The first quarter of the year has been a time to recover from the past few years of doing my honours research, to re-evaluate the direction I am wanting my life to go, to sort through relationships, to just trying to enjoy life, to start to seek options both academic and employment, to catch up with friends and to wait for my university results. Not to forget the editing of my thesis down to 20 percent of it’s size to turn it into a journal paper that was submitted for the Newell Prize. The paper made it into the finals and will be published in next month’s issue of the Telecommunications Journal of Australia. At times it has been relaxing but other times frustrating. Doors that I thought might have opened haven’t, yet, there have been some fantastic experiences sprinkled throughout this time. During which time, a number of well meaning friends have been hinting that I should be looking for a job and getting out more. However, I feel it has been a productive the quarter.

Since being notified that I will be receiving first class Honours I have been thinking about doing a PhD, something last year I swore I wouldn’t do. While at WomAdelaide this year probably enjoying too much wine with a good friend of mine we came up with an idea for a PhD. The idea was to study people with complex communication needs in relation to expressions of their sexuality. Since then I have bounced the idea off a number of people and received a variety of responses, from very encouraging of both doing a PhD and of the topic to expressing the need for me to get a job. Many of the encouragers, after thinking on the proposed topic, could see such research could be very interesting, valuable and the many directions it could take.

Currently, I am investigating the option of doing such a PhD and it is my aim to blog my progress. This afternoon I had a productive meeting over Skype with a potential supervisor and tonight I began to chat, also over Skype with a woman who has cerebral palsy and who is actually currently doing a PhD in Sydney.