Cited fo' sho!

OHEMGEE.

I am definitely cited in a chapter of an edited book by one of the top peeps in my field who is writing a students handbook on peacebuilding :0)  So might be on lots of reading lists!  And my name is not just in the footnotes but in the actual text!  My actual name!  Well, my maiden name but still my name!

People would read me actual name!

For those of you (most of you) who are published in your own right, feel free to laugh at me and move on, but for moi, the wildcard let onto my MA course all those years ago with nowt but a drinkers degree to me name, it is my highest professional achievement yet.

And I am half way through the chapter.

Not bad for such a bobbins day!

x J

Good and bad

Well, the good: the chapter is coming along.  Shouldn't take too long now and I am not scared of it.

The bad:  I am finding it impossible to concentrate :0(  I have got some bad shit going down in my personal life and it is totally consuming me.  Work still feels important, and I know I have to get on with it.  But because I am facing such huge personal challenges it feels too hard right now.  I wish I was the kind of person who could escape into my work but I am more of a runner-awayer and a dweller. 

Sooo, I have done some work today, though not much.  I have two hours now and am really going to try and get over a third of the way through.  I totally did not plan to still be editing this week, it was meant to be done over a week ago and yes, this makes me feel gutted.  But I can't dwell on that, I must just push forward.  I have decided to forgo any 'I will have it done by the end of the day' or 'I must finish!  Like, yesterday!'  thoughts and am going to give myself this week to do this and I will have to take the hit.  Punishment will be severe as I will be then two weeks down on my timetable which really has no room to spare.  BUT at least it will get done that way.  Small steps and all that.

I wish life was simple... or could at least recognise that there is a time for shit, and a time for boats to stay perfectly unrockable until one has time to deal with it ;0)

I am blue but standing firm.  I shall not be fallen!

x J

Ahem

For one reason or another I have been a total work twat so far this week :0(

yesterday I did some work and was happy with it but had some brilliant nes that meant I spent the day thinking about that instead of working. 

Today I am doing much the same.  I am obsessively menkulling about stuff that is important to moi but not to my work, and it is taking my concentration :0(  What a moron.

OK.  I shall stop the thinking and get on with the working.  I.  Just.  Will.  Maybe if I work ten mins on, ten mins off.  This tends to get me back into the swing of things when I am being a moronhead and would mean I do nearly two hours work today rather than zilcho.

I know these things happen and that it is the nature of our work.  Being motivated 24/7 is not easy.  I am so peed off with myself though.  what a waste of precious time!  It is like I am a teenager in my head, because I know I have 13 weeks until this work needs to be done and so feel I can waste a bit of it...  But the Mum part is telling teenager 'NO!  You have to work ALL the time!  In 13 weeks it will be over, just think of that and get on with it!'  Teenager looks at mum part and shrugs shoulders and says 'meh'.

!!

x J

Working today :0)

Yes, I am back to work today!

Yesterday was a glorious write-off.  I ate, I watched excellent lovely tv (not daytime tv, brilliant catch-up tv) and just let my brain ooze while I wallowed in having the house, and my time, all to myself :0)  I decided not to bother berating myself about it as I assumed seeing I could not concentrate there was probably a good reason for this, so went with it and just hoped that today would be a good day because of it.  And I have a feeling it will!

I have got the necessary notes and am reading and today I *can* think.  And I don't want to loll about doing nothing, today that would make me feel bad.  So hurray for impromptu days off, for mind cleansing and for being motivated. 

Today I intend to get the structure of the chapter I am editing sorted, the intro and concl done and the necessary extra quotes added.  Then I want to proof-read it and then it should be good to go for now.  Tomorrow I want to get back to some reading for the discussion chapter.  Even though I have until mid april now to do the first draft I am still startlingly short of time for reading.  Ug.

x J

Feeling too content

Wah I am too content to work!

I had some cider last night with DB as he had had a good day at work (finally, his work stinks) and as we know I was feeling most pleased!  I don't feel any effects today though, all is well.  I do feel like slobbing about though rather than working hard.  Bad me.

What I shall do is this:

I shall put the tv on in the background so I feel a bit naughty.  I shall re-plan my timeline according to new timeframe.  I shall then start some gentle editing.  I won't make myself sit in a quiet room and work for hours in a row, I shall dither but dither with my work on hand.  Today, I suppose, is about making friends with it again and getting motivated.  And hopefully getting some work done along the way :0)  Today is a day I can be kind to myself ;0)

So that is that.

laters!

x J

It's Ok!

