Back on Tuesday...

I have managed to re-organise my work deadlines to meet my new submission date of the 30 June, which, I believe was a grand step forward and has put the fear back into me about how much I have to do!

I have decided to come back to work on tuesday, just to get my 'faffing' out of the work for my proper return in two weeks.  I have decided not to try and wangle any more writing-up time but am going to  stick to my old, very pressured deadlines (a chapter in a week anyone?!) and Get It Done!  Think this is a good idea as it will help me move on and anyway, if I have more time I'll probably waste it AND I am sick of my work now - I want to hand it in, even if it is shite! 

I have signed up for a 10k nearby in July too, something to exercise for, and have got my italian guidebooks in the post for our lovely holiday in september :)  I have ALSO got a wedding to go to next weekend that I have got a new dress for and ting.  We are off down South for the bank holiday to visit my new neice-in-law and eat pasties :) 

The future is bright (and hopefully has a doctorate in it somewhere...).

Offski now!

x J

Hospital Week

This week is hospital week so I shall not be working.

Technically I am meant to return to work next Thursday.  Am completely dreading it and hope to get an extension but don't think I will.  I can't bear to come back and straight away be working all the hours like I was before, just to break even, not even produce anything of any merit (see recent whiny discussion chapter posts).

however, I do want this bloody thing out of my life!  having had time off, even though it has been shite time off, it has been lovely for my household.  i am not grabbing time wherever, I am not distracted (apart from the random weepy moments) when with Bean, if DB needs to work over a weekend he can, and i am fine about that, instead of shouting and ranting at him about how that is 'my' time.  We go on outings even!  And, ultimately, I am a much nicer person.

Really, I didn't know how much my work was making me a nightmare to be around.  I don't want to go back there!

Well, anyway, I have to for another couple of months.  Then from the end of July I can be free to frolick for a bit. 

Frolick!

x J

Finishing a PhD is Crap

I still hate my PhD!  Hate it! 

Do you think I am going through the difficult teenager phase were we fall out all the time so it makes it easier for them to fly the nest (of just feck off out of my life?!)

I have (re-) realised, thanks to some comments (thanking you) that doing a PhD sucks.  Most of the time, to be honest, it doesn't suck and the more I work on it the more I enjoy it.  However, there are times, and they can crop up most unexpectedly, when you just HATE IT and think it is crap and worthless and that you would be far better off doing something else.

I think my lack of interest has coincided with a) a traumatic event in my life (so, obviously not into it); b) a feeling it will never be finished; and c) a lack of self confidence.

The last is crippling when trying to do a PhD let alone complete it.  I think it is a complicated thing getting the right mixture of humility to want to strive and learn more and not think you have all the answers; and arrogance to think you have something worth publishing and defending and, well, being awarded a doctorate for.  I think this mixture is probably simply a considered confidence, something I am sincerely lack at the moment.

What one cannot do at this stage is let a lack of confidence win.  Somehow you have to tell yourself that it will be ok, that you aren't as bad as you think, and just carry on even though the voice in the back of your head whines on about how shit you are and how embarrassing this all is.  At the least, it is possible to just think it probably is all shit but other people seem to think you have something or wouldn't invest time marking your shit, and even if you hand in a pile of crap you will have a viva and then simply be told to piss off and correct it... and still, you will get your PhD.

One thing that keeps happening when I stop working for a bit is that I forget my small deadlines that will mountain maketh, and think solely in terms of 'got to finish a PhD' which is NOT helpful.  I do not have to finish a PhD, I have to write this chapter over a period of these many days, edit that over this many days etc etc and then, one day I will look up and it will be written. 

Anyway, I am feeling totally up shit creek about the whole thing but write this to try and make myself feel that my first day back won't be completely awful.  I think I will be back week after next...  Hmmm, I just can't imagine it at all.

x J

PS blogger have changed their look and I am less than impressed!  I have to click on links and things to get to my tags and ting and I am not computer savvy.  harrumph to change.  Sorry if the post is all awry!

