Hello there, morning all. :-)

Thanks Bilbo, and very nice to see you on here!
Heifer, how did the lit review go?
Lara, maybe the studious ambience of the BL will spur you on!

Didn't finish that chapter yesterday, although I feel a bit pathetic for admitting it. I felt tired and got a headache that didn't go away, so had dinner and an early night. I felt a bit panicked by the date when I woke up, I don't know how the hell I'm going to get everything done for 2 weeks time. I feel a bit sick at the thought actually. I guess it's got to the point where I have to be strict with myself, and any sense of submitting a perfect thesis falls by the wayside, and being sensible about the time left takes over instead. oooohhh it's horrible. Well, as I've got to go to work after today I suppose anything crossed off the list as properly finished today will stop me getting too anxious.

So today's tasks: methodology chapter (yes I really will finish it this time!) and rewrite conclusions. Anything else would be a serious bonus in my current frame of mind, but those bits will do - beginning and end need to match up properly, so they can't be done at the last minute.

Back later and hopefully in a better mood than the stress-smiley! :-s

It is a tricky situation to work your way through sometimes. I'd never thought about it really till my sup told me not to say too much to some established academics who were doing work on the same area that I needed to contact. I guess I'd naively thought it was all one big cosy group working on the same area lol, but that was before I realised how competitive academia is.

The bottom line for me is my answer to various questions: would I mind if any of my ideas or source material were used in someone else's work and I was given no credit for these ideas or research? Would it undermine the content and contribution to knowledge of my PhD if someone else used them, and would I want to use those ideas/sources in the near future to do research on? It is possible to get feedback without teetering over the edge into complete paranoia obviously (!!), I just think it's good to be aware of possible consequences for your own work if you distribute it too freely.

Or look at the post by rsherl01 earlier today - he's found some!

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Hi Heifer,

You should have popped over ages ago - procrastination is the name of the game so everyone is welcome, especially anyone in the latter stages!

I was a bit worried about what you said as well, about writing as if you knew what you were doing all along. I asked my sup as I felt vaguely fraudulent doing it almost back to front, and that it might be obvious in my writing to the examiners. She said it was normal and not to worry, as it's part of the research process. And to be honest about what you're doing too. That's true when I think about it, as it would be weird to end up with exactly the same detailed methodology and plan that you had at the start, research isn't like that, it shifts and evolves as you do it. Well, mine certainly has!!

Also, someone who had her viva recently said the examiners were really interested in the actual research process, what her research 'journey' had entailed, including all the bits that were dead ends and how they had to be re-thought along the way. I think it's worth being honest about it, that actually we might not know exactly what the end product will be, including the methodology details, until we get to the end. I'm nearly there and it's still becoming clearer as I write (or I hope it is or I'm seriously in trouble!!!). Annoying when you've got deadlines, but I get the feeling that's the way it goes, especially with an interdisciplinary project.

Good luck with your lit review!

I'd better get back to my methodology chapter if I want it finished by tonight.... sigh....:-s

It should be stipulated in either your uni PhD regulations or the info from the funding body. Or both.

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Hi!

Missspacey, I'm still rewriting bits in a couple of chapters, which is making me a bit anxious at this stage. I'm aware my methodology is a big thing in my thesis and I've been moving bits from other chapters into this and it's a never ending task, or so it seems... I am still adding new bits of material too, waiting for people to get back to me with new information, finding better evidence for some points than I had in my draft, having to read new books that have come out.

Yesterday I thought I could simplify my methodology chapter in some ways and I really have gone a circular route with the theory on this one. It seems weird writing the methodology chapter after the actual research has been done, justifying them in retrospect, though I guess the actual ideas were always there, I'm just trying to make it more robust for the examiners. I decided to work on that one just to get it done as it's annoying having it hanging over me. I think I will feel SO much better when it's out of the way finally, then I'll be fine to get the rest done in time. Well I hope I will, hahaha... *nervous laugh*.... So I did that yesterday and watched the BAFTAs, so not the ultimate in high productivity days, but there you go. Today is the day THAT horrendous chapter will get finished. :-s

Missspacey, how did your chapter one go? Nice to see Kate get her BAFTA though!

Lara, how was your 3D film?

Hi Apple, I was told by one of my sups a few years ago to be careful who I gave my work to. If you know them well and trust them, it's ok, but to spread your ideas about more widely may be a bit dodgy, as they may well use your ideas in their own work without acknowledging you at all. Not everyone has a moral stance that would prevent them from pinching a student's ideas and presenting them as their own. In my own case, the only people who have read my work are my supervisors and a couple of their colleagues, so I know I can trust them. Academia is very competitive and as you're at the start of your academic career, unless your work is already in the public domain to some extent, eg a conf paper or publication, I would be cautious if I were you. Other people on this forum have had bad experiences with this type of issue.

Maybe you should also mention this to your sup. If for whatever reason their supervision or expertise is lacking in some way, maybe you need another official adviser on your supervisory team, in which case protecting your intellectual property would be less of an issue.

