Three countries in two weeks... Part 3: Scotland

Well, needless to say, my trip back to St Andrews was not nearly as eventful as the rest of my travels. Although, I did forget how long it takes to get there from Edinburgh. Next time I live some place, I'm going to live somewhere that has an airport! All these buses, trains, cabs, etc. are really getting to me. So, I arrived in town about mid-afternoon and headed straight into the department so I could print off my thesis! Yes, the purpose of this quick trip back to town was to submit my PhD thesis. I got into the office to find that the PDF program on the computer was broken and since the IT person doesn't trust us postgrads to have admin access to our own computer, there was nothing I could do to fix it. Thankfully, P had her computer with her so we were able to print it off and celebrate! When you submit your thesis, you need to print off 3 copies, so, I'm single-handedly killing the planet with my 300 page thesis (900 pages total). Eeeek! Here is a nice stack of just over 3 years of work:


On Monday, I took it down to the Bindery to get it bound, then walked to the Registrar's office to drop it off. The registrar's office is like a fortress. They won't let anyone in so you have to buzz to get them to open the door. The conversation at the buzzer was as follows:
Registrar: Hello
Me: Hi, I'm here to drop of my PhD thesis
Registrar: Oh, I guess you want to be buzzed in then?
Me: Yes, please.

Seriously, what did they think I wanted? "No, I'll just leave these 900 pages here on the doorstep in the rain and you can come grab them whenever you feel like it." Ugh. So, in I go, to the Golden Palace, or whatever they think they work in. I was directed to a woman at a desk who told me just to set it down here and she wrote out a receipt. No fireworks, Congratulations, or even a smile. I don't really know what I was expecting, but it was kind of a lunchbag let-down. I trudged back up to the department, 900 pages lighter, and bought three books and a coffee as a present to myself!

Unfortunately, it was not yet time to celebrate. During my time in town I had two job applications to finish so I went back into the office to work on those. We did end up all going to the pub later and I spent the next 3 days I had in town visiting people, grabbing pints and coffees, and finishing up the job applications. It was really weird to be back in town, especially since most of my friends have left. It was also weird to go into my old office and find that everything has changed. The office has pretty much had a complete turnover, so it is definitely not my space anymore. I don't know what I was expecting, but it was weird. So there you have it. Three years of work is now gone, out of my hands, fini! I will have my defense sometime in the next 3 months but as of this moment, I can't really think about much. It's been an interesting experience, kind of like giving birth I suppose. It's had its ups and downs, and I don't think I'd want to go through this again, but I don't think I'd trade these past three years for anything!

So, now I'm back in Germany for my last month. It's crazy to think at how fast these last 3 months have gone. I feel like I haven't really accomplished anything, and am especially disappointed with myself over the state of my German, but I can't be too hard on myself since I've actually got quite a bit done: Finished thesis, gave two papers at international conferences, presented part of my thesis at the research seminar here.... Nothing to sneeze at. So now I just have a book review and an article to finish before Christmas. Should be able to take it easy at bit and enjoy the Christmas markets...