Let me state for the record that three-hour lecturing blocks are hard work. I had my first on Thursday and I’m still tired now (admittedly, the allergy attack of yesterday probably didn’t aid my recovery).
Which is by-the-by.
A good friend of mine, David, returns to Auckland this month to do his viva and become a Doctor of Philosophy. He started about the same time as I did, but he’s finished and I’m not. This is happening a lot around me; at least three people are submitting this year who started after (in some cases well after) I started.
I don’t begrudge them their work ethic. I’m not the ideal PhD candidate. I don’t work as assiduously as I should, I’m fond of moveable deadlines and I have other interests that sometimes swamp me. It’s not surprising that people are getting past me.
Still… Still, it’s now becoming increasingly attractive, this notion of completion, and at the moment my personal demon is this epistemology of Testimony chapter. I hates it. It’s taking up me valuable time and I really want to get back to Conspiracy Theories proper rather than epistemic transmission theses. I know it’s work I have to do, eventually, but I think a long rest between drafts might be in order. At the moment the struggle between Reductionism and Non-Reductionism isn’t all that interesting in a blogging kind of way and it certainly doesn’t make for good dinner conversation.