======= Date Modified 19 Jan 2009 23:31:28 =======
i'm calling it a day, who am i kidding, coming back to studying/reading after dinner lol. i never did! and too tired so gonna go to bed in abit.
---
Sarah, best of luck for your viva on thursday, wow i cannot imagine how you must be feeling. but i read in the murray book that examiners are far more likely to pass you then fail you, and something to make you feel better, that adminstravively its MORE hassle to fail a phd student! so there you go

i have every faith you will do fine in the 2nd viva, and like you said your thesis is much stronger, they will not fail you after you did all the corrections they told you to do. but yes, that pesky little pixie, try to flick it off your shoulder if it starts whispering in your ear. good luck!! i will be thinking of you and sending positive vibes through the ether for your viva
fingers crossed (up)

ps good to hear im not the only one that feels like that! :-)

Hi, all on here.

A late start for me today unfortunately, I slept really badly and it's taken a morning of housework etc to wake me up enough to think in a reasonably academic way. Maybe the zen-like seeping of my reading into my brain went a bit wonky last night, as I woke up at 2.30am thinking about exactly what I had to write in this chapter. Right thoughts, dreadful timing! Didn't know whether to get up and write down my ideas for references etc or go back to sleep, but I suppose I must have fallen asleep again as there aren't any genius additions to this section that I can see right now. Hopefully I'll remember them today.

Sarah, thanks, and good luck with your viva on Thursday, I will be thinking of you too. You'll be so much more prepared than the first time and will really know what you've written and why, so I think you'll be fine too. (up) How brilliant it will be to finally see the back of it!!

Lara, that bit in your book sounds worrying, that they're offering suggestions for how to to not contradict your examiners... ok to contradict them if you know what you're saying and are confident though, surely?

I'd better get on with this writing now: abstract, intro and 2 chapters, all freshly amended and sent off by the time new CSI starts at 9pm is my aim for today. Good luck with your work too!

======= Date Modified 20 Jan 2009 13:07:56 =======

Hey Ruby! me clocking in for today aswell :-) and yah a late start for me too!

oh im sorry i dont think i explained it very well, about not contradicting the examiner, what i meant to say, is that IF the examiner thinks YOU have misunderstood something, then its fine for you to correct them.
let me give you the example:

quote from Murray : { "case study"
"they asked me a question on Jane Austen and I cant remember how i answered it but i thought it was okay. suddenly inexplicably, the examiner said "well if you cant see the irony in jane austen, then you've missed the whole point"
'i had no idea where she got that from - of course i saw the irony. everyone sees the irony. but i was too shocked, and to be honest mystified to correct her. instead we went on to the next question, leaving everyone at my oral assuming that i did not undersatnd one of the most basic aspects of that subject.
i still do not believe that i said what she said i did, but i should have corrected her immediately, i now feel that i was positiioned into giving a wrong answer. i want everyone to know this story, so they dont let it happen to them. if an examiner does this kind of thing, then the student has to rectify it. i passsed my second oral, but i'll never forget the first one.

"correcting yourself -
if the examiner -has informed an impression of one of your answers that you think reflects badly on you, or is plain wrong, then you must surely find a way to correct that, even at the risk of contradicting the examiner. you can do this by appearing to correct YOURSELF rather than appearing to contradict the examiner." } end quote

oooh new csi ? las vegas? channel 5? i'll be tuning into that! is that season 8 then ? love csi :-)

good luck with your writing!

i'm going to read chapter 7 which is on "interactions" - 9 PAGES, then take a break for lunch. as i'm already hungry :p

Hi Lara,

That makes more sense, yeah, thank you!!

Yep, new season CSI Las Vegas on 5, just started!! They caught Warrick's killer last week (or was it the week before??), it was that slimy corrupt cop that shot him. A very sad episode, I like that cast. Anyway, my coffee's done so will get started now (I really will this time), see you later. (up)

======= Date Modified 21 Jan 2009 01:23:05 =======
Hey Ruby and everyone else!

i've been abit naughty, slacked off abit today, watched the inauguration :) his speech was very inspiring. a change for the better i think.
anyways i dont know about politics, but i am feeling positive about the new president :-)

finished reading chapter 7 and 8 today of murray's book,

about to start on chapter 9 , i'm determined to finish the book tonight, so i can start fresh tommorow and get cracking on studying my actual thesis.

i've been inspired about how its the presidents first day in the oval office tommorow. so i want to finish the book tonite, so i CAN start studying my thesis tommorow lol. i know im a lameo.

i always think a week starts on monday. but i guess everyday matters. in the past -half way through the week, i would be like, oh i will just slack off the rest of the week, its nearly over and start working on monday all fresh and this week is practically gone and wasted, but then monday the pattern starts again- but going to have a new outlook and not think of in terms of beginning of weeks, but see everyday as an opportunity to study.

