Just remember how good the achievement felt earlier today! You're ahead of yourself really....

I'm half way through my second transcription of the day. My brain is melting. But it'll be good to blitz these and get them out of the way by early next week. Having said that, I am planning to head to the pub once this is finished today! It is a bank holiday weekend, after all!

Oh dear, that may use up some valuable working time! But my avatar does need an update...

Done. It is long, but I can see you'll get some interesting stuff from it. Good luck with it!

Good stuff, Lindalou, hope you get the section done easily today!

I'm the same with needing to watch/read rubbish to switch my brain off. I do read and watch quality stuff too, but mid-week after a day of PhD all I want is nonsense! Luckily my other half also enjoys rubbish as well as quality so we usually work it out. :-)

Today, I'm pressing on with transcribing interviews. I definitely want to get two done today, but I'll see how far I get - it'd be good to have this out of the way as soon as I can.

Thanks Lindalou. I've finished transcribing my second interview of the day and my brain is pretty tired now! Time for an evening watching rubbish TV. Murder She Wrote is just starting....

Ah, well, that's okay then! Enjoy the meal out, have a great birthday and weekend!

Oh, boo to unromantic blokes. It'd be nice if occasionally they didn't take us at our word when we say not to bother about something! Mine's completely unromantic, doesn't believe in Valentine's (fine, it's commercialised nonsense in my view too), or anniversaries (ours was on Sun, but all we did was say happy anniversary when it occurred to us, and then we both agreed we couldn't remember if we'd been together five years now or not...) Mostly I don't care, but sometimes I do think, a romantic gesture would be nice just once!

Anyway. Done my first transcription - it took about three hours, which isn't too bad, as I think I started with the worst one - a very talkative subject who also spoke really fast. I was an audio/copy typist in a previous job too (temping between permanent jobs) so I suspected I'd be quicker than my supervisor seemed to think.

Linda, I'm sure Button's right about the money - it will turn up, so don't stress too much about it.

And Button, a whole long weekend off sounds like a great incentive to get through the work - hope you have a great time for your birthday, and at the theatre!

Good luck both of you with the chapters.

Today I'm starting to transcribe my interviews. I've got no idea how long each will take so I won't set myself a target, I'll just get as much done as I can.

Oh well done on reaching the target! And hopefully the money thing will be sorted - don't some bank tranfer things come into effect at midnight, or maybe that isn't the case any more?

I've read and made notes on five journal articles now, and I think that might be my lot for the day. My brain is tired! I also can't stay late at campus because the bus back to the station doesn't run late out of term time, so that's me done for the day then. Hmm, telly and an early night tonight I think.

Speak to you both tomorrow I should think!

Well I hope the socks kep the puppy distracted!

It's turned nasty and wintery here too. It was sunny when I set off this morning but we've now had several hours of chilly looking rain. Brrr.

I've sorted out my references and have read 3 journal articles so far. We'll see how many more I have the willpower to get through by the end of the day....

Sounds like you've worked out what you're doing now, Lindalou - good stuff! Don't stress about the work - I've had to go to my supervisors a couple of times to beg for extra time on bits because of illness and they've always been fine about it. You're obviously doing the work, so they know you're not shirking!

I've done all but one of my interviews now (one's on holiday so delayed his interview til week after next) so my next job is to transcribe the interviews. But I'm on campus today and didn't fancy lugging my footpedal thing in with me, so I'll start that at home tomorrow. Instead, today I'm going to have a reading day - I feel like I haven't done much reading for ages!

Goals for the day:
1.) Go swimming - DONE
2.) Identify key journal articles to read
3.) Start reading! See how much I can do in one day...

Hi Heidi

I've just seen this thread, and like everyone else, I'm in awe of how well you're handling such a difficult situation. I don't really have much to add apart from to say good luck with it all, and I hope we on this forum can be of some support to you. We may not have experience of your exact circumstances, but between us we do have some good ideas about how to manage the stress and workload of a PhD so I hope this will be useful alongside whatever your own university/a counsellor/your lawyer can offer you.

I would say, though - it sounds like your husband is going through a bad time, but you have your own stresses to deal with - it might be that the best thing you can do for yourself and your daughter is to focus on those things first. I can totally understand that you want to be there for him as much as you can, but by looking after yourself and your daughter for now you will be in a stronger position to help him in the future - if you try to take on too much of his stress at the same time as your own, particularly as you try to meet this deadline, you may become overwhelmed. But hopefully a counsellor will be able to help you sort out those priorities and talk through in more detail than can be done here (or would be wise here) about what your exact situation involves.

I wish you all the best - it sounds like you are strong enough to get through this, and that there will be people around you who can help you with this. Take care.

Sounds to me like you're making good progress, Button, so don't lose heart! I'm a long way off having results chapters to work on, far too much else left to do.

Three interviews done today. I'm going to download the recordings to my laptop then sort out a load of references on RefWorks - that'll be a useful way to use up the rest of today!

Morning Button, good luck with the work!

I did another interview this morning, and have two lined up for this afternoon, and now I have an hour to kill in between. Don't want to get my head into anything involved so I'm not sure what to do. Go through emails and tidy up files maybe.

Hope it's gone well today Button!

I spent today doing interviews. Well, two interviews, but in different organisations and quite spread out timewise, so it took most of the day anyway. They went well though so I'm happy. Gonna download the files and then go to the pub I think, it's too sunny to do any more work today!