Sneaks, as if I'd give up and leave you to this turmoil alone! No no, I am still here. Totally understand the 'be here in 20 years' sensation though, especially as ALL my undergrad friends have already got their PhDs......and the last Teek horse, still hasn't crossed the finish line.

Sympathies Batfink and Button, I too am feeling like poo!
Stayed up too late last night trying to work, then had my idiot housemate repeatedly slamming the front door at 4am. I came out to see what the hell was up, and he said 'Oh sorry if I was a bit loud, I had my headphones in, you know' - wanker!

Still wrath aside, I must get myelf back on the planet and revise ch2.....

Awesome, terrifying chapter summary finished (so much still to do) and first two items ticked off :-)

Tomorrow's goal is to amend and send ch2 to third supervisor (by post, no less) in the morning, then get cracking on ch1 revisions. Scared to go to bed now in case the morning finds me back to zero for motivation :-s

Hi all
Been away an age and have no idea what everyone is up to, hope it's going well though. Have had my head immersed in this new course for the last few months but really really must get back into the dreaded thesis. The whole topic seem a world away already. But I have finally worked up the courge to sit back down at my (rather broken) laptop, so I shall make one of my (in)famous To Do lists:

Step 1) assess what stage each chapter is at; make a chart of where its status, what needs doing and who needs to see it.
GO TEEK GO!!!!

Well done Jojo!!!!
I know how long and how hard you've worked for this, I'm so chuffed for you :-)
Don't worry about the egomaniac examiner, it's a PITA but you'll get your PhD all the same, Enjoy! xx

*skulks back in*

Apologies for my inexcusable absence these past weeks (you all missed me, I can tell ;-)). I've been even more befuddled than usual as I was moving across the country and starting my new Masters! And before anyone asks, no, I didn't manage to finish the thesis before I went. So I now have the somewhat dubious honour of being simultaneously a masters and a phd student (and not in the order one would expect).

On the one hand the space has made me feel less overwhelmed by the thesis, more positive. But equally, I'm now very busy with the new course and feel the phd slipping ever further from my mind. I can't imagine having my brain in gear enough to finish it properly, let alone survive a viva. And while I want to finish it up, it seems less and less relevant now I'm pushing in another direction.

But finish I must! I won't let my supervisor down like that and I suffered too much to come out with nothing. So please feel free to lambast me on a regular basis and crack the e-whip to keep me plodding forward :p
Hope everyone has been ok and look forward to catching up over the next week or so.

Oh Eska, i'm so glad it was benign, but equally so sorry you had to go through that. Take as much time as you need to sleep/watch tv/whatever, this is your brain's way of processing it all and you should give yourself the space to do that. These things are terrifying enough normally, but having recently lost your sister must have really loaded the situation. Right now I think your "work" should be to look after yourself, the research will still be there when you're back on an even keel.

huge hugs via cyberspace!

4Matt, I know many of us feel that life is passing us by, especially with younger friends and siblings apparently so much further along than us. But the truth is we may well have another 70+ years in us! We're coached in this society to think that we're failures if we don't have the house, car, career and spouse (like some bloody Ikea starter pack for adult life), but who says that's true? How many people do you know in miserable marriages, crippled by their mortgage and dreaming of doing a job they actually like?

I think you should be incredibly proud of yourself, getting back up after illness knocked you out of an undergrad and 2 phds takes an amazing amount of guts, I can't imagine there are many people out there who could have done this. I had some delays due to mental health too, I've watched friends graduate while I tried to remember how to live outside a hospital, and questioned again and again whether I have the resilience for the work or study I'm interested in. But I must admit, it's also given me a sense of perspective. I know what really matters to me, and while societal pressure may hound me towards earning more and impressing people, I'm very aware that it won't make me happy.

