Half of Something

Tuesday morning I woke up to find a long looked for, but still unexpected email in my inbox.

Leicester has, beyond all belief and rationality, accepted my PhD proposal for October this year. I expected to hear from them weeks ago, and when I didn't, I suppose I'd given up in my head. So the email came as a surprise, on many levels. But a happy one.

My first thought was along the lines of 'OMG!'. The second, more extended thought was, 'but what about funding?' My third thought was 'I AM GOING BACK TO ENGLAND.' After that, there wasn't much coherency and a lot of laughter for the next few hours. Of course, day one of Cloud 9 was followed by day two of reality and planning, but since that is what I am best at, I feel it's working well. Planning is something I can focus on; something concrete and doable. And it means I worry less about the what-ifs.

[The largest of which is, of course, whether my funding comes through and how I will possibly do this without it.] But I find I am focusing less on that and much more on the practical aspects of moving once more and research that I have now let lapse for two months. The second of these is the most important. I've six months to worry about moving, and last time I did it all in two.

Everyone is very excited, especially my aunt (of all people). My parents are about as excited as last time, because after nearly two years they were nearly convinced they had me in Canada for the rest of eternity. What a silly notion.

Since it is almost the end of February, I feel like I can declare this month a big win on more than the PhD level. It means this year has started so much better than any in recent memory and I can only hope that means that I'm due for it to continue. Optimism coming along just fine...