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.

That all sounds so wonderful and final. But one of the main reasons why the Journal entries have been so slow in coming these last few years is because I have largely had my nose to the grindstone. I have been interviewing people for my research in Vienna, London, Washington DC, and even Minnesota. I have been work for Sir Crispin Tickell on the Policy Foresight Programme, and even playing a bit of football (i.e. soccer) for New College. For the past innumerable months, I have woken up at 5.30am or 6am, had breakfast and talked to Naomi via the wonders of video chats, and sat down to work at my desk in my bedroom in the loft of my house. Then I go to bed between 9 and 10pm. Some days, I am incredibly productive, writing thousands of words or having brilliant breakthroughs. Other days. . . I watch a lot of the West Wing. This is, I am told, all part of the normal writing process.

I don’t mind spending so much time alone, but it is incredibly hard to stay motivated when you spend nearly all day every day in the same 100 square feet of the world. There are thousands of tricks I have learned to play with myself, both to get me to work and to avoid work, and it is a continual battle to sit down and continually apply myself to this 100,000 word, 350 page beast. But I am getting there.

I have a full draft, and have revised around a third of it so far. Some of this stuff I wrote years ago, and reading it now, I either think, “gee, I really knew what I was talking about back then,” or, “wow. That’s rubbish.” In these final months, my main task is to make my argument as cohesive as possible, clearly drawing out the ‘red threads’ that run through the thesis tying everything together. My monitor is covered in post-its and notes lie everywhere with little thoughts I need to remember, like “Scan XRef Index”. Hmm, I’m sure I know what that means. . .

With the end nigh, it seemed natural to think about next steps; the after-DPhil-life, if you like. I could not give it too much thought, however, as my effort must be primarily focused on getting the DPhil done. I figured that I would apply for a handful of postdoctoral fellowships in America, and if none of those came through I would fly out to California to be with Naomi and open up Sam’s Existential Pancake Parlour, where you tell me the state of things (your mind, the world, etc) and I’ll make a pancake to match. Sadly, pancake flipping will have to continue as a Saturday-only tradition for the moment as I have just accepted an offer for a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard University!

The Fellowship allows me to publish my research and get some teaching experience, as well as establish networking links within academia, and strengthen my already existing links with industry and government. It is split between the Kennedy School of Government (and in particular the Science, Technology, & Society unit) and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. My job will involve building links between the two schools, helping to design an undergraduate major in Technology & Society, publishing at least one journal article, and preparing my thesis for publication as a book. And for all this they will pay me!! Amazing stuff, this ‘real world’.

The Northeast is one of the few parts of America that I have not yet lived or spent a significant amount of time in, and I am looking forward to getting to know New England. Camille is only a few hours away in Vermont, and my old roommate Tom from St. Olaf and his (very pregnant!) wife Kate are only a short drive away in New Hampshire. I look forward to seeing all them more in the next year or two. The appointment is only for a year at first, and if they like me they may ask me to stay for another year.

And so I now find myself looking for a place to live in Cambridge, MA, and sorting out how to put my life in Britain on hold for a while. I am sure that musings on the end of this era will generate further Journal entries in the coming months. For now, I think the idea is only just settling in, though one event has already caused me pause. I booked my one-way flight to Boston. It seemed so final. I am leaving this place I call home, this place I have lived longer than anywhere my whole life. But part of me knows that I will be back. There will be trips back to visit Naomi’s family, to graduate, and with any luck one of us may get a job here in a few years.

Looking back seven years ago when I got accepted to Oxford, I never really thought I would now be heading off to Harvard on a postdoc. It’s funny how life turns, and I know that it easily could have turned the other way. There has been a lot of hard work along the way, but also not an insignificant amount of luck. The two have happened to work in my favour this time around, and I am very much looking forward to starting there. After I finish my thesis.