======= Date Modified 18 Sep 2009 22:34:02 =======
======= Date Modified 16 Sep 2009 02:11:38 =======
did not meet goals today.:-( will do them tommorow. off to bed now. as i need to shift my body clock, i have to start waking up early and going to bed early. cause my viva is at 10am. i have to wake up 10am tommorow. that will give me 8 hours. and the next day will wake up at 9am. slowly work my way up to waking up at 6/7am.

My goals for today:

1. find and print the 7 articles that cited my first paper. {all 7 done!} :-)

2. find and print recent related articles to my first paper. {found DONE - 9 left to print}

3. find and print recent related articles to my 2nd paper

4. format and print out my summary thesis. - put in dividers (to take in viva)

5. print out freewriting answers document.

6. put back thesis chapters back into the folder -and put in seperators for each chapter (to take in viva)

7. go through papers, flagging papers that can help me with my viva answers: make a list (using keywords) of papers to use for answers.

======= Date Modified 15 Sep 2009 17:50:42 =======

awwww Thanks Bulbs!!! :-)

My sup emailed me today to confirm the time the date and the examiners! its REAL and its happening. 28th september 10am. he said i can come on the thursday before to meet with him. he's away at a meeting until then. but i can email him. so will email him asking him if my answers to viva questions are correct.

i think it will be good to see the room and where it is. so im not panicking on the day. so meeting up with my sups at 2pm on thursday 24th september.

i have exactly 9 days to prepare for my viva as best as i can, to show my sups.
so going to make a deadline of 8 days. keep 1 day before the meeting with my sup as an insurance.

i just gotta focus on what i have to do, instead of panicking and running around like a headless chicken. just gotta work consistently and methodically. and since my viva is at 10am. I'm going to go to bed early and wake up early to prepare my body and mind. instead of staying up till 3am and waking up at 11am.

so the plan is to go to bed at 11pm. and wake up at 6am.
cause of the day of my viva. i am planning on waking up at 6am, and leaving the house by 7am. as it will take an hour and half to get there.

so when i get into central london, i will go and have some breakfast and coffee, and then 1 hour before my viva (9am), go to the building and wait.

======= Date Modified 14 Sep 2009 18:37:46 =======
Hello peeps. Clocking in.
My goals are to freewrite/key word answers for the following 21 viva questions. (i really want to finish freewriting answers to the remaining viva questions today so that tommorow i can start on zero draft answers, my original deadline was tommorow night, but i'm pushing myself today to get it done by tonight).

******************EDIT*********************
Yipeeeeeee I met my goals for today! :-) I have finished my freewriting for all the viva questions (1 day before my own deadline) and tommorow I can start working on my zero draft answers for each question, filling in the answers from my summary thesis notes, and from other notes and resources.

43 What topics overlap with your area? [ DONE . 11 words ]
44 What techniques are commonly used for all 4 topics? [ DONE . 39 words ]
45 Where do current technologies fail such that you could make a contribution? [ pending/maybe not relevant . 0 words ]
46 What did you do for your Mphil and how does your phd extend it? [ DONE . 90 words ]
47 What are the strongest/weakest parts of your work? [ DONE . 76 words ]
48 Where did you go wrong? [ DONE . 17 words ]
49 how long would it take to implement X, and likely problems you envisage [ DONE . 146 words ]
50 Why is this subject important? [ DONE . 78 words ]
51 Who else thinks it is important? [ DONE . 23 words ]
52 Who has worked on this subject before? [ DONE . 21 words ]
53 What had not been done before? [ DONE . 64 words ]
54 Who has done something similar to what you did [ DONE . 42 words ]
55 Who would be most likely to agree with you? [ DONE . 57 words ]
56 Who would be most likely to disagree? [ DONE . 48 words ]
57 What did you adapt for your study [ DONE . 87 words ]
58 What are the pros and cons of the methods you chose? [ DONE . 46 words ]
59 Why did you reject others? [ DONE . 81 words ]
60 What precautions were taken against likely sources of bias? [ DONE . 73 words ]
61 What are the limitations in the design? [ DONE . 117 words ]
62 To what extent did you feel that you had got all you needed by that point, or did you feel limited by time? [ DONE . 92 words ]
63 If you had 250, 000 dollars to spend on your research, what would you do? [ DONE . 168 words ]

Total words written = 1,376

======= Date Modified 13 Sep 2009 19:14:23 =======
======= Date Modified 13 Sep 2009 17:01:30 =======
Hi guys! good luck everyone studying today. I'm clocking in.