Okay I tell you!

Oh I am so pleased!  I had resigned myself for a sarcastic response saying that I should buck my ideas up and get a spiffing draft in for yesterday.  However, all I got was a 'yup' in response to my question if it was ok to spend longer on it before handing in the first draft so it is good but then only have 5 weeks t'other side to edit for Actual Submission.

I am delighted.  Delighted!  And relieved!  The pressure valve has peeped and I am back to neutral again, and capable of work. 

Also, and what a boon, he would like to cite tasy bit from my last chapter in his new, er, article (don't know what for).  Reading back what he says I wrote I am quite nervous about him putting it 'out there' as it is quite a strong and new contention but I guess I just have to let it happen and hide behind a cushion!  Exciting though!  I can't help but know that he is doing it to help me along in my academic career, giving me a few cred notes to get my ideas out there and pump up my self esteem which makes the fact I don't want to be an academic even more cringy.  I do want to work in academia when this kind of thing happens though, it is such a buzz to be recognised and think someone might read what you have to say (all fifty words!  Fifty! ;0))and I only ever wanted to be a writer.  I have always wanted to be published and by proxy will do for now!  It is weird though, because he has cited me before in a book that was finally published last year and even though the book is really, really very famous seeing my quote and the name in the references felt like only *I* could see it ;0)  Like it would be invisible to anyone else.  It doesn't really exist.

Anyways!  I am skipping round the room in happiness in my head and we all know what this means!  I won't do any work tonight!  But at least it is tonight I am skiving and not tomorrow :0) 

I will have a look at it, might as well while I am waiting to be called up to put my beanio to bed.

Oh I am so pleased!  I tell you why as well, because in a way I feel it is because he is confident I will do good work.  I mean, if I was a total numpty he wouldn't let me hand in so close to the wire would he?  Which makes me want to work even harder.  Oh!  And it means that hopefully the worst will be between now and handing in in April.  That is only 11 weeks!  I might have broken this bugger in 11 weeks!  Wow!

I really want to do well!  I would love it if someone thought in any way at all that I had something of merit and interest to say!  Oh, speaking of which, you know what is happening to me.  A sure sign of PhD insanity: I am starting to think that actually my PhD is really interesting and that the markers will really like it and not be able to help but read it all.  Oh lordy, save me from my self delusion!

So pleased!

x J

Confuddled

But that's what supervisors are for!

I have been stressing and pondering today as rewriting my political chapter is *still* ongoing.  I am gutted and stressed about this as I am meant to be finishing the journal reading for my discussion and lit review chapters this week and am not going to :0(  This makes me, as emoticonned, sad which makes me worried and stressed and suitable only for pacing rooms chainsmoking.  ( I don't do this, but if I could, I would!)

SO I decided to email my sup and ask if I am doing the right thing.  For me, the right thing is to hand in a firrst draft that I think is as tip-top as I can get it.  However, it will leave me only about 5 weeks from handing it in to my submission deadline to edit it and blardy bla.  Is this too tight?  Shoudl i hand in any old thing but at least hand it in with more time to spare on the other side?  I suppose it would depend on how confident my sup is that the first draft, and my idea of 'tip-top' would mean 5 weeks is a-ok.  I am happy I thought to email though (finally) and await his, probably cryptic and a bit sarky, response. 

So glad I emailed.  So worried about handing in 'late' and screwing everything up.  He will probably say the most vile, unspoken option three which is hand it in in tip-top condition with 2 months to spare.  This would mean bye-bye life and sanity, hello all night working and stress.

We shall see.

x J

Wheee!

I am most happy now!  I must have been in a grump about work because now I have fixed it I am not grumpy!

I am very very happy actually, a weight is off my shoulders.  I have totally and utterly re-jigged this chapter.  All the content is the same but it has a bit more analysis and that, but mostly it is all completely re-ordered and in doing this I have realised a new focus and angle that is waaaay better.  Much mroe suited to my thesis and much cleverer.  Most pleased.  I haven't finished, no no, but I have written out a plan of what needs to happen so when i come back to it on monday night i can just get straight back into it.  Hurrah!

And so my weekend starts :0)  takeaway, silly tele and the paper here I come!

x J

Mardy cow

God I am in a Bad Mood today!  I am all over the shop!  wtf.