I think it sounds creepy too. Could you gradually try to get your sup/student relationship back onto a more formal basis, without upsetting him or him even noticing you're doing it? No more messaging him at night so he gives up on that, and just meeting to discuss your research within the actual college building in normal working hours instead of going for walks. Advising you to see your family less often I find rather odd - what would he prefer you to do instead? If you're keeping up with the work why should it matter to him? However nice he may (or may not) be, he's not your friend, he's primarily your supervisor and it sounds like he's got the boundaries of that working relationship really mixed up. Can you find a way to extract yourself from this before it starts damaging your PhD work, or the whole situation gets so weird it becomes overtly unpleasant to deal with?

Hello there. I'm supposed to be doing some work, but I've just read on the internet that Lux Interior of The Cramps died a few days ago and I'm a bit shocked. How come Iggy Pop is doing TV adverts and Lux is dead? He was only 62. I've seen them several times over the years and I really liked their swampy rockabilly sound. I suppose I'm a bit sad as I grew up with their music and they were real influential musical one-offs as well. Unique. I suppose he's keeping that date with Elvis now....

Oh well. Now I suppose I'd better force myself to do some work on yesterday's Chapter 4, so section 4.5 it is then...

Hello!

Missspacey, I hope you're feeling better now, it's so annoying when you feel crap - it really messes up your timetable.

How complicated are your diagrams? I think people in my area use Illustrator, it's a vector drawing program that's part of Adobe creative suite and not cheap, but it would also probably be a big learning curve. Word's ok though, with the various drawing shapes and tools - is that too awful for what you need? I've tended to think any huge new learning curve at this point isn't worth it for myself, and if it looks ok it will do for submission, but it depends what your needs are, I guess.

I'm submitting on Feb 27th, so not long now. Luckily I can take annual leave the week before, which will help. Printing out on Wed 25th and off to Kallkwik, so can pick it all up the next day, or have one more day in case of disasters, as long as they're not huge disasters lol!

Lara, have a good time at the cinema, 3D horror sounds great! You definitely need more breaks now you've submitted, you've even got time to have colds now if you think about it, unpleasant though they are! I liked the sound of The Day the Earth Stood Still at the Imax but never got around to it in the end, I was feeling too twitchy about my timetable by then. Aaah well, there'll be another time!

I've had enough for now, so will clock off for dinner. I suppose today's been okayish, I've done up to and including section 4.4, so tomorrow will be 4.5 to 4.10. I did spend a while reading blogs though... :$ It would be nice if I'd worked a bit quicker, but ho hum, that's the way it goes sometimes. Que sera sera and all that, to quote Doris Day. Might do a bit more later, but otherwise, see you tomorrow! :-)

Hello there, I'm going to get down to work now, though feel a bit sluggish still, haven't properly woken up yet. Have been faffing about since I got up and been out food shopping, but now it's time to settle in for the day with some chapters. Yesterday I looked through what I'm working on this weekend and didn't exactly do a lot, quite a lot of 'window shopping' on the internet though lol, but it's reminded me of where I'm at so better than nothing. As I was musing over extra bits for one of the chapters at breakfast, something must have sunk in overnight.

Lara, your day sounds productive! Keeping bigger viva questions in mind sounds like the way to go, especially thinking about how these extra papers might fit into it. That will show the examiners that you know and understand them, so even if you didn't write them into your actual thesis, you DO know what their relevance is to the topic. If they have to go in as corrections so be it, but extra points for you in the viva for pre-empting the examiner's questions.(up)

My aims for today are to get on with chapter 4, it's SO less tedious than the methodology section and it should remind me of the more interesting elements of my thesis. And I haven't read it since November, so at least I'll work on it with fresh eyes. And also, and I'm thinking this in a stern voice, I'd better have something tangible to show for today's aims by clocking out time tonight!

Better get on with it now. See you later. :-)

Ooh hello Missspacey, it's nice to see you over here! :-) Pop over more often if you feel like it! (up)

29 papers about metastatic theories??? Goodness, you really inhabit another academic world....it all sounds completely alien to me and I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, but the very best of luck with them! (up)

Hello there! :-)

Yes, I am here too! I'm not quite sure what I should do today that's of any use for the PhD really.... I got woken up too early by the postman with some packages - lovely to get my stuff, but a bit more sleep would have been good... :-x

Maybe I'll make a new timetable. That's always good for a Friday. I never finished that methodology chapter on Tuesday, but my sup was very sympathetic about my gloom and frustration. I think I'll aim to get both that chapter AND the following one done by the end of Tuesday, as that's another chunky rewrite that needs a lot of thought too. So today, well for the next few hours before it's dinnertime anyway, I'll read through what I've done so far, make notes and remind myself where I was with it before my stint at work pushed it out of my mind.

Had an interesting conversation with a colleague who passed her viva recently, it made the prospect marginally less scary. She said the mock was really useful as the examiners in the actual viva asked the same questions, so she had loads of notes prepared from that, very good insurance against a completely unexpectedly blank mind.

Good luck with today's reading Lara, I'll be around all weekend on here I should think (so what's new eh!!). See you later! :-)