The Everyday Trials and Tribulations of a PhD Student...

How to make a bad PhD chapter good

2012-02-02T00:37:00.000+05:30

In the words of clare who just left a comment!

Sooooooo. I do not know the answer to this, of course. However I do know what I am doing and what my sup wants me to do, so will scribble that down if it helps anyone. I am sure it will help me in the future as I always forget and have to go back to my checklist of how to write a chapter :0) Oh, as well, I can only advise on humanities subjects as that is what I am doing.

Okay. Big one this. Firstly, make sure your chapter is argument driven. I read back through an old one and realised that I had laid out the information, then stated my conclusion from it. This is Wrong. From the outset you need to say, 'this chapter is showing THIS and THIS'. 'It is argued that...' Be explicit! Examiners do not want to be kept guessing.

Which leads me to point two. Make sure your chapter is well signposted. State from the outset what you want to say. Then say how you are going to say it, who influences you (philosophy/theory/academic argument wise) and why it is important. As you go through your chapter you will have subheadings, make sure that at the end of each important section you summarise what you just said, and at the start of the next section say what that part is going to say. This may seem super repetitive but if what you are saying is quite complex it keeps your reader with you, and happy. It also helps you to summarise - it makes you realise if you can't that what you have just written is a stream of consciousness. You need to keep your reader with you, so clearly mark sections under subheadings (have lots to start with if it helps then narrow them down later), write what is relevant under that subheading and move on. This will keep your info contained, neat and understandable. My last chapter had a whole load that read: 'and then so and so said this, and I found that and this shows this and this and that' and it was hard to follow. The arguments (even if I do say so myself) were grand but I felt out of breath reading it and a bit stressed. If you signpost and spoon feed the info to your reader they will love you for it and surely forgive lesser errors :0)

Bear in mind that your examiners will probably skim read your thesis, paying particular attention to your introductions and conclusions for the info. So these need to be tight, extremely clear and just wonderful. If there is a chance these are the only things your examiner might hope to read then, if it is good, this could give them a wonderful impression of your nous and fabulous intellect and stop them reading too much of the meat (which would be ace!) ;0) It wshould tell them exactly what you are saying and why, and as I said above, show off your knowledge by saying who you are drawing your argument from such as: 'Drawing from foucault's contention that bla de bla, the chapter shows that...' Name drop shamelessly.

According to my sup, research and chapters never argue, they show/illustrate/demonstrate. I was always saying 'this chapter argues that'. No, apparently not.

Be aware of wordiness. Keep your own glossary/thesaurus of lovely words you come across. Do try and be accessible though, you don't want an examiner being suspicious that you are hiding behind fancy words, or even worse, read something you wrote out to you at the VIVA and you have no idea what it meant ;0)

Make sure you cross reference between your chapters. Remember if you have explained something before/will elaborate something in the future and draw attention to this. This will bind the thesis together, make you look like you know what you are saying and is a nice way to show off that you knew something, somewhere, once. Cross referencing also refers to talking about stuff in you wrote in another chapter but with a new bent on it, or referring to a theoretical angle/philosophy etc again.

In your 'contentions' chapters (ones that aren't descriptive like the intro/concl are) make an effort to refer to your theory/principal contention/philosophy at least six times in an 8000 word piece. This will keep you focused on bringing it up and refering back to it while in the quagmire of relating fieldwork/discourse analysis etc. This makes you Well Clever and is most definitely necessary for PhD standard.

Don't forget to ask yourself 'why' (does this matter) and then 'why', again. The second 'why' will automatically bring up your analysis to Clever levels :0

And makes sure that the end of the chapter sums up and ties together the contentions made within. Else it will be all parts and no sum :0)

I can't think of much else.

So, when you have written a chapter ask yourself:

Is it argument driven?
Is it well signposted?
Are the intro and concl tight as tight can be?
Is it concise?
Have you cross referenced between chapters?
Have you paid attention to your theory/academic bent/philosophical influences?
Have you said 'why', and then 'why' again?
Are all the contentions tied together at the end?

And, by my reckoning, if you have these things down it should be a nicely written chapter methinks.

I am sure I have missed out something major but really can't remember what! Please feel free to add!

x J

Done!

2012-02-01T21:08:00.000+05:30

So the chapter is finally edited to first draft standard (I hope)...

Phew! And whee!

