I feel I should take this opportunity to introduce myself and explain a bit about where I would like this blog to go.

I’m a fourth year PhD postgraduate student in the UK. For those of you from other places this means several things.

1. I’m nearly out of time (most UK universities like you to submit your thesis in 3.5 years and you MUST submit within 4).
2. I don’t get paid any more. Funding for nearly all UK PhD physics programs lasts 3 years, 3.5 if you are exceptionally lucky.
3. Most of my life is involved in writing my thesis.
4. On talking to my contemporaries, my feelings are very similar to theirs.

A little more about me, I’m in a long term relationship with a girl, here we’ll call her K, and I volunteer with a popular charity to support young people in everyday adventure. Also I work in optics…

So, why have I started this blog? What’s the point? Do I really have anything interesting to say?

Hopefully, I’ll answers the first two questions in my next paragraph, but lets deal with the simple one for now, no, but that’s never stopped anyone else.

I want to write about things that annoy me. But also things that I enjoy. I would hope that on reading some of my posts fellow postgraduates may feel they’re not alone, but I also would not wish to put off future postgrads. It is a great atmosphere to work it, it is… I would also like to add some commentary about the things I read online. I fully intend one of my first posts to be about numerology, and why I think some people might be drawn to it. Crackpots and their ideas might be a bit of a theme I guess. But I do not wish to deride them, but to encourage everyone to learn more.

So, I’m a physicist… Why am I disillusioned? Well I think that comes with reading content on the internet, and writing a thesis… Hopefully this will become clear, both for the reader and myself as the blog develops.