Armendaf!! you're back ! yeh!!! my fellow comrad! so funny we both came back around the same time! i'm being very slow and lazy though even though have officially started studying. so glad to have you back :-)

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Thanks Ruby!! so nice to have you around :-) comforting.

well i didnt get much reading done yesterday,

aims today:

read handbook how to survive your viva. reward - dvd film in the evening.

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edit:

still reading! going to stop at 9pm and have something to eat and then relax with a dvd film. i've been rather slow today!
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but came across this really good website, full of useful links about preparing for the viva:

http://www.jwelford.demon.co.uk/brainwaremap/viva.html

and especially check out this link about nasty phd viva questions:

http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/cs/cs710/viva.html
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feeling hungry now, so i'm calling it a day, IF i am not too tired i might continue the reading after dinner and after i've watched a film.

have been really slow at reading today. but as they say takes time to get back into "study mode" :-) read about 7 pages from the book, the chapter on "questions" lots of useful general and specific questions for me to use next week to start preparing notes.

genereal questions like:
how did you come to be doing research in this area, summarise your thesis, summarise the main points of your thesis. you cover several areas in your thesis, what is the whole thing about ? who would you say are the key people in your field today? on a general level, what for you, were the most interesting things to come out of your thesis.

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hope you all had a good day, and see you tommorow :-)

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Removed - irrelevant to thread.

Hi Lara,

Have you got a date for your viva, or your examiners sorted yet? And do you reckon they'll give you a mock viva? Great that you're getting stuck into the reading though! (up) No one's really written about viva prep on here, I don't think, so there's something a bit mystical about it at the moment for me, unless there isn't very much to say about it?!

I'm plodding through my corrections at the moment, SO tedious, but I do like the idea of it being finished and being able to move onto something new. I think it's about the only thing that's keeping me going at the moment. Anyway, better get started I guess, I've had my day-after-being-at-work lie-in so I'd better have another coffee and get on with it. :-s

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Hey Ruby! hi everyone, clocking in for the day.

no date for viva , and no examiners not sorted out yet. i haven't studied at all for my viva, so i'm giving myself 2 months to study for my viva, and in march - i've set myself a deadline - i will contact my sups and get them to arrange examiners for me. i'm in no hurry to get my viva, and i want to spend a good couple of months studying for it. i spoke to senate house when i handed in my thesis, and they told me that senate house do not have a deadline for a viva, and he said, all we do is keep hold of your thesis until it's ready to give to the examiners. and if i want a few months to prepare for my viva, i should just get my sup to "delay" appointing examiners. so i told my 2nd sup just before xmas, that i will contact them in the new year to arrange examiners, and that i need time to properly prepare.

when i handed in my thesis - my sup did say, when i'm ready he will arrange a mock viva for me. and be really brutal to me, in order to prepare me. so i want to study super hard to be fully prepared for his mock viva. he doesnt want to waste his time, giving me a mock viva when i haven't studied properly for it. so told me to study my thesis, do alot of background reading and think of ideas etc.

yah i know what you mean about viva- it is all mysterious, but there are general questions you can prepare for, but there will always be an element of the unknown!

good luck with your corrections! are these the final corrections before you have to submit your final draft to your sups? do you have a deadline? that is so great you are so close to finishing! well done you :-)

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my aim today:
read book: how to survive your viva.
i'm reading chapter 5 about "questions" - the chapter describes general, open, specific questions that can come up in viva. alot of good questions actually to think about and prepare answers for. which i hope to start doing from next week onwards. i do recommend the book, it is expensive though, about £16. but it the only book out there about viva prep.

okay going to do a little bit of reading and then have some lunch :p

catch you guys later!!

Hi,

I'm thinking about getting a book about viva preparation myself. Is that Murray's book you are reading?

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yes its called how to survive your viva. by rowena murray. its the only book about viva. and its good. i'm on the chapter about questions, which has given me loads of ideas about the type of questions i should be thinking about and preparing answers for.

i got it from amazon i think it was £16.00

miss spacey went to a talk about how to prepare for the viva, and it was recommended.