I do still need to go through and add a couple of refs and neaten one sentence but I need a book to do that which I don't have. I can do that when I am going through each chapter just before I hand in. At least the argument is there, the structure is sound, the intro and conclusion is done, there is good signposting, cross referencing and I have made sure I have brought it all together at the end.

Sooo, hurray.

Tomorrow I am replanning my timeplan (seeing as this is two weeks overdue. heck) on a massive wall calender I got free with lurpack (! lucky me!) and putting that up in pride of place in my office, then need to just revisit my discussion plans I had going, then I shall get back to my reading! i am really lookng forward to not having to do any writing I have to say.

okay dokey, going to get ready to pick up mah boy now. I am so relieved and really quite impressed that personal circumstances have not completely disabled me for another week :0)

x J

hahhaaaa!

2012-02-01T17:50:00.000+05:30

I've nearly done it!

Whee! Am well out of page 11! I just finished that bit then the next whole section of about 10 pages was just dandy!

I am off now for some r and r, then shall come back, check this last section (which I have edited before so i know it is fine) and then this avo just need to make sure the intro and concl are representative of the, largely tinkered with. whole.

I still have some refs to check and one sentence to neaten but i know to look in a certain book and get a quote so that is easy enough. I can't be bothered to do that now, i shall do it when I am generally going through with my pedant stick at a later date.

Then I shall be DONE with editing this chapter hurrah! It is tip top toodally bing bong.

Tomorrow I shall be back to reading for the discussion, hurray!

x J

re-write, re-write, re-write

2012-02-01T17:22:00.000+05:30

I reckon, surely, that by the time I have finished jiggery pokering about with this chapter it will be exactly as it was when I first started messing with it

Seriously, I don't think there is a paragraph left that hasn't been moved around! And I am back to being on page 11. Bleedin' page 11. I did get beyond it yesterday, but then today realised I had to go back and make sure it all flowed properly, which it most certainly didn't. It was a stream of consciousness. So today I have been making sure that it is in clear sections that flow logically into one another so as to create my argument.

Oh to get beyond page 11.

x J

Cited fo' sho!

2012-01-31T20:45:00.000+05:30

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

2012-01-31T19:05:00.000+05:30

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

2012-01-26T17:41:00.000+05:30

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)

2012-01-25T15:40:00.000+05:30

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

2012-01-24T16:06:00.000+05:30

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!

2012-01-24T01:20:00.000+05:30

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

2012-01-23T20:05:00.000+05:30

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!

2012-01-22T01:03:00.000+05:30

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

2012-01-21T23:31:00.000+05:30

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

2012-01-21T17:58:00.000+05:30

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

2012-01-21T00:34:00.000+05:30

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

2012-01-20T21:35:00.000+05:30

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

2012-01-20T15:31:00.000+05:30

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!

2012-01-19T21:05:00.000+05:30

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!

2012-01-19T20:32:00.000+05:30

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

2012-01-19T15:53:00.000+05:30

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

2012-01-17T20:56:00.000+05:30

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

2012-01-17T17:43:00.000+05:30

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

2012-01-12T16:48:00.000+05:30

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!

2012-01-11T04:46:00.000+05:30

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

2012-01-11T01:09:00.000+05:30

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

2012-01-09T02:19:00.000+05:30

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!

2012-01-05T20:52:00.000+05:30

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!

2012-01-05T17:42:00.000+05:30

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!

2012-01-05T02:23:00.000+05:30

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!

2012-01-04T18:53:00.000+05:30

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!

2012-01-03T20:47:00.000+05:30

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!

2012-01-03T15:49:00.000+05:30

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

2012-01-02T19:12:00.000+05:30

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

mitigating stress

2011-12-31T15:26:00.000+05:30

I know! Already! I only just posted!

Procrastinating hard, I went downstairs to make myself a hot cup of coffee (I already had one cup ut it was lukewarm... just won't do!) and all of a sudden was overcome by adrenaline/stress/anxiety! Soooo I did some star jumps to try and get rid of the tension, which has worked well, and had a wee pep talk to myself. I do always get stressy as I am finishing a big piece of work - just really really tense and shaky! Is all very exciting and a Big Deal so I get a bit het up. Anyway, I am a bit like that so I thought well, I should jsut aim to get this chapter finished asap in whatever form I can! Don't spend hours editing and slaving over a sentence - that is what March and April are for! This is my first draft, it is a coherent display of my ideas for my Sup to read and for me re-write a million times. So not to sweat the editing today! I am going to just blast through it and add in my theory quotes where I feel is best (no faffing and perfectionism!) and then read it quickly and see if it makes sense. If it does then I shall leave it for today because that is enough I think. Tues I can do the same again but more carefully and then send it off and start planning the discussion chapter!

