Hey guys,

Hope everyone is having a good day! Marg - hope the presentation goes well today and you can get back on track with the report afterwards. Caro and Nautilus - good luck with work today!

I'm making revisions to my 3rd results chapter this afternoon and tomorrow to send to supervisor on Thurs - I'm hoping that will be this chapter finished then. I haven't been very productive so far today, I feel very tired after working through the last two weekends to meet deadlines, but I'm taking this weekend off so that's something to look forward to! I think I'll start with changes to methods and results sections this afternoon... good luck everyone working today!

Tulip

Hey everyone,

Thank you for the replies, I must admit reading them made me feel a lot better that it isn't just me losing the plot or anything like that! it's good to know that I'm not alone in this, even though it isn't nice for any of us. Hopefully this will all be over very soon.

I've made a real effort the last few days to only mention the good aspects of work stuff to my boyfriend, like when writing is going well or a chapter is nearly finished, and everything else I'm keeping to a minimum. We've also agreed to half a day each week where neither of us talks about work and we do something fun together, and so far things seem to be better. It means I don't feel guilty working in the evenings too. I've also agreed a submission deadline with my supervisor for the first week of sept, so I'm literally counting down the weeks until this will be over! :)

Thank you again for the support guys, we're in this together and this will all be worth it when it's over!

Tulip

Hi all,

Does anyone have any tips for avoiding thinking about work after a working day is finished? I guess the problem is I have about 12 weeks until I plan to submit, so I'm doing long hours and finding it hard to switch off. That coupled with some problems with a supervisor who is a real pain (huge understatement there!), and it seems to be wearing my boyfriend down. Truthfully, part of me resents feeling like I need to be chirpy around him so that he doesn't get fed up of me working all the time, when he said all along that he would support me all through the PhD. However, I also can imagine that I'm a bit hard work at the moment and I love him and want him to be there when this is all over. Recently he said that I'm like a broken record when it comes to problems with my supervisor etc, which makes me feel very sad that I can't discuss things with him at a time when I feel very unconfident about my thesis/getting a job afterwards, etc. So I'm just wondering, when everything seems a bit rubbish and you can't afford to take time out, how do you switch off after a long day? I'm wondering if it's partly that when I am home and not working, I'm not 100% present because I can't stop thinking about the thesis. Any ideas or just knowing I'm not alone in this would be great - he was the only person I could talk to about stuff like this, and now I feel like talking to him will just make things worse!

Thanks,
Tulip

Thanks Caro, it's nice to know that other people think my plan to finish up and leave soon is a reasonable one. Glad to hear you're feeling more positive now! You sound very organised so I'm sure it'll come together reasonably quickly :)

I'm also feeling a lot more positive today - I got a small chapter finished and sent off to supervisor for feedback last night, so I now have almost complete drafts of 4 of 7 chapters. I have one more results chapter to draft for next week, then a general discussion chapter to draft almost from scratch and half of my literature review to finish, so it seems doable now! Just have to keep plodding along... hope everyone is having a productive day! :)

Tulip

Hey guys,

Nice to see some new faces on the thread (even though it's GrumpyMule's thread, not my mine of course!). Caro - I spoke to my supervisor about these additional 'loose end' experiments and (although he won't explicitly admit this) they're essentially the beginning of an entirely new line of enquiry that he wants doing because there are no new students to continue the work when I leave. He has told me previously that I have enough data for a PhD and a contribution to knowledge, and when I tried to discuss a plan/time scale for these new experiments with him, he didn't want to give me any straight answers, so I've decided to just write my thesis and job hunt and leave as soon as I can. I've had enough of academia in general and his difficult ways/the department overall.

Anyway, it sounds like you've got a lot on your plate Caro but I'm sure you'll get it all sorted before September! Aleruri - that sounds like you've made fantastic progress, good luck with the end of June deadline! Wishing you both a productive day!

I'm still feeling quite angry about my supervisor, so I'm hoping to channel that into some work with the intention of being done sooner than planned! I'm hoping for about 500 words of my last results chapter today, anything more will be a bonus!

Tulip

Hey,

How is everyone getting on? Quick update - I was supposed to finish data collection last week, but I had a chat with my supervisor yesterday and he reckons I have another 6-8 weeks of experiments to do to tie up loose ends! My absolute deadline is the end of Sept and I have only drafted half of my thesis, and when I said this to him, he laughed and said I'll have to figure out a way to do both... I am absolutely fuming still and feel so so deflated! Quite honestly I could happily throw the towel in, but it's too late for that now.

Sorry for a pathetic self-indulgent rant - I really hope everyone else is doing better than me and are just busy working. Good luck to everyone working this week.

Tulip

I would be very interested in joining in with this if you end up setting up an online version - I hope to be writing full time from June onwards and have until Sept to submit, and currently only a half drafted thesis! Please keep us updated ruffles :) Thanks.

