Ooh goodo

I worked loads yesterday.  I left DB with Bean at 9am and stayed in the office all day, didn't offer at all to leave or stop working.  Go me ;0) 

I read lots and realised that I needed to sort my literature out, so put it all into themes - as many as I needed, rather than what I thought I needed for the lit review - and doing this made me realise that I have read a lot (44 sources and counting) just for this chapter and looking at the themes made me realise that that is the plan for my lit review!  And it is a bit different than I was thinking before, when I was planning, but seeing it all in front of me it was obvious.  Excellent stuff.  I also wrote on a post-it note on each theme what the authors i had in it so far where and the date(s) of their work, so I can see at a glance where the notes for so-and-so might be, but also see what kind of lit I have been reading and how up to date my reading is in any theme.  So I have a filing system of sorts basically, spread out over my desk and it will only get bigger and bigger.  I made a decision that around 75 sources would be about right for the lit review, I don't know why I think this but it feels right.  I think that is as many as I used in the whole of my MRes dissertation!  And of course every other chapter has its own sources.  Yep, around 75 should be about right.  I have a lot of reading to do but at least I have an end in sight and am over halfway there hurrah!

So am feeling really quite good about work.  Am working most days (during bean's nap)/nights (in front of the tele at the mo) and snatching other normal hours when I can.  The CM is off this week and I am down South next week for my grandma-in law's 80th b'day and checking out the marquee peeps at our wedding venue.  My mum is seeing it for the first time and am very excited!  So that is another week I am not working, then we are back and i can work and then we are on holiday...  So I work when I can - to be honest i think it is momentum that is important, rather than long, stretching hours.  Although they definitely help ;0)  I am about a month behind my new scheduale at the mo, but this is fine. 

Am seriously thinking of moving South again.  We need to move.  So may as well go South if we can I wonder.  Though DB's work is here so he would need to spend about a week a month up here with his clients.  Though to have his friends around, and for us to have grandma and aunty to babysit here and there our lives could be so much different. 

Wouldn't be a good idea to move before I have done the lit review though.  I need the library really.

Anyway, I have a pie to put in the oven.  Tonight am working, eating, whatching an Adam Curtis doc which is meant to be excellent (about how our choice and will is being subsumed by the internet and technology that acutally deprives us of freedom while pretending to give us more...  yes, easygoing) then will be in bed by 10.30.

x J

Oh dear

Arg another day wasted!  I have done nothing today except, er, eat!  I am getting so fat eek!

No work done today.  This is a lot of my fault because I am tired today as Bean actually got up at 3.30am.  he came home from the childminder and went straight to bed at 4.45 so woke at 3.30 then *napped* at 7.30.  I am shattered.  And I did drink a bit of gin last night...  bad me.  But then again it isn't toally all my fault because I have jsust realised that trying to read this book is pointless as actually I don't need any more of it.  the beginning was amazing and very useful but the end not so yet I have been trying to read it as if it is important.  it is not important, put it down and move on.  hurrah.

Saw the house today, it is great and has some significant drawbacks so we are umming and arring.  I am arring at the mo and have decided a smaller downstairs would be worth it for our office space.  I *hate* my office here!  And being able to have people to come and stay would be a huge boon.  hmmmm. 

Anyway, I am a fat lazy slob.  I am going to get my baby (oh I have missed him so much today!  am worried about him as obviously he has been up since 3.30, he will be dead on his feet :0( )and come home, get him to bed, get in my jammies and eat chinese takeaway and biscuits and drink tea and go to bed at 10pm (if I last that long).  THEN tomorrow I am turning over a new leaf ;0)  No more fatty food whenever I want (I have  put on akilo since the triathlon!  eek!) no more smoking and no more carousing.  More exercise, more discipline with work. 

Work will be an odd one as the CM is on holiday next week, meaning I have bean all week.  And the week after we are in cornwall, and the week after that we will be on holiday (if not that week then the one after)...  Hmmm, lots of evening work I think.  Would this be easier in my new house?  Hmmm.  I think it would.  Can I be bothered to move?  No, not really.  My baby was born here, I love love love this house (even though it is soooo annoyingly small).

