Something I thought about, as I once again carefully packed my books into boxes and less carefully stuffed my clothes into bags, is the instability of PhD life. I’m told that some people do their entire PhD at one university, in one department, even while living in one place.
I am not that person.
In the almost exactly three years I’ve been working on my PhD, I’ve been at two different universities, been based in three different departments and so far, lived in four different houses. Weirdly, for something that is in a constant state of development and change, my thesis has been one of the few constants in my life. The other, somewhat worryingly, is my supervisor. Not sure how I feel about that!
In a way it’s made me a more independent researcher and that’s a good and positive thing, but sometimes I wish I could relax and be at least somewhat confident that I won’t have to move again for at least another nine months.
I have Thoughts on how it’s affected my research, my friendships and collaboration with other PhD researchers and on me as a researcher, but that can wait for another day – I have a chapter to write.