On Submitting the Doctoral Thesis for Preliminary Examination this Week

This week - because took me a day or two going back and forth with small fixes and then asking for extra time - this week, let's say on the 14th of January 2026 to make it easier for you, I submitted my compilation doctoral thesis for preliminary examination to the Engineering School's Doctoral Programme Committee. Its been a very long journey, longer than I expected it to be although by a hair's breadth I haven't overshot my own deadline. There are some blogposts from the past which I wanted to link to but I discover I don't really want to write the kind of sentence which would suitably situate word phrases as hyperlinks. Instead, read this one this one and this one if you want, and then I'll continue on below. 

What I really want to do - and I think that's why I've resurrected this old place rather than write on something more current in all my domains - is go all the way back to 2005 when I first began blogging and find my voice. Its not starting over if you're 20 years older. But its not the years in the professional voice wilderness nor is it the months and months of writing practice to learn academese well enough to represent my thoughts. I don't know where it is, or what it is, but I do know its human. I heard somewhere that old skool blogs are coming back in fashion, as humans we search for real places and real people rather than the automated generated streams that pass for content everywhere all at once. 

And so, this first post might sound disjointed, and its certainly not flowing as easily as writing my thesis did, but its a deliberate attempt to tear away the default easy sentence structures taht are meaningless. I learnt that from reading George Orwell. He wrote something. He wrote a lot of things, but I'm working hard not fall back on my own cliches. 

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you – even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent – and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear. Orwell 1946

 It will be a hot mess for a while but I suspect its also an amuse bouche to clear my brain and fingers from the rhythms of academese and find a human voice again. On the other hand, I return to blogging 100% certain that not only is my writer's block completely dismantled but I've found the music of my keyboard again. What I now want to do is see if I can learn to play entirely different genres of music as I type. So come back after a while and see if I have settled in and found a space and a place to play in or follow along as I try to make room for the human in our online worlds again.