Quick Despatch from the Coal Face

I am in the throes of finishing off the draft of the first chapter of my thesis. Why this has suddenly become, to me, a matter of overwhelming importance I do not know, but I woke up one day recently and decided that it needed to be in before we went waltzing off to Cardiff for the Singer of the World Competition. Possibly it is some strange throwback to my evangelically tinged upbringing; I cannot allow myself to go off and enjoy myself without working hard to deserve it first. Possibly it is some subliminal tic that insists it is time to have something fairly substantial to show for all the work I have been doing. Possibly it's something doom laden that I just don't recognise.

 

Whatever the reason, I do not go to bed tonight until it is finished. If I finish it at a reasonable hour I will start on the referencing, which is not a happy thought, as just the mention of academic referencing brings on a bad attack of what I normally refer to as Cotton Wool Head. Tomorrow I do whatever referencing remains and a bit of tightening up, after which it goes off to my supervisors over the weekend, for them to fins nestling in their in-boxes first thing on Monday morning. They'll thank me for that, not.

 

And then I heave a sigh of relief, pause briefly, and take up the burden which is the next chapter on the list! But after Cardiff.