"Boys and men don't have time to write very much. Girls are more emotional, more articulate about their feelings. Besides, a lot of boys are busy playing online games."

Apparently, this is why the Chairman of a large Chinese blog hosting company thinks that 60% of their bloggers are female.

I guess 60% is probably average. I've seen figures ranging from 50% to 70% so needless to say there do tend to be more female bloggers than male. Of course it's his reasoning that is most interesting: males are busier, females more emotional.

Now recent studies (ie. mine) have shown that women do tend to be more emotionally expressive in their blogs. I wonder if this truly is the reason for it: that there are more women bloggers because they see it as a way of expressing their emotions, where as since men are less comfortables doing this, it's one less reason to blog. Maybe. Interesting.

Speaking of finishing up, I've been thinking a lot about the future. What am I going to do with my life? Stay in academia? After all, why only do 21 years of your life institutionalised when you can do so many more? Do I head to industry? Which industry? Do I try to combine the two with an R&D job somewhere?

One aim my wife and I definitely have is to see the world, to live in foreign climbs. One part of the world we would very much love to move to is Australia. We've been searching around, but there doesn't appear to be much research in my field. Australia does a lot with health sciences - which is actually the field of the first Dr Nowson, my aunt.

So if anyone would like to employ a computational linguist, with a good working knowledge of blogs and a background in computer science and artificial intelligence, preferably, but by no means exclusively, in the southern hemisphere, then I am most certainly your man. Please.

21 years, that's how long. 21 long years. What with them making you go to school for so long, and then university, then back to university, then sticking around for a bit more, I've been in education for 21 years. That's 3/4 of my whole life. The PhD I think seems the longest bit. Not just because it's the most recent, but because throughout school, and even an undergraduate degree, things change all the time. You do different things from year to year. A PhD is pretty much just one great big long project.

It's been a long road, but this rolling stone is picking up speed, heading toward the end. The finish line is in sight. I think I might finally be ready to face the world. Surely I'm qualified by now.

This week has been a little different to the last couple. When I got back, I had a lot of catching up to do with regards my part-time paid work. Now whilst I may not have caught up entirely, I did a heck of a lot. I could afford to do so much because whilst I wrote at home, one of the few pieces of data work I had left to complete had reached an impasse. Last week however, the impediment that blocked my path was, with work, removed.

So this week I've been getting down with some data, getting my hands dirty on a little coding. It's sad, but coding's great. I actually feel like I'm achieving things. This week is a good week.

Obviously your thesis is a work in progress from the day you start until the day you submit, but right now my thesis is really progressing well. Obviously after I got back from the conference trip I had a lot of paid work to catch up on, and that is taking up a lot of my time in the office. Evenings and weekends however find me at my computer at home writing away into the night.

I am actually very impressed with my work rate at the moment. It's lightened up a little this last week as my wife and I have been struck down with colds, but still, I'm getting things done. I've written a number of sections of text for my thesis and passed them onto my supervisors while I continue with others. It really is coming together and starting to take shape - all those encouraging cliches for things going well.

Not long to go now.