Thank you so much for your responses. It sounds weird but I really have totally lost sight of what is actually needed at the moment, i.e. to read and write stuff down. After all, if I don't do that there won't be any viva to be scared of! Okay, just need to breathe and try my best. Right?!

So I'm into the last nine months (give or take) and I'm therefore writing everything up in a way that is intended to be close to "final". Trouble is, looking at things as final reduces me to a state of nausea and paralysis! I know from reading this forum that this is fairly normal but I don't know how to cope with it on a day to day basis. I still have lots more work to do, but I keep freezing in terror and having daydreams about what the viva examiner will say about the chapter I'm currently working on.
It doesn't help that I've just decided I really need to include a new theorist whose work I looked at a while ago, but not in detail. I can't not mention this person's work, but at this stage I don't have time to go through all of it with a fine toothed comb. And my desired external is an expert on him! Argh! Why did I do it like this?!
I'm not sure how you fellow PGs can help with any of this.
I suppose what I really want is the answer to the million dollar question - how good does your thesis need to be to pass?!
:-(

Okay.
Done (ish).
Sent.
Sleep.
(Thank you Nat for being there).

Thanks guys.
Am starting to feel really nervous about the quality of this.
What if I put in all these hours and my sup says it's crap?!
My boyf keeps telling me just to get it in, it's just a draft, you can work on it again another time, but I really want to feel like I'm doing s/t worthwhile, not just writing words on a page.
Oh well, I suppose there's nothing I can do about it now!
I'm going to break the 12 000 word barrier then bullet point the rest. This will be fine as I can say that it's too long already so I figured this material would have to be cut or moved to another chapter, so there would be no point in writing it out long hand as yet!

Okay. 24 hours has gone and I'm still here.
I'm up to 11 500 words!
Really want to finish it tonight and send it off so it's there tomorrow morning.
Is there anyone out there?!
I'm not used to this nighttime working. It's so lonely!

Thank you all so much for the hugs.
I'm pushing through! Hitting wall after wall and just trying to keep going.
24 hours to go and I've got 8 996 words of what was intended to be a 10 000 word chapter. Unfortunately I still have two major sections not written and lots of gap filling to do. So I've got the words but at the moment they make no sense!
Am so tired, but I did sleep for 8 hours last night for the first time in ages.
I think it was the hugs that did it! (Tearful smile). x

I've got a chapter due in this week and I've got lots of really good ideas and material for it.
Trouble is there's loads still to write and I've just had one of the most stressful weeks ever with lots of family worries. I'm having sleepless nights, stomach and back pain and I'm just so sad.
I'm sad because I know that this chapter could be really good and I don't feel it's my fault that it won't be. I just want things to go my way for a tiny little bit of time. Have support from my family, be in good health, be rested just for once in the course of this whole f-ing phd.
Please, someone, a virtual hug?:-(

What is your subject area Mary?

Oh dear - sorry to hear about this.
This is in not any kind of informed legal advice, just my opinion...
If you had simply run into the back of someone b/c of an icy road, as I understand it, your insurance would have to pay for it. It's an unfortunate accident but there we go, someone has to take responsibility and generally that's the person who was behind.
So the issue here is whether the car you ran into was illegally parked. Badly parked isn't going to make any difference - illegally parked might.
Several years ago my mum, normally a very careful and law-abiding driver, stopped on double yellow lines (to pick me up :$). A guy came out of a side road and ran into the back of her. But, because she had been illegally parked she had to cover the damage.
Of course, the added complication in your case is that it was a policeman!
Bearing this in mind I think any kind of challenge could get you into more trouble (not that I'm suggesting the police are corrupt, just that it's likely he knows every road rule and reg down to the finest detail, so perhaps best not to argue).
I think what I'd do is tread carefully. If the car was illegally parked, suggest that you might each like to pay for the damage to your own cars, or offer to make a partial contribution to cover the cost of repairs for him. If you're in any doubt you might just have to put up with his demands.
And I think it would be best not to admit liability at any stage. (i.e. if you offer to pay for some of the damage make clear it's a "good will" gesture, not an admission that you did anything wrong).

Any lawyers out there who can tell me if I'm talking rubbish?!

