Just Another Day in the Life

Life has returned to normal since school began again at the beginning of January. I am now going into my fourth week of classes in my spring term at Royal Holloway. I get quite a lot of questions about how my program works and so I thought that I would outline it briefly here.

My master's program includes three terms: fall, spring, and summer and each term is 11 weeks long (with a week off for midterms). This means that my terms are incredibly short and thus a lot of material is condensed into a very short amount of time. My spring term will reach the halfway point on February 10th (crazy that it is so soon!) and then I will finish this term at the end of March. Once I have finished in March classes are over for me, hopefully for good. April brings deadlines for all course essay work (4 in total) followed by a summer of dissertation writing, terminating September 10th. At that point (providing I pass) I will have my MA degree. My program is sort of a whirlwind course but I am happy to have avoided having to do two full years of work which is standard in American MA programs.

Two other questions that I commonly get are "when are you coming home" and "what's next?" both of which I have an answer for. To the first question, I plan to come home to Fargo somewhere around the beginning of October or late September. I have visitors coming in September and I plan on probably coming home with them or just after they leave. To the second question, it is slightly more cloudy. I plan on applying for PhD programs next fall, probably in November, and submitting mainly to schools in London and the surrounding area. PhD programs are three full years in the UK so I would be heading back for an even longer stint of time (though again, shorter than American PhDs usually take). I have been told that I can pick my start date to begin my doctorate and I am hoping to start somewhere between March-July of 2013 which gives me a nice little break in Fargo and the US to relax and have my first true break since I've begun college. What I'm hoping for during that break is to spend my time unwinding, taking a mental break, and visiting friends a family around the midwest and country. I guess I hope to do all of the things that I've so missed this year because I am not in America such as watching baseball, football, or basketball games, cross country skiing, snowboarding, driving, playing with my cat, and going to stores like Target and Hornbachers. These may sound like silly things to want to do, but let me tell you, it is the little things in life that one misses when away from her home country. I am hoping to be able to visit each and every one of you at your homes and make up for lost time. I am incredibly thrilled at the prospect and I have a Honda Element sitting in the garage in Fargo rearing to pack the miles on.

I hope that all is well for everyone in America and, if you have a free moment, send me an email updating me with your lives. Blogging is a wonderful way for me to keep in contact with all of you readers but it is, alas, somewhat one sided on my end.