I have been working nearly all day, though I feel like I have not got anywhere!  This makes me cross and annoyed and frustrated!  My chapter is a MESS.  My initial instinct that this chapter was bad was very correct.  I am nearly there with ironing it out I think...  which is ace and I would celebrate if I was remotely in the mood... but my concentration is poor and I can't help but feel meh.  I think I am stressed and it is leaking out today whereas I normally stay pretty self contained.

I wonder if I have cabin fever too; I will definitely go out with beanie tomorrow, even if it is just out for lunch ;0)  The weather is crackers here today, really very stormy so we have all been cooped up with my bad mood rubbing each other up the wrong way.

I hate working but feeling guilty about doing it, and about wanting a break.  If I go downstairs I get shooed back upstairs to work, which is great but I am going chapter-blind!  I can hardly read any more!  hehe.  God I am whiny, I apologise mostestness.

Ok.  Last ditch half hour of work, during which this chapter will be TAMED!  And I shall cheer the f*ck UP!

x J

Hissy fit

Oh dear.  I just had a mahousive hissy fit at DB about work.

I normally work for a couple of hours on saturday and half a day on sunday but he came home last night and said he has to work on sunday... so he said i could work today instead.  not ideal, because it means i won't have *any* downtime this week; I will either be working or looking after bean and have no weekend jolly time to pep oneself up.  We don't have much as it is.  I didn't say anything though and went with the fact i will work today.  THEN he says this morning he has to get a haircut so I say ok after 5.  He says late afternoon, I sort of don't say anything then it turns out to be at 3.15!  So I don't get today to work, I get this morning.  A few hours.  So I had a hissy fit about how he doesn't get that I need time to work, that the childminder might cancel any time, that he comes home late on my worknights (last monday) and takes my weekend day and I don't say anything but that this is a joke.  Anyway, long story short I am working till 3 today and he has said I can work a couple of hours tomorrow.  To be honest it stinks but I can't ruin the weekend any more so i apologised.  I really feel that I should have a lot more time than I do, but he thinks I should work at night more.  he is a workaholic so doesn't get that normal people need some downtime to cope.  And that i too work 13 hours days with my work and bean, and i am on call with bean every night but apparently that doesn't count as anything remotely stressful.  Bah, typical parent argument that one.

ANYWAY I am working now, tho I couldn't be less in the mood to concentrate or care.  I feel really low and think that I might be blowing things out of proportion because I feel I have no control over my work time.  Am I being too precious?  I can't cope with the childminder cancelling, and DB saying when I can and can't work; I *need* to know that the hours I have are routine and respected as being mine.  I do know that I am being unflexible, but I can't help but feel that DB's idea of 'flexible' is work when I tell you you can work.  And if I complain he brings up the old 'you don't care about my work either, do you think I want to work every day as much as I do' which makes me feel shit because I am not earning.  So there we go, that is my life!  Although it isn't, it is just a small part of it that we have managed to manage for quite some time now.  We used to have blazing rows along these lines almost weekly but are much better now.

I feel down.  I hate work, I don't want to do anything but eat biscuits and read the paper.  but if I do I would feel guilty, like every moment I am not with bean I should work so DB doesn't think I am slack.  GAH!

x J

Grabbing a moment

And so it has come to this.  I am working as DB is bathing the little dude before his bedtime.

i am grabbing moments when I can to work.  I have found it so very hard to switch off from work today as I did last night.  I feel that I have  a lot to do, and not really bad work to do either, just work that has to be done. 

I think I may be at a tipping point now where my nice cosy life with clearly marked lines where i do and don't work has gone :0(  My evenings, weekends, any spare time will be work time, I can feel it.  I have yet to break the 12.30am work barrier but don't feel it is far off!  However, however, this is GOOD because it means i am working and getting closer to finishing!  It will only be for, what, 9 weeks.  The I hand in the first draft and have a good month before the last 2-4 weeks of possible horror before handing in.

If I know nothing but this, let me say that I am happy, so happy, to be in a tired hellish stress state for the next 9 weeks and then have an easy time of it on the other side (post first complete draft) than slack now and have to be staying up late and working all hours in April and May when the deadline is dancing on my nose.

Arfins I did have a wee panic earlier though as DB told me that he has to be at work on Sunday all day.  I had totally planned to work then and got a bit stressed.  Only a bit though, I did rein it in and so I have to work tomorrow.  I wish I could work both days!

