Two weeks since I posted off my dissertation, bringing to an end my personal participation in the Masters degree which I have been working on for almost four years, I am finally getting the hang of the change that this has wrought in my usual routine.
There was a period of a few weeks prior to posting it off when I was mostly angry, frustrated and pessimistic about the whole process. I composed various rants for this new blog on the theme of submission, and was generally very resentful of the time and effort which I was expending for something that had lost its meaning for me.
In the end, though, I have decided not to write those posts. There are two reasons for this: firstly, I don't actually feel as angry as I did; more relieved and pleased to have finally finished, and don't really want to go on record as being that pissed off; and secondly, I know a lot of people who are still doing the course I did and I really don't want to put any of them off by writing a load of negative stuff about what is actually a good thing to do.
So... here I am now.
For the first time since I knew I had a place on my course, which was in the summer of 2007, although I didn't start until April 2008, I no longer have anything which I should be doing. Weekends stretch ahead of me without the obligation to either be sitting at my computer or in the library. Evenings last about three months!
I hesitate as yet to call myself Librarian; it will be at least three months, probably closer to four, before I get the results. At the moment it is impossible for me to be objective enough about my dissertation to believe that it will actually pass, so for now I am choosing not to think about it. It is enough that it is finished, and that I can get back to whatever it was that I used to do in my free time once again, plus a few other things, like this blog, named after a certain piece of aspirational library equipment...
