It's somewhat hard to believe this is actually the final year of my PhD. The past two years have been extremely eventful in so many ways, and the time has just flown by. I've learned so much. January was spent writing the draft for my second paper, and doing a few followup experiments to complete certain sections of the work. The first two weeks of February were occupied by seminars and a symposium (ACES Electromaterials Workshop). By the end of February I had finished the draft of my paper and handed it over to my supervisor for final polishing. About that same time, my supervisor notified me that my first paper had finally been accepted for publication. The printer robot parts had mostly arrived, enough that I could begin assembly. I was lucky to find an unused lab bench on which to set up the new printers. After a couple of weeks, I had built all I could, and was waiting again on a few other parts to arrive. The first half of March was a bit slow because of this.
Meanwhile, we had a delegation from the Federal government come by to officially open our new labs. I got to be part of the lab tour.
I have only about seven more months of research left before I will be writing my thesis. I know that time will fly by, too, but it still feels strange to be close to the end of this journey. By the end of March next year, I will be submitting my thesis. That's also when I will apply for permanent residency here in Australia, and begin searching for a post-doc position somewhere. The thesis takes roughly six months to undergo revisions before being accepted, and that's about the amount of time for the residency application to be approved and for me to get a few leads on a post-doc.
