Being Engaged for One Year and Drowning in PhD Nonsense | Diary of a Struggling Philosopher

I cannot fathom the idea that time has gone by so fast. It has been a whole year since she said yes. Yet we feel the same. Much like birthday on which everyone always asks you how it feels to be older, you always say the same. We feel the same. Yet we feel different as well.

It has also, then, by definition been another year of my PhD. I am the cusp of handing in (have I been here before?). I have lost track of time. I think I have deleted almost a PhD's length of comments and insertions. I know, at one stage my PhD was 130 000 words. Then it was back to 85 000. This week it was back to 110 000, and by the end of tomorrow it might be back to 90 000 words. The up and down, delete and insert, has been driving me crazy.

Along with this, I am also preparing to teach a semester course, starting in a couple of weeks. In addition, I am writing book chapters, articles, preparing for my oral exam/defence, and somehow juggling the prospect of a much larger project that is on the horizon. This will be equivalent to another PhD... What am I even thinking?

Before the end of the year, two major things will happen. But before then, I am still burning the candle down to the core. But I am young, and my body and mind can handle it (I think).

This post thus serves as a reminder for myself, a kind of breadcrumb trail that I leave throughout my life (and writing on here) to which I will probably never return, but which I know will exist. I remember a couple of letters that I have written to and for myself on here. These remind me of where I was, and where I think I will be heading.

I am on the cusp of interesting times, I tell my younger (older) self that will read this (probably not). There are a couple of articles that need to be written, there are the book chapter on fermentation and philosophy (what you hoped for), and then there is the PhD... Almost done (I try to convince myself). And then the surprise... Something that only a select few know about.

Time will tell.

So, another year has gone by, and time is ticking by slowly toward the unveiling of a new self. Another year has gone by, and me and my other half is just as crazy (about each other).

For now, happy thinking, and I hope that you are well.

All of the musings and writings are my own. The photograph is my own, taken with my Nikon D300.