Friday, September 23, 2005

Quote me happy

Productivity is down this week, with my thesis writing slowing down to a virtual standstill today. Thankfully my thesis is in fairly good shape, so that this downturn in word production should not hold things up too much. In the grand schedule of the PhD I should in fact be entering my final week of studenthood and handing in an account of my three years of original work to the university, before beginning my job as a postdoc the weeks after. As with pretty much anyone who starts a PhD in the UK this three year timescale is generally completely ignored, and not wanting to buck such traditions I to will be handing in late. This does come with certain benefits in that to hand in my thesis I still have to be a registered student at the university, thus gaining a new student card and all the discounted goodness that it brings. Full price at the cinema, oh no, not for me. 10% off my clothes purcheses at Top Man, get in! Cheap drinks in the union, oh yeah! Regular gym membership? Why no, for I am a student and will not pay your extortionate normal rates. It also means I will gain a strange state of duality when I start my job as both a member of staff and a student. My collapse into one state will depend on who my observer is (sorry, it's a quantum mechanics reference - I went to a discussion about these things last night and am now taking the analogy too far).

Oh yes, I should explain the title of this posting - one the things we writing-up students (or at least all those I know) do to waste time is in thinking up suitable quotes for our thesis chapters. I have one so far and have for the last day mainly been trawling Blackadder scripts for another. I'm sure some inspired and relevent quotes are out there, but I ask you my loyal readers (ok, so I know it's only James who ever looks at this - I should link other people in or maybe write something interesting or even just post a bit more often, but all that places the burden of work on me and I'm just too damn lazy) to send me your favourite gravitational wave data analysis quote and i'll whittle them down to the best ten and then hold a public vote on the five that will grace my opus.