======= Date Modified 24 Aug 2011 23:35:10 =======
Hi Naturalme,

I love this thread :-x I am a very firm believer of positive vibrations and I have experienced myself very many times. In addition at this point of time (am in my final year, supposed to submit my thesis in October but have got an extension for six months with funding - still having problems like simulations crashing, work which I did some months ago were lost while reconfiguring, unreliable/inconsistent experimental results and bla bla bla.....) I am trying to totally keep my fear of failure miles away from me and I believe it is absolutely necessary at this crucial time to maintain equilibrium 8-) I am just spreading positive vibrations around me which will help me put everything in place eventually. Good luck to every one (up)

======= Date Modified 23 Aug 2011 21:57:41 =======
Swetcha - Exactly, we need nothing but POSITIVE vibes :-) I'm sending you loads of them with (robin)

23.08.2011's entry:

1. I spent half of the day combining the results of five of my simulations and I still have to do reimport them and do the comparison which I am thinking about doing in a bit.
2. Did another analytical calculation and put things together for practical measurements which I will be doing on Thursday. I have been bothering my colleague a lot this week to help me :-( and I really feel bad for increasing her work load!! I wish I could do everything on my own :-( without being a pain for others.
3. Finished reading a journal article.
4. Printed out the table of contents of my thesis which I wrote down including the chapters, sections, subsections - My aim is to write at least 500 words everyday to begin with.
5. Officially, I have lost those calculations which I did few months back :( when they did an upgrade of the computers. So need to do them again which is very annoying at this point but I can manage to finish it off in a day or two. Looking forward for the long week end ;-)

P.S: I woke up early at 7.30 am this morning as well, hurrah!!!. I've been a nocturnal for the last six years - never went to bed before 3 am :-(

Hi Swetcha - Don't worry about the pace, you are almost there and it is just matter of months really. YOU ARE NEARING THE FINISHING LINE :-) All the very best!! (up)

Hi Fm - Wow!! 4+1 articles already! That's very impressive :-) Good work and keep it up. All the very best for your Christmas submission! (snowman)(tree)

I do have time until the end of March to submit my thesis but I really want to submit it by the end of this year. I lost many of my calculations :( which I did couple of months back when the systems were upgraded recently. I have the results analysed but need to do some more of these calculations!! I'm totally upset after finding this out - I can actually manage to finish this off again by 3/4 days except it is a bit annoying to repeat this.

On the positive side, I had a very productive day today. I am trying to reset my biological clock as I haven't been sleeping much these days. Woke up early this morning ( 7.20 am which is early for me ;-)) and I also started the pomodoro technique (its pretty good) today - have done 15 tomatoes until now and going to do two/three more after going home (have two papers to read). I hope every thing will go well for all of us. Cheers girls/guys and good night!!

3 qualities of successful PhD students:

http://matt.might.net/articles/successful-phd-students/

Hi Huhu, well done for finishing your experiments!! Of course, you deserve the caramel pudding and perhaps much more ;-) I hope you had a nice week end. Good luck with your writing and am sure you will be able to write up an article!!

I managed to finish off my simulations and combined all the results yesterday. Still have to analyse and compare with my other calculations. I completed another analysis part today and sent the results to my secondary supervisor as he said he is going to help me with that. I have made a list of things I will have to do this week and hopefully I will be able to accomplish the tasks. I have got some papers to read at home. I'm going to have my dinner now and sit and do a bit of reading before I fall asleep :p Cheers!!

Hi Kieran,

I've sent it to you email! Cheers :-)

Cindrella

======= Date Modified 18 Aug 2011 09:26:04 =======
Huuuuhuuuuuuuuuuuu, am glad that your experiment worked :-) Well done! So things have gotten better for both of us!! I totally agree with your point below :-) Good luck with the rest of your experimental work and am sure everything is going to go well!!!

I am very refreshed after relaxing yesterday evening. It is 9 am here and I am going to go to work in a bit.

1. I am going to resubmit the simulations that crashed.
2. Write a section under methods of Study I chapter in my thesis.
3. Check the analytical calculations.

Have a nice day!

======= Date Modified 17 Aug 2011 18:33:54 =======
======= Date Modified 17 Aug 2011 18:33:09 =======
Hi Sparkles,

Thanks for bringing this up. I have been talking exactly about the same thing with my office mate this morning. There are few points I would like to add to yours.

1. First thing is to ensure all the essential tools necessary to carry out the project are available and they are robust! (eg. in my case I did not have the main complex code which is a key of my project when I started. It was totally not in my hands and I had to wait almost a year and a half to get it in bits and pieces from here and there and put everything together, validated each and every bit and the whole complex system at the end which took hell lot of time).

2. It is very important to start thinking about the thesis right from day one! It would be good to start writing some of the basic initial chapters like literature review (eg. my project has two key aspects - analytical algorithms, models which means I should have started writing chapters on the literature, algorithms and models long time back which I did not as I thought I could do it when I have gained more knowledge, but by the time I did the practical work I had to do was so overwhelming that I couldn't go back to write these chapters).

3. It is good to make plans and set deadlines for each of these plans - daily, weekly, monthly, yearly deadlines. Make sure that these deadlines are realistic and reasonably achievable. Tick off once you complete something. If stuck some where it is better to go and ask either the supervisor or at least email them saying that you are stuck and you are working on it and also it would be good to mention what you think might have gone wrong and what you think could be a plausible solution.

4. Maintaining a systematic bilbliography is crucial.

5. It is good practice to finish off a part of a study and sit and analyse the results then and there and see if it makes any sense and if so it would be good to write down the findings.

