Ruby I am so impressed by your hard work and determination!! you go girl! and wow thats great about TG

WELL DONE TRACTORGIRL!! whereever you are ! :)

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How's it going Miss spacey?

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i think the problem i am having is that i am feeling very overwelmed, its like a mountain and i dont know where to start, and feel how do i even begin to prepare for a viva. i feel i dont know anything and cant defend my work and i have forgotten everything.
i wish i had a photographic memory.

but i think i am going to make a plan. a plan of action. topics i need to read and revise. papers i need to read. read books on how to improve memory and public speaking -i am not articulate. i find it difficult to explain things to people. or i find it difficult to converse intellectually. maybe its because i dont have the knowledge in my head in the first place so need to work on that too.

and i will keep a viva prep diary. write in it everyday what i did. that way i can track what ive done. okay first thing going to make a mind map! will do it on my big white board :D

Question - How does one prepare for a viva?
Answer - by doing a PhD for 3-4 years, that is how!!

I just thought I would share this pearl of wisdom with you, Lara, since you seem a bit flustered by how much you think you need to do for your viva. I am sure you remember more than you realise, and defending your own work will be a doddle when you think that you spent so long doing and writing about it. It sounds like a cliche I know, but you really do know more than your examiners when it comes to your thesis... I am in the same boat as you, prepping for viva on the 8th Jan :-( and xmas has made it more than difficult!!! Good luck! x

Hi Lara, remember you can take anything into the viva, so if you are bothered about your memorising, then take notes or mindmaps in the back of your thesis. Since you're in the sciences, I'm sure it's not too sinful to refer to condensed notes in the viva when things get very technical.

I'm planning to stick post-it notes all over my copy!

Hello all8-)
Good to be back in front of a computer screen and checking this thread!
Rubyw - that's great feedback about your thesis being original and interesting. Congratulations! I've had similar comments about mine before, and although I'm pleased on one hand, on the other I get worried about the viva, that it might be too 'far out' for the examiners! Have you had any thoughts on this? Best of luck with this last month or so of corrections. You are so nearly there!
Lara - sounds like you've had a good, well-earned break. After all, if you start the viva prep too early it might end up getting forgotten again:p...I think you've left a sensible amount of time (not that I'd really know not having been through it yet!)
Ashamedly, I STILL haven't submitted my final draft. I decided that there was no point sending it to my supervisor just before Christmas, so better to work on the references (which are in a terrible state) and send the thing over in a better state for the new year. I still haven't finished the conclusion, so I'll try to do that today.
I had a lovely Christmas though, and am now engaged!:-x And I found out that I have received a fellowship for next year, not officially a post-doc, but basically the equivalent. Am so excited and pleased. Starts April, so I must try to have my viva before then at least...
Right, on with that conclusion...2 hours before lunch, hopefully get 1,000 words done. I'm planning to just write a short conclusion trying to get across but not elaborate on the main points, and expand/revise after I've got feedback.

======= Date Modified 29 Dec 2008 10:36:03 =======
Hello all on this thread!

Tokyorabbit ~ that's great news about you getting engaged over Xmas, congratulations! And on your fellowship too - that's a nice incentive to wrap up the PhD, not that having a normal life again isn't an incentive too of course, lol!

I know what you mean about an 'original and interesting' thesis possibly being a drawback in the viva, I've been thinking about that too. My 3 examiners are all from different disciplines to my supervisors and I (5 disciplines between us, though the same topic....), so I'm having the odd paranoid thought that maybe there's something intrinsically flawed with my whole project that we haven't thought of. Silly really, as I trust my supervisors and I just need to make my methodology chapter really robust. Must keep thinking about this 'good energy' (!!!) that's supposedly surrounding my thesis right now and get on with it!

Good luck with the conclusion. I did the same as you, but got good feedback from both supervisors - concise was ok it seems, better than woffling on to pad it out, it answered my original research questions and didn't make any grandiose claims.

Lara ~ sounds like you've had a good and well deserved break, I would do exactly the same if I'd just submitted, I'm sure! Missspacey and Ju-ju's comments seem really good advice, not that I've been in that situation yet. Do you reckon you're agonising over it too much at the moment, as you haven't got a set date yet? I wonder how much notice they'll give you - if it's at least a month then that sounds enough - is it enough time, people who have got through their vivas? Nice to see you back on here anyway! :-)

I guess I'd better get on with renumbering all my 100-odd images for my new chapter order, and so then I can get on with the re-writing bits of my corrections. God it's so tedious.... oh well, it's got to be done so I'll crack on with it. :-s As supervisor no.1 said, I must steel myself for the final push and it will all be worth it.... ooh, I do hope so....

