Hey Ruby! good luck with your aims today, very nice to see you so focused and in battle mode! :-s

if you do feel very tired, try taking a quick power nap like 15-20minutes, it might perk you up!

my aims for today:
1. read through and formulate qs and answers for paragraphs 2-7 for section 1 of chapter 1.

i got my egg timer back on my desktop again.

already feeling hungry! but going to do one paragraph, before i get some lunch.

i failed to wake up at 9am! whoops. i woke up at 11am instead lol. i'm just not a morning person, i should just accept it and stop fighting and beating myself over it. i went to bed at 1am, and probably fell asleep around 2am, so that means my body likes to have 9 hours of sleep. lol

for me to relax when i go to sleep, i listen to audiobooks, and helps me to drift of to sleep. i'm currently listening to prince caspian :) it's very comforting and nice listening to it and imagining it all in my head, without straining my eyes having to read the book. i like audiobooks :)
yesterday my eyes were feeling very itchy and watery. so was nice to just close them and relax and let someone else do the reading for me ! the narrator does all the different character voices which is really cool.

anyways sorry for that bit of tangent information!
setting my timer and going forth towards paragraph 2! (battle face) :-s
and then taking a break to eat once i've done it.

ps so impressed ruby you were up at 9am! and rearing to go, you're so good at waking up early :-)

Hi Lara, don't be impressed, I just get into a routine for going to work and get up at the same time on PhD days.

The Prince Caspian audio book sounds good, I loved those Narnia books when I was young, I read them loads of times. I like the films as an adult too, though I'm not mad about the children cast, maybe if a different producer & director had made them they would have been better. Hope your reading is going ok today. (up)

I'm stopping for lunch now, as am really hungry - just soup, so I don't fall asleep afterwards. I've done a bit on one chapter, so the corrections are going ok so far..... and spent too long looking at my email, Ah well, it's a mini-break! See you later! :-)

hey i'm still impressed, because you could theoritically have a lie in, but you dont ;)

well i finished paragraph 2. then took a break to jump on my trampoline, and had a banana. and then i was naughty and had some kettle chips, they are just so scrummy!! i like the black peppercorns ones. i was really hungry. but if i have a big lunch i know i will get really lazy and want to take a nap and fall asleep.

so i'm going to just tie myself over with fruit and forcing myself to drink water.. till dinner time which will be around 7pm. (cant wait!) lol after which i am going to relax and watch a dvd film. i've gotten myself into a routine, which is nice, as it gives me something to look forward to.

i'm back at my desk, and going to study paragraph 3 now. before i allow myself a tiny break.

yah i loved the lion the witch and the wardrobe when i was a kid, it was my favourite book. that and the faraway tree by enid blyton :)
i've not seen prince caspian yet, i wanted to read the book first. i have the dvd waiting for me though.

nice to hear from you. and good idea about the soup for lunch! what type of soup was it?

i'm currently reading how to improve your mind. and i read the best concentration for studying is 10-45 minutes. after 45 minutes your concentration declines. and you should take a 2-5 minute break. so here's me setting my timer to 45 minutes!

chat to you later :-) glad the corrections are going good
(up)

Back again - I'm flagging a bit I'm afraid, have spent quite a bit of time looking out of the window and watching the sky change colour, as it's really nice this time of day. And listening to Billy Fury, lovely voice and so beautiful when he was young. Oops, there go my good intentions :$ I did some PhD related emails though, so not all bad!

Good that you're getting into a routine now, I think it'll get easier for you each day to read stuff. Everyone has bad reading days anyway don't they, where you just can't take stuff in properly, whether it's viva prep or not. That trampoline makes things (can't remember exactly what!!) rush around your body or something doesn't it, so that'll help too!!

I liked the Magic Faraway Tree books too, some of my favourites. I found a great Enid Blyton site a while ago, EnidBlyton.net or something, they'd scanned in practically all the book covers and a lot of the illustrations too, it was nice to see them.

My soup was homemade vegetable and lentil, since you ask!

Actually, I feel under quite a lot of pressure with this PhD and submitting on time, as a large part of my life is tied up with my college, work and PhD. I'm supposed to be an 'exemplar of staff development success' according to someone in senior management, through no intention on my part I should add!! They've paid my fees all along as I'm staff, so I feel like my name would be mud if I messed up at this stage and I'd let other people down as well as myself. Plus I get the feeling there might be interesting opportunities bubbling away in the background that I won't hear about for definite until I've got the PhD in the bag. So no big lie-ins for me at the moment, unless I really feel like a zombie!