Okay, Okay

I am not a very good PhD role model.  I am tired and sick of doing it.  I don't know if this is representative of a normal student, but I know i am particularly a) reactive to my environment and b) whiny.

I think the fact my colleague got his PhD has totally got my competitive juices flowing, if he has done it I totally can too!  Meh. ;0)

I think because of this, and having time off and putting my deadline back, I have a kind of 'this will *never* end' feeling and I really want it to end :)  I think I need to actually sit and work out my new deadline times and dates and this will bring the end into sharper focus.  At the moment, however, just deciding whether to buy a tin of soup addles my brain and the effort can even bring tears to my eyes in the middle of co-op.  Everyone elses normality just really gets to me. 

BUT I think I am turning a corner.  Even though I am eating crisps in front of This Morning and putting on tons of weight I am a) planning to train for a 10k in July so will have to get my wobbly bottom off the settee soon enough; b) constantly thinking about work; c) bought some healthy lunch today and am going to do a healthy shop; d) managed to post my sick note to uni, with a note; e) have been planning the move down South with DB; and finally, f) have planned a two week holiday to italy starting in Naples and taking in the sights aroundabout (pompeii, amalfi, positano etc) for september time.  I feel like I am starting to look around me a bit more and be a bit more positive.

I am unable, however, to consider sitting down to work or think about how to consider concepts and things, my brain is mashed.  I also still have to actually, physically miscarry as my body is hanging on to this failed pregnancy with ridiculous fervour.  I have a hospital appt on Monday, where i shall jump through some admin hoops and hopefully be allowed to be induced so this will all be over soon.  I don't know whether that process will mark an end to this hideous time or a new beginning so can't really guess at when I will be fit to come back to work without just being a total mopey dope.

DB has been completely terrific and kind and gentle with me through this and I am so much better for it.  I will get better soon! 

Today I will read the paper, watch tv and might have a nap.  I'm not sleeping well and am shattered!

x J

Bums

Arfins well I guess I have to finish then.  Three things happened today:

1) DB would not entertain the idea of me not finishing as I have spent too long on it now and owe it to every bugger else if not myself.  Fair enough, if people don't mind me carrying on with the naval gazing exercise that is writing my PhD I shall continue :)

2) I got the draft back from my Sup and it has corrections ALL over it but the arguments seem ok.  Just really badly written.  Embarrassing and i emailed him to apologise for the poor quality.  No wonder he is arsey with me.

3) Someone from my year has just passed their viva...  Now, I am very pleased for him but also mighty envious - I really want that to be MY facebook status ;0)

So I shall continue - but not yet.  My head is mashed at the moment.  I think it is quite good that I know how to get back into it - by correcting the shite marked by my Sup.  then on to the next bleeding chapter (back to the lit review).  My confidence is seriously knocked, but then maybe it had got a bit too high anyway.

x J

Pros and Cons over lunch

I am going to go through the pros and cons of staying at uni with DB over lunch.

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.  i want to pack all my notes away and never, ever look at them again.  I hate it, I don't want to spend a single second more of my life and energy talking about it ever again.

I don't want to be an academic.
I won't be able to pubish anything.
My family is unhappy while I continue to work.
I feel like a crazy person who just sits in a room and scribbles rubbish for my own entertainment.
My arguments are shite ;0)

If DB says I have to do it and he will support me completely and thinks i will be a loser to give up, I will try and carry on.  I really hope i can talk him round to letting me stop it though.

Better get some glad rags on to go out for some lunch.  Db is coming home early from work to cheer me up from my shitty limbo baby-no-baby status (still no sign of the miscarriage tossbag shittits) and my Sis is back in hospital with MRSA and other shit bollocks; and my week-old niece-in-law is poorly in hospital  (though hopefully better today and home, fingers crossed).  All too rubbish!  It is raining though which is great, and I am not working which is double great and actually, I am in a good mood?!  Hormones.

x J

Buggertits

Apologies, just like swearing.

Well, I have had a spanking day off eating doughnuts and fish pie and drinking tea.  Am now very fat, very thirsty and very tired :)  way to go!

