Can I join in?! =D

As Grumpy knows, I have to submit by 1 July and am struggling with getting my last chapter done and dusted. It's weird how this one seems harder than the others. I think it's cos there's lots of repeating, summarising etc. And I just want to be done already!

Sounds like we're all working over Easter. I'm hoping to have Sunday off too. Hope you guys have a great, productive weekend. I'm looking forward to hearing how we all get on.

Hey guys,

Hope you both had a lovely Easter break (if you were taking time off) - I took Fri-Sun off to spend time with mine and my partner's families and felt really guilty, but I feel much better for a break. Glowworm - great to have you on board! I'm very envious of you being so close to submission because I want this to be over now! And GrumpyMule, hope you manage to get your literature review finished before your meeting, I'll keep my fingers crossed it goes well.

I've still got quite a lot to do - I have two chapters to write from scratch, one of which I'm still doing experiments for, and half drafted literature review and methods chapters to finish. So goal for today is to finish a section of my literature review and then start notes/figures for my next results chapter. Hope you guys are having a productive day! :)

Tulip

Thanks, Tulip! =D

It is good being this close to submission, but it's equal parts exciting and terrifying! And the last chapter is still not done :( I'm hoping to get it sent off this week though and then I can get to working on a full draft - eek!

Good luck with your Lit review today. I'll be thinking of you all!
G

Hello everyone,

Bad news is I haven't finished my chapter yet. Had some family issues to attend to and took a couple of days off.

Good news is my supervisor is pleased with my progress and our meeting has given me a real boost. Just need to remind myself of that when I'm struggling.

I'm tutoring this afternoon so no more PhD work for me today. Will be catching up on Sunday I think.

Hope you've all had a productive week and have a lovely weekend.

GM

Hey guys,

How is everyone doing? GM that's great that your supervisor is happy, hopefully that'll keep you motivated when things get tricky. I hope all is okay on the family front. And glowworm that's great you're close to working on the full draft, I can't wait to be in that position!

I had a really awful meeting with my supervisor on Friday, where he decided to slag off my writing, saying it isn't good enough and is taking too long to get up to a submittable standard, even though previously he said things were going well. And to top it off, he now wants a new batch of experiments for the thesis and wants the results of these plus an entire draft of the thesis ready for the beginning of July!! So I'm still annoyed and completely overwhelmed - he's always been great at destroying my motivation. Anyway, sorry for the rant, I know we're supposed to motivate each other here, I'm just really irritated. I hope everyone else is having a good start to the week and is happy with their progress.

Tulip

PS sorry I spelt your name wrong glowworm - it would appear my head is still all over the place today!

Hi Everyone,

I used to post on this forum a lot at the beginning of my PhD but I haven't really been around for a while. I hope you don't mind me posting on this accountability thread. Long story short - I am coming up on 6 years working on the PhD. My funding ran out after year four so for the past two years I have been taking on some uni based work, essentially making me a part-time student although officially I am full-time. One month ago the uni work also dried up so I really need to get this PhD done and finally get myself a 'proper' job. I have a official deadline of September 2015 but I can't afford to go past July 2015 so it's full steam ahead for the next few months!

At the moment, I am running what should be some of the last lab tests I need to do and writing my lit review (my methodology and results chapters are much further along than the lit review). I also have made a conscious decision to work in my uni office everyday rather than at home (I've had to be at home a lot to look after a sick relative) so I'm hoping that should push the work along more quickly - fingers crossed!

Good luck to everyone working today :-)
EV

No problem at all, Tulip! I used to have a supervisor who completely destroyed my confidence at every turn, but I eventually changed supervisors and now things are soooo much better! It wasn't my choice to change actually, but with hindsight, probably the best thing that could have happened. I hope you can stay motivated and keep going. It sounds tough what you're going through atm.

How are you feeling now, a few days on? I hope things are better. I always need a little bit of time to get my objectivity back after an experience like that. Feel free to rant if you still need to! =D

Hi EV. No problem at all! Great to hear from you. It sounds like you've had a pretty tough, long journey to get here. I've got to submit by 1 July 2015 too, so am trying to push on with my full draft now.

I hope the motivation is with you and things are going well
:
)

EDIT: I have no idea why this is in bold!?!

Good to see so many people about on this thread.

Hope you're all had a good week.

I took a few days off to help a sick relative last week but back in the swing of things now. I'm trying to get a full draft together for August and then aiming to submit before Christmas. Scary part is having had zero feedback on any of the 3 chapters I've already drafted. My supervisor seems confident in me but I'm worried he's going to read them all together and give me tons and tons of suggested changes! We'll see.

I've also cut my daily writing goals down from 1500 words to 500 words. I'm the type of person that needs a daily goal and 'to do' list but I was setting it too high, reaching 1500 on some days and feeling good but much less on other days where I had to do lots of reading to go back to. Hoping this change will help my daily motivation, starting tomorrow :)

Hope you're all having a good weekend and the writing is going ok.

GM.

PS. Following on from my little rant on here yesterday, I found some users writing diaries on here from a few years ago. This prompted me to start my own here...