Yeah, I know the book is good. She also wrote the one I was following for writing the thesis. I think I'll go buy it; I might even find it in the book shop. :-)

Hi Lara,

Yes, it's the final one - eek!! I'm submitting 26/27th Feb, as 1st March is a Sunday. I think I have to do about 7 or 8 copies which will weigh a lot, so hopefully I can get someone from work to help me lump them along on the tube to Research HQ. It's doable if I keep at it, though since I've been back at work I've been having these sporadic panicky thoughts of deep fraud, the sort where I think all my sup's good feedback was just covering up a dreadful problem they didn't like to mention, so they've just been making the best of a bad job to make me submit on time. It's horrible really, before breakfast I was thinking PhD???? For this thing????? Is that all I could manage in 7 years??? I'm joking, aren't I??? except I'm not and *must* get it in, in some shape or form, and MUST trust my sup's feedback and not get paranoid or I'll waste time. God I'm so sick of it now and will be so glad to finish it.

I'll just have to swot up for the viva like you're doing and make the best of it and preempt the worst questions. Your sups sound really good actually, giving you a decent amount of time to prepare for the viva, instead of making you do it before you're ready. I hope your reading is going well anyway, that book looks useful.

Better get on with it, I suppose... *sigh*....

cool! will be nice to be able to discuss with you the book and the questions she writes about. hope you find it ..
it's taking me a long time to finish it. but i think thats becuase its so concentrated. i'm currently halfway through chapter 6 which is about "answers" to viva questions. i'm going to force myself to finish the book today so i can actually start revising.

i got a new computer! set it up yesterday, so i'm excited about having a new computer. so today i'm going to transfer all my files from my external hard drives to my new computer.

word of warning. dont name your files too long, as you will have problems copying them! the computer might let you call a file by a long name, but when it comes to backing up and transferring, you can run into trouble. also try not making too many sub folders, thats the problem i had too. i think windows has a limit of 250 characteristics or something, which seems like alot, but when you have loads of subfolders, gets you into trouble :p
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my aims today :-)

1. finish murray's book. chapters 6-10

2. transfer data from external hard drive to new computer

3. make a 2 week plan. (i find that i work best in short deadlines. so i'm going to try and cram in as much studying in 2 weeks) i think that might help me with my confidence, because right now i dont remember anything about my phd and at the moment i have very low self esteem and confidence regarding the viva and have this pessimistic outlook to it. but i heard the more you learn the more confident you will then get and thus might help with my pessimistic outlook that im not going to be able to answer any questions in my viva and fail miserably. i think i've been avoiding studying for my viva, because i've just been so intimidated by the sheer mountain of work and knowledge i need to know. but like they say, you gotta start somewhere, and i just have to put in the hard work and study hard.

i'm also going to watch a lecture each day from TED TALKS, in the hopes it inspires me and i get motivated. they have really interesting lectures and the speakers are good. my brother got me onto them.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks

good luck everyone with your studying today! :) (up)

Aww Ruby, i understand how you feel, thats exactly how i felt aswell, actually thats how i STILL feel!! like a fraud and at the time of my viva, it will be like "aha ! we knew it you're a fraudster" ...

i think its perfectly normal to feel that way when you're so close to submitting. i still feel like that with regards to the viva. i think all we can do is try our best. yes, trust your supervisor judgement and try to squash the little demons in your head. i think bolker talks about them too. there will always be there lurking in the dark corners of our brain, the only way to stamp them out, is to actively be engrossed in writing, or reading or studying. its only when we're not doing anything that they get loud and strong.

and yes just get the damn thesis in (thats what i think everyone ends up calling their thesis haha) submit it and then study like mad for the viva. you will have me and Armendaf for company ! we can be in the same hellhole together.

yeh your right, its nice of my sups to do that. but just incase im avoiding them, until march , until ive actually studied *something* but at the same time, im now going to study like mad, just incase they perk up and email me and say, we've organised your viva , its next month, then i will be like oh cr*p! my dad was like what the heck are you doing, stop messing about and study, you dont want to look back and think you wasted all this time phaffing about. he had a point. i have been procrastinating studying. but now is the day to stop with all the procrastination and get to the nitty gritty of studying.