I have been thinking, and really, I think I might quit.  I know, I know it is crackers, I am two months away from finishing.  But let me say this: working is a constant battle.  It creates friction between me and DB, who needs the time to work and can't see why I do this; creates friction between me and the family (DB and Bean) because I take so much family time at the weekend to work; friction because I have no spare time to recharge my batteries, friction because Bean gets upset when DP and I argue and when he doesn't see me much.  Not working these past two weeks has completely changed our family dynamic - I have time off when Bean is with DP or at the childminders so don't need it at the weekend, I am not shouting at DB for working all the time when I need to work and passing bean around so we can do said work; DB can work when he needs to and we *still* have time to go to a car boot sale or out for some lunch.  Bean is so much happier and more settled having me around more too and not being with the childminder so much and me not being so stressed (am unhappy but not stressed). 

I could finish but for what and for whom?  Why do I want a PhD - I don't need a PhD to work at the CAB which would be my favourite job of all time.  I don't need a PhD to work at the council.  In fact, with a PhD I would be overqualified for these jobs!  hehe.  I have three degrees as it is :) 

Arf, i just don't bloody care.  I just want to look after my family and have a nice life not making people around me miserable.

PLAN:
My plan is to mull this over for a couple of weeks during my sick leave and not make any rash decisions possibly based in hormonal imbalances and grieving ;0).  I shall look at the chapter Sup is posting to me (clearly so full of errors he cannot point them out on an email like usual) and see if I can fix any of it.  This is a big issue.  I shall also talk to DB.  If he is wholeheartedly behind me finishing then I shall be able to do it.  I cannot and will not finish with all the fighting going on, I just don't care enough.

Am off to run my son's bath now.  See, my DB is at work still and because I don't have to work this evening I don't mind at all.  In fact, I feel sorry for him and want to support him whereas normally I would be Very Angry and Shouty.  Life is for living and I wonder whether I have had my priorities up my selfish ass for all this time.  Making everyone drop eveything for me and my course when I don't even need the qualification, my family needs me, and DB, who pays the bills, puts food in my mouth and a roof over my head, needs the time.

Life was so very different when I started at 27 years old.

x J

feeling better

because I am not working :)

I am not going to work this week!  DB has told me catergorically not to and to wander round the house, eat chocolate and watch tv all day.  I shall do this.  I have three weeks added onto my previous deadline as a consequence of my sick leave and for some reason I was determined to work through this (chuh).  now, I am not as the stress of work and needing to achieve is messing with my head and making me iller!

I shall take time off, chill and find my equilibrium again and when this horror is all over come back fighting.  Sort of.  Sort of limping to the finish line (still don't really care about the finish line tbh).

laters

x J

Why You Should Finish Your PhD

I just read a really good, no-nonsense article on the interweb telling me why I should finish and write up my PhD. 

The reasons that resonated most were that:

• You won't *ever* finish until you have done your viva.  Ever, it will always hang over you for EVER.
• You will fuck up your supervisor's record.
• You may have to keep paying Uni every year for 'writing up' status for yonks.
• You will have make it hard for your supervisor to write your reference - if you finish they can just go on and on about how brilliant you are, if you don't they will have to try and gloss over the fact you never had the gumption to finish.

There are other, obvious reasons but we know all those (self satisfaction, contribution to knowledge bla bla) but they weren't sufficient to motivate me any more.

However, just seeing that I would be a bugger to my sup and would really bugger up my future references etc made me think that really, now, this is an exercise in communication and nothing else.  Who cares if I got the chapter wrong, my sup has marked it and is sending it to me in the post and I will just have to suck up my pride, make the necessary corrections, put aside my intellectual idiocy and snobbery and self-aggrandisement and just write it as I should, jump through the hoops, hand it in and Move the Fuck On.

Pride and idiocy cannot stop me doing this.  So what if I am not as clever as I thought?  So what if I haven't got this all sewn up?  So what if (I think) my Sup thinks I must be as thick as anything?  Just write, and get on and go on holiday and get a kitten.

If I don't finish I won't have much pride left either. 

x J

hate it

Hate the PhD.  Don't want to do it any more at all!

