The After-Thesis Life

 

Copyright: Timber Press

The day after submitting, I awoke with a strange light-headed sense of non-burden from the two-year long 'Goddamit you need to get on with it and shame on you for not finishing your thesis thing' sensation. I had no thesis-guilt. Sat myself down on sofa with Radio 2 blasting out 'Gotta get right back to where we started from'; none of that YouTube jazz cafe or Liszt for studying sounds no more. 

Unwrapping a year's worth of New Yorkers, I meticulously sorted em
chronologically to catch up on long-reads which easily require three more years to complete. Undaunted in the manner of a post-doc brain, strung to think any immersion in researched work 'encompassible' as I term it, I delved in. It only served to stimulate the grey matter further. I was by now running on parallel tracks bubbling away to no avail. 

When I picked up the three books I had bought on Abe on trees and gardens in my neighbourhood by a brilliant author I found myself needing to list out the trees, draw a map and go find every one of them. I was refusing to be passive and calm down. So there I was. I had by now four blogs and had shared New Yorker articles with friends who probably thought I needed another thesis. They were kind but I knew I had to pipe down, somehow. Instead, I penned a long note to an old school kindred spirit outlining five post-doc project ideas. This was yesterday. 

My close friend 'J' came over to spend-the-day. She is wise, very perceptive and does not bite off nor indulge in illusions of getting in too deep. We had not met for a year after spending a year walking together, conversing and dissecting the universe with humour, candour and a lot of interest in what the other's socio-historical background offered. She was from an old intellectual Chinese family and I am still learning about the history of this old country which deviated from the version circulated in the media. Did you know that the old flag of China, which was in fact a western introduction of symbolic sovereignty, was a rich yellow background displaying a purple dragon? 

After our conversation and company,I realised that the self-imposed isolation I had found myself in had deepened into loneliness after she moved further away. I was clinging to Bourdieu, feeling the need to move constantly between Sri Lanka and my present home here in England's green corner in South-West greener, Greater London to avoid melancholic surrender to utter loneliness.  

Today I awakened and read Derek Robbins in preparation for my viva which would throw a spanner or two into the transferability of Bourdieu works. My brain was settling into its natural 'workout' mode: 

1. I needed a brain workout arguing Bourdieu, admitting that a part of me would continue to be fascinated by his meta-theoretical as it is called, relational conceptual approaches as I call habitus, doxa and illusio. I should put my grey matter to work in engaging in discussing with those who called 'Bourdieu aficionados,' re-working and fine-tuning Bourdieu's important theoretical framework of analysis. 
2. Editing and expanding: A couple of projects were calling out from within the thesis itself; I need to expand these and get working with one or the other without delay.  I needed to discuss if a version of this thesis could be published. I needed to draft at least three articles for publication. 
3. I needed my friend and our walks and conversation. I also needed my exercise slot. 
4. Plenty of work remained in organising my data and clearing up and categorising and labelling. The thesis was a huge chest, which now had to be converted into a chest of drawers. 

I had plenty to do and no need to feel un-tethered. This is what it meant to finish a thesis that had written itself into the DNA of your life-pace, brain-wiring and state of equilibrium. All good.