.... and 6 months later!!

My thesis has explored time and the lack of it. Naturally I would offer this as the reason for not posting anything here for the last 6 months. This is true to an extent but mainly the failure to post has been to avoid repeating the same thing week after week.

It may be inexperience or naivity but back in the early autumn I thought writing up the discussion and conclusions would be straight forward. How wrong I was. My initial attempts ended up simply repeating the findings. Eventually I worked out that this was as a result of looking at the results of the diary and survey in terms of numerically accounting for time. This provides parameters but did not really provide explanation.

It was not until I was on holiday in Egypt at the end of October that I stepped back far enough to realise that the answer had been staring me in the face and that the framework for explanating the findings lay within the principles of economics. I should have realised this from the references to consumption and utility in the time use literature but I guess my scientific background papered over this.

Now I am not an economist sothe time up to Christmas involved refreshing the bits of economics that I have done and learning new aspects that apply more to social behaviour.It was lengthy and at times tedious, but with the help my good friend and colleagure, Maurice, I believe I have come up with a new take on time use and economics that fits with the findings. Time and the viva will tell if I have!!

Effectively since Christmas all my time has been consumed by writing up the discussion and piecing together the conclusion chapter. The hardest part has been keeping within a word limit of 45,000 words. This has meant omitting sections that I would like to have included to give depth to what may be in danger of being too broad. Oh to have the word count of a PhD!!

Now I have to wait to see what others think. As well as Andrew I have a colleague at the College and someone at the Institute who have agreed to read and feedback. Naturally I hope they say it is perfect but that would be wishful thinking!! At least I can hope they will be kind and not condemn my work entirely ;-)

So now I wait and have time to check through the references numbering etc, but the important thing is -

THE DRAFT IS FINISHED!!