23 December 2010

Coming to an end

There are maybe three people left on my floor today: everyone has gone home and I have just finished coding the first 9 videos of my data. This may not sound like much, but they were the longest in the dataset, one being (with comments) about 6 times as long as the average of the other videos. Also, as I had to put most of my initial energy into getting the coding scheme right, it was a tedious process. Certainly, there is a lot I have missed at this point, but it is good progress and I can say that I ended this academic year well. Not ended exactly: I imagine I will be tempted to look at this stuff over the next week or so. But today marks the official end of academic 2010 for me.

It was a good year. Probably my best year to date, actually. I think the second year of the PhD is probably the best, least stressful of the three, even though I am only a quarter of the way through it. I will make the remaining 75% as stressful as possible, I imagine. It's how I roll.

Well, goodbye for now, Stuart Hall Building Level 1 corner desk with all of your pictures and postcards. I will see you next year, on 4 January. Until then, stay warm.

I will have a proper recap post of the year, all things included, either tonight or tomorrow. My sister is flying in (provided Heathrow gets its SH together) tomorrow afternoon. After that, perhaps I will disappear for a while.