Anyway, having graduated with the grades I wanted from Cambridge (apart from failing my Greek course, but we'll leave that aside) my next task was to get everything organised for my PhD, to start on 1st October. You'd think this would be easy, but in fact I've had to chase the Board of Graduate Studies (BoGS) and the Department pretty much every step of the way. Never mind, it's all done now - Magdalene College have accepted me, so I've now left Peterhouse - and as soon as accommodation is sorted out I'll be ready to go!
Of course, I've been doing other things with my time apart from this. I now have my name in the Newton Catalogue for the Huppert Essay on Geophysics that I wrote whilst I should have been preparing for my finals. I've been doing a little bit of reading for my PhD (with Dan McKenzie FRS PhD CH, on Deep Focus Earthquakes). What else? Ah yes...
More or less straight after graduation, I took the opportunity to return to Greece to do a little work on migmatites and exhumation within the Pelagonian (which, amazingly, could be found only about 30 minutes from where I've stayed over the past three years, in the village of Paliouria). Maybe there'll be a publication from it, maybe not - but it was fun anyway, and gave me a good excuse to meet up with some of my friends from the village!!After that (as in, 1 day after that), came our family vacation, to Hampshire, which was lovely. We stayed in a fantastic old cottage, surrounded by truly free range horses, deer and donkeys. It was very good to see my uncles, aunts and cousins again, too...
My most recent adventure, which came just a couple of days afterwards, was a 10 day trip to Iceland with my new supervisor. I can't find superlatives great enough to describe the sights, sounds and experiences there - but I'll try when I actually post my diary from the trip!!
In about a week's time, I return to Greece for a big symposium on the Ophiolites of the area. Who knows how that'll turn out, but it should be fun...
Bob
