ABSTRACT
Picture the scene. Three women are sitting round a table after supper.1 The conversation moves onto issues of life and death, the meaning of life. One turns to another and asks: ‘If you only had six months left to live-would you finish your PhD?’ Absurd as this may seem, such a question has serious relevance in lives that are dominated by chapter deadlines and visions of the academic carrots that the prefix ‘Dr’ might bring. What startled me, though, was the immediacy and venom of my response. No! No! and No! again. Waste the last six months of my life writing this poxy PhD? You must be joking! ‘So what would you do?’ was the next question. Instantaneously an unexpected and extremely agreeable image flashed into my mind: It is dead of night on the university campus. My darkened figure steals from the shadows, spray-gun in hand. As I frenziedly spray graffiti all over the library walls, the bright bold letters spell out, unequivocally, my feelings towards the institution!
