endings (hopefully)

I am currently still trying to finishing the epic battle that is my doctorate. It has all taking rather longer than I anticipated, but can actually see the end now, which is both exciting and terrifying. I am in the process of needing to cut out about 4000 words, which is a fairly painful process given the blood, sweat, tears and chocolate which went into them in the first place.
Not wishing to draw painfully tenuous parallels but this feels a little like the approach I need to take in my life as a whole at the moment. The doctorate has been such a huge part of my life (to the extent that I considered naming my thesis) that it is hard to see beyond that. Life has been very very busy, which I love but I really want to use the time post doc in the best possible way. I love to be challenged and stretched but getting the balance between that and doing what I do well has recently been a challenging one. Am starting to think about what to do next, am excited about being able to spend more time doing what I love doing, hanging out with an awesome youth group, but first things first I need to finish this thing! The way ahead should be an interesting one :)