PhDiaries, #1
A Week In The Life, March 2026
Inspired by a concert I went to a couple of weeks ago, I’m trying to use the internet as if it’s 2012, and part of that is re-igniting some old-school-style blogging…. and what better way to kick that off than writing a ‘Week In The Life’ style post?
Monday
I start the week by reading half a chapter of Jenni Nuttall’s Women’s Words (ad - affiliate link). I have a habit of buying interesting-looking non-fiction and then never reading it, so this year I’m trying to start my days by reading for 30-40 minutes, which neatly lines up with the amount of time I have to wait after taking my thyroid meds before I can eat or drink anything.
After an hour of work, I head out for a run - it’s cold and misty so when I got back I make a mug of cocoa with the end of a carton of oat milk. More work, and lunch (spaghetti!), and then I shower and make my way to Gail’s for an hour of ambient company and more work - today’s focus is closer to data entry than to anything really taxing, so a change of scene helps mix it up.
Then I go up to uni for a session of the research methods course my department puts on for first-year PhD students; today we’re all giving presentations on our projects, and the feedback I get is really useful - as is hearing what everyone else is doing and how they present it.
Back down the hill for dinner - scrambled eggs with red pepper and cheese - before I settle back in at my computer for another 90 minutes of work to finish off this data entry task and make tomorrow’s to-do list.
Tuesday
Similar start to the day, and having finished that data entry I manage to tick a few smaller things off my list pretty quickly. Then it’s Tempo Tuesday so I do a session on the treadmill. I overcook it a bit at the start of the workout so ease off a bit but still feel like I’ve put in a great effort, and after cooling down I lie on the floor and play on my phone for a bit before having some water and a hot cross bun.
Then it’s time for a shower and early lunch before heading to uni for a group interview for a job working on open days later in the year. It’s quite fun and I hope to hear good news; in the meantime I put it out of my head and hole up in the special lounge we have for Postgraduate Research students (PGRs) to make a start on writing the “so why is climate change a big deal?” section of the literature review for my thesis. Questions that sound easy always end up being the most difficult to answer, and I end up wading through journal papers to see how they position this issue.
The evening turns into a social-interaction marathon; board game club for PGRs is meeting on Tuesday evening this week, and I spend an hour with some friends playing That Escalated Quickly before I have to leave and walk to our other Students’ Union site for Quiz Society. Competitive quizzing has been a real highlight of coming back to uni, and as I’m on the committee this year, tonight it’s my turn to read the questions in our beginner room. Everyone gets a chance to answer questions on things they know about, and I get a moment of glee when I’m reading a question that refers to Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven, which the tattoo on my left forearm is a quotation from. After social quizzing (like a pub quiz, but not at the pub - my team comes third), we head out for a drink, and one of the guys owes me a Coke, so it’s a free evening for me until I have to pay for the bus home.
Wednesday
I’ve got a bit of a socialising hangover so I stay in bed and finish Mother Tongue; it’s excellent. I’m sad that Dr Nuttall passed away in the time between its hardback and paperback releases, partly because it means we won’t get any more books from her, but mostly because she seems from the text like she was genuinely a great person to have existing in the world.
The it’s time for an easy run and to chuck some dumbbells around for a bit, before I have lunch, hang up the load of laundry I did in the morning, and strip the bed and put the sheets in the machine. Then it’s time to have a shower, eat lunch, and lock in for an afternoon of work.
Just before it gets dark, I wrap up a couple of online shopping returns and a few extra bits I’m sending home to go in the Mothering Sunday present for my mum, and go for a walk to the parcel lockers a kilometre away. It’s wonderful that it’s not getting dark til after 6pm at the moment - bring on British Summertime starting at the end of the month!
I’d intended to do some more work in the evening, but by the time I’ve finished eating it’s almost 8.30pm, and I haven’t put fresh sheets in the bed yet, so I make my to-do list for tomorrow and read a couple of chapters of the new B K Borison, And Now, Back To You (ad - affiliate link). As well as developing what seems like it’s going to be a really gorgeous romance, it has some fun mentions of the main characters in Borison’s previous book in the same setting, which is always a fun detail.
Thursday
You know the drill by now: a morning at my desk, with a break for a run. The Garmin suggests a short, slow-paced ‘recovery run,’ and with tired legs I’m only too happy to oblige. It’s windy and rainy outside, and at one point my hat blows clean off my head - I have to sprint after it and redo my ponytail around the adjustable part so that it stays on my head for the rest of the run. Somehow, that seems to have tweaked something in my back or shoulders - an hour later, they seize up and I’m so uncomfortable I have to take a paracetamol before I shower and have lunch.
I head up to uni for a session with some of the most experienced lecturers in my department; they’re explaining to the first year PhD students how teaching opportunities and training work, and it’s both useful and thought-provoking. I’m still figuring out what I want to do after my PhD and it’s good to get some information about how pursuing one path might work.
Then I get a bus down to the station and hop on a train to Bath, where I buy some Deep Heat and ibuprofen for my back, then hole up in the Everyman Cinema cafe to get a chunk of work done; I feel like I’ve really broken the back of the section of text I’m working on, which is satisfying.
And then… it’s showtime!
I’ve been following the development of Operation Mincemeat since about 2020, and playing the Original Cast Recording on Spotify since it was first made available, but this was my first time seeing the show for myself. I can’t believe how many more layers are added to the story by the visuals, choreography, and costumes, and I’m alternately laughing and crying for two and a half hours. A masterpiece!
Friday
My back still hurts so I skip the run and work from my bed in the morning, after reading Greta Thunberg’s No-One Is Too Small To Make A Difference (ad - affiliate link). In the afternoon the exhaustion from a busy week gets to me and I end up napping for a couple of hours - which I make up for by getting some productive time in at my desk after dinner.
Saturday
It’s Quizbowl time! One of the best things I’ve done since going back to university is getting involved in student quizzing, and today we’re going to a tournament at Warwick uni. I pick up a car club car from the next road to my flat, zoom around Bristol collecting friends, and then we make our way up the M5. Today’s tournament is entirely about pop culture, so we have high hopes and it turns out to be incredibly well written. I buzz in on content ranging from food to books to sport (!) and we get bonus sets (imagine University Challenge) on all sorts of things I’ve never heard of. My teammates all get a chance to shine and although we come solidly mid-table at the end of the day, we’ve all enjoyed ourselves - which is the most important thing.
There’s another group in another car, so we meet them at the service station on the way home for a Maccie’s dinner and more chat about the day. A side benefit of being in quizzing is getting to spend time with an absolutely lovely group of other students - and while most of them are undergrads, you know what, the kids are alright! (I’m aware it’s a self-selecting group…)
Sunday
Although I’d much prefer a lie-in, I drag myself out of bed for a paced 10-mile training run the university sports department is putting on. A combination of the tweaks earlier in the week, three nights of bad sleep, and unexpectedly sunnier-than-forecast weather does for me, and the wheels don’t so much ‘fall off’ as ‘never get attached’. I drop off the back of the slowest pace group early on and have to run-walk my way around the route - but I do it, and there’s a medal and a flapjack waiting for me at the end!
There’s not enough phone signal in that part of town to call a taxi home, so I walk home exceedingly slowly, and call my mum on the way to wish her a happy Mothering Sunday. Then it’s a case of staying vertical long enough to eat something, before lowering myself into a boiling hot bath, and then relocating to curl up under a blanket for the rest of the afternoon. A weekend well spent, I think!