My goals are: freewriting/key word note answers for the following 10 viva questions:

********************EDIT ***************
Met my goals for today! yippeeee :-)

33 What is the relevance of your contribution to other researchers? [ DONE . 60 words ]
34 How do you expect the research in your field to progress over the next few years? [ DONE . 140 words ]
35 Where do you think your research will move in the future? [ DONE . 168 words ]
36 Do you think your project went well? [ DONE . 84 words ]
37 Who are the 4/5 key people in your field? (or 3) [ DONE . 54 words ]
38 Who are your closest competitors? [ DONE . 126 words ]
39 What have these people published recently, including after you have completed your thesis? [ DONE . 21 words ]
40 What are the key papers? [ DONE . 73 words ]
41 What is the area in which you wish to be examined? [ DONE . 4 words ]
42 What are your publication plans? [ DONE . 103 words ]

total words written= 833

======= Date Modified 12 Sep 2009 22:30:42 =======
======= Date Modified 12 Sep 2009 22:30:04 =======

Thanks Ruby!! :-) thats good to know! now i just gotta hope that my answers aren't completly blah ! lol.

Good luck with the corrections, i can sympathesise how tedious it might be! you know when i was finishing off my thesis and doing last minute corrections, i had printed out a list of things i had left to do before i submitted, and stuck it on my wall, and next to it a column, where i could put a tick! its small thing, but its very satisfying to tick something off, and then everyday see the number of ticks growing!! maybe you can try that

we're all here , to help you along on your first hurdle! keep going, you're so close to the finishing line!!! :-s bring your battle face!

======= Date Modified 12 Sep 2009 22:29:35 =======
======= Date Modified 12 Sep 2009 19:37:35 =======
Welcome Emmie! glad you like the thread! and you're right you just have to find your own natural number of pages. that's great you have started free writing! well done you!! Good luck with your paper and i look forward to seeing your posts :)
---
Late start for me, had abit of a day out today.

My goals are freewrite/key word answers for the following 10 viva questions.

*************EDIT***************
I achieved my goals for today! yipeeeee. Clocking out now :-)

23 What are the alternatives to your approach? [ DONE . 131 words ]
24 What do you gain by your approach? [ DONE . 111 words ]
25 Why didn’t you do it this way? [ DONE . 41 words ]
26 What problems did you encounter during your project? [ DONE . 171 words ]
27 What do you know about the history of this particular aspect of your research? [ DONE . 211 words ]
28 What are the recent major developments in this topic? [ DONE . 55 words ]
29 Which are the most important papers concerning this aspect of your research? [ DONE . 85 words ]
30 Why have you tackled this problem in this way? [ DONE . 54 words ]
31. a. If you were continuing your project, what would you do next? [ DONE . 60 words ]
31 b. What further experiments you could have done if you had more time? [ DONE . 72 words ]
32 What do you expect the next steps in your area to be? [ DONE . 98 words ]

Total words of freewriting = 1089 words

======= Date Modified 12 Sep 2009 00:39:10 =======
My goal for today is to do freewriting for the following 10 viva questions, even if its just keywords answers.

EDIT: final update: clocking out:

yipeee i finished my goals for today. for the past few hours or so, literally glued my tushy to the chair, and kept having drill sergent in my head saying,:-s you aint moving or taking a break, until you get the rest of the questions done! even though was painful lol and didnt feel like it, i finished the rest of the questions. and now i feel happy :) and now the rest of the night is mine, although feeling abit sleepy, so probably will end up falling asleep. but happy i reached my goal. even though i hated it and just wanted to bolt lol. sometimes when all techniques fail to overcome procrastination. the good ol glue bum on chair, and you aint moving until you get it done, works, even though you would rather chill and do anything but task at hand. feeling sleepy now , was planning on watching a dvd, but will instead go to bed and read a book...

goodnight folks!