Tulip

Hey everyone,

Hope you're all having a good week. Glowworm - how did you get on with referencing this week? I can only imagine the feeling of limbo without a thesis to work on, my supervisor is only willing to look at individual chapters instead of an entire thesis, so I don't think I'll have that problem. Fingers crossed you get your feedback soon!

So progress this week - I've made good headway with my remaining experiments so hope to be finished with data collection very soon! And today I've got a few hours to write so hoping for (at least) 600 words of literature review. I tend to reference as I go along which I think slows down the writing but I'm really worried if I leave it until the end I'll suddenly run out of time! Hope everyone's having a good week and have a lovely weekend.

Tulip

Hi all,

What kind of software do you find best for designing diagrams and figures for the thesis? I'm trying to put together schematics (a bit like flow diagrams with overlapping circles) for my literature review, and am finding that if I use the shapes function in either Word or Powerpoint, when I try to block fill the shapes with colour the edges look pixellated... I'm trying to avoid this and am wondering how best to go about it....

Probably a silly question, but I've left it very late to write my literature review so I'm hoping for something that isn't too time consuming to get used to. Also, if anyone has any tips for making this work in Word or powerpoint (to save time getting used to new software) I'd be very appreciative! Thanks in advance.

Tulip

Hi everyone,

Glowworm - thank you for the kind words, it's nice to know it's not just me that doesn't always want to see other people's holiday photos etc. (but only because I'm jealous and would LOVE a holiday right now!). Hope your week is going well and you can relax a bit while the draft is with your supervisors! AislingB - sorry to hear you've been struggling a bit this week, good luck with the work this weekend! Also good luck to anyone I've missed.

Progress this week has been pretty good - since Tuesday I've written a few more literature review sections (about 3000 words) and got a large chunk of data analysis done. So tonight I think I'll sort some boring reference bits out then watch a film with the boyfriend. Then the plan for the weekend is another 1000 words and to sort out buffers for my experiments next week - I'm hoping to have three days at home with friends and family next weekend so this is keeping me going :) Have a nice weekend everyone!

Tulip

Congratulations jennypenny and TreeofLife - brilliant news all round! :)

Thanks for the kind words mathcomp! I saw your other post and I think I had a similar weekend as you, I got very anxious and overwhelmed with work! Glad to hear you're feeling better now and had a nice pamper. I ended up taking Sunday afternoon and evening off to try to relax, and after a productive day today I'm feeling a lot better :)

So far I've managed nearly 700 words today and I'm on a roll so will continue working for another couple of hours tonight! Good luck to anyone else working and hope everyone is doing well.

Tulip

Hi everyone,

Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend. Glowworm - hope you got your draft off and enjoyed the theatre! AislingB - I also need a draft ready for a few weeks time and expect it to be very rough indeed, it just feels like everything takes longer than you expect. Mathsgirl and GM - I hope you're both feeling a bit better now and that things are running a bit more smoothly now work-wise.

I've been feeling poorly most of this week so it hasn't been great work-wise, although I have finally optimised my last set of experiments so I'm happy with that! But since I took a couple of days off I'm working through the weekend and hoping to get a couple of literature review sections tidied up and around 800 words drafted in new sections. I'm struggling with motivation though, I just keep wanting to watch stuff on netflix! i think everything just feels very overwhelming at the moment and a lot of my friends are going on holiday and enjoying time off from work right now so I feel like I spend my life chained to my desk writing... Hopefully this will all be worth the effort in the end! Sorry for the woe-is-me moment - I know we're all in the same boat and it could be worse. Have a nice weekend guys!

Tulip

Hey everyone,

Hope you all had a lovely weekend! Mathsgirl - somehow I managed to miss your post over the weekend, I hope work went well for you and you got some time off too! AislingB - good luck for today, I think we all need to hope that the PhD pixies will turn up at some point!

My weekend went pretty well workwise - I wrote around 1500 words on my literature review and prepared buffers for my experiments. Today I'll be in and out of the lab so I hope to finish my experiment and write around 500 words of another section today. Data collection is really getting in the way of writing so I'm hoping to be finished in the lab at the end of May, but we'll have to see I guess. If only my supervisor would let me stop and write up properly, but the department has dwindled in numbers so when I leave there will be no one to finish these experiments so he's piling on the pressure right now! Right enough ranting, hope everyone else has a productive day!

Tulip

Hey everyone,

Is anyone else working over the bank holiday? I decided to come into work to write since the temptation to relax at home while my boyfriend is off too is too great! Despite feeling a bit ill earlier in the week I still managed to meet my (modest) goals so I'm happy. So today I'm working on my literature review and aiming to finish a couple of sections (around 800 words).

Grumpymule - I hope you had a good writing session on Friday, I also like having a block of time to sit down and write. Glowworm - hope you got on well with your 4 sections and had a good night off! AislingB - how are you feeling now? I know the panic feeling too well, I'm just hoping like glowworm says that it will all come together at the end (fingers crossed!).

Good luck to everyone working, and hope everyone resting has a nice weekend!

Tulip