Hi Ruby! thanks for your message. aww thanks for worrying about me, and you're right the feedback could have been alot worse and involve alot more work. but due to the time constraint, he was being pragmatic about the corrections.

sorry to hear you are still feeling coldy, i know how you feel. me feeling coldy still too. i think you should take it easy and not to tax yourself too much today.

good luck with chapter 5. and glad to have you around for company! i also want to get chapter 6 done by tommorow aswell. so lets get it done together :-s

my aims for today are:
chapter 6:
rewrite/restructure:
1. introduction
2. methods
3. results
4. discussion.

my first aim: introduction. and then take a break for lunch.

======= Date Modified 18 Oct 2008 13:07:48 =======
Hi girls,

I'm also in for a weekend of work, work and more work. I have to finish this chapter 6 and if I do, I'll definitely be on the other side. It's going to be a tough one though because I do not yet have the structure for it. Any way, as usual I can only try and do my best.

Ruby, I'm with you with the time consuming task of formatting and organising images for inclusion in your thesis, and future work as well. And since you mention the story board, why don't you make a quick note of all the steps you have to follow for each image to come out the way you need it and just keep it there next to you and follow the process, mechanically for a while. Obviously you do not need it, since you know in your mind exactly what you are doing, but if for some reason you divert your attention from the boring, and repetitive task of formatting the images, say because of a break, or you just wondered away in some other window of your computer, you can always come back to your notes and quickly say.... "a yes, I was in step two of image 3..." and so on. That way you can pick it up again with out much delay. I know you could spend the whole weekend doing something like this, ant it is boring, but it wouldn't be difficult since you have mechanised it. Then when that is done, you can actually forget about that and just use your new image library, to keep on working on the thesis. I'd say you want to get it out of the way as soon as possible since you do not want to deal with this kind of things when you are stressed trying to get the content in the chapters before submission. Just a thought :-)

Lara, I'm very happy that the feedback turned out well, so you just need to do a final editing of your document and you'll be good to go (up). The way you went about recording and transcribing your sup's comments, by the way, is exactly what I did to collect my data. I went around doing interviews, recording them and then transcribing so I can analyse them. And that exactly is what I'm up to right now with this chapter six. It is the analysis chapter so I need to bring back all the conversations I had with my informants and make sense of them.

Any way, best of luck :-s

Hi Ruby! thanks for your message. aww thanks for worrying about me, and you're right the feedback could have been alot worse and involve alot more work. but due to the time constraint, he was being pragmatic about the corrections.

sorry to hear you are still feeling coldy, i know how you feel. me feeling coldy still too. i think you should take it easy and not to tax yourself too much today.

good luck with chapter 5. and glad to have you around for company! i also want to get chapter 6 done by tommorow aswell. so lets get it done together

my aims for today are:
chapter 6:
rewrite/restructure:
1. introduction
2. methods
3. results
4. discussion.

my first aim: introduction. and then take a break for lunch.

erm why has liumeiy's message been a repeat of my message, very strange!! did a double take there for a second!
----

i am calling it a night now. i'm clocking out!

my progress for today. i worked from 1pm-3pm, and then had lunch and wasnt feeling well so took a massive nap, then worked from 7.30pm till now around 3.30am.

i have finished the introduction and method section of chapter 6. all rewritten and restructured.

but i am too tired now to continue working and going to head for bed.

--
Armendaf, thanks for the message, hope your day was productive and see you tommorow! we just got 2 weeks left of this torture to go!!

Hello!

Lara, that mixed up message is very weird!
You got a lot finished yesterday, well done, all on schedule then for the end of Sunday!

Armendaf, hope your day was productive. Thanks for the ideas about helping with the images, I will bear them in mind. I decided not to touch them yesterday as the restructuring and rewriting was my main worry and seemed to be going ok. I thought it was more important at the moment to get the writing done, as pics can be done when I'm half asleep, but I wasted quite a bit of time this week on feeling ill so am behind with my writing. I have to email text only versions of 4 chapters to my supervisor by the 31st Oct, but the entire hardcopy of the thesis is due in Nov, so theoretically I've got a bit more time for the images.

I ended up restructuring this chapter and starting on the corrections yesterday, seems ok so far, having just read it through ... It will be nice to get it done, but when I stop and think about it, this seems such a deadly boring way to live at the moment....the whole thesis just hangs over my head all the time.... *groan*... Must just keep thinking about finishing bits, one after another, and when it's all done it will be such a relief. I want to get this chapter done by tonight, so I'd better get stuck in, I suppose. :-s

See you later.

thanks Ruby, for the message.

but I have to say right now, I completely agree with your statement about "this seems such a deadly boring way to live at the moment....the whole thesis just hangs over my head all the time.... *groan*"

I feel exactly the same way!! i am so deflated and have no confidence in writing a phd thesis. i have just been reading my 2nd sups comments on chapter 4, and she has put so many comments and questions and corrections that i think it would take a week just correcting chapter 4. i'm grateful she went to all that trouble, but it just proves how inadequate i am as a phd student. and she said that i keep repeating the same 3 ideas over and over again in my discussion - but starting from scratch each time and i am not building on it to make a story. she's probably 100% correct. but i just feel right now, i so cant be bothered. and think i just dont have the insight to build on the story my mind is completely drawn to a blank, my mind is just stressed with meeting the deadline, but even without the deadline, i just dont have any insight or new ideas on what the data means to be perfectly honest.