Do you know what does make you truly happy? Perhaps identify a few key things and focus on them for a bit. If it's a relationship, join a dating site (don't laugh, I met my hubby on one!). If it's a sense of meaning, maybe consider something spiritual or voluntary work. Give the time to what matters to you, not what others see as impressive. As for how old you are when you finish, the real question is, can you enjoy the present? If you feel that everything you do in the next three years is merely a state of limbo endured for the end result, then those three years will always feel like crap (and the end result may struggle to live up to that sacrifice). As they say "life is what happens when you're busy making other plans" - don't spend so long thinking about post-phd that you miss your life in the mean time.

Or to put it more eloquently, courtesy of Kipling:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Ok, 6am and I can no longer ignore the fact that my reflux is making me wretch (that and I keep doing totally stupid things which I then delete because I cannot remember what I wrote before). Time to scuttle off home (via a chemist).

You're right Algae, it is a strange time indeed. I did go and stay with a friend but I've been back for a few weeks now (was only away for a little over two weeks) after talks with hubbie indicated great changes in his thinking. Things seem alternately better and worse, and I think it's that instability that's really frying my brain! Now my sister is being mean to me as well and I just think "could you all please stop existing for a few weeks, please, just until I've sorted out my academic life?". I know I should simply ignore them but it's never that easy is it?
And four days silence huh? that must have been fun! I have a friend who's been known to go days without speaking to her bf on a regular basis (they live together) but I can't cope with that level of tension. Very glad you got it sorted though rather than having to come home, are things better now?

I don't think I'll ever get this procrastination out of my system, so I'm sticking with working at stupid o'clock in an attempt to trick myself into working ;-) Although I'm thinking I should leave before people arrive for tomorrows working day, feels a bit degrading to be found slumped here unwashed amidst the red bull and antacids!

Urgh. Well I came into work at 9pm - and somehow STILL haven't done anything. I'm not looking for sympathy by any means, I actually feel like brutally strangling myself in sheer frustration. Why oh why am I such an idiot?! Hmm, didn't see that coming. Seems that various personal crises (in addition to attempting to talk to my mother - always risky) have put me on a somewhat uneven keel, just what one needs at this stage!

Ok, really must put futile self-rage to one side and do something other than drink caffeine/make security raise their eyebrows. I can weep into my keyboard all I want once this is done.

First task: Edit figure 5-3
Then.....: Draft structure for section 5.4.3

Bleuch. 5am and although odd, I feel rather motivated and clear-headed. But if I don't go back to ebd for a bit tomorrow will be a mess. So off I go. Night all.

Oh Algae, what a rubbish way to come home :-( I'm so sorry.

I think pets are so much more than people realise, they represent all sorts of things about us and our lives (especially when they carry history the way Sharky did), and I think we often grieve what they symbolise as well as the pet themself.

Apologies if that's a little deep and mystical, it's 3.30am and, a lover of all things furry at any hour, I am especially prone to waxing lyrical about them when sleep-deprived and somewhat emotional!

You'll come to love the new goldie as well, he'll never be Sharky, but he'll have his own character. And as bug says, you must be kind to him so he doesn't grow up with a complex about his lack of lipstick, otherwise you'll have a resentful fishy and a hideous therapy bill to pay. (I'm still subsidising the Jungian analysis for my last hamster, I tell you, it's not cheap).

Hey Sue

That's so wonderful about the tests! Genuinely delighted for you :-) and the dog too, wonderful news all round.

Full-on seems a more than fair description of your life right now, well done for keeping a handle on it all. Hope the interview for dream job goes fantastically, and good luck with the writing, it drags on insanely, but we'll get there.

Not at all Chrisrolinski, when else would a busy professional have time?!
Although it does seem a bit harsh that your conference is on a weekend, aren't they meant to be perk days away from the office?

Oh Wally, it sounds like me. All I want to do is sleep, today has involved pointless meetings (work), painful meetings (personal) and now all that precious time is gone and I feel shattered. I know I need to crack on, I promised myself this chapter would be finished by now and yet I continue to wander blindly in my fog of nauseous procrastination. Today feels a bit rubbish really :-(

Still, moping won't get chapter five finished. I'm going to trade myself this cup of tea for filling in some gaps.