The roller coaster of the final 6 months of my PhD is well underway. So much has happened, and there's still lots to do.
December ended with a mad rush to get purchase orders through before offices closed for the holidays. For me, the year ended a bit flat as far as my research was concerned. There just wasn't anything exciting for me to wrap up my thesis with, just some ho-hum stuff to make it all appear like a cohesive body of work.
On the positive side, Michelle's pregnancy has continued on in textbook fashion. We both feel very fortunate that IVF worked for us on the first try. It was the biggest financial gamble we have taken, and we were sweating all along until the pregnancy reached cruise control. We effectively spent our entire savings on this, so it was a big relief to see it has worked out.
For the holidays, we booked a cottage in the Blue Mountains. Originally, we booked 7 days, but soon afterwards we encountered the financial pain of our depleted savings on top of Michelle's 20% pay cut for the last half of 2009. (A special thank you to George W. for royally fucking up the U.S. economy!) We tried to cancel the reservation altogether, but the owner insisted on retaining the booking. In the end, she compromised and shortened our booking to 4 days and 3 nights, and we were glad to have the getaway. The cottage was in Katoomba, and we could walk to town. We did a nice hike in the mountains from Katoomba to Luera on xmas day. The walk was a good workout -- about 900 steps down the cliffs and back up at the end of the walk. A day or so later, we went to Jenolan Caves.
Work started up again on the 4th of January. A considerable amount of my time that month was occupied with bureaucratic nonsense. I had to file for an extension of my scholarship, since I knew I would not be done by the 15th of March. (And still, the biggest question for me is: if it's really so unusual for students to complete their PhD's in exactly 3 years, as all my superiors keep telling me, then why aren't the scholarships, visas, and so on, not framed around reality?) Compounding the nonsense was the last-minute notification I got from the director of our research group that my top-up scholarship could not be renewed. Australians do have a real problem with communication. I sent an angry email to my supervisor about this cut in funding, and he worked to set up a project for me (building him a custom printer system) to commence when the top-up ends. Additionally, I'll be doing lab demonstrations again this year. So after all that, I had to file a request for confirmation of enrollment, which I needed to renew my student visa. And since I am going to be around Wollongong for at least another 6 months, I had to submit a form to get a new parking permit, with my supervisor's and the dean's signature (for a parking permit!). My primary scholarship got renewed and I got my confirmation of enrollment, so I renewed my student visa this week. That was probably the most impressive turn-around I've seen here. I had my visa renewal the day after the application was submitted. And we didn't have to undergo new health checks, submit further documents, etc.
Michelle's parents shipped us a really nice pram (stroller for you Americans), but that was another hassle. We had a great deal of difficulty trying to find reasonable shipping rates from Canada to Australia. The pram is a BOB Revolution, and has top feedback from customers. It's made for real jogging, and for people with very active lifestyles. It's not sold here in Australia at all, and similar prams here cost around $900! After a great deal of internet searches, I found a shipper in Canada who gave Michelle's dad a very reasonable quote for a 1-week shipping time -- but the catch was we would have to pick it up at the Sydney airport. When the pick-up day came, we went to the airport, and had to pay a "paperwork fee" to the package processing office, then we had to clear it through customs and quarantine. Customs required us to pay a 10% GST on the value (even though it was less than $1000), so whatever. After a 6-hour errand, we had our pram, and it's every bit as nice as we hoped.
In the middle of all those things, I was writing my manuscript for the ICONN2010 conference in Sydney. I did a couple of quick experiments to round out the details for that paper, and wrote most of it within a couple of days. Since Paul Calvert has been here and is listed as an author on this paper, I gave it to him for review. He immediately found some critical points lacking, and we discussed those at length. With his feedback, I did some more detailed analysis on my data and samples, and added the crucial parts to the manuscript. So now that is done and ready to submit.
It has been great having Paul here. His extensive experience and advice has been very valuable to me. He has been a surrogate supervisor to me these past 6 months, and without his help, I don't think I'd be as confident about my thesis. My supervisor is o.k., but he's really inexperienced. Paul has been teaching him plenty, as well. For the past year, I've often felt my supervisor was too busy chasing his own career to truly help me along, and that's been hard to cope with.
The baby's due date is the 6th of May. Between now and then, I have two more major experiments to do, two conferences to attend, and a full thesis to write. I am hoping to have the thesis ready to submit by the time the baby is here. That period of time will be one of more bureaucratic encounters. The reason I won't be trying to submit the thesis before the baby is born is because there is no bridging funding after the thesis is submitted. My scholarship comes to a dead halt at that moment. What usually happens is students get a contract, which pays better than the scholarship, which tides them over at least until graduation. But, if I jump onto a contract too soon, then I don't think I will have the flexibility to stay home with Michelle during the first two weeks or so after the baby is born. Further, it appears we can get the Australian baby bonus since I am an overseas student here on a university scholarship -- but I'm technically no longer a student once I've submitted the thesis, even if I haven't yet graduated.
When I am ready, I get the thesis hard-bound and ready to submit, then I meet with the director to arrange my contract. Ideally, he will sign the contract on a Friday for me to start that Monday, then I officially submit. That timing keeps me from experiencing a gap in income. Then my student visa automatically becomes a bridging visa which lasts until graduation. I'll be applying for a few post-doctoral positions, so depending on how those work out, I may start my next real job before graduation. So much is going to be happening this year!
