And so it begins

I have been enrolled as a PhD student at DMU since January last year I am also an employee of DMU and work within the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences as a disability coordinator.

I have decided to start this blog to chart my progress as I move through the research. I hope that it will be a sounding board for me when I need to vent my frustrations with the research. I hope over time if I build up followers that it will also offer support to other people who find themselves in the same place that I am, which as any researcher knows, is often lonely. Research means late nights and early mornings. It means hours spent at a computer instead of socialising with friends or wandering in the sunshine. Research means compromise but it also reaps wonderful rewards.

In order to complete any successful research you must believe in what you are doing as it is the one thing that will keep you going when the teapot is empty and your eyes are sore. I do believe in my research. I believe very strongly that above all my research will be useful and not collect dust on a shelf somewhere. Let's hope so!

Since I have been enrolled on this PhD I have watched my partnership disintegrate and my life be turned upside down by divorce and a loss of hope. For a while the research bore the brunt of my emotional meltdown but now it is the thing that keeps me strong. Any project is conducted by a human being and that  human being will have their ups and downs in the personal life and it will no doubt affect their writing, their perspective and the time they have to spend with their work. Research should never be used as therapy but it does give one a purpose and a focus when the world conspires against you.

This blog will not be an account of all the reading and writing that I am currently doing - my supervisors get this particular pleasure. Instead it will be a very honest account of the emotional journey that a PhD student goes through to get to their viva and beyond.