Monday afternoon - a day in the midlife of my PhD

I'm not that sure where I am today as for the first time in a long time I'm struggling to work out exactly what to do with myself.  I had a supervision this morning with Kate where I explained why I thought a years extension to my PhD would be helpful.  I then went to see Patrick and drop some chairs off at the playground and then walked around the cemetery and missed my dog and thought seriously about retiring.  It was a practical thinking rather than a melancholy one though it did leave me feeling slightly melancholy. 

The end of an era is something I say a lot, my retirement will be the end of an era but we are not quite there yet. There is still much to do and much to be taken from the doing of it.  The grim weather and the dark evenings and the lock-down sometimes hold my mood at a point of waiting to step into a lighter place, a waiting for the switch to switch and something else to happen.

Today I got up and read some Erin Manning, did my Joe Wick PE session, had a bath then listened to Utube about Spinoza.  Then I had my supervision which went well, though after it I felt like I needed a break. I popped to the playground and had a chat with Pete and Patrick, we told some jokes and said it was too cold too work. At 3.30 I decided I would blog mainly because I don't want to start anything else.  This all sounds a bit glum and I know I should make myself a cup of tea and snap out of whatever I seem to have snapped into.  Manning was writing about Guattaris' depressions and his oinking like a pig, she seems to want to find some positivity between the spark and petrification of depression.  I am finding the last few chapters slightly irritating. I thought this morning that she is trying to be like Zizeck and not really write a series of books but to write one long single book.  Anyway I only read about eight pages and it was enough. 

I'm waiting for a second wind or a Christmas break or something different.  I told Kate I would do some loose parts play stuff with kids in spring on the platform. I also told Patrick this and it makes some sort of sense of things.  I quite like my writing about research creation but I can't actually look at it in case it's shit.  I am trying to keep positive- John Berger says we need to clench hope between our teeth - today in the cold, it feels like a day to bite hard on hope as both a distraction and something to eat.  I wondered why more people haven't connected Ruskin to Spinoza  it feels like his understanding of Nature and God are similar I am going to cook a chilly and have an early day as I feel if I don't I may end up oinking like a pig.