and i really am doubting whether i will be able to get the corrections done in time. i am going to speak to my sup tommorow and see if theres anyway he can apply for an extension on my behalf. considering how many corrections i have to do. right now i just want someone to put me out of my misery and just fail and be done with it! to be honest.

i am so dreading my meeting tommorow. i have definately realised i just dont have the analytical mind and intellect to do a phd. and im not being negative or moany or whatever, this is a true realistic account of my own mind and ability. and im fine with that.

anyways im feeling very fed up right now, but will continue reading the rest of the comments for the chapters and maybe get an early night for the meeting tommorow. part of me, thinks i shouldnt even bother submitting my thesis. its just rubbish. i need to find a career/job thats more suited to me.

Hi all,

I have not posted here in a while, I am now waiting for the viva which have been scheduled in nov. Wish me luck.

Lara, I understand how you feel, but you should not give up. Even if you feel the thesis is not in a great shape, just submit and wait for the examiners to evaluate it. They might find strong points that you and your supervisors have overlooked. Good luck (up)

I couldn't sleep so I thought I'd get up and do some work, I may produce total and utter crap at this time of night, but it's better than laying in bed worrying about it. I am the only registered user online! :-) Oh dear, that seems a bit sad doesn't it, but there you go. It's a PhD thing, so fairly understandable.

Lara, I'm sorry you've had a bad day, not surprising in the circumstances though. It is a good idea to speak to your supervisor about it. You get so sick of the whole thing sometimes, it is really hard to care what happens with it and turning your back on it all seems very enticing occasionally. I sort of understand what you mean about being put out if your misery. Hopefully your supervisor will find a way through this without wasting all the work you've done so far, it would be a shame to stop now at this stage, vile though it all seems at the moment.

Hope you feel better tomorrow. I'd better do some work as I've allegedly got up to do that, probably guilt-induced after yesterday's abysmally slow afternoon...:$

Good luck with your viva K (up)

Thanks so much K and Ruby, you two are absolutely right.
K good luck with your viva!! and Ruby well done on working so late. impressive.

Thanks you both for the words of encouragement and support. you're both absolutely right, there is no point in NOT submitting, i should just take a chance no matter how small it is.
---
I had my meeting with my sups this morning. and all the comments were as i expected. they told me at the end of the meeting, that its an okay 1st draft, and that ideally would be better if i had 3 months to make corrections. they said that there is no real discussion of new ideas or what my results mean. and he said i repeat myself ALOT and its very frustrating to read, but told me at this late stage, considering how little time i have, he was being very pragmatic with the corrections, and told me to start of with to deleting all the repeating paragraphs at least.

======= Date Modified 20 Oct 2008 20:28:28 =======
there are LOADS of corrections to do. he even suggested making a new figure, but with the time pressing, not entirely sure if i have time to make it, but i will try. qmul will NOT give me an extension, and i told him, i basically have no choice. i might as well just submit *something* so i dont get terminated and just try at least. he said during the viva the examiners are going to be REALLY brutal considering the thesis is very weak - so he said he will be super brutal on me during viva preps. and told me to think of ideas of what my data means and to really read around the subject, he asked me a question and i didnt know the answer to it. thus proving his point of the lack of knowledge i have, which i already knew to be perfectly honest.

he said my thesis is written rather scatty, which is reflection on how i talk and think, i start discussing one thing, but then talk about something else, and then gets all muddled up and i havent really made a point or anything. i did have an honest conversation with him, and said, could i have done things differently? and he said, not really. and he did admit that i didnt have the best of circumstances when it came to my phd. with a crappy first project, with my first sup, which i then started on another project, that was bad aswell, which left me dispirited for so many years, and i only really started properly in 2004. he said my experimental work is very good. and i produced good data, which alot of people dont even manage to get good experimenal data, and that my data and the model that came out of it , is what my 2nd sup is using to write grants to take the idea further. so that was the one nice positive thing he said.

i then admitted honestly, that what i lack is the thinking part, the analytical part. he said i need to think like a scientist, be able to have great discussions and debates and really know my subject and related subjects. i confessed that maybe i am just not cut out for this line of work, i dont have the personality or the intellect for it. he was being understanding about it.

it was actually quite funny when he read back some of the stuff i wrote and said, especially the very long sentences , i did laugh, and how i kept repeating myself. i was relaxed and took in all the critisism, and wasnt offended at all, what they said was 100% spot on. i agree with them. if i was an examiner, i would fail me too. i would probably say to myself that i am a good research assistant or lab technician, but not an "intellectual" as such.

ideally he said that all my discussions should be placed in chapter 7 and discussed together, but at this very late stage in the game, there is no time for major rewriting and restructuring of my thesis. so will just leave it as it is and delete the repeating paragraphs he has crossed out at least.

he told me that chapter 5 main story is too much focussed on something thats probably not entirely true, but at this very late stage, i dont have time to rewrite an entire chapter and change the story. so if the examiners also dont agree, i will just prepare for that and study up on it and prepare for the viva for that discussion. and discuss in the viva the alternative aspect.

i havent started yet, i keep just sitting here with a blank and fuzzy head. i'm finding it difficult to get started. plaugued with worry on how bad the thesis is. i am going to try and force myself to get started on chapter 6 and maybe that will give me the kick i need.

