It depends. If you have everything ,data and references, and ,they are already useable anytime. you can finish your thesis in a flash

you can do that if you have a clear outline and details in your mind, otherwise it's a mission impossible,more time is given thought

focus on phd first if you dont need that money so badly

terrible, i want to know how the external is selected, pointed by your department or your supervisor?

I think it's not easy for student of my subject to go off on tangents. if i can go a little bit away from my subject, it means i need to do another phd.

it's important that you find a proper professor or lecturer who would like to take you under his supervision. to this end, you should select a professor or lecture who do the subject you want to do and of course, you'd better know some other things like his personality, whether he is mean to his students or not, if he is a trouble-maker, sth like that. once your target is fixed, contact him and make him want you ,if not very much, by giving out some innovative ideas on the subject or showing him that you are so keen to do phd with him. once you win his heart from the point of view of research, you are not far from success

good luck

I'd like to be the lucky one, work hard i have to

Read papers ,you need read all the papers related to your subject. then i am sure you can make predictions for most of your experiments you can gonna conduct and it would be a problem to write some abstract even you don't do any experiments. if you cannot, it means you don't read enough papers. in other words, you should go on reading.

identify ur subject first, exact one, not broad one. I think you can write up a report of review, or sth like that, which could be useful to your future thesis ,if it is cannot be used as the 1st chapter. that's what i am doing now.

onwards and upwards, all phders

I really cannot believe my eyes. If all you said is true, what a evil person your supervisor is. I really wonder how such a person can have any right or ability to supervise any students. it's a warning to us that before we learn to do anything ,learn to be a human being.

if you are capable of different fields at the same time, why not

hehe, things could always more hard than expected

Stop it immediately if you still want to get your phd degree.
otherwise, if you go on with this relationship, you have to take all the consequences. think it over. chemistry sometimes give to rationality

which one do you use? i personally prefer Latex. because it can free you from the worries of the format so that you can focus on the content. produce beautiful equations.