) I'm mostly upset about the fact that this means I still don't know what I'm going to be doing or where I'm going to be doing it after September.

Current plan is to register for the Global Studies Program PhD and see if I can find funding somewhere else. I'm not a huge fan of this plan, as it basically means pretending to write while desperately searching for a job/scholarship and thereby reverting back to a place I hoped I had left behind. I doubt I'll get into the last PhD program and the MA certificate in Egypt seems like such a long shot.

I'm really hoping for some good news...

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

House-sitting and thesis-writing

Here I am, somewhere between Potsdam and Berlin, taking care of one small dog and four small cats.

I'm sitting on the balcony. It's currently 22° and this makes me happy beyond measure. I've really come to notice how utterly correlated the temperature is with my mood. Sun out = smiles.

I was expecting to get a few things done out here. Mostly just starting the actual writing part of my thesis. It's gone well these last couple days. I have an unedited 10 pages done so far which is 1/6th of the way there. I hope to be able to maintain this pace and be completely done by June.

Which leads me to the next question: what next?

I've received two rejection letters from potential PhD programs thus far. It's not a great feeling but, in comparison to applying for my master's, it's not really that bad. I know I have options. I speak 3 languages fluently, I'll have a degree from two prestigious universities in different countries, I'm hustlin and I'll find something. I'd just like for it to manifest itself sooner rather than later.