(PS - just checking - it was the policeman's personal car right? Not a policecar?)

I would go back in time to visit some medieval people who would very kindly explain to me what the texts I am reading mean. Then I would footnote all of that in my thesis as "personal communication" and answer all my viva questions with "Yeah? I think you'll find that I actually asked him and he said I was right. Oh, and by the way, turns out King Arthur and Robin Hood were both real and as cool as the films make out - in fact, cooler."

Hi,
I needed to get hold of a US dissertation (I'm UK based) and after lots of googling found Pro-quest's service Dissertation Express. My uni doesn't subscribe so I had to pay myself for the dissertation I wanted. I went
for the pricier but (I hope) safer option of having it courier delivered (PDF not an option for this one at the time of ordering - although having checked back it is now one of the choices GRRR).
Has anyone used this service before? When can I expect it to arrive?
I'm a bit concerned as there seems to be no way of tracking your order. One place on the site says 4-5 days, another 7-10 (is this international or US - who knows?)
Anyway, if you have accessed a dissertation in this way perhaps you could let me know when to worry?!

Also, any hints/tips on accessing dissertations in general gratefully received.
Thanks :-)

Herman Miller chairs are awesome. I have sat in one and it was like sitting on a cloud.
However, they are out of my reach budget-wise. Although there is a seller on ebay who gets them from office clearances and cleans/refurbishes them. He sells them for £340 (which is the equivalent of about 60% off the price of a new one) and they come with a year's guarantee.
I did think about that option, but couldn't get the funds together.

Two things I should add to my earlier post:
(1) THANK YOU all for your responses and help! I can't believe I forgot to actually say that. It was great to share my anxiety!
(2) I still love my chair but I have made one further discovery. Even the best chair in the world won't make you the best phd student in the world. I'm comfy, but I still procrastinate! :p

In moments of tension, I often get the following floating through my head...
"The higher you build your barrier, the taller I become"

It rarely goes beyond that phrase but that whole song is fantastically full of hope, I think.
My other fave is what I used when revising for my GCSEs: Reach for the Stars by SClub7!

Okay - here I my conclusions from far too many hours of research/procrastination.
* The key things for a chair to have are: a full back, lumbar support, adjustable height, arm rests.
* Most decently priced office chairs (around the £80-£100 mark) do offer many, if not all, of those forms of support.
* What you get with an ergonomic chair is far greater ability to adjust the chair to suit you, and better lumbar support. But an ergonomic chair is going to cost you around £200+. But you do spend a LOT of time using it...
* No chair can cure bad posture and bad sitting practices - I am learning how to sit again!
* There are other "seating solutions" (balls, kneeling chairs, stools, saddles, giant bouncy springs - yes really) but they are generally quite pricey (balls being the notable exception) and they seem to suit some people and not others. In particular, they seems to better for people who are at their desk intermitently, or need to move around, say from a drawing board to a desk, within their workspace. Some people do use them more consistently though.

I have been sitting on my new chair for around 15 minutes and I love it!
In the end I went for an ergonomic chair but I got one that was ex-demo on ebay. It cost £175. You can adjust the seat height, seat depth, back support height, degree of tilt, tilt tension, lumbar support tension, and the arms go up and down, forwards and backwards, and turn in and out. So far I feel very well supported and it's making me feel like sitting up straight. (Though I also like the lounging backwards, looking up pensively at the ceiling and still feeling supported option too!)
However, it's also highlighting other problems like my laptop being at the wrong height.
Still, a step in the right direction I hope!

Hello all,
I have developed back problems from working on this flipping phd sitting on my cheap IKEA chair (I'm not getting at IKEA - very reasonable and well-made stuff generally, I think. But they don't do chairs suitable for 24 hour use!)
I need to buy an ergonomic chair and thanks to Christmas/Birthday/Family loans I have the cash to do it. But what to get? There are so many different choices.
Is anyone sitting on something really comfortable right now?! If, so please let me know!
Or likewise, any "seating solutions" (my research indicates that no one in the industry has used the word "chair" in the last decade or so) I should avoid?
Many thanks for the help. I am terrified of making the wrong decision and wasting this money. Eek!