aims tonite:
read chapter 9 and chapter 10. and finish the murrah book once and for all!! {battle face}
----

how was everyone elses day today? Ruby how is it going? good csi episode. i read the synopsis on radiotimes about sara, and it was like, yeh yeh get out of here already. lol i thought the review was abit harsh lol

review - radiotimes - quote { "The perpetually wet and annoying Sara Sidle is still hanging around so she can suffer emotional torment after over-empathising with a victim. Tonight, in the midst of needless angst over an old case, she whimpers, "This is why I can't do this any more." Yes, we know. But you don't do it any more, do you Sara? You're no longer a CSI and you've already left once, so why don't you just push off and leave the rest of the sadly depleted CSI team to get on with their jobs. And that includes your boyfriend, Gil." } end quote

======= Date Modified 21 Jan 2009 02:17:52 =======
i am clocking out for the day!

i finally finished murray's book. boy i'm a slowcoach lol. but i'm glad i've finished it. there is alot of stuff in it, to take on board and absorb, heavily highlighted in pink with loads of post it notes for the important bits.

tommorow is a brand new day and day 1 of me actually studying my thesis for my viva. yikes! i'm dreading having to read and study my thesis lol. it's going to feel so alien and i know i'm going to be like, who wrote this??? i certainly didnt! i dont remember any of it :p

goodnight everyone see you tommorow :-)

going to watch abit of telly till i feel sleepy and then head to bed.

Hi Lara

Yes that CSI review was a bit harsh! She's really not popular for some reason, especially over at a TV CSI forum I looked at last year when she was leaving. She seems fairly harmless to me....

I've got a cold now and didn't finish my chapters last night either - must have been the cold virus gripping me and my brain, before my nose started streaming. Ugh. Must ring sup and be at work for a while, so see you soon - good luck with your reading and thinking today! (up)

======= Date Modified 21 Jan 2009 16:16:06 =======
Hey Ruby, oh dear sorry to hear you are feeling unwell. i hope you feel better soon, try to rest up and take it easy today if you can. that way you can get better sooner! hope your day is going well.

hey armendaf - how's the viva prep going?

i'm clocking in for the day, a very late start for me whoopsy!

my plan of action, is to study and concentrate on subject 1 (out of the 4 my thesis covers). so will study the introduction, methods, results and discussion that are relevant for subject 1.

i plan to understand all the ins and outs, break it down into sections, and see it at different angles, and try to prepare qs and answers for it too. do extra reading for it, and make notes that i actually understand and can articulate and explain to another person. basically pretend that i have to actually teach this subject to undergrads.
i tend to make copious notes that i dont even fully understand, so there's no point of doing that. i'm going to make notes that i actually understand and can then explain from memory. not learn anything by rote, but actually understanding the principles. this of course takes time. but its an investment worth taking i believe. because until you truly know a subject, you cant talk about it convincigly enough.


so my first aim is to understand subject 1 fully. make sort of a gigantic mindmap for it. connecting the chapter with my 1st paper and to the papers that have cited my paper, to the history on which the theory rests on, to any new information that has been published since i wrote the chapter.

Rowena Murray's advice is:

quote {
"you really have to understand everything you've written in your thesis..

" re-reading your thesis: although....simply reading the thesis is not in itself enough. it is an essential first step in the process of re-engagement with the text. it does not just mean re-reading the thesis as if it were a book, from start to finish. instead it means reading it as a text that is soon to be examined.

"for each chapter:
*read the chapter from start to finish
* write one sentence about each chapter. this will act as a prompt for your thinking and recall
* put single-word prompts in the margin. this will help you to find your way if you lose your place
* convert the chapter into a series of qs and answers

{end quote}
===

Sarah good luck for your viva tommorow!!! as Murray says - take it easy today, relax,and treat yourself.

======= Date Modified 22 Jan 2009 01:35:28 =======
okay me offskie ..only did 2 hours today! very bad of me

but i did a brainstorm on my whiteboard. basically without reading anything from my thesis, tried to write keywords and anything i could remember about one of my subjects from my thesis. which was quite good, as i thought i knew zero, but some things were coming back to me.

tommorow going to start reading the chapter and studying my thesis.

me going to bed nite nite

Hi everyone. am clocking in for the day. i'm pretending as if i am preparing a lecture to teach subject 1 of my thesis.

so today my aims are:

1. sort through the papers that are relevant

2. prepare notes in order to introduce the subject, give the history, the principles, key players etc. (using my thesis as a starting point).

======= Date Modified 22 Jan 2009 19:26:47 =======
hellooo - i hope you all had a productive day. i'm clocking out to have dinner and taking a break.

aim 1 - accomplished - i sorted through all the piles of papers and i put them into different categories, which hopefully will make it easier to locate a particular reference as i come across it whilst reading my thesis (i hope!)

i finally cracked open my thesis and read the first paragraph! lol it wasn't as scary as i imagined it would be. it took me a long time to actually read the paragraph - but i took the first step!
i'm taking it one paragraph at a time.

i read through the first paragraph a couple of times, and then converted the first sentence into a question, and then formulated an answer to it, adding some extra information to it and practiced answering it on the whiteboard. pretending as if i was teaching students, i imagine a group of invisible students eager to understand what i'm going on about lol.

i feel happy that i have actually taken that first step and have read the first paragraph to my thesis. i was really scared and kept avoiding my thesis. but i'm splitting up the task of reading and understanding my thesis paragraph by paragraph, into small and taking it literally one sentence a time. as they say, when you make a task very small, its more achievable.

going to have dinner now, and then relax and watch a dvd movie, as a reward :-)
lol i know i've only read one paragraph, but it's a milestone for me haha considering how many weeks i have wasted procrastinating and not being able to muster the courage to start reading my thesis.

i hope to return later on tonight to finish the rest of the sentences of paragraph 1.

how are you doing Ruby? Armendaf?

