Strange Kind of Freedom: Post-Dissertation Fun

P.hinisheD*

DISSERTATIONS, DRINKS AND THE DDW DROOGS

* Alright! I admit it... so the pretty pieces of work you see above may not have been PhD theses but there are only so many jokes about dissertations out there... 

Oddly enough, the last week of the dissertation (aka. Dissertation Death Week) was possibly one of the most fun weeks of my university career. And I'm not the only one who thought so. High-pressure, mammoth editing circles, eyes that ache from staring at the same computer screen for hours at a time -   we existed in a sort of hysteria, the progeny of adrenalin and sleep-deprivation, and ended up laughing and laughing and laughing. 

It started with three of us: Holt, the token dude; Olivia, but you may knew her as INKA; and me - but before long we were joined by (s)he of Pigfarts: Katie. We formed a circle, passing our essays between us so that everyone had comments and criticism attached to our work, cutting excess words and colloquialisms, noting the moments of awkward phrasing, taking out the pointless additions that we just didn't need. But when it all became just a little too much, when our heads felt full of fluff and our eyeballs threatened to fall out of our faces, we tuned out together and gave our brains a break. For example, Holt showed us Christopher Walken reading 'Where the Wild Things Are' and Katie revealed Starkid's A Very Potter Musical. If you click those links, you'll probably find out just how weird and crazy we went (are) but these moments of hilarity were the tonic to our otherwise perpetual brain-ache. 

The diet of amazing home-cooked recipes certainly helped. Sweet potato risotto, green Thai curry, chill-chorizo with rice - we ate like kings. And it made up for our over-consumption of milkshake/milkbottle pick-n-mix. 

So seven bottles of Prosecco and some really bad bad bad coconut-rum/gin/orange-from-concentrate cocktails later and it's over. It's done. It's handed in and it's great. And, it feels like we've come out of it with strong, new friendships as well as stallion-strong dissertations. 

Yet I'm finding there's a weird mix of mild panic and relief. Every so often there's a peculiar tightening in my chest and stomach where I think I've discovered another error that's going to scupper the essay I spent so long on. But then there's the easy freedom of knowing that I don't have to be up until 4am writing the same essay on Milton that I've been writing all year. There's the fact that I actually have the time to update projects like this, my much neglected blog, and to start up my latest book-related venture on The Daily Scribble which is looking at publishing houses and their various imprints. I also have time to write more chapters up for Festival, Rebel Earth and update my notebooks on several other creative adventures. Going to The Earl for drinks suddenly doesn't have a time limit and having Wednesday lunches doesn't have to come with a book on classical prosody. So despite the atrocious and slightly pathetic dreams about not having it finished in time, or discovering a terrible misprint, it is a great feeling to be able to focus on the other things that had to fall by the wayside. 

And there's always more prosecco. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie,
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