Sup isn't impressed I am taking time off, i can tell by the tone of the emails.  However, this could be worry 'sounding' like irritation.

I did get some feedback from my discussion chapter which basically said I am confused by my concepts.  Now, this could be true and would worry me at this stage of the PhD.  I wonder how i got by for five years without anyone picking this up, then realise that this is all part of the farce that is me doing a PhD.  Then I think well, I know what I mean, but why can I not convey this?  And then I think bah, it's all rubbish.  And then I think, well if I can't do right for doing wrong what's the fucking point?!

I am having a shit time, granted.  A shitty, shit time.  However, I have to work (tomorrow).  I really, really don't want to - I can't remember what I am doing, or why or why anyone gives a toss.  Do I have to put myself through this just to get some award no bugger is going to care about?  My DB thinks it is all just a time taking hobby, maybe i should get the hint. 

I emailed my Sup and said that if I have got the concept muddled, and therefore the argument, then the central part of my thesis falls down.  I said what I meant (I wonder if he remembers my old chapters that back up this contention?!) by the argument and am now just waiting for him to get back to me and say oops, you look like you're going to fail then.  I feel depressed and pointless and like the stupid PhD is a the centre of, and yet the least of, my worries.

Anyway, after that, tomorrow I shall work for one hour.  I shall rearrange my deadlines, work on a bit of the lit review and then sit and watch tv.  I am knackered, stressed and pissed off.

Bah!

x J

Disc ch

Sup is reading my disc chapter today (he forgot about it, while I have been metaphorically pacing the floor in anguish and at much he must hate it to have not mentioned it for two weeks!).

Am nervous!  He will email me about it sometime in next couple of days.  I did send a caveat that it is rough, but whatever the ideas are obviously not rough :)  I hope it isn't all too obvious.  i hope it is new material.  I hope it is ok - I don't think i could cope if it wasn't!  BUT then again, I do have time now to amend the issue.  Sure as hell don't need to do any more reading, so if it is toss it really is because I have got the wrong end of the stick about what is expected of my re: the phD.  I can't think of a thing else I could have written/argued...  I don't think he will like it though, he sounds quite grumpy on emails.

Anyway, tenterhooks...

x J

Month off

Ah I have been signed off for a month! All buggered wit baybee but we are trying to move on.

It isn't completely true, of course, once a PhD student always a PhD student and so I will actually be back to work on Tuesday as DS is with the childminder as per.  What else will I do?!  And I am super keen to finish - can't believe I have only weeks to go.

Sup is ok about my time off.  I am not telling him I am really working because I need the sicknote as a cover in case I do fall flat on my face and can't work.  Can't have the weight of expectation on my shoulders.  Not meant to be back at work until 8 May - this is the week after a wedding I am going to where everyone I know will know of our travails (ug) but it will be a grand occasion to drink and chill and celebrate love and life and come home and move on from this horror.  Anyway, in the meantime I aim to finish my lit review and have the methodology under way.  This weekend I shall revise my timetable and become aware of my new submission date.

anyway, am off until Tuesday.  Bliss.

x J

much better

much, much, much better today for not worrying about work.  So happy.  Am never going to go back to work again ;0)

HAPPY EASTER

x J

shutting up shop

I have officially, finally been told by DB to 'fuck work'.  Hurrah, some permission to stop fretting and concentrate on myself.

I am to report to the docs on tues, whine extensively about how awful it all is and get a sicknote, when I also tell my sup I have stopped working and will be off for x amount of weeks.  (For as long as I can get, obvs - even if I don't loll about moping for all of it I can maybe get some extra work hours in.)  I shall take any disappointment as it comes (poor Sup, he just wants to retire) although DB reassures me that even uni people are humans, and my sup is a lovely man.  I have not asked for or taken *any* time off this whole course, not even for the deaths of my Dad, Cousin, or Grandma (though at these times I had long enough in my course then to mope and work without pressure) and so I think he will probably appreciate the gravity of it all if I am asking for it now.

