Another year, and still not quite done!

I began writing my thesis in August last year, planning to take 4 months over it and submit at the end of October, just as my funding ran out. I felt pretty confident at that point, having produced more data in the previous 12 months than I had in the whole of the rest of my PhD put together (a common experience at the end of a PhD I gather). Not only had I repeated my UCL experiments with better resolution and positive results, I had also done some followup experiments including a pretty cool attempt to trace the flow of calcium signalling along the dendrite. However, half way through the writing process N (my Oxford supervisor) sent me back to the lab to collect some more data. Not enough weight to my thesis. So that set me back a couple of months. Humph. Probably a good call though, I'm a lot happier with my new, weightier thesis.

Anyway, I finally got it all written a week before Christmas, and there's just another round (or two? please God not three?) of supervisor feedback to get through. Submission in January is what I'm aiming for, then on to the world of post-docking. Still pinching myself sometimes – taking a year out to do a neuroscience Masters for fun has certainly taken me to unexpected places...