Sarah how was your viva? no doubt the last thing you're going to be doing is coming back here, i hope you take time to rest , but do come back and let us know how it went and any advice you can offer us. i hope you are okay.

======= Date Modified 22 Jan 2009 21:59:21 =======
Hello there :-)

It sounds really funny the way you've written it Lara, but I'm very glad you managed to crack open your thesis! I can't imagine what it must be like to *have* to read it through in immense detail for weeks and weeks, but it doesn't sound very enticing after the stress of submitting. Paragraph 2 next then eh, now the fear has been diminished?! I am enjoying reading your posts again, I know I've said it before but you're great at talking to yourself on here! :-)

I had a good talk with my supervisor today, which allayed my fears a bit about the methodology problems I was having. It's weird but I'd been agonising over it for ages, but something just clicked after I'd read some articles the other day and it all made more sense. I've gone round in a circle with it and made it loads more complicated than I needed to, but maybe that was necessary - it had to get complicated so it could be simplified. I'll try to write it all up tomorrow and see if it still makes sense.

I found out that I'd been selected for the research degree bit of the college annual 'recruit new students' showcase exhibition!! :-) They're using that old thing I did for the one last autumn, but nice to be picked again - it's good to be included with all the BA and MA practice based work too. It's really nice when people tell you they like your work completely out of the blue, especially when it's people that you don't normally deal with. A couple of course directors, nothing to do with my subject apart from being 3D design, said they like my project and I didn't think I was even a blip on their radar, so it was a very nice surprise! I don't know whether it's a PhD thing, but I get so used to working on my own in this writing-up bubble that I never really get any feedback from other people, apart from the sups. It's different when you're at an earlier stage and do conferences because then you're part of a bigger thing and speak to other people about your work, but comments like that sort of remind me that people see what I'm doing and talk about it and I'm not just some invisible hermit in a parallel world. I think it's nicer to get comments like that when you're not one for blowing your own trumpet, as I've never been any good at that. hehe, it's really perked me up in this bleak deadline hellhole I'm in!!!!!:-)

How did your viva go Sarah?

WOW Ruby that's FANTASTIC! great news about the exhibition, that is really nice and a great boost to your confidence! sounds like the work you do is at a high standard, congratulations! i'm happy that you had that positive feedback, it's good motivation :-)


haha thanks for liking my posts, lol :-) i always imagine that at least one person (i.e you) will read them in the future. haha thanks!

yes i'm glad i took the first step. i hadn't finished paragraph 1, and so before i head to bed, just want to read through it once more and add a few more "explanatory" notes and then i can tick it off ! this particular section has 7 paragraphs, so i've made a list, and a checker box next to each paragraph number. nothing like ticking things off to motivate oneself. haha

i'm glad you had a good talk with your supervisor and sorted out things with your methodology, i think once your brain is rested, you can find inspiration at the oddest moments. apparently einstein got his great ideas whilst sitting on a hill on a sunny day watching the clouds go by.

it sounds like you are on a roll! good luck with the writing tommorow. i think tommorow will be a great day, you will be rested and refreshed. see you tommorow! :-)

okay me clocking out for the day. finished with paragraph 1!
basically to make it interesting for me, i converted the paragraph into questions. so i would read a sentence and then formulate a question to it, and then answer it. that way when i revise , i can look at the question and then try to recall and explain the answer. it's actually more fun like this aswell. its like jeopardy but in reverse.

tommorow's aims, paragraphs 2-7 !

i'm aiming to wake up and out of bed by 9am, i've been oversleeping far too much. going to bribe myself that for every paragraph i cover, i can take a small little break like 15 minutes or something.

goodnight folks.

======= Date Modified 23 Jan 2009 09:15:23 =======
Hello there, I'm clocking in for some official accountability today.

New deadline for the 4 things my sup needs to give me feedback on: Monday morning. So can I finish as much as possible of those things today, so they're ready to email off??? Well, to misquote Louis Walsh on the Xfactor a while ago, who misquoted Barack Obama - yes I can. Haha, well I hope I can, that mantra didn't do Mr Walsh's boyband much good in the end, though Mr President is another story!

So aim for today: just get on with it and stop faffing around. I think I'll have to get some more books out as I need some more pics in which is annoying as it's a diversion from the writing. Maybe that will be a nice walk if it stops raining later. Though I am a bit tired, as I was excited about all that stuff at work yesterday so couldn't get to sleep, but maybe happy tiredness won't stop me doing something useful - it better not, it's not like there's much time left anymore! Ok. One more coffee then I'll get back into PhD mode. :-s