Happy weekend comrades!

x J

Did some sneaky work

hehe after moaning I did some sneaky work for about an hour and a half while Beanie played with things and got bored ;0)  Feel much better!  I might not even look at it again tonight, might let me brain relax and come to it with fresh eyes tomorrow.

Am starting to fret a bit about timings, seeing as I am meant to be doing my discussion chapter but am actually revising my political chapter.  I will have it finished tomorrow for sure.  I have so much on my checklist of things to do - chapters to write, obviously, formatting to do, references to write up, footnotes to check, onld chapters to re-write/edit.  I think it is *good* because I know what I have to do to bring it up to scratch, but bad because I am starting to panic about time.  I watched tv last night after a 13 hour day with bean and working and felt guilty and lazy so worked for an hour and a half in bed and had to stop as it was gone 12.  I think this is just how it is going to be from now on.  On the one hand it is ok because at least I am now starting to step up to the mark, and I would much rather have a list to to-dos than be sat with my head in my hands because i have no idea what to do... I just have to get on with it.  I even feel guilty about taking tonight off to be with DB so guess that will stop too soon.  At least it means I am getting close!  I have 9 weeks...  sounds like quite a lot until I look at my timetable!

All will be fine!

x J

itching to work

Arf I am itching to do some work!

Am looking after my bean today so no can do!  Am trying to relax with him but all I can think about is the paragraph I finished on last night (I did some work in bed between half ten and 12) and how jumbled it is and repetitive too.  I need to fix it!  I can't though.  And I am so envious of my friend who texted yesterday to say she can't come and visit me because she has to finish her chapter today!  Oh i wish!  When this chapter is all edited and sparkly I will feel so happy.  I have been cleaning my house this morning like crazy even though it is quite clean enough then realised it is because I feel all itchy about work!

Am supposed to be chilling and having wine with DB tonight but don't think I can until I deserve it, i.e i have finished this chapter, so i shall skip off and get on with it the second DB gets home!  Then I shall relax and have some wine and chats.

I think I shall have to go out and leave work alone.  I want to do some now but bean wil want me to draw a moon or a ha-hoo any minute and when editing and copy and pasting you can't lose your place to draw a ha-hoo!  Bless him.  I love being with him and HATE it when my mind is somewhere else :0(

x J

I don't want to stop!

I started working again and this bit of the chapter is much more easy going and better written.  is rather interesting in fact!

I am really totally in the zone.  Without a bubsicle i would work now until 6ish, or the chapter was finished!  how lovely!  But I am off to get the little dude instead.  And I can't complain, he is lush and i did make him after all ;0)  But i can lament!  Especially because I know that come saturday I will be all negative and reluctant and will take me an hour or two just to get into it again!

but then again, I am sure i could do with a break and I never come back to it and produce rubbish because I had a baby.  it all depends on mah mood!

I might work tonight if I have itchy fingers ;0)

Off into the lashing rain and wind I go!  Oh for a car...

I did good work!

x J

brain melt!

I worked really hard today!

Worked my socks off until 2.15 when I finished a particular section.  I have only managed to edit a third of the chapter though which I think says something about the state it was in!

I hate editing, it is soooooo hard!  Holding all the arguments and points in your haed so you can check that the intro makes sense and is concise and remembering what I have said all the time is surprisingly difficult.  It is satisfying when a good part of it has been ironed out though.  I think I might have over signposted but won't know until I go back through it with a fresh eye.  This chapter seems particularly complicated as there are a lot of little points I want to make rather than two or three big 'uns so getting them under one umbrella heading is a pain in the bum.

Anyway, I worked so hard my brain has melted now I have had lunch!  I have half an hour before I get ready to get my bean and then I won't be able to work again till saturday.  Am annoyed I have only got a third of the way through!  I think I will skim read some more and see how messy the rest is so I have an idea of what is what for saturday.  I don't think the rest is as muddled -  may not have to do much other than signpost properly.  We'll see.  I do feel somehwat cleansed for doing this work though, and it is the kind of work that I can leave and do other stuff like reading in the meantime.  I am not sure if I will work tonight, probably not as I am super tired from today's concentrating!  And I shan't work tomorrow as it is friday, I have bean and will probably crack open some vino tomorrow night and relax!  So saturday it is.

x J

editing

Yesterday was a good day!  Sort of!

I was feeling really blue for some reason...  I think it is because my best mate has moved away (only temporarily tank da laird) so I have no fwiends...  and I am home alone and don't ever leave the house!  And I work at home!  And if my bean is away I am ronrey all on my toddkins. 