I am much better now I have reached this conclusion.  Luckily for me I have done all the thinky horrible work, it is only my lit review that I am in the middle of and that is well planned, the intro is all laid out and I can hit the ground running with it upon my return.

Laters y'all and happy easter!

x J

WARNING - depressing post alert!

So I was meant to work this morning but DB went out for a quick trip to the gym and didn't get back till lunchtime!  by which time I had lots of time to dwell and analyse every twinge and nasty pain and get all afeared and now I am meant to be working but I can't concentrate :(

I am totally screwed.  Totally, and utterly screwed.  I did not think for a millisecond, after having the best, easiest, pregnancy with Bean that my next pregnancy, my celebrate-life-and-finish-Uni baby would be such a nightmare.  I might not finish in time now; I probably won't.  Uni will be penalised re: funding and I will be in the shit.  i really wouldn't want to have to bring this up in every interview which asks why I went over my deadline?!  I can't work and working this weekend was *vital* to meeting my deadlines.  I cannot concentrate, I cannot care that I can't concentrate.  I am so angry that I have to concentrate but I am over a barrel, whichever way I look at it. 

I don't know if you can get retrospective sick notes - I doubt it.  I could get a note for the two weeks following my mc, maybe but i would need those weeks to recover and in the meantime it is *this* week I need the note for.  My Sup is going to be mental.

I hate that I am going through this and the one thing at the forefront of my mind is this fucking course.  I am very angry about this, at myself as much as anything because my deadlines are so tight.  It is how I work best though, and I really did not know this was going to happen.  I don't think anyone factors in a 'death' contingency plan when planning deadlines ;0) 

I desperately want to switch off and look after myself but I know the best thing would be to work.  I suppose I just wish things would start happening (if they are going to happen, which I think they are) then I can just stop work and focus and start to move on mentally.  It's the being pregnant but not being pregnant that is killing me. 

Fucking hell, I hope no bugger has to read this!  It is great having this blog though as a diary of my PhD.  I looked through some old posts yesterday and so much has happened that I don't remember and am very grateful for my record, this is important too.  I mean, I am meant to submit in 7 weeks!  wow, that would be cool.

I think I shall have to mope about for now and do a LOT of evening working when I am better.

The thing that gets me too is what if everything is ok really, and baby really was hiding in the scan?  then I would have missed my deadline and all for nothing.  I would have no sick note, no excuse, nothing but also no work. 

But I would have a healthy baby... and so the rest of it can go jump off a cliff I suppose ;0)  I guess I would work night and day with a smile on my face if that were the result.

x J

Um...

I am trying to think of excuses but I can't.  well, I can.

I haven't worked today because:

My DB is off work and has actually been OFF work all day.  This never happens even on weekends and having us all around together as a family made the day go by so fast I forgot to work.

we went out after lunch to a soft play centre and that took ages.

And then DP left us in the car for nigh on an hour to go and get some painkillers (coming back with the whole shop!).

So it wasn't my fault.  I did work this morning but only so I realised it was all quite easy really and could wait until I had had a cup of coffee...  which took all day.

I came up to work at half six and did try but got waylaid by rubbish nonsense.  I cannot engage my brain, it is being really bloody scatty.

Sooooo I am going to call it a day; I am defeated.  I shall work tomorrow, however and really, honestly do some work.  I shall work in the morning then I can have the afternoon to do as I wish and not be feeling guilty about work all day (like today).  I have until Thursday to complete this chapter and I really do (naively, I am sure) believe this chapter is straightforward to write which is why I am skiving.  I reckon with hard work I can get it written in three days.  Ideally I think I would like to work lots on Sunday and Monday and have tomorrow off.  Nah, I think at some point needing a break is going to spill into don't-want-to-do-it-now procrastinating and that, my friends, is very bad behaviour. 

I shall slope off now and lounge around eating crisps and ice cream all night, sleep lots and then tomorrow come and do some chuffing work.  Arf, I don't want to.

x J

working?!

Arf I was up at 7am and started work by half past!

