I had spent another weekend (again) dreaming of a simpler life in the Japanese mountains, only to wake to an e-mail in the middle of the night that said, No, I couldn't apply for said position because I didn't yet have my doctorate in hand. This metaphor in hand is not one used in the UK much, I'm not sure what it means exactly. But I think the long and short of it is that I am going to have to take a short contract after my PhD: it won't be avoided and settling into a real job won't happen for a little while. In 2011-2012, getting a PhD is not paying your dues: you have more to pay before you can start as an academic.
But I, in my dreamworld, already had myself on the top of the mountain, with an office, a date to leave the UK, a narrative I was ready to start living about why we needed to go back. I was ready for it. And now I'm back to square one, the cycle begins again.