So I put the tele on and worked on the settee and did LOADS of reading.  Which obviously is brilliant but bugger me was it annoying because it was one of those reading sessions that kept showing the holes in my thesis rather than filling them!  Bah!  So I finished work feeling very annoyed and worried.  Today I have to revisit my political chapter as in my head it has become a demon, a bastion of incoherence and stupidity when in real likfe I hope it is just unfinished ;0)  I am going to go through it today and try and see if it is indeed coherent, argument-led, and get the intro and concl to marry up to the content.  Then I have a few quotes and ting from my recent reading I need to add.  Then, I hope it should be ok and I will feel much more relaxed and in control.  I am not looking forward to doing this at all but know it has to be done so am glad I have realised this really, instead of it nagging me while I say 'no!  I am reading for the discussion chapter, stop wasting my time!'  It feels like a detour and am bummed because I have no time for this, but then again, it has to be done and I can read any time - editing does need quiet though.

So that is me for now.  Edit, edit edit.  I hope I can read and get the gist of this chapter and that it isn't as much of a mess as I think.

Wish me luck!

x J

bugger

Aw bugger I have done nothing today!

Well, I have thought a lot about stuff completely unconnected to work, pondered my future, felt a bit bereft without Bean charging around, had a bath and a fishfinger sandwich...  looked up some references, downloaded some more articles onto my kindle (I LOVE my kindle for work!  love love love!  No more printing!  No more lugging tonnes of paper around!  Easy to read, boookmark and take notes on cause I can squish into the corner of my settee, have notepad on lap, pen in one hand and kindle in the other - no pages to turn hurrah!  No more photocopying at uni either yeah!) and bought a book.  Begrudgingly as i will have finished this work in 5 months time and won't ever look at the book again, but then it is massively important and I can't wait for the uni to order it in.  Oh, and I sorted out my revised timetable for the First Draft that will take me up to the end of March.  So that has been my day!  Rubbish!  And I have no intention of working tonight to make up matters.  Tonight is DBs tax night so I am looking after bean then watching tv then going to bed at 10pm because I am soooooooo tired.  And feel all snoozy and happy.  I am rubbish at working when I am content.  Fact.

Tomorrow I plan to read three articles.  I am also working tomorrow night but may do references then in front of da tele.

x J

marching onwards

not much to report at the mo really...

i worked at the weekend doing mah readin'.  Lots of journal articles to read, and the list is getting longer!  O have added an extra week onto my deadline though, reackon it will be more useful this side of it rather than in the editing phase - no point handing in soemthing uncompleted to have to edit more!  And i nicked a week from my lit review chapter, as I am doing all the reading now so don't need it then.  This has made me more relaxed but still am speedreading ;0) 

I am being dopey today!  Think cause I couldn't work on Thurs and have been around my busy, busy bean since the quiet house is just too delightful and my brain has turned to splodge!  Am cocooned by the silence and giving in to my lethergy.  Looking after a wean when you are zonked is soooooooooooo hard (he keeps waking up at night again bah).  But working is a doddle in comparison :0)  Anyway, I am going to go and eat some lunch, watch something nice on tv and then come back this afternoon and do a couple of hours of good reading. 

Am in such a daydreaming mode. 

BUT at the weekend my reading led me to have manby new ideas for my discussion chapter which was marvellous (and possibly contributing to my relaxed state?!).  I realised the discussion was not going to be about more of the same, but would be a loftier, more academic rumination on the conclusions and arguments drawn from the arguments so far.  They form the 'why' (does it matter) and this chapter forms the necessary 'why again' that is proper analysis.  Hurrah!  So I am writing about different stuff that uses the info from my thesis to form contentions and support them, but not witter on about them again.  Hurrah!  I am so feeling like i can do this.  It will be mine! 

Soooo, I hope to have the discussion chapter finished by the 19th Feb.  I think, with all the reading I have to do that will be the LAST reading I do (apart from just keeping on top of current debate for the viva etc), this is most reasonable.  I am very excited!  this chapter is shaping up to be really interesting for me, which means I shall hoipefully write about it with some verve and enthusiasm and not too much of a horrid chore(like the last two yuk) and THEN this will also be the last proper brain workl I ahve to do!  the lit review, methodology, intro and concl are just blurt chapters, by which I mean just blurt out what you haev done - descriptive, not really analytical.  AND they only desrcibe what I have already done/know so no new knowledge required.  BORING but at least I should start sleeping :0)  At some point over the last couple of weeks I have really got this work into perspective and realised that it is achievable.  I have no idea when, or how but after the crisis when DB took Bean to cornwall and I confessed to my Sup that it was all just awful it seems to have got better and better.  Maybe that was my big crisis (the end of a few months of crisis tbh) and I am just running towards the deadline now.  that would be nice (although secretly I am always looking out for the next crisis!).