I think I'll look at some other articles instead of writing, I know what references I need to find and I can't think properly any more today. Maybe have my dinner soon too, and watch some tv and go to bed early as I'm so tired now... that sounds like a good plan, so I may be back later, but if not I will see you tomorrow. Good luck with paragraph 3!:-)

aww dont worry Ruby about flagging, we all do it. we're not robots that can sustain high productivity day in and day out. yep good idea, take it easy and start afresh tommorow! besides i reckon the lack of sleep is the culprit! and tommorow is another day! (gone with the wind) but good that you got those emails done! thats work after all ;)

never heard of billy fury, i will have to youtube him.

yah its nice to have a routine going now. :-) i think once you get back into the study mode everyday it gets abit easier. when you take such a long break from studying, its hard to get back into it! i cancelled all social plans this weekend, as i wanted to sustain my momentum.. so i'm going to be at home all weekend studying away. you got me as company!

i can imagine the pressure you must be under. it is a huge part of your life. right now, its the only part of my life. i feel like im married to it! but i have confidence in you that you will pull it out of the bag! so dont you worry. you will get there. and submit it on time. its weird but somehow it just magically happens. you're already nearly there.


and wow thats great about opportunities in the background! must mean that they are impressed with the work you have done ;)

hope you had a nice dinner. and get some rest. and see you tommorow!

i'm going to have some dinner now, and then going to relax and watch a dvd film :-)

my progress today :
i did paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 :-)

and found the journals i cited in the paragraphs.

and then did a pubmed search for new articles or review articles about the subject i talk about in the paragraphs, and so next going to do abit of "extra reading" to increase my reserve power. and better understand what i wrote in my paragraphs! and make some extra notes, before i move onto the next stage of paragraphs.

but for now, i'm hungry. so yippeee its 7pm, and time for dinner and a movie :-) ahh my favourite time of the day :-)

hello. i am feeling very lazy today, i just want to slouch around all day and not study. because of my insidious behaviour, i am going to force myself and "bribe" myself. so trying the 15 minute study time technique.

so the idea is to study for 15 minutes and then take a break. and continue this cycle and see if i can get out of this rutt, my body just feels very tired today, which is silly because i had a decent night sleep of 9 and half hours!

my aim:
read 9 papers and make notes from them.

but i so dont want to ! lol i'm being a brat today.

======= Date Modified 24 Jan 2009 16:12:49 =======
Hi Lara, it's not just you feeling lazy. I've been very sluggish today and it took ages to get into it, I've probably done about a couple of hours proper work on corrections altogether ALL DAY. I spoke to my mum this morning, who said 'don't worry, you haven't got much time left' meaning 'it'll all be over soon', but it reminded me that there wasn't much time left, which gave me a mini-panic and prodded me into action. Must force myself to do more before it's dinnertime, or today will be a bit disappointing.

It sounds like you did a lot yesterday, finding new articles and you did the paras in depth so you know what you were talking about in the thesis. Plus your routine is shaping up now. It's just so hard to do lots every day, I know you can't exactly wear your brain out as my gran once warned me in jest, but it's like you can't keep up the same level of concentration day in and day out. And you *are* getting back into it after a longish break, so I'd say give yourself about a week to get into a proper routine. :-)

What film did you watch in the end for your treat? heheh, I got the Gone With the Wind ref, it's my favourite quote from it! I like using clips from it in teaching too, quite a lot of students have never seen it. Maybe they wouldn't want to see the rest of it either after my clip, who knows lol, but a few minutes is acceptable.

There's not a lot of Billy Fury on Youtube really, he was popular in the late 50s/early 60s so it's mainly clips from old pop programmes like Ready Steady Go and Oh Boy. I like his early rock and roll stuff, though he's more known for ballads. I got a DVD out by accident a while back about him that was narrated by Dave Vanian of The Damned fame, it's quite an interesting life story really.