13 Why have you chosen to organise your research into these stages/chapters? [ DONE . 290 words ]
14 Why is the problem you have investigated worth investigating? [ DONE . 198 words ]
15 Is it possible to draw a general rule from your single observation? [ DONE . 120 words ]
16 How have you evaluated your work? [ DONE . 176 words ]
17 How do you know that your findings are correct? [ DONE . 277 words ]
17 a. Why should we trust the analysis you present in table X? [ DONE . 45 words ]
17 b. Why should we accept your interpretation of? [ DONE . 98 words ]
17 c. You say ..was the result of..could it have been the opposite? [ DONE . 55 words ]
18 What have you done to be awarded a PhD? [ DONE . 173 ]
19 Why did you choose this method to analyse your topic ? [ DONE . 134 ]
20 Describe your methodological approach [ DONE. 123 ]
21 What have you learned by carrying out your PhD? [ DONE . 203 ]
22 What would you do differently today if you were to start again? [ DONE . 204 ]

Total words of freewriting = 2096 words

======= Date Modified 12 Sep 2009 00:40:35 =======

good luck bulbs lol at defrosting haha
aww thanks so much!! thats so nice :) glad you like the DONE idea! you're right- i find it so satisfying and sometimes its the only thing that motivates me to do something, just so i can tick it off hehehe.
have a good day!

======= Date Modified 10 Sep 2009 20:34:18 =======
Hi Folks! I'm clocking in for today. will update as i complete each question. i've made an excel sheet to track my progress as i answer each question, and then i can just easily copy paste in here. :)
good luck everyone on your studies for today (up)
My goals are to freewrite answers for the following 6 viva questions:

EDIT : 20.30 - I have met my goals for today and finished my freewriting versions of the 6 questions below :-)

7 What is its position in relation to the current state of knowledge in your area? [ freewriting DONE / 226 words / ]
7a What is the position of your contribution as to the most recent developments in your area? [ freewriting DONE/ 388 words / ]
7b. How do your findings relate to the critical literature in this field of studies? [ freewriting DONE/ 69 words ]
7c. What is the contribution of your thesis to scholarly knowledge? [ freewriting DONE/ 205 words ]
8 What are you most proud of and why? [ freewriting DONE/ 141 words ]
8a. Did your study turn out as expected? [ freewriting DONE/ 59 words ]
8b. On a general level, what , for you, were the most interesting things to come out of your thesis? [ freewriting DONE/ 23 words ]
9 What is your thesis about? [ freewriting DONE/ 44 words ]
9a. In 1 sentence what is your thesis? [ freewriting DONE/ 38 words ]
9b. You cover several areas in your thesis, what is the whole thing about? [ freewriting DONE/ 64 words ]
10 Explain in your own words what you have done? [ freewriting DONE/ 341 words ]
11 Why did you choose this topic? Do this project? Where did the idea come from [ freewriting DONE/ 332 words ]
12 Has your view of your research topic changed during the course of the research? [ freewriting DONE/ 98 words ]

total words written today - 2,028 words.

Thanks Bilbobaggins!! i'm off now too! i finished freewriting answers to the 6 viva questions, i'm so happy i forced myself. and didnt worry about getting it right. but writing something. i can go to bed now and sleep easily :)

*getting off the night train*

======= Date Modified 12 Sep 2009 00:30:46 =======
======= Date Modified 10 Sep 2009 14:26:42 =======
======= Date Modified 10 Sep 2009 03:48:38 =======
Hi Flutter and Bilbo, great job you two! ---

I'm gonna update my list as and when I complete it. as the phrase goes, what gets RECORDED gets DONE. this list /thread, is the ONLY thing that's motivating me to get freewriting/mud pie writing done for these 6 questions that i've been procrastinating ALL Day and avoiding doing. woohoo i cant believe i'm nearly done. and a few hours ago, i was feeling noway can i do this. feel the fear- do it anyway! what really helped me was to STOP thinking about getting it RIGHT and correct, but to just write SOMETHING, anything. that really helped!

My goals for today are to answer 6 viva questions:
1. Describe the rationale of your research project. [freewriting DONE- 345 words (1page)]
2. What are the highlights of your thesis, where exactly are they ? in which chapters? [freewriting DONE - 1 and half pages -528 words] 10minutes.
3. What are the key findings of your thesis? [freewriting DONE - 293 words] (total 15 minutes for all parts of question 3)
3a. Summarise your key findings [freewriting DONE -94 words]
3b. What is the most important finding in your project? [freewriting DONE - 104 words]
3c. What do your results mean? [freewriting DONE -91 words]
4. How would your system cope with bigger examples, does it scale up? [freewriting DONE - 278 words (5 minutes)]
5. Have you solved the fields problem that you claim to have solved? [freewriting DONE - 135 words - 3 minutes]
6. What is original in your thesis? [freewriting DONE - 189 words - 5 minutes]

Total words of freewriting = 2057

final EDIT - woohoo i finished! so glad i forced myself and just focused on getting *something* down instead of worrying if it was correct. i'm off to bed now. and can sleep soundily.
see you tommorow folks! thanks for listening.:-)

======= Date Modified 10 Sep 2009 02:40:29 =======
nice to have you on board Bilbo! and happy belated birthday!