This is why I can't work today.  I have the house (and my mind) to myself and in it I am having a small, (rather early) party (which worries me ;0)).  But anyway, you have to have these moments when you can.

x J

BUMMMMMMS

My childminder is ill!

ARRRRGGGG.

Now, I love my childminder and would consider her a friend.  And she is ill, and I feel reet bad for her.  BUT ARRRRRGGG I can't have a day off!

Am so worried!  I just don't have time to waste!  Makes me realise how good a nursery would be so I can always take him in regardless.  But then again, there are too many other kids in nurserys and I don't want my beanie to get all aggro and stuff so the pay off is worth it for him. 

So today I am off!  Beanie seems to be very pleased with this arrangement and has managed to spend nearly an hour playing with his toys while I do the weekly shop online...  Doing the shop has been a big weight off my mind, I hate using all my brain to think about what I can rustle up for tea from a potato, a tin of tomatoes and some lentils ;0)  But it is good too because I didn't know he could play by himself like this so does mean that maybe sometimes I could work while he hangs.  Although it is easy to shop and pick up his stuff, chat to him about shapes and clap at his recorder playing - halfway through an article on the foucualdian conceptualisation of risk and security in international politics I might be a bit tetchy.

Anywho, I have to go in the sitting room and entertain!  I am sure a day off from work will be good and fine.  It has to be really!

x J

bed!

looked up me articles!  think i have enough for now.

tomorrow I am going to do the q and a thang about what I want for this chapter, and write out the blueprint of the thesis (is in brainstorm format at the mo) and see if that leads me anywhere re: structure.  Then when I feel comfortable that I have an idea of the direction I shall READ! 

Not read!  SKIM!

I am going to go to bed and switch off my brain!

x J

Reading lists

Ach today was spent planning my discussion chapter..,

which turns out to be a discussion and lit rview chapter!  needless to say I cannot do my discussion without knowing all of my literature...  and I have a bit to catch up on!  This is good news and bad.  It is annoying that I am unable to just 'get on' with the chapter, but good because once I have read this stuff i will be able to do this chapter and the lit review pretty quickly.  I will know my onions innit. 

Am loving my kindle for this!  I have downloaded all my PDF books and reports onto it, and can get all my journal articles too, so don't need to print them or read them on my comp :0)  On it as well you can bookmark pages and write notes so it is ace!  Doesn't have glare like a laptop so it is much nicer to read, and of course, there is no internet ;0)

But I won't be reading.  Oh no.  I will be skimming!  I will get the gist, take what I need and go!  Haha, take that pretend knowledge.

Sooo, tonight I am continuing to gather together my refs for journal articles.  Tomorrow I shall look for books I need to read and then will get on with my reading.  I probably need to read about 30 more journal articles and 20 odd books.  Might be more books, but I shall in no way be reading much of the books, and will be taking quotes and putting them straight into the comp so I can copy and paste them into the text as I need them.

One thing I am worried about is that I don't feel my discussion has anything new to contribute to the thesis.  I think i need to tackle this by asking myself if the thesis is finished, and if not, what it is I want to say.  I shall do that now.

Arf I am grumpy this evening.  I knew it was going to be rubbish when I had to pick up Bean still full of work worry and frustration.  If I could i would go for a run now.  But I cannae.  Luckily DB has come back in time to help put Bean to bed;  little man is being a wind-up merchant and I tell you, I am not in the mood!  I have been telling him this all afternoon but it seems to just be fuel to his superb conflagration of mischief and hyperactivity.  It is my fault because I know full well that when I am stressy about work my patience and tolerance of toddler antics goes out of the window and he knows this, but I can't chill out.  I just want to work!

So now I shall work.  Can't wait until bean is asleep then I can have some tea, a bit of peace and get on.  Honestly, my day starts at 7am and just hasn't stopped.  I don't intend to go to bed before I have all my journal articles downloaded or 1am...  This cannot bleed into tomorrow, I hate wasting my precious childminder hours doing mundane stuff like this!  It should be for brain work ;0)

Anyway, must get on!

x J

Another chapter edited

I have finished editing this chapter today!  So pleased!

