PhD graduation

Those who know me well have known that I absolutely love graduation - and that this one, for my PhD, would be particularly special because I would finally achieve the "floppy hat" that I'd been working towards for so long.

Outside the Old Building

There's just something about graduation - you spend so much of your time during a degree stressing about your work and whether it's good enough, and so to finally have the occasion to step back and really celebrate what you've achieved is really special. The fact that this graduation would be my last (I cannot see myself doing another PhD!) and that Mum and Dad had made the big trip over from New Zealand for it also made it one that I was really looking forward to.

Proud family!

We had a really lovely day - lunch with my supervisor Richard and some uni friends in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the actual ceremony itself which was great (especially the bit where they read out your thesis title), then cocktails up the Shard and dinner at the Oxo Tower. It was all quite fancy!

The big moment!

I loved my floppy hat and was pretty pleased to have been able to find a maternity dress that would go with my purple robes - not an easy task I tell you! Another special highlight was having Jon from LSE Sustainability open up the Connaught House roof for us so that Mum and Dad could see the beehives that I'd talked so much about! I really miss my bees and so it was lovely to be able to go visit them.

Saying hello to the bees!

All in all a fantastic day - totally made all the hard graft of the PhD worthwhile!

Dr Sharman!

PhD lockdown

Posting has been light lately, and will continue to be so as I enter into the final phase of the PhD. It's due on the 30th of September and there's still an awful lot of work to be done. I'm starting to spend quite a few late nights and weekends at uni, but I'm confident it will all be finished on time! (It has to be...)

Adrian's also in the final month of training for Challenge Roth (3.9km swim, 180km bike ride, 42km run) which looks like it's going to be a lot of fun (for the spectators, maybe not so much for the competitors). He's working hard - although once that finishes and he becomes man about the house to look after me while I finish, it might not be any less work!

There are lots of things to update on the blog, but here are a few photos from what's been going on lately:

Watching NZ vs England at Lords

"Making it Work" at the Sciences Po climate change negotiation simulation in Paris

My team's tomato plants for our 2015 Green Impact summer challenge - we've got to keep these guys healthy and grow as many tomatoes as we can!

Dumpling making to stock up the freezer

Our delicious strawberry plants - we get fresh strawberries on our breakfast every morning. Can't get any more local than that!

So wish me luck as the PhD lockdown continues. I'm planning to emerge victorious on the 1st of October!

Platinum!

One of the things I do when I'm not doing my actual PhD research (which probably occurs more often than it should), is form part of my research institute's 'Green Impact' team.

Green Impact is an environmental accreditation and awards scheme run by the UK's National Union of Students and involves over 100 unions across the UK.  Our team at the Grantham Research Institute was awarded gold for the 2011-12 year, but we were determined to work harder and come top and get the platinum level.  However, only one department per university can be awarded platinum and LSE's Estates team had won it every previous year, so we had a lot of work to do!

However, throwing our dignity away, we did all sorts of things like silly videos about recycling and not wasting water (too embarrassing to be published here I'm afraid), donning trackpants and gloves and spending time gardening and pulling weeds as part of a community engagement project, and a running and pedometer challenge to reduce our energy footprint.

And it worked!  We won platinum and beat Estates, and also won the award for best energy saving idea.  That was my idea for a challenge to inspire people to turn off their computer monitors overnight, and so we now have a £30 voucher for a local vegetarian restaurant to spend - yum!

So, a bit of a skite, but it's really rewarding to get recognition for all our hard work.

Grantham's Green Impact team with the LSE School Secretary