It’s 8:21am. I’ve been sitting at my desk now since a little after 6am, working feverishly on amendments to a journal article while also planning out thesis amendments, my next blog series, and ideas for the In The Zone podcast. I’m also trying to sort out my work situation for next year and scour the internet for somewhere to live. Oh, and I’m also organising a conference.

Just another day in the life of an academic hermit!

But it’s not all bad. The end is now well and truly in sight. I’ve met my second supervisor and updated my thesis with his suggestions, and now all that remains is to check that he is happy with my changes and cut out about 400 words to bring my total under the 80,000 word maximum required by my department. Though 400 words may not sound like a lot, this will still take quite a lot of work as I’ve already honed down a lot of my content to the bare minimum wordage where possible.

This may be hard to believe, but the main challenge with a humanities thesis is not reaching the word-count, but cutting down your content to fit within the maximum limit. Nearly there though, and not too long to go until I submit!