PhD dreams: Day 1
Well, folks, it’s happened. It’s finally happened. I have finally started my PhD. Well, I have finally had my first full day as a PhD research student at least. I haven’t actually done any writing. Yet. But that will come soon enough!
I had a very restless night’s sleep (as I normally do these days!) so opted to sleep a bit longer this morning meaning I didn’t actually get into my office until 9.30 this morning – but that was more than enough time to make my 10.30 supervision meeting.
After I met with my (three!) supervisors, I found my way back to my desk and began working on my task list. It was fairly easy things, really. I read through the university’s research ethics policy, investigated good reference tracking tools, and found my way around my office computer a bit. (I even managed to sync my Outlook and Google calendars, despite Google retiring their sync software. I’m much too clever to let a little thing like that stand in my way!)
Tomorrow I will visit the campus library and try to see if there’s a training course or two I can sit in on or sign up for. I will also attempt to increase my water intake and will aim to enjoy a bit of fresh air other than what I get walking to and from the bus stop. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but this being a student malarkey is really exhausting work after having been on holiday for two months!
I’m a lot more tired than I’d normally be after a fairly easy day, but I’m chalking that up to the fact that I’m still trying to recover from jetlag, have yet to get my eating patterns back to normal (this isn’t normal!), and I’ve yet to get back into my good water intake levels (Bob and Dave need extra water!). But I am pleased to say that I’ve managed to eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables today. So that’s a start.
Oh! But despite being tired, I’ve managed to do a load of laundry and to cook a nice, stodgy batch of mushroom and goat cheese risotto. And I found the energy to open a bottle of red wine, too. Priorities are important, you know!
So, that’s my first day in a nutshell. I won’t give daily updates because that would be enough to bore even my most loyal reader (Mum!), but I might let you know how I’m feeling at the end of Week 1. Or maybe Month 1. Or maybe both …