I do need to go back to it again and read it through to check for mistakes/repetition/bad writing etc, and check the intro and conlc actually say what the chapter is about.  But other than that, it is done.  I don't want to look at it for a while so will leave it now.  The it should be first draft ready :0)

I have been working on it since 2.30 and just blitzed it.  I am feeling in big ass work mode and want to do MORE MORE but I shan't.  It is nearly 9pm so once I have done my bit putting bean to bed (Db is doing bedtime so it is Very Late and I am trying not to interfere and get cross!) I shall turn the laptop off and STOP.  Tomorrow I am with beanie all day and shall do references in front of da tele tomorrow night but nothing more strenuous.  Tuesday I am doing my discussion chapter. 

I am so aware now that I cannot waste a day or think 'ach, I'll do it tomorrow'.  Because I know I have NINE days to do my intro and concl as it is, if I take a day off or get a day behine then it means I will have 8 days and so oon and so forth!  It can't really happen!  Anyway, in my heart of hearts I know it will be fine, even if I don't hand it in then.  Which I will ;0)  Got my heart set on it I have and so far am doing just fine.

Looking forward to starting on my discussion chapter.  Need to re-read another of my chapters (one I don't kike much but am stopping myself from re-writing it until I am told to) and then work out what, together, they are trying to say.  Anything?  Crikey am afeared.  I don't know anything!

Am tired.  Off now.

x J

been working. crazy!

It is most odd, but I have been working pretty well today.

Not in a mindblowing way of intense PhD level concentration, and mostly with a hand stuck in a bag of mini cheddars but, still, working!

I can't believe it really.  In the old days I would finish a chapter and not be able to concentrate on anything other than gurning at the tele, having baths and getting drunk - oh, and sleeping - for two weeks!  It was chill time!  And here I am, finished the darned thing yesterday and am working on the next one today! 

Definitely shows that I am feelling the pressure ;0)

I haven't done much, and some of it was utterly futile but I have made progress and I know what I am coming back to on Saturday.  Sat I have to finish my rejigging of this old chapter so I can start next week on my new discussion chapter.  eek!

I am absolutely shattered today.  At the mo and out of nowhere I am suffering from insomnia until about 2am, when I finally nod off just as my baby is starting to become unsettled... so basically I am not really sleeping.  Am getting about 5 hours of interrupted sleep and has been like this for three nights now.  I would have a nap but I am too wired!  I feel like shit though and have to get my baby soon and be on form for him... make his tea, watch tv with him (harder than it sounds when you are shattered and trying not to nod off!) and play games and not be snappy or rubbish all when I am at my lowest energy levels.  Come 8pm I magically perk up and stay hyper until 1amish.  I know, I know I should work but I am tired, honest, I just can't sleep.  Seeing as it's confession time I keep getting a racing heart beat too.  Just out of nowhere I get all short of breath and my heart goes like the clappers.  Maybe I'm a bit stressed.  I don't feel it!  I need to go out running and stop eating mini cheddars...

This time next year all this will be a dream...  whoopeee!

So happy the wind and rain has stopped outside.  It has been ridiculously stormy!

x J

Woo!

Arf I love a good tribulatary (?!) episode ;0)

Am so excited, I have read through the comments my sup made on the chapter which are amazing and delightful. 

I keep just drinking in their wonderfulness.  I changed the two things he recommended I expand on a bit and other than that the signposting, cross-referencing, grammar, quotes and length were all fantabulous so he has said I can tuck it up to bed now until hand-in!  I have actually written a chapter that is worthy of a PhD examination!  WOOOOOOOOOOOO.  I can't believe it.  I was hoping for a 'meh' at best but hurrah and joy that my work is not complete dunderland!  And so far today I have been formatting my chapters to uni requirments as sup is worried in case I go over 400 pages (!) which I can't believe would happen but thought I should see what it will look like and what I have to do before I write much more.

