I set up this Journal shortly before I came to Oxford seven years ago, as a chance for friends and family to share in my adventures while abroad. I am now approaching a hiatus in this time abroad as my plans now seem directed at America for a while once more. When I arrived for the first time on English soil I had no idea that I would be staying any more than a year. The people at Oxford, I felt, were much smarter than I was and I had little hope of surviving once they ‘found me out’. My Journal entries here have, I believe, provided at least a small window on my development over the last seven years in this city of stone and spires.

I am in the thick of finishing up my doctoral thesis at the moment, and have been for the last six months or so. I am still (just) on track to submit by my somewhat self-imposed but still mandatory deadline of June 19th, after which I will have an oral examination (a ‘viva’) on the thesis and will hopefully have only minor corrections to make before handing it into the University and obtaining ‘leave to supplicate’, a very Oxonian way of saying I am allowed to graduate. (more…)