*passes around coffee for the night shifters on the noctornal train*

I'm back from my break and feeling abit more wide awake now. and i am determined to write zero draft answers (1 page each) for 4 more questions that i have left to do. i must get it done! i'm bringing my battle face :-s

======= Date Modified 10 Sep 2009 01:11:26 =======
======= Date Modified 10 Sep 2009 01:10:09 =======

welcome aboard the midnight train!! :-) nice to have a newcomer! loved your message!

well done on your progress so far! sometimes when you have had a very good writing day one day. you find yourself slower the next day. its natural. just keep at it everyday, even if its just 10 minutes of writing ! :)

i'm on the night train tonight. dont know how long i will stay awake though. feeling sleepy. but have done nothing all day. so feel very guilty, so been forcing myself to do something before i go to bed.

so i've given myself a little goal to do. do some freewriting (making mud pies as joan bolker would say) and write 1 page freewriting answer to 6 viva questions. so far i have done 2 qs. i set a 10 minute timer aswell to write at leats 1 page answers. i find the timer helps to keep me focused. this is an infinite improvement, because all day i have done no studying for either question. as they say, sometimes when a task seems very daunting, break it up- or lower your expectation , and "do" something.

so i thought to myself. DONT GET IT RIGHT. get it WRITTEN!!! even if the answer isnt correct, doesnt matter. just have something on paper. and i find once i get going. the answers seem to flow. they might not be as accurate or correct as i hope. but i can always improve on it later.

taking a little break and will come back to battle it out for qs 3!

======= Date Modified 09 Sep 2009 23:36:05 =======

Thank you so much, that really means so much to me!! and couldnt come at a better time! perfect timing, as i've been procrastinating ALL day and havent even started on answering any of the questions. i know why i'm procrastinating cause of fear. but your post has really put a smile on my face and given me the much needed boost. THANK YOU!
(up)

and dont worry what you should or shouldnt have done. thats all in the past. all you have is TODAY. start from today. and forget the past. you will get there!! i have faith in you

EDIT - as i said before, i've been procrasting all day in answering viva questions. so i read bolkers chapter on freewriting. and i implemented her method. i got my whiteboard , and just started writing random key words that might help to answer the question. after about 6 minutes or so. i sat down, and gave myself a goal - to sit there and write for 10 minutes, and/or write at least 1 page of freewriting.

once i started writing, things began to flow. i didnt think whether it was correct, or grammer or anything, i just kept writing whatever was coming in my head. and lo behold at around 9 minute mark, i had reached 1 page of typed words. at around 7 minutes, i got stuck, but since i still had 3 minutes, i thought i will just write something more.

it really works people. if you're procrastinating, and really dont know what to write, or are scared. just tell yourself to make mud pies. write anything messily, write only for 10minutes, or tell yourself to just write a page, and then you can take a break.

i feel better now. i was feeling very anxious and thinking, i have no idea how to answer this question, or any answer i came up with, i thought, thats stupid and incorrect. but now i have something to improve on. and maybe its not correct, but you cant correct something thats not there.

going to take a break now, as i promised myself. be back later :p

======= Date Modified 10 Sep 2009 03:13:02 =======
I'm clocking in.
My goals for today are to answer 6 viva questions:

1. Describe the rationale of your research project.
2. What are the highlights of your thesis, where exactly are they ? in which chapters?
3. What are the key findings of your thesis?
3a. Summarise your key findings
3b. What is the most important finding in your project?
3c. What do your results mean?
4. How would your system cope with bigger examples, does it scale up?
5. Have you solved the fields problem that you claim to have solved?
6. What is original in your thesis?

anyone reading this , feel free to copy down these potential viva questions - to help you prepare for your viva when your time comes (up)