Dear All,
Have have just being going through the posts..its great to see how everyone has progressed ...well done...

Rubyw- hope the corrections are going well ...well youre almost there

tokyorabbit- congratulations on the engagement ..

Lara - so good to know that you are almost done...its nearly time to celebrate!!! the idea of a viva prep diary is fantastic..

As for me i have been too ashamed to log on to this forum..its going terrible...i have had a quite few weeks and went into hibernation ...just realized how strenuous teaching can be ..how do you all cope along with working on the side?. how do you ever manage the discipline ? any advice is apprciated ..
i am still in the analysis phase and i think this can go on for ever but trying to set end of jan as a deadline  and have to start with the chapter by Feb...
well back to the analysis now...

cheers
meera

======= Date Modified 31 Dec 2008 11:00:14 =======
Hi Meera,

You shouldn't be too ashamed to log on to this forum, you know - it's probably the only place where everyone would understand if you're going through a not-very-productive phase. Though sometimes it feels like everyone on here is churning out the work and being ultra-disciplined, but it's just as likely they're going through peaks and troughs too, as it seems to be part of the PhD process for a lot of people, if one is honest with oneself. That's one reason I've gone off this thread a bit, as I don't particularly like writing what I haven't done each day as it makes me feel a bit pathetic, public shame obviously doesn't work for me lol! It's good to keep in touch about progress I think, however small it seems.

I know I've got really far with my work now, but I'm still finding it really hard to keep motivating myself every day, which occasionally freaks me out a bit as time is severely limited. I've got to the point where I'm not going to do anything if it's not essential, ie just go to work, do PhD stuff and various domestic things, otherwise unless it takes no longer than a few hours and can fit in ok as a so-called PhD break it's likely to make me feel anxious, I've realised. I was supposed to be going down to my brother's this week, but the amount of work I haven't done looked a bit pathetic when I checked my timetables I'd made before xmas, so I've cancelled that - I wouldn't be very good company anyway at the moment, and I'd booked a chunk of annual leave to get the bulk of my corrections done so I mustn't waste that time, everything will be harder when I'm back at work. Luckily, work is also more sociable than this PhD hibernation too, which is a bonus! I don't think I could do PhD stuff completely full-time and long-term, far too isolating and cut off from 'normal' life for me.

I know what you mean about teaching being strenuous though, it does take up so much time and energy. It filled up my mind as well as my actual timetable and became quite all-encompassing. I realised that my PhD work just slipped into the background when I had a heavy term's teaching. I decided not to expect to do any serious writing in those periods, as there just wasn't the continuity of time available and not to pretend I could meet big writing deadlines, because I couldn't! I just did smallish, achievable things, like write an abstract for a conference CFP, visit an archive for a few days, just little but necessary things that could be crossed off the list of work that had to be done. I agreed it with my supervisor. It takes more of an effort to get back into your PhD afterwards, but then there's no teaching interruptions, so it's ok when you get started.

Hope you get back into it soon anyway! I must now make another coffee and get on with it myself, I suppose... sigh....

Hello everyone!

I'm back from the longest and most relaxed holidays that I can remember having. The draw back is that I have done nothing Viva related, and back in the office I found tons of things that require my attention queueing up. To make things worst I was back a day late due to cancelled flights, and I'm somehow jet lagged. Nevertheless it is great to logon and read all your posts. You are all doing fantastic and make me want to get into the full swing of things straight away and catch up.

This week is going to be a hard one, since I have a couple of deadlines to deal with at work, but I'll make an effort to start organising papers and books, and specially putting some time aside from here until the day of the viva, so nothing gets in the way.

I'll keep you posted on the progress and I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Best of luck (up)

Hello everyone! i am officially back aswell, will respond to everyone later on today, but i just wanted to quickly log in and say hello and "clock in"

my aim today is to finish reading the book "how to survive your viva". i've been reading it on and off past couple of weeks, i'm on chapter 5 currently, which talks about questions that commonly come up in viva's. will share with you all once i am done tonight.

Thank you all so much for the lovely support and kind words you wrote, really means so much to me :-) i was feeling so guilty, and stressed and that i haven't prepared anything or been revising. all your messages made me feel better and calmer :-) you all give great advice!

catch you all later on in the evening.

it's so nice to have you guys there! :) :)

Hello Lara and Armendaf, good to see you back! :-)

Oh, you lucky rested people, trying to get over that holiday feeling!! Can't wait for that :-x

Will pop back for a proper post soon.