Sometimes life can take pretty sharp twists and turns. My life was going ok, I was busy working on my PhD studies, preparing to go to the AGOSCI Conference and was working on a paper with a colleague that we were presenting at the conference. A few things were happening with my support workers that I had to deal with. The support worker who was going with me to Sydney suddenly resigned a month before the conference. This meant I had to sort out somebody else to go and flights, plus accommodation. Apart from all these additional things demanding my attention, I thought my studies were going along ok, yet at times, it felt I was just managing keeping my head above water.
Sydney went well. I met many new friends, caught up with old ones and networked with many at the conference. Even got in some sightseeing. I was somewhat exhausted on return and it took over a week to re-energise again. In the second week back, the best way I can explain it is that, a perfect storm happened. As a result of many different events merging together, I had to figure out and come to terms with what was happening and then make some difficult decisions quickly. This is not the place to go into details but the situation required much prayer, consideration, negotiations and talking to close friends. It came apparent that my PhD would be best undertaken at Flinders University rather than at UniSA. So, I have withdrawn from my PhD at UniSA and am in the progress to apply to be accepted to do my PhD at Flinders to start in July this year. The research project will be along similar the lines of the one I was working on at UniSA.