Anyway, better go and get the wean.

x J

Oh

Today has been a washout.  I ate said crisps, then ate chocolate, then ate fishfingers, then watched tv and then drank coffee.  If you wonder where the work bit fitted in, well it didn't.

Bad.  Rabbit.

So as punishment I am working NOW for all night when instead I could be looking up holidays or planning my wedding.  Well, I'll finish this book.  I really hope I don't need much more of it!

Am so excited about tomorrow's house viewing.  And am quite hoping DB will take me for breakfast afterwards to discuss and plan.  Then I shall come home and work.

Oh I didn't mention that I have signed up to do another triathlon.  Is at the end of July which is stupid because I have basically completely stopped exercising and taken up drinking red wine and smoking.  What a (happy) fool.

x J

Crisps

I love crisps.  Big ones, small ones, peppery ones, vinegary ones, crinkly ones, cheesy ones.  YUM.

I heard from the conference peeps and they said that they aren't doing the research paper panel any more but a round table on Libya.  So I am freeeeeeeeeeeeeee as am not going all the way to the conf to talk Libya nope nope.  So I shall go on holiday that week huzzahs and don't have a paper to write kazzoooooohs.

I am skiving horribly.  I am a bit hungover from drinking red wine last night with DB and talking about going to second view a house up the road that we saw a month ago and dismissed out of hand because it didn't have much of a garden.  Now I realise that we would only be there for a year and it does have two double bedrooms on the third floor that would be perfect studies for me and DB...  totally out of bean's way (and his busy, busy hands) and could be a spare room for the G'Rents to come and stay (and babysit hehe).  This is such an important year for both of us workwise, it would be brilliant to have room for us to actually work and spread out.  Lord knows as my PhD progresses I will need to have papers out allllll over the floor for quick access and that would be impossible at the mo - my 'study' is the spare room, a study for me *and* DB, general junk room and it doesn't actually shut so bean can wander in as he please (spreading about my papers and throwing around paperclips UG). Nightmare!  So we are going to look at it again and will get it if the landlady reduces the rent (is wildly high but then it is a lovely house.  Only reason it is still available I reckon is because is hard to know where to put a kitchen table with the weird cupboards they have put in, and there is only a yard, no garden which is odd for a four bed house).  So that is exciting but would be stressful for a week or two.  It is just up the road so would just whack everything into bin bags and just haul it up in a van!  Nothing fancy.  And Bean could have his own room what a dream! 

Anyway, we shall see.

Am knackered today because of (red wine) bean being awake so much last night and getting up at 5.30.  Am tired of him getting up so early!  Arf I can't cope with the early mornings.

Right am going to put the laptop away and eat soome more crisps and read some Foucault. 

Ooooh I hope we like the house!  i would love to move and have some space hurray!

x J

hnmmmf

Am getting annoyed! 

The conference I sent my abstract to *still* hasn't said who is presenting yet.  It is under a month away!  And I am away for a week of that!  Eek, if they want me to present I am NOT anywhere near ready for it and wonder if I might just tell them no.  It is seemingly badly organised - in fact maybe they haven't got enough interest...  they had to extend the deadline for the call for papers by a month (to beginning May)...  anyway I emailed them yesterday and have had no answer.  I am bothered because it would be a 20 min presentation, I would be horribly nervous about it and I haven't written it yet *at all*.  And I am busy enough as it is (as we all know lol).  AND I am trying to go on holiday in June and over that time would be the best time for us!  haha, holiday first!  If they had told me then I would be loyal to that, but seriuosly, we need a beach and some downtime. 

I am working really well btw.  I am working most evenings and naptimes when I can.  I feel like my brain rarely stops!  I have totally bucked up my ideas though and have two excellent, PhD changing books (one of which am reading at the mo and is just amazing) and one report I have to print and read - all this will make my work and ideas much more current, and my confidence is back to pre-baby levels. hurrah.  I feel on top of it again, that I *can* read, understand and filter ideas from clever people and am capable of doing this work. 

Only took nearly a year!

x J

Plugging away

Not much to say really but that I am plugging away at it, my pile of literature notes is growing hurrah.  Have been reading my theiry from which I will review and discuss the lit and it is pleasing me greatly, am starting to realise how to improve my arguments and critiques which can only be a good thing.

