A Much Needed Break

A Much Needed Break

A PhD is a long-term project and it is important to recharge your batteries on a regular basis. Maintaining a good balance is essential. Since my wife had her birthday lately we decided to take a well-deserved break over the weekend. The destination was Bournemouth which turned out to be a good decision. My supervisor also has a holiday home in Dorset (the county in which Bournemouth is in) and he spends many of his holidays around there. We, of course, were not living at his place! We were lucky that the weather was sunny through out.

A holiday can never be a holiday if one has a laptop with all its accompanying email notifications and deadlines. Therefore I decided I give my laptop (and my mind) a rest and placed it in the drawer before leaving. Bournemouth is predominantly a holiday place with an interesting mix of restaurants. We had a good experience with lunch at a trendy bar (they have amazing pizzas!) and dinner at a nice cosy Cypriot restaurant.

As we took the last Sunday train back to Leamington Spa, I had to start planning for the next Monday again. Things to do:

Check all the unread emails for the last two days.
Weekly meeting with my supervisor.
Work on a theorem I have been thinking about.
Do background reading on some mathematical tools which I believe might help in proving the theorem.
Submit the abstract for a talk I am giving in London in July.
Guide a couple of undergrads for their final exam.
Buy value advance ticket for the London trip.
Submit travel compensation forms for the London trip to the department.
Finish reviewing a paper for a conference.
Format a poster for a workshop in Bristol.
Remind my office mate that he is driving me to Bristol for the workshop.
Finalize the participant list for the conference I am organizing.
Format my thesis structure.
Check if my co-supervisor has finished his marking so we can talk about finalizing a joint paper.
Check with a colleague in another university about a potential collaboration.