Just....can't.....write.....today......

Hi Everyone! thoguth I'd drop in and see how everyone else is doing, I'm behind on writing my lit review chapter but I just can't seem to drag the motivation up to do it, I've spent all day getting distracted and losing concentration, even in the middle of sentences! As a result, I've written about 3 lines......I'm supposed to go to my dance class in an hour and a half, but I can't decide if I should go or not, if I do then I'm not working, if I don't then I'll just be soo sad and miserable cos I'm not getting a proper break fomr this...grrrr.....ah ho!

bleugh - have been having my birthday and doing non-PhD work trying to put evil PhD work off and not think about it at all but my sup keeps on emailing "I can't wait to read XYZ - how exciting!" and I just want to hide under my duvet! She has now involved this bloke in my publication who is not superior to me in any way, has no knowledge about the project - I don't really understand why he's involved and its just diluting my publication. I'm doing all the work, she is re-organising some of it, but this bloke gets tagged on the end anyway. Hmph.

Anyways. The plan is to get a report for this non-PhD thing done tonight and then start afresh tomorrow with a proper sense of what the hell I am doing! I really need to get things back on track.

after being involved in a heated debate about hanging 10 year old boys and Jon Venables I had an awful night of vivid nightmares about finding out I work with one of the boys and it being really scary once they found out I knew. Its annoying because the fact that they were really scary in my nightmare goes against what I have been arguing with people i.e. they were kids, who didn't really know what they were doing.

Anyway, I think I will do my report before lunch and then settle in to restructuring the writing I did last week.

ooh i hate those kinds of dreams sneaks, I hope you got on ok though today. It always takes me ages to get them out of my head, it's like a parallel world when I'm trying to get on with normal stuff and my weird dreams keep playing over in my head...
but I have good news, I got a very rough draft of my chapter finished there now so I'm off out tonight! then tomorrow and Sun I can fix it up and make it into a decent first draft and send it off to the dreaded supervisors! just so pleased I've got this bit done!
Good luck everyone!

no PhD work done today. I have just done all the non-PhD stuff. But I think I might buy hubby the game he wants on PS3 so I can get some work done this weekend - its a bit like a baby's dummy - keeps him quiet and occupied haha.

Ok, so today hasn't been great so far. I had to go for my smear :-( but its all done now and off my mind.

I have a major stress out problem with my PhD. My sup decided to change my first study so it is based on a different theory. SO I now have to pretend that I collected the data with that in mind, when I didn't, and the data doesn't really fit it. She also wants me to write it up for publication, so in this article I will talk about a theory that isn't actually tested? - so confused! SHe says the study will be 'couched in the theory' but we don't necessarily test it - this just seems wrong, any ideas?

Anyway, today...

- going to look at said theory and see how the hell am going to write it up
- write a list of things I need to do to change the paper before sups deadline.
- do one set of qual analysis cos sup thinks i've done it all!

Having a rubbish day myself too. Just can't settle down to work. Hope yours has picked up.

As for the new theory: maybe after you've read through and had a look at it you could ask your sup to further justify why she thinks you should rewite it that way. Maybe with more explanation the reasoning will make sense. Ultimately it's your data and hence your choice, allowing for your sup's expertise and experience of course. I sometimes et annoyed at my sup when he wants to do things a different way to me until he explains why and how it will work that way.

can't really settle either. I'm going to do a big chart for what i have to do before my funding runs out. Hopefully it will be motivational rather than daunting.

I have used the theory later on, but she wants me to talk about it earlier. I think this is fine for the thesis, as it gets covered in study 2. BUT in a publication, all I can see is people questionning why the hell it has been discussed. So confused. I'm going to go over some of my previous writing and see if I can get inspiration!

I'm peed off with sup, my phd life is a mess and I have now developed an addiction of watching 'Lion Man' on sky1 :-(

My day so far....[insert sound from nose diving aeroplane] + [insert picture of dog doings] = a pretty rubbish day. I can't write for toffee at the moment. Where have all my words gone? I used to be able to write like I'd swallowed a dictionary. Now I need to look on the back of cereal packets for word inspiration, but I find there isn't much call for the words 'whole grain', 'fortified' and 'added B vitamins' in my line of work.

Ahh, well, hopefully things will look up later in the week. I have an 'expert review' pre-testing data collection session - so it'll make me feel as though I've moved forward that bit more.

well today I am going to try and get my head around different definitions of things, so I can understand how sup wants me to re-write everything and whether I can or not.

======= Date Modified 09 Mar 2010 08:53:09 =======
right folks, there is a big downer vibe floating around the forum, so today, we are changing it!
I've got a chapter to finish for my lit review, I've been panicking about it for ages but no more!!

Today we all have a mission: pick one task, just one, something you are pretty sure you'll get done today and do it. Even if it takes half an hour or 4 hours, if you get it done by the end of the day you'll feel better. Then we each get a treat of our choice!

Ok today's task...finish this blasted genetics section in my review. Treat = chocolate! yum!

Here I go!

I'm trying to do my 1 thing today, but just ending super annoyed with sup. Basically she has decided to re-angle my PhD so it comes from a different perspective. I was introducing this perspective later on, but not at the beginning. It has basically meant that I should have measured some stuff which I haven't - if she had just bothered to read just some of my writing 2 years ago I wouldn't be in this mess. I feel like I am having to blag it and write around the fact I haven't measured this data - this is the kind of thing I didn't want to be doing as I think these kind of weaknesses will be ripped apart by examiners! Hmph.

That is really annoying sneaks. I suppose one of the (rare) advantages to not collecting data for me. Perhaps give it a little break when you get really annoyed at it or write it a nasty letter :) I'm completely on board with this '1-thing' plan for today - especially since it comes with a reward! I'm going to type up my first draft. Or at least half of it anyway. Reward will be a delicious caramel filled chocolate. Can't wait!

Problem is she has given me a deadline of monday to re-write the whole thing and I'm sooo confused. She's not available for any meetings either :-( feeling uber stressed about the whole thing. Problem is she never listens to anything I say, she hears the first bit and runs with it and ignores anything else. Then 6 months later it comes back to bite me. To my worry that I haven't actually tested the theory she wants me to talk about her reply is "you don't have to test everything" - but why talk about a theory in depth and then say "but we haven't tested that theory". aaaargh.