======= Date Modified 23 Aug 2010 17:19:01 =======
I've never met a phd student who didn't feel like that, so you're definitely not alone.  What you're going through is the '2nd year slump' (also known as the '2nd year blues').

It's normal. It's unavoidable.  It's a test - you haven't come this far by failing every challenge that has come your way, right?

The phd process wears you down. Once your spirit has been worn away, it's what's left underneath that counts.

Keep going! (up)

Also, there's always more research to be done...

hmmm, macroons. hmmmm, sleep :-)

*added about 600 words and 6 figures to a chapter
*emailed supervisor with update on (little) progress
*half sorted out an order for a component for a printer that needs repairing

She sounds great, can you fix us up?  I joke...

yeah, you're right, excellent people can be depressing. You must remember everyone has there insecurities and flaws (e.g. envy...), you're new goddess is no exception.

you're a star too Keep_Calm, I'm sure there's some lowly masters student somewhere admiring your excellence from a far 
:-)

======= Date Modified 03 49 2010 16:49:15 =======
hello all,

Having an issue at the moment with generating captions for figures in Word 2003.

I select an object i want to generate a caption for. I choose 'figure', type in the text, click OK and it adds a caption starting with 'figure'.

The problem is the numbering is all wrong. It numbers the figure with the chapter number (say, '5' which i ask it to do) but it labels the first object of that chapter .2 instead of .1. So then it labels all my 'figure' captions for that chapter as 5.2, 5.3, 5.4 and so forth.

Why won't it label the first 'figure' caption as 5.1?

I hope that makes sense, my mind has been Swiss cheese of late.

any help would be most appreciated. Thanks

That's rgeat news! Sounds like you did a great job.

You're an ispiration squire (up)

although, Vodka might do the trick

haha. best not!

I use the little spray stuff you mentioned.

if you work in/near labs, maybe a dab of 70% ethanol might do the trick. Not tried it myself, though.

*took the morning off; did some exercise; got a delivery i was expecting
*made some progress with some writing
*found a paper that is highly relevant to my thesis
*drafted the acknowledgments section of my thesis (that counts as a chapter, right?).
*spoke to my mum on the phone

Hi all,

Does anyone have access to this paper in Tree Genetics and Genomics, please?

Scott LJ, Shepherd MJ, Nikles DG, Henry RJ (2005) Low efficiency of pseudotestcross mapping design was consistent with limited genetic diversity and low heterozygosity in hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii, Araucariaceae). Tree Genetics & Genomes, 1, 124-134.


I'd really appreciate if you could have a look.

Muchos thank you's!

That's great news buddy. I envy you. (up)

I felt exactly the same yesterday.  I just could not focus my thoughts, i felt like i had no structure; no clue about my field and no motivation. Endless stress.

I realised the cause of the problem for me was sitting at the SAME desk, in the SAME office, at the SAME time as the day before, drinking from the SAME coffee mug, looking at the SAME screen, working on the SAME word document, interacting with the SAME people (and so on...).  The SAMEiness was bunging up my thoughts.

Today, i broke up the routine a bit.  I spent the morning sitting outside on the grass brainstorming ideas with a pen and paper. I haven't worked like that in ages. 

Before i knew it, the ideas started to flow a bit better and i have 'direction' today. I'm still quite stressed today, the problems haven't magically disappeared overnight, but i feel a bit more like myself.  And despite the stress, that's a good feeling.

Perhaps you should try a change of scenery to help gather your thoughts?

Hope you get your mojo back soon :-)

Having a very, very sluggish one today, thought some positive reflection might help:

*took the morning off and did some exercise
*sorted some travel arrangments for a conference in two weeks time
*writing this post (scrape that barrel Sim...)

Nope, that didn't help, suppose i should do some work really.

P.S. I do enjoy reading everyone's posts on this thread.

That's great news! congrats. (up)(up)