Some writing up and wrapping up: PhD journal months 10 & 11

As summer draws to a close, so will my PhD journal updates - for a while at least. Surreal as it is to say, as I write this I'm 40 weeks + 4 days pregnant and trying not to feel tortured by the baby waiting game. It's a tough one though; while I'm way too distracted to think about PhD work, it turns out that even the pleasures of TV watching, magazine reading, and Twitter browsing lose their lustre eventually...

July and August were mainly spent doing some more bits of methods reading and writing up sections of the 6,000-word progress report for my end-of-year-one confirmation, which will be due a few months after I return. This should put me in a good position when I come back to the PhD next September, acting kind of like 'handover notes' to myself and (hopefully!) making the transition a little easier. I also spent some time updating Asana with a breakdown of individual tasks that will need tackling, so I'm not coming back into the project cold. Do you use a project planning tool for your PhD? I can highly recommend giving the free version of Asana a go if not, I find it invaluable. 

A highlight of this time was joining a virtual writing retreat for working-class women run by Dr Laura Bentley; it was SO helpful and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for future virtual/in-person retreats to attend post mat-leave. I used the day to finalise a second draft of the paper I've been reworking from my MRes dissertation that explores the enactment of widening participation policy, specifically looking at how policy actors are interpreting the concepts of 'targeting' and 'target groups' in contextaulised local settings. I loved undertaking this project and there was so much interesting material from my interviews with WP practitioners that I'm keen for it to reach a wider audience. Here's hoping for some good news from the journal during my maternity leave! 

Image credit: Malvestida Magazine