Getting back to work.

Today I'm trying to get on with my academic work, which is hard because I'm feeling somewhat phobic about the whole thing. The basic problem is that if you don't do any work on a certain topic for a couple of months, you forget everything you'd been doing. And if the reason you haven't done the work is because you've been too ill and brain-fried, the likelihood is that your notes from before you stopped are all over the place.

There is no way on Earth I'm going to meet the deadline of 30th September. My doctor has already agreed to write a letter to support me - I was just holding off on getting it until I knew when I was better. As with all episodes of depression, I'm a little afraid to state "I am better" because it seems like tempting fate, but I feel more able to cope. The problem now is that I'm terrified of how far behind I am. Not only am I supposed to get this first chapter of my thesis done by the end of this month, I'm supposed to have done enough of my research to have started lab synthesis by the end of the year. And it's just not going to happen.

This wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to face that terrifying panel of people at the end of every year to have them confirm that I'm "allowed" to carry on with the PhD. I don't want to be kicked off the course because I was too ill to function. If they even suggest anything on those lines ("Oh, but it was only your first year, and you've had depression already - how are you going to manage the rest of your course?"), I am going to hit them with the Disability Discrimination Act so Fucking Hard. Tempted to prime the Disability Office now so they know it's a possibility. Hmm.

Right - I have 29 papers here to read, and I should make a start on that. Seeyas later.

BILLY the bookcase says hello!

Also, every time I get a book off my new bookshelf, all the other books on the shelf fall over. And it's GETTING ON MY NERVES! It's happening despite the presence of a heavy object which should stop the books being able to move. Obviously someone has turned off friction or inertia in this house, that's the only conclusion I can come to.

I know my entries lately have been scattered as hell. I'm sure people not on my trusted people list must be thinking there are tons of locked entries they can't see which would make the public ones make sense, but there really aren't. It's simply that I haven't had time to write all the inbetween posts that would fill in the gaps.

The short story is that I have a new study, in the back room which was previously our spare & junk room. Some of you have stayed there, sleeping in a loft bed. We don't have it any more. When things are more settled, I'll get a futon chair bed, but that won't be until all the other work in this room has been done - plaster and paint and floor (and getting the rest of Richard's junk out of here and into his workshop). And that won't be until I'm at least past this crisis.

The old study downstairs is going to be the new junk room, for now. Though we are actively working to reduce the amount of junk in this house (you would not believe how much has gone out, if you came here and saw how much still exists). And later my Mum will use it to sort out all her junk. She's flapping about the loss of a dining room, though I pointed out that we've only ever used the old downstairs study as a dining room at Christmas (one day a year), and I think we can cope with eating in the kitchen or going out for Christmas dinner.

Right. Really going to do some work now. Hello, Textbook of Structural Biology!