then i just happened to come across an old file in one of my cds when i was checking out my dvd reader. and found a thesis from an old collegue of mine, in word document. and i have been looking for it for years!! and realised i could use his format and layout and use it as a template to do my own table of contents, figures, and tables, and use his header fancy dancy stuff.

it wasn't as easy as i thought though! so took me hours and hours to figure it out, and make my own template based on his.

lol cakegirl you are so cute haha thanks for the message

well yesterday was not very "productive" half the day i spent backing up my thesis onto a dvd. and for some reason my computer burns the stuff on the dvd, but then cant "read" the dvd. but i used my laptop to check the files were there.

good for you bana ! i wish i had the courage to quit my phd all those years ago. i wish you all the best in whatever it is that you do..

well done Dr. S!! that's fantastic!! thanks for posting up the description of your viva

have fun in america!!! you must be on cloud 9 at the moment so proud of you1!

wow well done you! you are doing so well. so proud of you

i am not being so productive today or yesterday. will pull my socks up in abit though. and catch up with ya

maybe you got the recessive or dominant gene or whatever it is, that differs you from the rest of your family

my brother is an early riser, but i am a night owl.

or maybe it's habit. i just read about this guy who conditioned himself to change from a night owl to an early bird riser. i might try it too

http://blog.lodewijkvdb.com/2008/01/the-early-bird-challenge-5-months-later.html

supervisors don't know everything! so if you believe in it, go for it.

my first two projects that were given to me, were rubbish, both technically and otherwise.

but when i came up with my own idea with help of a visiting professer, my supervisor didn't really care. until i started to get good data. and now it's all forgotten how it all came about, and i wrote a paper and it got published on it.

so they don't always know
and the other project that he thought was great, it's been 5-6 years and it's still not working to the level they want.. i stopped working on it, and now it's a poor RA's headache and not mine!

in the beginning when i had no deadlines and no idea what to do for my thesis, i used to take naps. but now i have a deadline, i am not so sleepy, and just sleep at night. albeit quite late at night. i'm a night owl. i don't function at all before midday. i've always been like that.

- Is your supervisor helping you in your research? How many hours per week does he/she spend for talking to you about the project and possible approaches, how to proceed, what to do, etc?

- nope! none of that. all my supervisor ever cared about was papers. and never talked about my thesis or anything else. i was pretty much thrown into the deep end to figure it out on my own.

- After you talk with your supervisor about your project/problem, do you feel that you learned something or you feel that you just wasted your time and (s)he has no idea about what to say and (s)he doesn't know even the subject?

- i feel very very scared and intimidated by my supervisor. so much so , i avoid talking to him or contacting him. because he makes me feel like i am incapable of defending or understanding my work.

- Is your supervisor able to give you useful advice/comments after you send him an interesting paper/publication to read?

- not really.

- Did you find and define the topic of your project or it was defined from the beginning?

my first year, the project that was "defined" for me, was a pile of poo. i had to fight for it to get changed.
2nd supervisor came along. and that project was again a pile of crap.

then I had to make my own project and idea by talking to a visiting professor, in the begininng my supervisor didn't care for it. and i had to work on it after i did my experiments for my main crappy project. as soon as i started to get good data and results, he jumped on it.
---

PC i totally agree with you, i too also bite peoples's heads off when they say, haven't you done your phd yet? why havent you written your thesis. ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

tetris, i totally symapathise - (lol i can't even spell it)
with ya!!

the ONLY reason i did *some* work tonight, was so that i could write something in my entry for today. lol
so this diary thing does work!

usually i would have been ah heck, it's too late, will just do it tommorow. but i didn't want to leave a blank update. so did about 2 hours of reading and making notes whilst having bad boys II in the background keeping me awake (love Will Smith! he's so hot). movie is so funny and action packed :)

update:
approx 2 hours of productive work.

read through 9 papers (some briefly read, some quickly scanned through, some turned out not to be relevant, some only read the abstract, some will come back to later on for when i work on my introduction in detail)

3 and half pages of handwritten notes on the papers.

joining this forum and hearing about how other phd students have felt and their similar experiences, doesn't make me feel so alone. and that i am not the only one that feels that way. makes me feel better..

wow Angie, you felt like that too?

i've felt very depressed and inadequate throughout my phd. and still do, i don't feel like i know anything in my subject, and feel like one day i will be found out for a fake

at times i've even felt suicidal, or fantasised about running away from it all. phd is very depressing at times. most times. but other times it's not so bad. i agree, the scary intimididating supervisors and other academics really scare me, and i feel completely intimidated. the way they act sometimes so pompous and that they know everything and you know nothing. i hate that arrogance. and then critisise your work and make you feel so inadequate, i understand good critisism, but sometimes its just downright insulting.

well done on doing a couple of hours of productive work!

i haven't done anything on my thesis today. just been sorting out my computer. and now running an antivirus scan, which is slowling up my whole computer, and also running a defrag file. i will back up my stuff onto dvd tonight aswell.

i will try to read some papers before i go to bed. and then work on my results section tommorow.

oh no sorry to hear about the files being messed up, i really hope you get it sorted out.

yeh i feel much better now, by writing a proper hand written letter and i posted it today. so now i just have to wait and see what they say. the actual graduate tutor in charge of me, is back at work on monday and will be confounded with multiple emails from me.. i hope he doesnt get angry realising i still haven't written my thesis.