This emailing people thing takes ages, trying to clarify odd points here and there from stuff you wrote ages ago. I don't know if it's worse than having to find refs in books or journals yourself, as you have to wait for them to get back to you so it's out of your hands... Oh well, I'll wait and see... Better do a bit more now I guess, to try and finish this chapter today.... it's probably only a few more paragraphs left. :-s

Hey RubyW and Lara,
Hope all is well. Thank yo so much for your response to my earlier post- sorry i have been away for so long...the teaching has swallowed all my time. Rubyw- I hope you the chapter corrections are going well...I am quite amazed at the motivation that you and Lara have !!! - I  feel so out of league... sigh!!!

Things got pretty bad so I also tried counselling but that does not seem to help much ....
Well..if only i could get the analysis complete(am almost there) and start the chapters i might feel better but right now im jogging on the same spot!!

How did you all know how much time to devote for each chapter ,how did you work that out..dont know if its just me but my biggest mental block is not knowing how much time its going to take to be able to set deadlines to work towards them...any advice is really appreciated..

have a good weekend and hope you get some rest

cheers
m
:-)

Hi Mira,

I'm sorry you've been having a hard time, and teaching does take up so much time and energy - I've found it really hard to get back into my PhD after a solid term's teaching. Could you speak to your supervisor about how difficult you're finding it at the moment? Maybe talk about that and work out a timetable between you to help you get back into it, with small regular deadlines to get you started but not such hefty pieces of work to swamp you?

I've never been good at setting deadlines, it always seemed like plucking dates out of thin air, really arbitrary and could have been any old date really as I had no idea how long it would take. In the end we worked out deadlines from my final submission date, then worked backwards by dividing the time available into chunks for each chapter left to finish. It was the only way really - not that the time related to the amount of work I had to do, or to how long it might take, but it was a starting point. At the end of the day you have to complete one day, so why not start with that? I emailed a chapter to my sup for each deadline, even if they weren't properly finished, or I'd have been in danger of nudging deadlines into the future if I had the chance.

It is difficult though, it's a struggle all the way along for me at the moment. I've done hardly anything in the last few hours, had dinner, watched tv and have just made a disgusting cup of tea by chucking a teabag into a cup with old coffee dregs already in it from earlier, though I didn't notice till I tasted it... a bit vile, strangely enough. I'll take that as a sign that I'm tired and am likely to get nothing of use done tonight, so may as well stop. Anything else tonight is a bonus, but tomorrow's another day as Lara and Scarlett o Hara said.:-)

======= Date Modified 25 Jan 2009 15:44:36 =======
======= Date Modified 25 Jan 2009 15:43:57 =======
hey Ruby! i felt relieved that i wasnt the only one that was feeling lazy yesterday!! thanks for your message to me yesterday, it made me feel so much better!! you always know the exact right things to say to cheer me up!! you're going to be an amazing mentor one day!

thanks for the encouraging message about my work the other day. that really gave me such a boost :-) thats so true, its hard to do lots everyday. and yes i totally agree, it will probably take a week to get into a proper routine :) thanks Ruby!

the film i watched was ghost rider, it was fun entertaininment, something to switch your brain off to lol.

haha thats so cool you got the gone with the wind quote hehe.

wow you use clips in your teaching, thats so cool, what kind of subjects do you teach?

thanks again for your message! you really are a star :-)
---

well yesterday before i read your message, i had only managed to read 1 paper, and then after reading your message, it gave me motivation to read a couple of papers. but spaced out during the whole day, with long breaks in between lol.

so all in all i read 3 review articles yesterday. i feel like i'm slowly getting back into the "swing" of things.

and today, when i woke up, before doing anything else, i read 1 review article. then did some exericse, took a shower, and now going to have a late lunch and then relax afterwards and watch a dvd.

and then in the evening, going to read a few more papers.

hope you have a good day Ruby!

my aim: read 5 papers

Hello there. I've come to talk to myself on here, as I've realised my powers of real-life conversation on the phone have vanished.... sad eh! Ah well...

Well, I woke up a bit late, but have been at it all day since then. How very diligent of me. Or desperate?? Yeah, that's more likely. One annoying chapter is nearly done - and about time too. My breaks have consisted of stimulating activities such as washing my hair and doing the dirty dishes from last night. I wish I could go to sleep and ignore my work, but I have to get this stuff done today, as my sup will kindly read it tomorrow for me and send me more feedback. Mustn't let her down then eh. Or me! I've been watching the blue tits fluttering about in the tree opposite, they're very busy today and quite squeaky really, but sweet to watch. urgh... maybe I'd better have a strong coffee or I'll never get these sections done at this rate. The only good thing about today is that (a) I am writing well, and (b) I am actually crossing stuff off my list with my newish coloured pens.