Admittedly I had a terrible night's sleep and woke up angry having gone to sleep on a barny with DH.  Apparently I am being too breezy on FB and he is worried about what his friends (who know about the mc) will think.  Naturally I went mental about censorship, private grief and thicko gossiping.  I am not going to waer black and stop smiling - surely if I can smile that is a good, cleansing thing?  And, anyway, facebook?!  Since when has that been a real-life portal into anyone's world?!  Haha. 

anyway, we have made up and he saw the error of his ways.  Sometimes, and he would absolutely disagree with this and laugh at my pompousness (?!  word?!) but I feel that being so deep in my PhD makes me able to analyse anything to death and tear arguments apart in a really clinical 'there are three principle, irreconcilable points in that statement DB'.  I don't argue in a normal way, but am very analytical and just sometimes feel a bit ruthless.  Is most odd and will stop when I finish work :)

I am knackered and feeling mentally unhinged today.  I can't emphasise to DB enough how important it is that I sleep a lot at the mo to cope but he does really like to read in bed before going to sleep so I lie there all thoughts raging.  My head is full of PhD, and still thinks it is pregnant so I am shattered while also trying to cope with the fact I am *not* pregnant, and all the rest.  Is a lot to take on and I didn't sleep last night and today I feel precarious and a bit mental.  Damnit.

My bubs is crying downstairs, I shall go and get a cuddle.  I am working on a bit of conceptualisation and it seems to be ok; I shall return when I feel less unhinged (ever?!).

My lovely, lovely mum-friend submitted her PhD yesterday.  I am so very proud :0)

x J

Hmmm. not a surprise

I have done bugger all today.

I could pretend to care but I don't.  I had a lush lunch, a nice walk in the sunshine and great conversation and offloading with DB.  I am just not in a worky place, which is the lamest excuse I have ever heard but I don't care.  I have tomorrow to work when I normally wouldn't and will come back refreshed and enthused after a wee bit of impromptu time off.  These things happen sometimes, but the work always gets done in  the end...

x J

Hmmm

I am not working today.

Well, I have not worked today *so far*.  I blame both my emotional rollercoaster and my husband, who is off for easter and bumbling about downstairs and making me feel like having a holiday too.  I also feel very sorry for myself today which is not conducive to working so much as watching catch-up tv and eating easter eggs (Bean has too many...  I am doing him a favour!)  (I have not been doing this by the way, but have been at my laptop since 10.30, avoiding work.  I have eaten one of Bean's easter eggs though).

I am going out for lunch with DB in a min and aim to work when I come home.  I don't know if I will, I might just not.  DB is around for all of easter and has said I can work when I want (no waaaaaay.  Support!  Hurrah!) so will work for a few hours tomorrow and over easter.  I have a week to finish and it certainly looks like that is achievable so I think I just can't be arsed to flog myself when I am just Not In The Mood.

I know this is stupid but I don't care ;0)  This is how I roll!  Some days I work like a machine, and others I am dopey.

I am freeeeeeezing cold.

Righty.  I am off to mope about somewhere until I can 'get ready' to go for lunch, warm up, offload mopiness onto DB's shoulders and return this aft too full and content to work ready to write a gazillion words.  I think I may need a strategy more than just 'sit and write' today, seeing as my inner rebel has come to play.  Maybe jujst ten minutes here and there will get me concentrating.  Small goals.

I know *exactly* what I need to do, I just need to sit my bum down, stop surfing the internet for miracle baby stories and do it!

Ach, whatever, it always gets done in then end ;0)

x J

Lit review is MINE!

Haha, I own this literature review :0)

I am absolutely delighted with my work today.  I would boast more but would also have to say that  just think that I am getting used to my style of working, undoing bad habits (such as constantly fiddling with my intro before I have written the text) and relying more on my strengths (constantly fiddling with the intro to plan my chapter before writing the text... uh oh). 

