"Winter"

Ok, the 1st of february.

A few days ago we had a helluva snowfall. Followed by equally much rain. It's really, actually february and we've had no winter. Ok, so last "summer" was a rainy bitch of 3 months too, but last winter I remember this time of year giving me a regular -25 C. I remember it well because Sami gave me thermo-pants so that I wouldn't accidentally freeze solid while prancing around in my oh so warm jeans. Didn't help much that I tried to explain that while I didn't have time to practice Ice Swimming, this was my way of doing it while walking to the university.

It's nice not to have to break a lot of bones (knock on wood) because of all the ice hidden under the snow, and it's nice to not have to spend 20 minutes to dig your car out from under all the snow, only to discover that you've accidentally been toiling away, helping the neighbour while your van is the one on the left.

But I miss the snow. The cold is manageable, I've had 24 years worth of practice. Snow lights up the environment and because we don't have any, the dark months seem even darker.

But there's lots of time to write on my master's thesis. I've noticed that I've gotten to a second question-period in my life. The first one being at about 3 years old when Mom&Dad had to answer a lot of "Why do you do that"s. While I'm trying to get a grip on the PhD-students life around here, the interviews raise a lot of questions. For instance, why, if the contract stipulates that you should have 2/3 of your work time at the university dedicated to working on your PhD research, is it made impossible for most of them because they have to teach so much? It was never included in my interviews, but I know that a lot of the doctoral students eventually take some prescription medication to handle the pressure and all the stress of publication, research etc. Why is it so widely accepted that the job is so tought that it's only natural to cave in and start anti-depressants? How can it be "standard procedure" to break down under the workload?

Those, and a lot of other questions concerning other areas of life have started to boggle my mind, and a very few of them have answers. I'd like to fix everything I question, and can't understand why noone else has already fixed it.

Difficult, difficult.

But I'm approximately halfway through! It might not be the thesis of the year, but just passing is good enough for me. I can't wait to work full time (and actually have vacations) !