A week off.

Step into the week with me

I recently handed in the latest draft of my upgrade document which is a version of my Education chapter, and after I sent it off at 1pm on the Friday I then had until the morning of the following Friday before I would get feedback on the document in my next supervision. Which meant only one thing…my very own Reading Week week off. A whole week in which I was basically obligated to not do any writing, because what would be the point in confusing drafts, and in which I could work on all those other tasks I’d been putting off, and in which I could try and relax. So how does a tired PhD student relax on their week off you ask? Well that is what I’m about to tell you!

The weekend

About twenty minutes after I sent off my draft, I jumped straight into the car and headed down to the south coast to Lewes visiting the Sheffield Park and Gardens on the way down. Friday night was spent doing our ‘comic book and curry’ night, where I went from 36% to 75% of Persepolis (before waking up to news that was very relevant to the book). Saturday morning was spent exploring Lewes’ wildlife park; buying beers at the Harvey’s brewery shop, cheese at Cheese Please Lewes, and a variety of pastries; before heading to the football ground in the afternoon followed by a visit to Gails on the way home.

The week begins

On Monday, I was back to my paid work (I only do my PhD part-time) with a long list of activities to get done at lunch and the evenings. But first things first - the actual job. With my week off uni I decided to use this week to prioritise workplace L&D, ticking off the mandatory e-learning I needed to get done by the end of the month, and lunchtimes saw me: finish my fox mosaic; work on a puffin brooch; and catch up on hollyoaks.

I also decided to use the time to prioritise my non-uni, personal, L&D. First up, I’ve been working on my RHS Level 2 in the Principles of Plant Growth and Development for a few years now, and I’m so close to the end. The plan is to take my second and final exam in June, which means I have to finish my final module’s reading this month, and start revising in April. I only had 16 pages left to read this month and I finished it! At the end of each module I have to send back a practice test which I also managed to get done.

I’m also working on a contemporary embroidery diploma with Hand & Lock, taking my first module in the autumn, and my second module at the moment. My first module was 3D beading with a brief of Under the Sea, and I recently finished the first part of the installation that will form my final piece; but my current module is in jewellery and wearable art with a very 19thC girly appropriate brief of William Morris. I’m currently working on the second draft of my design, and this week I’ve been refining it and working on adding colour and more detail. I also started off another fun embroidery project - a puffin brooch!

Next up were tasks I’ve been putting off as they just needed more time than I could give them - specifically business planning. I’ve been working on a business idea for a little time now but was stuck in a loop of “I really want to do it but I don’t know how” without actually taking the next steps of even googling “how to…” well I finally did that and emailed some suppliers to get a sense of costs to see how plausible the whole idea actually is.

For another creative hit, I managed to paint a mini painting. I’m working on a project where I’m painting a pack of playing cards, painting one a week and trying to represent that week, or an event in the week, on the card. I was slightly behind having not painted one last week thanks to my time being purely focused on the PhD, so I had to paint a card for w/c 16 Feb (painted a stack of pancakes), and while I meant to also paint one for w/c 23 Feb I didn’t quite get there.

Then there were the one offs in the week - going to watch football; having a physio session; carrying on knitting a sock I’ve been knitting for MONTHS; doing my seasonal wardrobe edit for spring which helped me identify a couple of new garments to buy; and finished the Poirot book I was reading.

At the end of all that I had a supervision on the Friday morning and got a TON of feedback on the document I’d handed in, and my personal reading week came to an end.

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