I am working on my probationary report, a 10,000 word report that will allow me to become a second year student provided I pass an exam on the 21st of June. I have a pretty intense supervision team and usually if they're happy, I can be confident that things are going to be okay. They hadn't been happy until Monday, but my last draft of the article pleased them, so I am more-or-less done, save some proofreading.
This report has been hard for me: about 60% of what I read specifically for this project was not, in the end, included. All my stuff about Bakhtin. Nothing about identity or community. My supervisor accidentally sent me a copy of my original PhD proposal from my application and it is completely different now. I was going to look at conceptual metaphor in blogging. Now? Well, I'm not sure what I'm doing. It's been good though. A very hard year, by all accounts, but I think year two will be a bit easier, although much less structured.
When you accomplish something, only you know the effort you put into it, and only you can really appreciate how much you have done. I feel the same way about running. When I finished writing everything last Thursday, I knew how much work I had done and I was proud of myself.
After I finish this report I will go with my family to York for a couple of days and attend a meeting for my supervisor's big, government-funded project on empathy. We will go to Scotland for a night and then come back so I can attend the exam board at Middlesex on the 7th of June. I have to mark papers for Birmingham that first week of June too. Then from the 8th, I have to work on my two presentations for the end of the month and do some more modeling of my YouTube video using Sketchup. Then I have a French coursework due and on 27 June, I will go to London for a conference for three days and then to Amsterdam for the rest of the week.
Then I will be done for a couple of weeks.