The downs and ups

I said in a previous post that I would try to be honest about the downs as well as the ups of this PhD roller coaster, and so I must admit that last week I was feeling very, very down. I'd burned myself out in a race to get a full draft in to my supervisor, then taken a week to go to France with the chapel choir.  When I returned, I discovered that the supervisor and I had seriously misunderstood each other as to what kind of draft he was expecting from me. For two days, I was miserable. I felt betrayed, abandoned. It seemed I would either have to forge ahead with only my own judgment for justification, or slink home, having missed my four-year deadline and been kicked out of the university and the country accordingly. To my unspeakable relief, however, our meeting went very well; it's now up to me to finish the damn thing and submit it by the end of the month. Wow.

One of the plaques thanking Ste Anne for her help

So now that I've climbed out of that pit of despair, I can report that the choir trip to Brittany was a much-needed, crêpe-filled holiday, though it didn't look like your typical holiday. We had all day free until 3:00pm, but staying in the village of Sainte-Anne-d'Auray, there wasn't much to do with that time. One day trip to neighboring Auray broke things up, though it was haunted by our concern over catching a bus back in time for rehearsal.

Each day, after some afternoon rehearsing and a dinner break, we spent our evenings making our legs and feet very sore by standing for long stretches to record our first-ever CD(!!!). When it is released (hopefully on a *real* label in *real* stores!), you should buy it, because it's going to be stunning. Andy demanded the best we could give, and it turns out we had a lot to give into the echoing wells of sound in every nook and cranny of side chapels, shrines, and carved stone. When you listen to Bairstow's "Lamentation", know that it was a grueling night of takes and sub-takes, after which we could only sit round with our wine and stare at each other, exhausted. When you listen to Wood's Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, know that we had sung them so often this past year that we could have done it in our sleep, and so it was an easy joy to let it loose.

And what a release it will be to hand in this dissertation! I can't even remember writing most of it anymore, it's just perpetually with me. I wonder if I've become institutionalized to it, like the prisoners in "The Shawshank Redemption". I'm going to assume that, no, it will be a real pleasure to have the chance to work on something different.