Diary of a Viva Ninja: Day 5-8

Real Life: challenges or opportunities?

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Every situation is a potential training or practice opportunity. 

I’ve been unable to blog the last few days due to being intensely busy: five days of work which took me from Gloucestershire to Somerset, Bath to Heathrow, Wroughton to Northampton, to Oxford, Leicester and Stratford-upon-Avon,  before finally back to Stroud: leading a batch of bardic tours (my main source of additional income, which have enabled me to pay my PhD fees these last four years); running a writing workshop; and co-hosting an Arts/Science showcase in the Everybody’s Reading Festival. It’s been an exhausting time, especially with the travelling – but that’s all part of the reality and challenge of completing a PhD for most of us. Real life doesn’t stop happening. As John Lennon said: ‘Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans’, or to paraphrase, it’s what happens while you’re carefully planning and preparing for your Viva!

I have been making good progress, but all of that went out of the window since Friday. But now I can come up for air and continue – and things aren’t so bad. I am more or less on schedule, and most importantly feel like I’ve ‘got my head’ around the whole Viva process and refamiliarised myself with my thesis (critical commentary and novel). I’ve made copious notes, and read all the relevant material. I’ve drafted a list of questions – which I extended today with ‘Easy’, ‘Nightmare’ and ‘General’ questions. Now the priority really is to just keep practising. It is very easy to find Displacement Activities rather than face the cold, sobering reality of the forthcoming Viva (now imminent for me – at the end of this month). But as Polonius from Hamlet said: ‘Procrastination is the thief of time!’ It is easier to just get stuck in. Being rested, fed, refreshed, etc, really helps with this. Eating well, exercising, and getting a good night’s sleep is just as important (if not more so) than speed-reading a stack of books. However, I am finding identifying and reading relevant literature really helpful – especially critical works that will help maintain an ‘academic  consciousness’ (and provide useful theoretical underpinning too boot).  At the same time having something else to read when you’re relaxing is important too. You can’t stay switched on all the time.  Reading an excellent novel is just as vital in my subject-area and discipline as non-fiction critical works. And over the last five days I have used other essential Viva skills: presenting in front of diverse audiences; sustaining a high-level discussion and defending my ideas in the AI showcase; managing complexity, and unpredictable, stressful circumstances. Life, even in its distractions, can provide ‘training experiences’.