======= 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

======= 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.
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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! :-)

======= Date Modified 19 Jan 2009 20:06:55 =======

Ah nice to hear from you Ruby! :-) your message cheered me up

and you're very welcome, glad i could help in any small way. and dont worry about not getting "writing" done. the reading you have done and most importantly understanding it, counts for alot, and will most definately help in the writing . so well done you ! reading is an essential part of writing. yes dont worry about the writing today and yeh take the evening off and relax and let your brain absorb and make all those connections overnight whilst you sleep ;) and tommorow when your fresh , the writing will just flow through you , all zen like haha.

you are SO right! thats what i should be thinking about, how it will all be over one way or the other :-) yah i cannot wait for that day when i wont have the phd cloud looming over my head and putting a dampner on everything i want to do, its like my life is on "pause" you can do such and such, AFTER your phd.

and yah thats exactly how it feels, like preparing for your own torture or execution lol

nice to have you as company, makes me a whole lot better.

i've finished transferring my thesis files onto my new computer. and sorted out endnote and microsoft 2007. i had to google on how to get word 2007 to recognise endnote, but sorted it out thankfully , good ol instructions on the net

word of warning. if you are using endnote. i found that one of my chapter documents kept crashing when i was doing the final formatting. i think if a document has TOO MANY citations, poor little "word" cant cope!

i've just finished reading chapter 6 which was on giving answers. it had an example of this phd student, of where the examiner misunderstood what she was saying and she didnt have the confidence to correct the examiner. yikes!
it said that in order not to challenge or contradict the examiner, you can simply say. i think i might have incorrectly answered such and such

Armendaf - do you have a date for the viva ?

whats your battle plan ? if you dont mind me asking :)

Aww Ruby, i understand how you feel, thats exactly how i felt aswell, actually thats how i STILL feel!! like a fraud and at the time of my viva, it will be like "aha ! we knew it you're a fraudster" ...

i think its perfectly normal to feel that way when you're so close to submitting. i still feel like that with regards to the viva. i think all we can do is try our best. yes, trust your supervisor judgement and try to squash the little demons in your head. i think bolker talks about them too. there will always be there lurking in the dark corners of our brain, the only way to stamp them out, is to actively be engrossed in writing, or reading or studying. its only when we're not doing anything that they get loud and strong.

and yes just get the damn thesis in (thats what i think everyone ends up calling their thesis haha) submit it and then study like mad for the viva. you will have me and Armendaf for company ! we can be in the same hellhole together.

yeh your right, its nice of my sups to do that. but just incase im avoiding them, until march , until ive actually studied *something* but at the same time, im now going to study like mad, just incase they perk up and email me and say, we've organised your viva , its next month, then i will be like oh cr*p! my dad was like what the heck are you doing, stop messing about and study, you dont want to look back and think you wasted all this time phaffing about. he had a point. i have been procrastinating studying. but now is the day to stop with all the procrastination and get to the nitty gritty of studying.

good luck Ruby! i know you can do it :-) i think end of feb is a good deadline to aim for, and completely doable, you got plenty of time. just take it one day at a time, and make sure you leave at least 1 week for printing and binding , that way incase an)
i will use your deadline also to revise for my viva, and pretend i have my viva then. its my birthday on the 28th feb, so will reward myself with something special.

so i'm on the train with you Ruby! :-)

cool! will be nice to be able to discuss with you the book and the questions she writes about. hope you find it ..
it's taking me a long time to finish it. but i think thats becuase its so concentrated. i'm currently halfway through chapter 6 which is about "answers" to viva questions. i'm going to force myself to finish the book today so i can actually start revising.

i got a new computer! set it up yesterday, so i'm excited about having a new computer. so today i'm going to transfer all my files from my external hard drives to my new computer.

word of warning. dont name your files too long, as you will have problems copying them! the computer might let you call a file by a long name, but when it comes to backing up and transferring, you can run into trouble. also try not making too many sub folders, thats the problem i had too. i think windows has a limit of 250 characteristics or something, which seems like alot, but when you have loads of subfolders, gets you into trouble :p
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my aims today :-)

1. finish murray's book. chapters 6-10

2. transfer data from external hard drive to new computer

3. make a 2 week plan. (i find that i work best in short deadlines. so i'm going to try and cram in as much studying in 2 weeks) i think that might help me with my confidence, because right now i dont remember anything about my phd and at the moment i have very low self esteem and confidence regarding the viva and have this pessimistic outlook to it. but i heard the more you learn the more confident you will then get and thus might help with my pessimistic outlook that im not going to be able to answer any questions in my viva and fail miserably. i think i've been avoiding studying for my viva, because i've just been so intimidated by the sheer mountain of work and knowledge i need to know. but like they say, you gotta start somewhere, and i just have to put in the hard work and study hard.

i'm also going to watch a lecture each day from TED TALKS, in the hopes it inspires me and i get motivated. they have really interesting lectures and the speakers are good. my brother got me onto them.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks

good luck everyone with your studying today! :) (up)

======= Date Modified 16 Jan 2009 15:33:43 =======
yes its called how to survive your viva. by rowena murray. its the only book about viva. and its good. i'm on the chapter about questions, which has given me loads of ideas about the type of questions i should be thinking about and preparing answers for.

i got it from amazon i think it was £16.00

miss spacey went to a talk about how to prepare for the viva, and it was recommended.

