a week of joys and progress

On Wednesday, I went to the post office and picked up my latest order of essential oils, which include an indulgent collection of rose, violet leaf and blue chamomile. To say they are deliriously beautiful is an understatement. I have already blended two scents that I’m madly in love with and wearing every day. One of which I’m planning to name ‘Nyctanthous’ (flowering at night) is perhaps my most expressive, personal scent so far. It reminds me of fragrant jasmine tea and is as sweet as it is melancholy. However, it will probably be a while before they find their way into Faunfare, as I will need to order more glass bottles and complete the packaging design first.

This week, I have also been deep underground working on my conference paper for Amsterdam. It’s coming along so much more smoothly than I expected and every day, I find myself delighted with some new finding that emerged from my analysis. It gives me great faith in my final thesis and optimism that my contributions to research will not be entirely insignificant.

My rock for the PhD is a colleague of mine who completed her Honours degree and began her PhD at the same time as me. I met up with her for lunch on Tuesday and we were stunned that it has been almost two years since we began this journey together. That’s two-thirds of my doctoral degree already; the end is so close I can smell it!

Now in my fourth semester as a tutor, I no longer expect revolutionary learning curves, but I was surprised when I had the best experience I have ever had tutoring on Tuesday. I was concerned that my lesson plans would be full and poorly prepared, but I have never seen my students so engaged. The icing on the cake was that I even received some very positive feedback (unsolicited and unbribed!) about my teaching in between classes from individual students. So despite 8 hours of classes and late buses, I hopped home with a noticeable spring in my step.