Hi Lara,

Thanks for posting an update, I was thinking about you earlier and wondering how it was going. At least you know where you are now, and it's good he said nice things about your actual data and experiments. Impressive if your 2nd supervisor is using some of it to apply for future funding too - shows your ideas and data aren't crap, doesn't it! Do you reckon some of the problem is with actually structuring and writing the analysis, combined with not enough time to think about what you're writing and letting it simmer in your mind? Because it doesn't sound like you're a bad scientist, from those comments. Hope you can manage to carry on for a bit longer to submit anyway. Probably so very tedious now, but if you can force yourself, at least you won't have given up at the last hurdle so to speak. Sometimes when I've been really sick of it, I have the occasional vague fantasy about what it would be like to just leave it, but then I get annoyed at all the time I've spent on it and think no way will I waste all that effort - if you drop it at this stage, you might as well have had a life for the last x number of years, had a proper social life and been earning money somewhere. Gets me back into it usually... but I hate not seeing things through anyway.

btw absolutely not impressive for me working last night, more like panic! I did that thing over the weekend of telling people, 'oh sorry, can't meet you, I'm working all weekend', or 'oh can I ring you back I'm working' and it all sounded very worthy, but in the end I spent ages doing other stuff like thinking about winter clothes. Working strange hours doesn't suit me as I feel like a zombie the next day, so am back at it now, to prevent another nocturnal session. Though actually it is so peaceful working in the middle of the night, I'd be tempted to do that a bit more often if I didn't have to go to work!

Good luck with your corrections though!

(up)

Lara, keep up the good work. I know how you feel with the writing. I am originally a mathematician but moved into economics - BIG mistake. I can write equations but not words and every paragraph seems like agony. I keep getting picked up on my 'odd' way of writing but I'm carrying on anyway. I'm submitting this week and I can't wait until the pain is over ;-)

======= Date Modified 21 Oct 2008 04:30:19 =======
======= Date Modified 21 Oct 2008 04:28:01 =======
Hi Ruby, thanks so much for your message and you're support you're 100% right! i just gotta get over this last hurdle and tidy it up and just submit the damn thing! lol

Hi Sarah. glad to hear i am not the only one that finds writing really hard! wow good luck with your submission this week. that is great. thanks for your message, and i hear ya! i cant wait for this pain to be over too!!! but then got the viva to worry about which is probably 100x worse than writing a thesis! eeeek
---
well i am clocking out for the night. i glued myself to the chair from 8.30pm till now. about 7 hours - i have finally finished the results section of chapter 6. hurrah. i will finish the discussion section tommorow, hopefully will only take a couple of hours - when my mind is all fresh. just gotta do the corrections my sup told me to do, so shouldnt take too long in all honesty. i am going to have a snack and head for bed and start afresh tommorow. i was thinking about whether pushing myself and finishing it, - but i am just too tired right now, best to start afresh tommorow, otherwise tommorow's productivity will be affected.

Thats weird my message dissapeared.

anyways i'm clocking out for dinner and taking a break for abit. i have finished the discussion section of chapter 6, so chapter 6 is done, hurrah!! i just need to final proof read it and fix formatting and then will email my 3rd sup as he offered to give it another once over.
my sup told me off for having half blank pages. i explained the reason was because i wanted figures to follow the text. but he said that looks really untidy and unprofessional. so there you go. apparently cant have blank areas.

after dinner. i will listen to the meeting i had with my sups yesterday, and write down the key things, and get cracking on chapter 4 corrections. looks like its going to be a lonnggggggggggggggggggg night!

sorry for the boring message.

how is everyone else doing?

Hi Lara, sounds like you're whizzing ahead today, good stuff! (up)

I'll probably sound a bit moany but I've had a tediously slow day again, same old chapter 5 :-s it's driving me mad, some things I know I have to explain better and I'm spending ages on as my second supervisor said they were interesting and I should expand, other bits need loads of supporting evidence from really old fieldnotes that it's taking ages to look up. It's taking so long to restructure it properly, nothing seems to work as well as I'd like it to... :-s Also I realised with horror that a bit chunk of text had disappeared, so I guess I'd got a bit sloppy with moving sections around the other day. It frightened me into realising it's not good to do certain things if you're not feeling well (unless you're desperate!) I got it back from an old backup and spent the rest of the day doing the images - much safer! I'm going to carry on with that stuff till nine, then watch British Style Genius! It's a good series :-x

I've got a long day at work tomorrow, so I'll wish you luck with your night shift and logoff now, to do a bit more myself!! :-) (up)