======= Date Modified 16 Jan 2009 13:21:05 =======

Hey Ruby! hi everyone, clocking in for the day.

no date for viva , and no examiners not sorted out yet. i haven't studied at all for my viva, so i'm giving myself 2 months to study for my viva, and in march - i've set myself a deadline - i will contact my sups and get them to arrange examiners for me. i'm in no hurry to get my viva, and i want to spend a good couple of months studying for it. i spoke to senate house when i handed in my thesis, and they told me that senate house do not have a deadline for a viva, and he said, all we do is keep hold of your thesis until it's ready to give to the examiners. and if i want a few months to prepare for my viva, i should just get my sup to "delay" appointing examiners. so i told my 2nd sup just before xmas, that i will contact them in the new year to arrange examiners, and that i need time to properly prepare.

when i handed in my thesis - my sup did say, when i'm ready he will arrange a mock viva for me. and be really brutal to me, in order to prepare me. so i want to study super hard to be fully prepared for his mock viva. he doesnt want to waste his time, giving me a mock viva when i haven't studied properly for it. so told me to study my thesis, do alot of background reading and think of ideas etc.

yah i know what you mean about viva- it is all mysterious, but there are general questions you can prepare for, but there will always be an element of the unknown!

good luck with your corrections! are these the final corrections before you have to submit your final draft to your sups? do you have a deadline? that is so great you are so close to finishing! well done you :-)

--
my aim today:
read book: how to survive your viva.
i'm reading chapter 5 about "questions" - the chapter describes general, open, specific questions that can come up in viva. alot of good questions actually to think about and prepare answers for. which i hope to start doing from next week onwards. i do recommend the book, it is expensive though, about £16. but it the only book out there about viva prep.

okay going to do a little bit of reading and then have some lunch :p

catch you guys later!!

======= Date Modified 15 Jan 2009 20:45:00 =======
======= Date Modified 15 Jan 2009 19:48:20 =======
======= Date Modified 15 Jan 2009 18:25:07 =======

Thanks Ruby!! so nice to have you around :-) comforting.

well i didnt get much reading done yesterday,

aims today:

read handbook how to survive your viva. reward - dvd film in the evening.

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edit:

still reading! going to stop at 9pm and have something to eat and then relax with a dvd film. i've been rather slow today!
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but came across this really good website, full of useful links about preparing for the viva:

http://www.jwelford.demon.co.uk/brainwaremap/viva.html

and especially check out this link about nasty phd viva questions:

http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/cs/cs710/viva.html
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feeling hungry now, so i'm calling it a day, IF i am not too tired i might continue the reading after dinner and after i've watched a film.

have been really slow at reading today. but as they say takes time to get back into "study mode" :-) read about 7 pages from the book, the chapter on "questions" lots of useful general and specific questions for me to use next week to start preparing notes.

genereal questions like:
how did you come to be doing research in this area, summarise your thesis, summarise the main points of your thesis. you cover several areas in your thesis, what is the whole thing about ? who would you say are the key people in your field today? on a general level, what for you, were the most interesting things to come out of your thesis.

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hope you all had a good day, and see you tommorow :-)

Armendaf!! you're back ! yeh!!! my fellow comrad! so funny we both came back around the same time! i'm being very slow and lazy though even though have officially started studying. so glad to have you back :-)

Thanks Meera!!

i also am like you when i dont do any work , i hibernate away, ashamed to log onto the thread, to decleare my nothingness, but ruby is right, we should never shy away no matter what. i'm so impressed you teach and your writing!! wow. i am not working and still struggle with motivation. so well done you
(up)

thanks Ruby!! that means alot to me :-) yeh its nice to have you around. hope your writing is going well.

haha i like the way you think TR ! if too early, i would forget it all hehehe. nice way to look at it :)
hope you're writing is going well. and good luck with the final draft!
(up)

good thinking Missspacey!! yah i'm gonna take in notes and stuff hehe good idea ;) thank you!

Thanks Ju-ju thats good wisdom indeed :-)

hope your viva went well!!