Year 3.....

What? What? So six weeks ago, on February 9, 2014, we started our third year in New Zealand. This is astounding. The time has screamed by and all of a sudden we're looking at the last stretch of our PhDs and thinking about what we'd like to do next. Granted we still have a tremendous amount of work to do for our respective programs it seems insane to be considering the end of this season in our lives. When we first arrived in Wellington we spent time trying to get oriented and find our way in a different country, at a different school and in new programs. I remember thinking that three years is not enough time to do a PhD and I still believe this to be true. There simply isn't enough time to conduct sufficient research to fuel several publications. And while many students take longer than three years our scholarships end after thirty six months so we will finish as close to that time as possible. Throughout the first year of the PhD things were going along, there was data collection and reading and writing. But all of a sudden I feel blind sided by the fact that time seems to have sped up and now I'm staring down the final stretch. No wait! I feel like I'm just starting to get the hang of things. :) This seems to be what a colleague of mine calls "PhD time". It differs from regular time in that in expands and contracts as you go along. In short, one minute you feel like you'll never finish this process and then things shift to feeling like you're incredibly busy but don't feel like you're making progress. It makes you feel like you're losing your mind because you vacillate between these extremes while time continues to slip by and soon dissertation defenses will be looming. While I never expected the program to fly by so fast I cannot fathom walking to into my defense. What an incredible day that will be! Until then we'll continue to log hours in the lab, read articles, write chapters, and put in hours volunteering. Here's to the grind that is a PhD program!