Emerging blinking into the sunshine

Major thesis milestone passed: I finished writing my research proposal this afternoon!  A week late, though considering the interruptions of earthquakes (and earthquake anniversaries, which is a busy time for us at work), I think I’m doing pretty well to only be a week behind.
For those of you sensible enough to not attempt a Masters in your spare time, I suppose I should explain the research proposal.  It’s a 3000-word (theoretically – mine actually ended up over 4,500 words) essay that you have to submit two months into your enrolment, which outlines things like what your research aims are, what other work has already been done in your field, how your research will contribute to the field, and what you’re actually going to do – you’ve basically got to prove that you know what you’re doing, and that you’re actually doing something new and interesting that’s never been done before.  Once my proposal is accepted by my department and by the university (which I’m pretty confident it will be, because I showed a draft to my supervisors on Friday, and they only had a few suggestions for things I should change), that’s when I’ll officially be allowed to start working on my actual research.
So having finally finished it definitely represents a point to pause for breath before I get stuck into the really hard work.  I don’t really have time to take a proper break, but at least I was able to take the rest of the afternoon off this afternoon after I finished the last of my proof-reading – a nice change from my usual Sunday routine of spending the entire day in my office working!  There’s a millions jobs I should have used my afternoon off to do, but somehow sitting in the sunshine reading a book seemed so much more important 🙂