good luck Ruby! i know you can do it :-) i think end of feb is a good deadline to aim for, and completely doable, you got plenty of time. just take it one day at a time, and make sure you leave at least 1 week for printing and binding , that way incase an)
i will use your deadline also to revise for my viva, and pretend i have my viva then. its my birthday on the 28th feb, so will reward myself with something special.

so i'm on the train with you Ruby! :-)

Armendaf - do you have a date for the viva ?

whats your battle plan ? if you dont mind me asking :)

Hi Lara,

Thanks so much for your sensible comments, you are right of course about just doing what I can and getting the damn thing in. Yeah, it certainly is like being in a hellhole sometimes and it's nice to have some company on the train to deadsville, as you called it once, lol! Oh yes.

I'm sorry you're feeling crap, this whole thing really messes with your confidence and I think it might be like this until the very end, when they actually award you the thing. It's really hard squashing the negative thoughts sometimes and it must be difficult when you're planning for something that's not likely to be exactly fun. Like having an appointment to have something unpleasant done to you, that you have to plan in advance for, but it will be fine afterwards - that is the thing to focus on - you will get through it one way or another and have a life again eventually. It will be SO nice to have finished with the whole PhD thing for ever. You're doing what you can, thinking of questions is good, then you'll know how to answer them.

It's quite funny that your dad told you to stop faffing about, as my mum did that yesterday too. I was moaning as I was really struggling to get into this vile methodology chapter I've been grappling with for ages and she said well, that's no good is it? You haven't got time to be fed up so you'd better get on with it. She was right though, and I did get on with an easier one for the rest of the day, it seemed better to do something (anything!!) than nothing at all. Today I've just been reading various theory articles for it and it makes more sense today, though I've still done no writing on the computer, just rough notes.... ah well, maybe tomorrow....I'll have to by then. I'll fiddle with it till 9, then that's my lot for tonight as it's the second part of that detective thing on BBC1.

Hope you got enough reading finished today.

Armendaf, how's it been getting back into work after such a long hol?

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Ah nice to hear from you Ruby! :-) your message cheered me up

and you're very welcome, glad i could help in any small way. and dont worry about not getting "writing" done. the reading you have done and most importantly understanding it, counts for alot, and will most definately help in the writing . so well done you ! reading is an essential part of writing. yes dont worry about the writing today and yeh take the evening off and relax and let your brain absorb and make all those connections overnight whilst you sleep ;) and tommorow when your fresh , the writing will just flow through you , all zen like haha.

you are SO right! thats what i should be thinking about, how it will all be over one way or the other :-) yah i cannot wait for that day when i wont have the phd cloud looming over my head and putting a dampner on everything i want to do, its like my life is on "pause" you can do such and such, AFTER your phd.

and yah thats exactly how it feels, like preparing for your own torture or execution lol

nice to have you as company, makes me a whole lot better.

i've finished transferring my thesis files onto my new computer. and sorted out endnote and microsoft 2007. i had to google on how to get word 2007 to recognise endnote, but sorted it out thankfully , good ol instructions on the net

word of warning. if you are using endnote. i found that one of my chapter documents kept crashing when i was doing the final formatting. i think if a document has TOO MANY citations, poor little "word" cant cope!

i've just finished reading chapter 6 which was on giving answers. it had an example of this phd student, of where the examiner misunderstood what she was saying and she didnt have the confidence to correct the examiner. yikes!
it said that in order not to challenge or contradict the examiner, you can simply say. i think i might have incorrectly answered such and such

Lara, I completely understand what you meant when you said its like preparing for your execution.  That's exactly how I feel and I was thinking almost those exact words today. I have my second viva on Thursday and this is worse than the first.  I can't 'see' past Thursday at the moment and there is just a background feeling of dread at the moment. My examiners were really very nice last time and I've no reason to think they won't be this time but there is just so much resting on this.  Rationally I know I won't fail because the thesis is much better than it was (and much longer) and they didn't fail me the first time but there is this nasty little pixie sitting on my shoulder whispering in my ear that they can fail me if they want to.

Ruby, best of luck with finishing your thesis. It really is an enormous pain at the end but there is life after, just hang in there.

Keep going everyone (up)