26/04/2025
A little more than one year ago, on 27 March I met with an accomplished professor from Stellenbosch University to discuss a wild dream 💞 I've had since first studying dietetics almost 20 years ago - doing a PhD degree 🎓. This was after months of researching topics in my field of interest, looking for potential universities and supervisors working in this field, and finally setting up this meeting on our last trip to Cape Town.
I immediately felt a connection, a passion💓 and a shared vision, and knew I'd found my supervisor (lucky for me she agreed!) - and I haven't regretted that choice once!
At the end of March I drove to Cape Town to attend a two-week pre-doctoral course 👩🏻🏫 at the University of Stellenbosch, interspersed with supervisor meetings 📚 and very late nights 🕯. Another two weeks later, and I've submitted my proposal for review - a mammoth task that I couldn't be prouder of!
It's been a super-intense month of mostly work 🤓 and very little play 🤯, and I'm incredibly grateful for the insight and time spent by my supervisors.
I'm grateful to my girls, whose past two weeks in Cape Town were a lot less holiday than initially anticipated - thank you for understanding and (mostly) going with the flow.
But most of all I'm grateful to my husband, who was the first to nudge me to pursue this dream, the one who encouraged me to spend time to find the right topic and supervisor, and over the past month the pillar that kept things going. For the first 2 weeks he did school runs, afternoon extra-curriculars, dinner, laundry and everything else that's needed to keep a family going, as well as all of his work. And for the past 2 weeks, he continued all of his work, lots of supporting a sometimes teary and tired wife 🥹, and helping to keep kids on holiday happy - I'm so grateful for you!
Here's to the next 3 years of "our" PhD - I wouldn't be able to do it without you 💕!