Also planning my wedding.  Am currently in catering hell.  Well, bit dramatic but am worried as the good peeps have been snaffled already and another lady I was thrilled about has let me down :0(  Anyway, we are meeting the marquee peeps at the end of the month when we go South to see DB's family, and my Mum is also coming to have a peruse at the venue.  Exciting times!

So yes.  Find that I usually spend about an hour of a morning going through wedding correspondance and doing some researching/emailing, then settle down to read.  Is good fun really, I try to let it punctuate my day rather than take it over...

Have the house to myself today.  Bliss.

x J

Ah ha!

I have worked it out!

I was really trying to read, and actually reading BUT it wasn't really making any sense - I felt like I was reading for the sake of reading but not taking it in or really thinking about it...  and then I realised that I need to read using my theoretical perspective, and analyse and set out my stall accordingly. 

Sooooo I need to read a whole load of conceptual stuff regarding postcolonial studies and foucault, and then work from there when reading the literature.

Such a relief to have realised this!

Am having a chinese takeaway tonight.  Can.  Not.  Wait.

x J

wowsers

Gosh my reading list is getting humoungous.  I use Amazon a lot to create my reading lists - they have everything whereas, ahem, my library doesn't...

Spent about 40 squids this week on new books for my lit review - ones that I can't live without but the library doesn't have or is in high demand.  I hate fines!  I was going to go into uni today and get more books but I started working out how to form my lit review yesterday and what I wanted to go into it and have some more of that thinking to do.  Is quite satisfying working that kind of thing out - much better than reading dry old articles from academics!  I did realise that a part of my PhD that I assumed was an unchanging cornerstone is actually not going to feature that much... the ground is shifting underneath me!  It is nice to see it taking shape though and thinkinmg properly about what I am going to write about and why.  And what my arguments are going to be!  I am quite scared of finally taking a stance, rather than being a bit wishy-washy because I haven't needed to take a firm position on anything.  Now I am goign to have to stick my head out and say 'I think this! I don't agree with this!' and that is quite scary.

Anyway, best get on.  Gosh my reading list is big.

x J

Back to it

I am back at work properly today which is relief after a couple of weeks of days off!  Two bank holidays in a row eek!

Am still reading reading away...  I have given myself this month and June to read and July to write up.  I really hope I can do it.  Tomorrow i am going to the library to refresh my books which is a good sign ;0)

We are booking a holiday for the first week in June...  cannot WAIT!  Lazy time, sunshine, too much food hurrah!  I bought a work book (foucault bien sur) and a holiday reading book today.  weeee.

Oh and I had my last funding payment today!  Oh, the end of an era.  Even tho of course I am still classed as funded, it is nice to not actually be in reciept of any money and so the guilt of how much (little) I am working can lessen, and hopefully my productivity increase (oh the paradox).  My motivation is to get this all done for my wedding next year (which is when my time is up anyway) and then I can be a PhD, then have a wedding and honeymoon (oh I am mooning over my honeymoon already!  I am going to gorge on some vulgar all inclusivity methinks.  Just this once, forgive me ;0)) and then get up the stick again and concentrate on my family.

I am so very fortunate that my boyo can afford to keep me while I finish my PhD.  Although I don't see it like that; rather I am a full time Mum now who does a PhD on the side.  I say this because I know for a fact that without bean i would have finished by now and not need the extra year (and be a newly wed - we planned to marry early this month all those years ago...) and if I had, I would be working part time but with the bean this is impossible - it makes far more sense for me to be at home with him. 

Anyway, must get back to it.  Am sorting out my reading list - I have actually got a folder now in which to keep all my reading lists so I can remember what I have read, haven't yet read and keep all the scribblings of new refs that I find along the way.  Complicated business!  I dread sorting out my refs for the bibliography...  No, I shall be organised and do it meticulously as I go along, starting with the lit review.

Talking of the lit review I am having a can't see the wood for the trees moment...  I mean, what *is* a lit review?!  I can't remember what I am meant to write!

But generally i am in rude health - the Big Chat I had with myself the other week where I realised it was going to take me as long as it takes me to finish this thesis, and that i shouldn't worry about what others are thinking (i.e Sup and DB) until they make it my concern (they haven't and won't it was me being paranoid) and should just get on with it.  And maybe, just maybe, enjoy it again :0)

x J