TG I totally agree! i think we are setting unrealistic goals!

i only managed to complete aim 1, (1/3) of what i was hoping to get done. i too went to bed around midnight. but i did procrastinate all day! felt really tired like you Celesmai.

my aim for today:

R cluster analysis snp data (pt 1-16)

start with the chapter that you want to start with.. the one you feel like writing first or if you can't decide, write a outline for each chapter, and work abit on each one, until one grabs ya! and you feel inspired to continue working on it.

wow musicology phd, sounds very interesting!!

rosmersholm - i do that sometimes! i have coke or pepsi to give me the buzz to stay alert, and have dvd episodes of my favourite shows on hand for my breaks

sometimes when i am really bored or stuck, i promise myself that i only have to work for 15minutes, and then i can watch 5minutes of a dvd. although sometimes the 15minutes of work turns into 30minutes!

lol Walminskipeasucker - i love your expression, going nuclear.

i am joining ya! i've been procrastinating all day, and being in a really crappy mood. started a couple of hours and finally managing to sort out my data. its funny when you feel lost and dont know how to do something, you just procrastinate, now that it's coming together. its not so bad :)
will take a break and have some dinner when i finish

good luck with your work!

mlis you're my clone! lol

i did that too...most of the day i was panicking and runinng around like a headless chicken, and then at night i would start, in order to do *something* before i went to bed, and then it would end up being like 2am, and THEN i would have dinner and relax with a dvd, watching "medium". i know what you mean, at night time, it definately feels less pressure and less disturbance, and then went to bed at sunrise. but felt crap the next day waking up at midday. and physically didnt feel so good though. so trying not to do that anymore.

Hi girls, didn't meet my aims yesterday either, but got one thing completed.

my aims for today:

SNP section (chapter 3)
1. global table
2. penny tree analysis (pt 1-16)
3. cluster tree analysis (pt 1-16)

good luck everyone!

and Janey is absolutely right, take those 2 weeks, really relax and take your mind off your dissertation, phd. and then when you come back. make a rough sketch of possible chapters and contect you wanna include. and then start really slowly.

and well done for admitting to your supervisor and being honest with her, i know it could not have been easy. so you should be proud of yourself that you did that. any fool can make up excuses, but it takes a person of strength to admit to their own short comings.
so well done

and yeh like Janey said, come back here whenever you feel stressed or overwelmed. you will find most of us have our downs , on a frequent basis, i know i do!

think of your dissertation, not as something you HAVE to do, but something you want to do, to wrap things up. dont think about failing or passing, just think about writing it to the best of your ability.

so close the door on the past, and look to the future. it's never ever too late!

don't give up. you can do this

Joan Bolker also speaks about just writing for 10minutes. and for *only* 10minutes, whether its free writing, messy writing, writing about certain ideas you would like to discuss in your thesis, it can be anything, but just to get the ball rolling, and then once you're comfortable doing that, to increase it. the point is to do something small. even if you hate writing anything related to your thesis , you can still do it for 10minutes.

you've worked very hard for 4 years, it would be a shame to stop now at the writing up stage. what you're experiencing is perfectly normal.

Joan Bolker writes about how it's very common for a phd student, with only just 5% left to write her disseration to say "i've decided not to carry on with this"

i've experienced what you have on countless times! i cried during my mphil examination, because i didn't know anything. and so desperately wanted the examiner to fail me, so i didnt have to continue on. but she didnt.

you will get through this. after a rainy day, there's always hope for a sunny day. blue sky coming after a cloudy grey one.

you're just experiencing a down at the moment.

what will make you feel better, is to make a rough outline of what kind of chapters you want to write.

yes, what you've described every phder feels that way. i too hardly wrote anything for my dissertation for a whole year. but it's never too late!

you can do it. you're just pilling too much pressure on yourself and you need to stop berating yourself. what is in the past stays in the past. today is a brand new day to turn things around. you would be suprised how much can be accomplished, how much writing can be done, in just a week!

start slowly. in small baby steps. when looking at the dissertation as a whole. it can seem like a huge mountain, and so overwelming, that leaves a person feeling anxious.

i research on the internet about articles about writer's block and how to overcome it. lol

i think it's a compliment. meaning you're willing to think and push things further and think outside the box perhaps. and that you're willing to shake things up and challenge things and not be ordinary.

most definately a complement!

my pleasure.

to start off, i would suggest you look into "hierarchical cluster" analysis. and then do "single" "complete" and "average" distance measurements.

yah i spent about 2 weeks googling cluster analysis to death! i didnt have any access to books, but there is alot of good articles on the internet explaining it all.
and yap the stuff i just copied pasted for you, i just copied from my word doc. notes, which are originally from google articles

there is a book on cluster analysis called "Cluster analysis"

http://www.amazon.com/Cluster-Analysis-Brian-S-Everitt/dp/0340761199

but i found the articles on the internet just as informative. and the book abit too complicated for me.
i had a statician who helped me to sort out my data and how to use R for cluster analysis (R being the free online statistical package)