And they're off!

Today is the first official day of my enrolment so there’s not a great deal to tell so far in terms of what I’ve been up to but I thought I’d share how I got here. I’ve blogged variously about my fascination with education & the different courses I’ve undertaken so let’s not go there again. I've also mentioned that towards the end of my honours year, I went to an information seminar about continuing into a higher degree by research, so this is how it went from there.

Originally, I only toyed with the idea of continuing to study—I knew I’d have the time because I would be recovering from back surgery but I wasn’t sure I had it in me. I had the slightest kernel of an idea of what I wanted to do so I discussed it with the honours co-ordinator who assured me that, compared to some students she talks to, I had quite a well-formed idea of a topic.

I went along to the information session which failed to freak me out (I was reasonably convinced that I’d come home determined that a PhD wasn’t for me.) Everyone was incredibly supportive and encouraging; from current students who were there to give us their take on what it’s really like to academic staff to admin staff. And there was supper—can't go wrong there, really.

At the time, I couldn’t afford to get too enthused about it, though, because I was still trying to finish my honours thesis and submit it. I had to stay focused on the current project rather than letting my head run with new ideas. Once that was out of the way, I started straight immediately on the application for candidature and scholarship (I actually submitted my honours thesis a few days early and was in front of the computer working on my application the next day). The long and the short of it was that I didn’t get a scholarship but I did get offered a position at Deakin. So, here I am.

In all the time I had to get prepared for today, I still didn't manage to clear my desk so, I took over the dining table, just for today (I promise, I'm going to clean my desk tomorrow).

My pseudo-desk first thing this morning...

And the slightly more chaotic evening version.

My exciting news of the day is that last week I developed a timetable for study and today I managed to stick to it using the Pomodoro technique to keep me on track. And I’m looking forward to tomorrow…