I have planned this chapter and, as far as I can see, it looks pretty spot-on.  It mirrors my discussion chapter and the key topics within, it covers all the issues made in my various other lit review plans over the years and also draws on all the literature I have piled around me on the floor.  It is argument driven, it shows where my research is coming from and proves (I hope) there is a case to answer.  It doesn't cover much ground I don't already know inside and out (a good sign!) which is a huge relief, and doesn't cover much that bores me to death either.  In fact, some of the points I am really looking forward to getting down because I can imagine, for a new reader, they would be revelatory (I am such a geek).  I even have the concluding argument down.  I have nearly half of it written due to old drafts and copy-and-pasting I have done over the years as I have been writing chapters and realised certain para's would be in the lit review :0)  Hurray!  So am nearly halfway there which is totes brillllllllllliant.  However, this stuff does need tending and neatening and editing, and I still have to write a LOT.  This chapter is probably looking at being around 10,000 words at the mo, but I do not intend for it to be this long.  8,000 should do.

Still not heard from Sup about discussion chapter.  I check compulsively.

I am so delighted I have nailed this chapter.  Can I just say (completely prematurely and in the knowledge that this will probably bite me on the arse in a few days time when I am totally depressed and don't know what the heck I am doing) I think I am getting used to how I work, and therefore the writing is getting easier?  Can I say this or will I totally jinx myself...  I will balance it out by saying I still never know what the hell I am saying or why, but *can* say that I am getting used to the process of writing chapters.  I know that I have to write the intro first, pretty roughly but so that when I come back to it I can see straight away what the chuff this is all about.  I then copy and paste my intro under my intro again but split it into sections with subheadings.  This then forms my main text.  I then write a quick conclusion (a sentence) to remind myself of the point (or copy this from the intro).  Then I look through old drafts I have saved along the way and add in any text from there that fits my chapter.  then I am ready to write in new stuff and ta-da. 

I know my foibles too - I can fixate on the intro to the exclusion of all else, which is daft when the main text will develop and change organically as you write, and so therefore, will the intro.  It is just a pointer until you are into the main text, which will then in turn dictate the intro.  I can spend too long on particular phrasing and points which may not even have a real aim.  I think though, a looming deadline kicks these things out of you.  I can also edit better as I go along now - my phrasing is sooooo much better than it used to be; I can see a convoluted sentence a mile off now whereas I used to really love them :)  I have a bigger vocab and an excellent store of synonyms for words I use again and again, like 'demonstrate', or 'examine', or 'explain' :0)  Altogether, this knowledge helps one write with speed and efficiency.  I can also spot a shit argument from a mile away.  hehe.  So even in the process of writing up, I am learning how to be an academic.  I can now start to sense that a life writing papers as a scholar needn't be a nightmare as you learn the tricks of the trade.  In fact, writing - the language you use, how to form a narrative and systemically organise a paper - could become second nature so you only need to really worry about your argument.  And as an academic you only spout the same stuff again and again so that's taken care of too!  (soreeeeee academics, I am only joking).  (am not).

So there we are, it's all rosie.  For NOW.

I have to go and get my boy now, ta ra!  I think I might even have tonight off!

Head back on, all systems go, go, go!

I am back in action now and stopped being mopey.

A) I don't know what is going on and may well see a perfectly happy little baby next week;
and
B) If I don't I shall be able to get a drs sick note which I shall proudly present to Uni and get two weeks off to do my moping then.

At the mo I have a 50:50 chance of still being pregnant or not so may as well look on the bright side.  I sobbed mah wee heart out yesterday, then picked up my Bean and it all got much better from there.  I did some work last night to make sure that when I came to it today I knew what to do.  I am behind and it is scaring me!

I have not heard from Sup about my discussion ch which is also scaring me. 

My jumper smells, which is not scary but is gross.

I also asked DB to stay here over easter.  This is a fucker because I did plan to work solidly for four days and get this chapter written. However, I am not sure that I wouldn't just go into myself too much; I am too knackered to exercise (whatever is going on my body still thinks it is mega preggo) so wouldn't go out for that and all my friends are with their families doing easter stuff.  So it would be tres lonely and my days would lack structure.  I would just sit in front of the laptop for hours and be lonely, I know it.  This way DB has said he will take Bean out lots so I can work as much but
I will have their company and support.  Hopefully I will get as much done anyway, just in a different way :)  Also, if anything were to happen with this bubs then I want DB here to help me out!

