The One Goal Thread
Ooh, thanks for the heads up about the temperature, Lindalou. My flat gets horribly hot, it's got very large windows all along one side and the sun shines right in from midday onwards, so I've got all my curtains closed and windows open to try to keep the place cool. But hopefully I'll be meeting some friends for drinks in the sun late this afternoon, something to look forward to - like you I've been stuck indoors all week!
I'm feeling sluggish today, I had nasty nightmares last night that really disturbed me, in both senses, and I woke up later than I intended. I quite often get nightmares; there's not always an obvious trigger, but stress is one trigger so maybe it's a warning sign not to let myself worry too much about things.
Anyway, today I intend to carry on with my data analysis. I have one set of tests I'd like to get through, those will probably take all day but if there's any time left over I have another set to start.
Good luck with all your work!
======= Date Modified 25 May 2012 13:02:08 =======
Nope, nightmares are just as bad now for me as they were when I was a teenager (not as bad as an actual small child, though, obviously!). MrBatfink has been trying to train me to dream that he's there to protect me during the nightmares, but it didn't work last night - I was dreaming about being damned to Hell for all eternity (a hangover from a very religious upbringing, scary to dream despite now being an atheist!) and when MrBatfink turned up in my dream he'd brought a sword, which was no use at all in the circumstances! What a strange thing the dreamworld is!
Anyway, I'm failing to get much work done. I offered a load of bookcases on freecycle this morning and now I've got to finish packing my books up so the bookcases can be taken away tomorrow, so that's overtaken as a priority. I'd have to do it sometime in the next few days anyway so it doesn't really matter I suppose! Maybe I'll give up on the work for today and start again early tomorrow.
Hope you all enjoy the sun and don't get too sunburnt!
Ok. I'm new here, that's my second post and the first one in this thread. But I've been following threads in this forum for some time now and this morning I feel like I need some extra motivation boost. I'm at the end of the second year of my phd, studying part-time while living in a different state and working full-time as research associate. In September I'll have the intermediate exam to get the full registration as phd student. That means, I have to deliver 3 chapters of thesis at least, a time plan, a few publications/conferences done and then defend the work done so far in a viva.
I have one chapter almost ready (a few corrections needed, material used in a conf plus published proceedings), plus one more chapter which will be published in a book, that means the core material is there, but I have to give it a new 'cut' so to fit the thesis structure.
I'm now fighting with what will be the first chapter of the thesis, lit review. And that gives me huge headaches.
I've read a lot in the past two years but still too little I think, the more I look around the more I find stuff I should insert. I feel my situation is complicated from the fact that I don't belong to one specific discipline, but I have to review a topic (music performance evaluation) unifying empirical research (psychology mainly), philosophy, musicology, sociology. So I find it hard to understand when to stop searching, what to insert and what not, and how to structure the whole chapter to get a convincing and flowing narrative.
Well, that's it. I'm late, I should have sent the material to my sup this weekend and I won't, in the last days I completely lost focus and concentration.
Therefore I'm writing here now, hoping that this will give me a little push to focus for the next few hours and be able to actually move forward.
I feel stuck, that's so frustrating..
My one goal for the next couple of hours:
- start to sketch the final part of the chapter (summary and aim of the study) and based on that go back to the beginning and start re-writing the first section (which needs to be changed I feel).
Well, these are actually two. So first sketching the final part.
Time to get focused.
p.s. Is there anyone who shares the feeling that the lit rev chapter is most annoying one to write??
Welcome, Wanderingbit! I hope you find posting on the thread useful - I find it helps me think through what I need to do for the day and then try to achieve what I set out to do, instead of ending up doing something else instead! Well, mostly anyway!
I understand what you mean about having so many different areas to cover - my PhD topic involves about four different academic disciplines, and I do wonder sometimes if I'm failing to properly cover any of them! But that's often the nature of applied research.
Today, I've been pressing on with data analysis. I'm behind schedule and have to send some written-up results to my supervisors by Friday - I may beg to have next weekend as well, can't see them wanting to spend their bank holiday weekend reading my paper, after all!
I'm feeling a bit rough because I accidentally ate something I'm allergic to on Friday night, and spent yesterday lying on the sofa feeling like death warmed up - luckily the allergic reaction I get isn't very severe, but swallowing one mouthfull before I realised gave me symptoms like food poisoning all day yesterday. Oh well, I think it's mostly out of my system now! That'll teach me to pay more attention!
Morning all! We're all up bright and early by the looks of it, hope we all make good progress!
Today, I'm meeting my supervisors at 11.00 to discuss possible external examiners, so before then I want to make notes on the 7 suggestions I have so far and see if any more hit me as I look through my various bibliographies. After that, I'll be continuing with my data analysis - I'm falling way behind the schedule I've set for myself so want to make good progress on that.
Morning all! And thanks a lot Batfink for your welcome!! So, yesterday I managed to sketch the summary parts for the chapter, and now it's time to set the goals for today: writing introductory section and part 1.1 of the chapter. Should roughly be not more than 4-5'000 words.
Thanks for the comment Lindalou, that's exactly how I feel..I postponed for two years this review chapter, it's so much more fun to write "solid" stuff and move on with the project! But now postponing is no option anymore, so..let's do it!
Wish a great day to all, have a productive sup meeting Batfink!
