Let me get the big news over with first (partly for those for whom this is repetition) and say that I had a Viva for my thesis on Tuesday, the outcome was not good in that I was asked to resubmit. If you want more info on this I blogged about it on my thesis blog on Wednesday . What it means practically I still have to work out but it was clear that my examiners thought I needed to get more space from my fieldwork. The immediate result is that I have decided to have a break from thesis until after my parents Golden Wedding and then start looking through the interviews and the reports that I should get from Birmingham.
Other than that I have been working and trying to get myself more healthy. Actually the health thing started in the run up to submission when I realised that my anxiety levels were going through the roof. I did not want to ask the doctor for medication for this and therefore I had to do something. I already used mindfulness and such approaches and the only other thing I knew that reduces levels was physical activity. That started with walks in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire and then one Sunday I took myself off to Hillsborough Leisure Centre for a swim.
I was surprised how it works out. There are two pools under one roof at Hillsborough. The beach pool with pirate ship wreck a couple of water shutes and a wave machine. They also have the rock pool which is a small old fashioned swimming pool for swimming up and down. There are five narrow lanes usually (today only four) and the water is fairly warm. Also on a Sunday Afternoon it is relatively quiet.
Well I enjoyed that, that I decided to try Ponds Forge during the week. Then signed up for Fitness Unlimited which costs about £20 per month and if I swim once a week that is cheaper than buying individual sessions. However, it does not give me just swimming but gym, various fitness classes and things like saunas and steam baths. Also if you use the gym there is a small amount of personal training available. As thesis has taken its toll physically with the concentrated nature of finishing I am at present making use of this quite a lot.
Work is busy as always. A paper is in for final review, and also when we started looking at a big data set we found something pretty straightforward that would upset a number of stereotypes. There are some interesting student projects and a couple of PhD students who are getting close to finished.
Today as it was Pentecost Sunday which was the annual CTBB big service and held at St Andrews this time. I went as they said they wanted someone to help Derek on the sound desk. In the end I did the whole sound but we had two microphones fail during the service and I do not know why.