6. More than everything it is essential to take total control of your PhD yourself and ask for advice/suggestions from supervisors and colleagues. It is very much possible to get lost in between while exploring various issues. So it would be good to stick to a plan as we can't get every problem solved under a topic in three years! There is always a lot of time in the future!!!

All the very best to every one!! (up)

Huhu - Well done! for managing to finish off most of what you intended to :-) I'm glad to hear that the deadline has been postponed. They always do don't they ;-) Try to relax a bit and restart. I am sure that will help you. I wish you luck with the rest of your simulations/experiments and am sure everything is gonna work!!.

My meeting went on alright actually, thanks. Despite the fact that my analysis didn't give expected results and my simulations crashing all the time, my supervisors were very positive and gave me few suggestions about how to go from here (I was thinking that probably they are going to fire me or something). They said that I don't have to worry about the funding and also they said that they don't want to put too much pressure on me at this point as I am already undergoing a lot. I am extremely grateful to them and feeling a bit relieved today. I decided to take the afternoon off to begin with :p to refresh my mind.

PamW - Hi Pam, welcome to this thread. Its great to hear that you are almost done with your thesis. It is people like you who multi task and manage family, PhD and work inspire me! Being single, its sometimes difficult for me to manage myself ;-) All the very best to you!!

Havenomouth - We are pretty much sailing on the same boat then! Are you done with you practical part completely? or do you still have some more data collection/analysis to do? 20% of first draft sounds awesomesorous (I learnt this word from a friend of mine :p)!!! Good luck for the rest (up)

Hi Pineapple, First of all YOU ARE A HERO!! You have accomplished quite a lot despite going through so much of stress. Hats off to you for that!! I don't really have anything else to add to the following excellent suggestions of fellow forumites. You have already completed two chapters which is great and you are absolutely doing what you will have to. So, just keep going and you will eventually get there. Perhaps it would be better to think how many chapters you have already corrected rather than thinking about the chapters you still have to correct.

I am really glad to hear that you have a lovely supporting family!!

Good luck!!! (up)

Hi Huhu, no worries. Please feel free to blabber any time :p I can totally understand how lonely you must be feeling. Just think that "THIS TOO SHALL PASS" 8-) Let us virtually support each other and everyone else! Thanks a lot for your positive words and I am very much in need of it at the moment :-) Good luck with your writing and shall get back to you in the evening. Let me know how it goes.

I am going to put together couple of results and have to do a calculation today and also write down points to discuss with my supervisors for tomorrow's tutorial. Cheers and have a productive day!! (up)

======= Date Modified 16 Aug 2011 00:18:57 =======
======= Date Modified 15 Aug 2011 23:52:32 =======
Pineapple29 - :)

Huhu - Hi Huhu, perhaps your decision to move on to the next part of your research is a good one as you can always go back to the previous part once you finish the rest of it. Also, if something hasn't been working for a while it is better to give it a break and do something else. I have learnt in the last couple of years that the solutions to most of the big problems is simple!! ;) I am sure you will figure it out at some point.

I am going to use this as an accountability thread until I submit my thesis. Please feel free to join me on this thread! The simulations which I resubmitted didn't seem to work well either :( I got to have a look at them first thing in the morning tomorrow. I managed to finish off the analysis part of some measurements which I did last week which did not work out as I expected :( It has been a disastrous day!! I got an email from my secondary supervisor that we will be having our fortnightly tutorial on Wednesday morning. I am really feeling very guilty these days that I am not really being very productive even at the very end of my third year! I just can't believe the amount of entropy I have produced in the last three years! My project is quite a broad one which has three different aspects to it and am sort of jack of all these three but master of none! I feel quite low and lacking confidence :(

Hi Pineapple, I have been following your posts since a long time and you are absolutely incredible!!! Good luck to you for your corrections!!!!!

Delta and Swetcha, all the best guys! Let us get this done :)

P.S: I came to my office to check my simulations and four of them have crashed so gonna submit them again :(

Congratulations, Dr. KB!! All you hard work and meticulous effort has been paid off and I am extremely happy for you!! (up)

======= Date Modified 18 Aug 2011 22:46:06 =======
Hi all,

I have been on and off on this forum with another user name, haven't posted myself but have been reading posts of others. This forum has helped me a lot during my depression times when things wouldn't work! And also it is highly motivating to read success stories of people and it makes me think mmm....I will make it too!!

I am an international student into my final year, 2 years and 10 months and still counting. I am doing a PhD in Applied Physics. It has been almost like a roller coaster ride with so many ups and downs and here I am almost at the end of the tunnel. I really love my PhD despite the problems I have faced as it has been a challenging experience. I am still not totally done with my experimental work but aiming to wind up by the end of September. I am supposed to submit my thesis in October but unfortunately as I had quite a lot of issues with an important complex code to run my simulations my supervisors have agreed that I can take another six more months from October to finish my thesis (they have secured funding as well for the extra period for which I am very grateful!!).

I spent most of my third year trouble shooting, validating each and every step of the code and I have managed to solve all the problems now! I am progressing slowly with minor issues of my simulations crashing now and then. I am writing up simultaneously the first two main chapters and I have written bits of it here and there. I do not want to drag it up to March as I really want to finish off by the end of this year and looking forward for something new in 2012.

Anyway sorry about the rambling, I just thought of creating a post to see if there is any one else who is aiming to submit by the end of this year/first week of Jan? I will be using this as an accountability thread until I submit my thesis. Please feel free to join this thread if you are planning for an end of 2011/beginning of 2012 submission!!! :-)

All the very best to everyone!!

Cheers! (up)