Soooo. WORK.  Today I am writing out the plan I wrote last night for my lit review chapter.  I am to remember that it is to be argument-led, not literature led; to be focused and selective (don't panic-write everything you know just because you know it); and tally in with my chapters and the themes in my discussion chapter.  I am to write a chapter that shows where my ideas for the research came from so a newbie would have some idea of the background of the concepts and why there is a case to be answered.  I have kind of done this planning, today is about giving the intro a form of structure and starting to write.  Write *anything*, just write.  Tomorrow I want to be able to come to it and hit the ground running.  I have until nextThursday - two days longer than I thought, hurray :)  thurs is also Scan Day of Dreadedness so I shall start my sick note time from then, if necessary.  I only have one week to write my methodology chapter (and the childminder is off; that was/is going to be a week of evening working hell) and then 8 days to write my intro and concl (not so bad methinks).

Last few weeks advices:  get it DONE!  My very motivated and punctillious friend keeps extending her deadlines and says to me she could finish her PhD in three months she reckons but is getting an extension anyway.  Let me tell you this: she has written *more* than I have and probably better, and I am finishing my first draft by the 27th and whole thing in less than 2 months.  This just shows that if you have the time, you will fill it.  I don't think at this stage you can take longer and do it at a nice, relaxing pace...  I think at some point you need a deadline, a proper one, to get you motivated and keep kecking you up the butt with The Fear or it will take *forever*.  I am glad I have my deadline; I know if I extended (sick note notwithstanding, it is quite different) I would just watch tv today and tomorrow and have this stress in a few weeks time ;0)  Maybe that is just me though ;0)

Right, better do some of this work so I can eat my doughnut.

x J

shit and tits

Ah cripes, I can't work.

I just feel so fu*king sad today.  I absolutely *have* to work, I have to work like a machine!  My first draft is in in 26 days and I have four chapters to write.  I have no time to sit here crying. 

What the hell am  to do.  I have about 15% of my brain for working, the rest is just off in sad fairyland.  I have done some stuff but it just isn't making any sense, I can't hold the big picture in my head so basically I am just absentmindedly picking up and putting down jigsaw puzzle pieces.

I can't tell my Sup because I might NOT have lost the baby, they could actually just be hiding from the sonographer.  I can't think this is true though and have to prepare for the worst which leaves me in two working weeks worth of limbo until the scan.  If bubs has died then I have to go through sorting all that out with an op at the hosp and, I assume, grieving process after.  I feel so awful and sad, i just can't describe it.

I absolutely must have this easter break to work but think I have to ask DP to stay here with me in case anything happens and I don't think I am very good alone at the mo.  Which means I won't work as much as I wanted to.

Any other time of the PhD I would have just shut up shop for a couple of weeks and no-one would have noticed.  Now I am in this pickle and under so much pressure it would make me cry anyway without this.  I hate that I cannot mourn the loss of my bubs because of the bloody PhD and ESRC funding deadline pressure.

Shit and tits.

x J

Yay and ah, sad day

I handed in my chapter yesterday! 

Proof read and all done.  Sup said he might not get to read it until May, I think he may be telling me off for being slow.  Oh well, I cannae help it, am doing mah best.

And I found out my pregnancy wasn't working out today :(  Sad day.  So I have to work tonight and all this week nad my family are off this weekend coping with miscarriage.  This, I think, is the big worry about pregnancy and a PhD; not the sickness or tiredness but what if it doesn't work out?  I have coped with many deaths throughout this PhD and worked through them all so guess this will be the same.  Is still pretty raw at the mo but I have to do an hour of work later and obviously I will be working tomorrow as usual.  Am dreading being at home on my own and just really hope I can concentrate.

So onwards to the lit review!  It is pretty roughly planned and all the literature is in the relevant piles so just a case of organising and writing.  I only have 8 more days so have to crack on asap!

I might just take tonight off and have a bath and mooch around and have an early night and come to it tomorrow with a hope of being psychologically refreshed.

x J