I ahve written a plan of action for the First Draft Hand In and this will now be on the 23 March.  Mucyh later than the 1 march deadline I had but is the weekend after my birthday...  so I shall go away on a holiday and enjoy birthdayness and no PhDness for a week :0)  I wanted to hand in before my birthday but that would be a wednesday and it would be stupid to be paying for bean to be in childcare for weds and thurs and making myself finish early just to meet a spurious self-set deadline when I could use those two days...  and also DB works in an office and can't just take weekdays off.  So I shall work on my beeday and have what is effectively an extra week to do it.  I still have managed to end up with only 9 days to write an intro and conclusion which could be rather foolhardy.  But at the end of that day I shall know it inside and out by then and can just write it out asap - it is just a description of all the other work I have been slogging away over so shouldn't be too much brain work?  And if I don't have it finished poifectly then it doesn't matter, it is only a draft and I have another 2 whole months afterwards to read through, edit and re-write.  shall be fine, especially considering one of my chapter is *hand in worthy*.  What if, by the time I have done my first draft, most of them are ready?  Oooh that would be lovely.

Righty I am hungry and then am going to read through one of my old chapters and woprk out how it needs changing, which won;t be hard but does need to be done to be first draft worthy.

Honestly, I can feel that this really will all be over soon :0)))))))

x J

Fabulous progress!

Oooh er, my sup is most pleased with my chapter!

Thank goodness!  he said it was fabulous progress (ahem, yes i said it again) and to keep on going and was rather fine and dandy.  Hurrah!

there are comments to look through tomoz and alter accordingly but I hope that, in the main, indeed the transcripts of evil and general phase of empirical research-ness can be put to BED.  I am not good at it, I do not like it and hope never to do it again.

But hurray!  Am most enthused.

And I did do some work afterwards, I had a squizz at the chapter that follows this one, which is already written, and it needs a bit of a revamp but hopefully that will be done by monday. 

gosh I am seriously running out of time.

x J

Done and sent!

Gosh, I have spent the whole morning editing my SOCKS off and am now completely brain dead :0)

Sent the chapter to my sup and am now going to get some lunch for I am starving!  I just absolutely knew that if I left the work I would forget where I was bla bla and therefore totally bugger up the editing process so have been denying myself anything but loo breaks since 10.30.  I need to stretch and let my brain ooze for a bit.  Think lunch, and I shall treat myself to some silly tv too seeing as I won't be celebrating in any more profound ways!  I am not hoping for anything more than corrections from my Sup, but if he disses my ideas I will completely die.

This aft I probably won't do much to be honest but if I do work I will start working out my discussion chapter.  Or maybe even typing up references.

* four chapters done
* 35,000 words written out of 80,000

laters!

 x J

Chapter finished!

Wheeeee!  All done!  FINALLY.  Well, I need to come back to it tomorrow for a final read-through but yes, am most pleased.  It is not a bad chapter at all and it makes sense and I think it makes my research look worthwhile...  And it is just under 10,000 words.  I shall try and birng this down to 9,500 tops tomorrow.

Hurray!  Am so pleased.  So tomorrow I will read through it then send it to sup and tidy up my notes and I guess I should type up references into endnote which will take hours.  Maybe I should do that in front of the tv tonight.  Then I shall plan my discussion chapter.  I have this week to plan and need to start executing it next week although HOW I have no idea. 

I am just so looking forward to writing about something else.  Sick of looking through my interview transcripts, and my forte is not research (hehe) but other people's ideas really.  I don't like making up my own, just squizzing theirs and saying they're rubbish.

Only five more chapters to do!  Jeeeeez.

laters!
x J 

Back to work!

Arf we are all back to normal today.  Boo hoo.

I spent hours and hours yesterday working away... on page 8.  I edited page 8 until I didn't know what way was up any more.  So in the evening I had to work some more just so I didn't come back to page 8 today!  It is 27 pages long for goodness sake!

So am on p11 now.  Today I am going to finish editing this chapter and will send it to my sup in whatever state it is in.  end of.  I could faff and fiddle until the end of time I think.  And the chapter just is a bit rubbish and I think only sup can tell me why and help me make it better.  I can barely understand the point any more ;0) 

So that is what I am doing today!  hurrah!

x J

making up time

Arf so saturday did not go as planned!

I was busy procratinating and feeling a bit lost when my mate texted to say they were in the area could they pop in?  well, of course they can!  Did have a wee tear of frustration but was worth it to see friends and anyway, it is the festive season so THERE work.  So I am working today.  Am glad anyway as Sat i was feeling very het up about NYE and Having To Have It Done but in the end it didn't matter.

Today I am hating having to work.  Soooo I am just planning to get back into it at all and take it from there!  Really hope to get it done today though so I can spend tomorrow chilling and planning the discussion which is a bit I like doing.

All back to normal again tomorrow!  Bah rubbish.

x J