Oh baby, here comes the fear again

It starts with what may well be the most dangerous question in the world right now: “So Peter, what happens after you finish your thesis?” 

Were I the melodramatic type, or at least the type in the mood for a different kind of melodrama than I’m running on right now, today’s entry would consist entirely of a you-tube clip of Pulp singing The Fear in answer to the question. It may yet come down to that – it’s been that kind of day, and The Fear is feeling very soundtrack-of-my-life right now, but with brave abandon I’m going to press on and risk letting some of the gloopy inner workings of my paranoia seep onto the web.

The answer: I don’t know. It scares the hell out of me. That’s probably why I’m procrastinating.

It’s not entirely true – I know, more or less, what I plan to start writing the day the thesis is off the plate. Hell, I know what I plan on writing for the next five years. The problem lies in my inability to conceptualise some form of support mechanism around the writing (since having a writing support system is actually one of the attractive qualities of doing a PhD). Today I’ve been distracting myself with paranoia over where I’m going to live, flitting between pleasant day-dreams about moving away from Brisbane and desperately cataloging things that can be thrown out should I find myself needing to go the cheaper option of renting someones spare room rather than keeping up a lease of my own. This has distracted me for hours. I find myself missing the relative plethora of folks willing to share a house that were around in my twenties.

In short, someone needs to ship me some torpedoes, if only so I can damn them and get on with things.