First day of the Christmas break

My term has finished at LSE and I am now officially on my Christmas break. The new term starts January 12th so I basically have a month off. During the period I have to review what I have accomplished so far and sort out a number of different plans for next year based on various different scenarios - for instance, relaed to possible work, and to issues like what if my conference paper was accepted. And, of course, there is a lot of reading I'd like to do.

It is another bitterly cold morning - but a nice sunrise behind Didcot power station, 12 miles away.

The view from my study window towards Didcot Power Station this morning around 7:15

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A flurry of emails first thing. I did one further redraft of my "thought experiment" paper and sent copies to Leonardo (who is ill at the moment - hence his absence yesterday) and Vicenzo. The paper is now 4,500 words which is basically half a dissertation. If I wrote another 5,000 words of philosophy it could easily be a dissertation. Indeed I think that I will try and boost the philosophical component and then maybe submit it to a journal! I am thinking perhaps Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science would be a good one to aim for. But it does need quite a lot of extra work if this was my plan. Maybe this will be something else I can do over the Christmas Break.

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I also sent an email to Miklos enclosing a final essay for PH400. I have really enjoyed his course and am actually quite disappointed that we are switching teachers next term. I have also broached very tentatively, the question of whether he feels that I would be a suitable PhD candidate. In his reply, he suggests we discuss this next term. By then I would hope to have read some more about PhDs and academia generally.

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But how that would work out is difficult to see clearly. I sent off a job application today and it is clear that my best outcome might well be to find something by March and then do it for 18 months or so, finishing my MSc as best I can, with a view of starting a PhD in October 2010 at about the time I should be able to quit working - possibly for good. But can that actually come to pass?

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Work today was based on taking notes from the papers of the last fews days and setting out my associated essay plans, with my main reading being more of Tony Becher's Academic Tribes and Territories and an article on Butterfield's The Origins of Modern Science. The book pile on my desk is now enormous, containing about 45 books. Not sure I can read all of them by the end of the course. And that doesn't include the 8 I brought back from LSE yesterday.

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An alternative view of my study, taken from the far end and only taken as the end of the room is currently fairly clear - usually it is piled up with boxes.