Ik heb trek in een kopje thee!

So today's library marathon has been somewhat productive. The thesis and I have been working well and so far so good. As anyone writing up will tell you, monotony is the most difficult thing to overcome while doing so . So today's change of scene, the library rather than the office, was an attempt to defeat the monotonous monster!
While writing about what I've been researching over the past three years it seems fitting that I'm also thinking about what's to come. So I suppose it like being in purgatory, a nice one, between St Andrews and Webster. Fondly reminiscing while excitedly looking forward to what's next.
A few things are certain and learning Dutch is one of these certainties. So 'Hugo' has promised to help me along the way, in three months, an ambitious man if I've ever met one!
Throughout the years I've built up quite a collection of books of this nature . Greek, French, German, Latin, 'African' dialects - some more useful than others. The usual approach is to find a phrase that resonates ie. one you'll have to use and see if you can actually say it, remember it and make it your own. Gives a wee bit of confidence before nose-diving in and attempting the grammar and everything else.
So flicking through in great anticipation of Hugo's confidence, I found the phrase that will inspire me to knuckle down and learn the language as required.
Tea, for me, solves everything! I'm a great believer that no matter what the problem is, big or small, a wee cuppa tea will at least give me time to sit and think it over for 15minutes. Tea, like Hugo may become for all my Dutch linguistic needs, is always there to help in times of study, writing, time with friends, time to curl up with a good book....so one thing I need to be able to ask for, of course, is a cup of tea.
Repeat after me [says Hugo] Ik heb trek in een kopje thee

Three months is ambitious but at least I'll be able to study with a cuppa tea!

Now, back to the library...

A little wander around Leiden

So here is the first of many wee thoughts that will be posted here for all to see.

It's one month until my last High Table at Sallies, I'm editing, editing and editing some more and beginning to see that over the past three years researching, studying,writing and discovering lots of little unknowns that there is a glimmer of PhD there if you wipe it clean of blood sweat and tears, I'm really starting to feel that I'm coming to the end of an era.

It's all been very abstract so far, talking about when I move rather than implementing anything to actually make the move, that was of course until last week. Deposits paid, a new address secured, a man with a van sending me 20 medium boxes and a bike box in which I have to pack up and send across the sea to old Amsterdam, business cards finalised and my new email address activated. Not to mention a new Assistant Warden being appointed at Sallies and a new Tutor at UoC Edinburgh. I've signed, sealed, arranged to pack and deliver, I'm ready to go...it's no longer talking, it's moving!

I'm really excited for everything to come. Its not a bad start to the year, the year I finish one major thing (that PhD thing) and begin at a new university, for the first time not as a student but as a faculty member.

I'm also terrified but in the same way as I was when I was standing on the edge of a bridge with nothing but a bungee rope tied around my waist, I was paralysed with fear, the last thing I wanted to do was jump, the only thing I was demanding of the safety guys around me was to make me jump...somehow the adrenaline rush is worth the terror, it actually makes the terror somewhat pleasurable. Now this is a very extreme way to describe the move to Holland but I cant pretend that the adrenaline isn't pumping and that the thought of the jump isn't terrifying.

Having been at university as a student for 9 years I'm starting a fresh at a new university, something I have enjoyed many a time before, but the fresh start is as a faculty member at a University were I have never been a student. This will be a strange and exciting new experience.

Anew place, a new life style, a new language and everything else in between.

For now the anticipation and adrenaline is keeping the motivation up. The nerves keep me writing and keep me to a self-imposed and grueling structure, the reward....a wee apartment by the canal, my bike, Webster and everything else I'm yet to discover.