PhewD

I feel like I haven't written a post in ages and have really missed the sympathetic glow of the blog webpage. (Lately the screen has been glaring at me with accusation and judgement... and in this last week it has been shining like a night light keeping me awake past the Cinderella hour). I have had lots of ideas about blogs I want to write, but (in an usually mature decision) the PhD came first. (Let's hope those ideas are still in there and haven't been brain bleached - 'brain bleached' is a term one of the Hout Bay team used, and I love it!!!) 

So, I currently have two copies (only two, because this is a resubmit it only goes back to the one examiner who didn't like it the first time - this does not seem a great strategy to me - and they keep one in the office "just in case") of my shiny PhD v.2.infinity sitting on the desk outside my office (my office, like my flat, my car and my hair, is a total mess - this has been driving me a little crazy in a low-level-simmering way, but if I didn't have time to write my blog I definitely didn't have time to tidy my world.) I am waiting for my saint-like supervisor to read my terse responses to the examiners comments and make them sound elegant. She's really very good at that, and she has also spent the last two days reading through my chapters "one last time". And she still has a smile for me today, she's amazing, but I will try not to gush!  

In fact, there are many amazing people in my world, so I fear that there will be some gushing. I will save that for another post, but it is just awesome, the number of people that called and sent me messages and well wishes, hugs and strength. My heart is swollen. If you can't tell, it is because I am really tired and so all emotion is hiding under a blanket pretending to sleep. (It feels like it has been a really long time since I have seen my friends in Cape Town, and I have really really missed them. I am so excited by the prospect of having a social life again, pretty please!!) 

So, hold thumbs for me, send happy thoughts to the one examiner who I REALLY REALLY hope is having a good day when he looks at it again and I shall post again soon. 

PS

Am I really the person that would write this sentence: "The ontogenetic effects of the incorporation of elements into the otolith is likely to vary among different species". It doesn't sound at all like something I would say and yet there it is in writing. Much of the PhD is like that, I look at it and wonder where it came from!