One day my life will be more interesting than this. Well, I sincerely hope it will be, or things are worse than I thought, but until then.... :-s:-s:-s:-s

======= Date Modified 25 Jan 2009 16:16:22 =======
something wrong with this message, wont let me paste. going to try in a new message. sorry admin

ooh hello Lara, you've stopped me feeling like a complete isolated nutter, excellent!!!:-)

You did alright yesterday with all that reading then, you must be getting into the routine better than you realised - well done! (up)

I don't know that film, but intend to see A LOT of films when this thing is submitted. I just use any film I like in teaching if it illustrates a point, it's visual research for the students and I always think if I'm really boring they can just watch the moving images or jot down ideas in their sketchbooks. A mix of sources is better for any limited attention spans too. I teach contextual studies to fashion and art students, mostly in relation to the body, fashion, material culture, death and memory. It's good because you can follow your own interests to a large extent, it's not really dictated to you by anyone as long as it fits into the curriculum.

I'd better go and make that coffee now. See you later! :-)

Hey Mira! so lovely to hear from you. and you're very welcome. well i dont know about my motivation, it really sways drastically on an hourly basis ! so please do not feel so out of league! i have my good and very bad moments. its a constant struggle. i never have motivation to study, i have to either force myself or bribe myself to study haha.


i'm sorry to hear that things got pretty bad.

thats great that your almost there with the analysis. sounds like you're not jogging on the same spot, but moving towards something, even if you think it might be slow. its still moving forward.

thats a very good question about how much time to devote to each chapter. and Ruby answered it very well. its a good idea to know what your ultimate deadline is, then give yourself a safetly deadline, which is an artificial deadline, because things always take longer than you anticipate and like Ruby said work backwards. consolidate what you can theoritically write about and practically what you cannot. if you have a limited time, then there are certain things you wont have time to. and so you just learn to focus more.

do you have a specific deadline by which you MUST submit your thesis?

even if you dont. set yourself an artificial deadline, by which you want a complete first draft of your entire thesis completed in 3-4 months.

well for me, i made a huge mind map of what my thesis was going to contain. it was going to contain X number of chapters. and then within each chapter, i had major headings of the topics, results, discussion points i wanted to include.

then i would set myself an arbituary deadline, because you really dont know how long something is going to take. you can tell yourself, you only have 1 week to write introduction section of chapter 3, but in reality, it can take you 2 weeks. so give yourself a generous deadline. if you think its going to take 2 weeks to write a first draft of chapter 3 or whatever chapter you decide to first work on, then give yourself a deadline of 3 weeks. and then really work towards getitng a 1st draft completed within that time frame. if the deadline comes close and your not near to finishing, thats OK. you can then set yourself another deadline, its like doing a sprint.

you sprint for 1 week or whatever and then if you havent met the deadline, you give yourself a break and a treat /reward and then make a new plan and sprint again for another week.

try setting yourself small goals. that is much easier.

i will quote bolker to help you with deadlines. and if you havent read bolker's book on writing your dissertation in fifteen minutes, a highly recommend it!

quote" the deadlines you set for yourself need to be very very generous ones. if you think it will take you 2 weeks to finish a chapter, give yourself three. if you finish early, you'll feel particularly fine. most importan is that you finish the chapter and give yourself cause for celebration, rather than dissappointment"

"set up deadlines so they involve rewards, not punishments. do not set them up so that you have to be superhuman to meet them. perharps you can work nonstop for a few days, but no one can sustain that sort of effort over the long haul ...set very easy goals.. Every one that you meet will empower you, so that you can make the next hurdle a bit more strenous. this is the way to turn "i think i can " into "i know i can".

deadline for the final completed thesis is difficult to imagine and trying to find how long that will take is difficult to establish. therefore bolker suggests that you need to break up a single deadline into a series of much smaller ones. each of which you can imagine meeting. with a thesis, these smaller goals and time frames can be stated in terms of certain number of pages or chapters, or sections of chapters. "your taks is to divide the single project into pieces small enough so that one by one they dont frighten you"

"what if you miss a deadline ? ...get right back on.