2006: The year that was . . .

Each time I take a peek at the archive list for this blog, I am always a bit perplexed when I see that there are no entries for 2006. Not one. Not a single one. There's not even a draft copy of some nonsense that might have been one.

What the hell is that about? What was I doing in 2006 that was so important that I couldn't be bothered to say anything at all?

As I attempt to look back at 2006 to see what was going on behind the scenes, so to speak, I come up empty handed. It was no more or less stressful than 2005 or 2007. And bloody hell, I finished my PhD in 2006 and attended the graduation ceremony where I was capped by Diana Rigg, who was the Chancellor of my university at that time.

But maybe that's the problem. Perhaps I was suffering from some sort of post-PhD blues. Simon (my advisor) had told me that there would be a big letdown after the project was finished. I laughed and told him to lay off the crack pipe. I was going to be absolutely thrilled when my thesis was finished and I could finally get on with my life.

What the hell did I know?

My identity had been so tied up in my research project and just trying to get everything right, but above all get it written, that I never stopped to think about what the project had meant to me and how it had changed my life forever. For four years, I was a doctoral candidate in the Stirling Media Research Institute and that was fine with me. I traveled here and there giving papers at conferences in the US and Europe, fully funded by my generous department. I was lucky to have great friends and professors whose support and encouragement I could always rely on and who seemed genuinely interested in the work I was doing, and whose work I admired and respected.

Geez, of course I was miserable when it was over.

I had, and continue to have to be honest, the nagging feeling that I didn't enjoy it enough when it was happening; that I didn't take seriously enough what those four years really meant in terms of my personal growth and development. And while there was a lot of work and frustration and heartache and you name it associated with that time, in fact, it was incredibly special.

So I suppose that's getting close to explaining the absence of a single blog entry in 2006 . . . which was apparently one hell of a year.