I love the beginning of planning chapters. Brainstorming and being creative. Colourful pens and big pieces of paper... It's trying to shape it into an academic essay that kills me ;0)

SO don't sweat it.

Am also very distracted because it is New Years Eve! DB is cooking a fancy dinner for us all and we shall have cava and jager bombs (jagermeister and red bull cocktail!) and baileys. Just us two in the kitchen, seeing as we have a Bean asleeping. It will be nice and silly. And I am overwhelmed by the fact that 2012 is my PhD finishing year! So so so so so so excited! In fact I just opened and wrote it on my new calender. I get my doctorate this year! And hopefully a new baby and start a whole new life!

WHOOOOOPPEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

x J

Ps. Whoopppppppppppeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Back to reality

2011-12-31T15:03:00.000+05:30

So I had a lovely time off on Friday night, drank boozy and told DB all about how wonderfully happy with work I am...

Was all hungover and sleepy yesterday and DB was working so didn't work. Now I have until 1pm to finishg this chapter proper and I am all worried again! So silly, know if I face it then I shall probably be happy. I hate reading through my work, even when I know it was written roughly!

So I better get on with it. Today I am going through it and editing, while adding in my theory bits and bobs. Then I hhope to have draft one *done*. I shan't post it off to Sup today though, I shall come to it on Tuesday with fresh eyes and read it, do any mroe editing, and then send it off.

I keep thinking I want to make it so all four of these chapters are well interlinked but then realise that I might change my mind and alter the order or change a chapter in which case changing one would mean changing all. Probably best to leave that until after I have done all the writing and bring it all together then. Or at least until I have finished the discussion ch.

Oooh the discussion chapter. Just thinking about it makes my stomach flip! Scary!

x J

SLLLAAAAAAM!

2011-12-29T21:41:00.000+05:30

Woo! 9,000 words done! Needs serious editing and tidying and tightening but the words are there! the structure is there! The arguments are there!

WOOOO!

I am working a bit tomorrow and saturday this shall be DONE!

Am really excited and a bit gutted I have to finish now to look after Bean but then again it would be good to come back to it with fresh eyes.

Nearly there! Then I would have done four proper chapters and written 37,000 proper words :0) nearly halfway...

x J

Working reet hard!

2011-12-29T17:48:00.000+05:30

Am working away!

I would say it is because I am a really good, motivated student, but really it is because this is the easy bit so am just freewheeling downhill really ;0) I have got 7,700 words down and am yet to write probably about another.. hmmmm... 1,500? I do need some serious editing though, I have got about two introductions! And then I will need to tighten up my blabberings (am being rather slack with the old academic language) and add in some more theory and it should be ok for a first draft. Good enough to send to the sup. I should have the writing done bar the conclusion today I reckon, then will have tomorrow off so DB can work, and will work for about 5 hours on saturday editing and tightening.

Writing is so easy. I wish it was all about the writing! It is the reading and the planning and the sorting it all in my head bit that gets me down. Just goes to show though, that there are good bits and bad bits. I am currently in a good bit so should relax and enjoy - which I am! with the help of some mini chedders and some lovely biscuits :0)

x J

Kicking PhD Arse

2011-12-28T21:48:00.000+05:30

Ahhhh, it is like the old days chez J towers today!

I took bean to the childminders, came home and woooooooorked! I knew yesterday I had cracked this chapter and have got it all laid out to just *write*. So by 11am I was tip tapping away. Then had a nice lunch with Mr J who is off work this week and came back to it and have woooooooooorked all afternoon. Now have 6,500 words and a gazillion more to write, looks like this chapter will be about 9,000 words. Much of it is babble and I really need to get some proper theory and stuff in there but the words are getting down, the flow is there, the knowledge is in place and I am kicking this chapter's arse :0)

My brain has stopped working now so I am going to leave it for today. I have written about 2,000 words today! Tomorrow I need to write this last section, then write the analysis of it and the conclusion. THEN I need to go through and edit the wittering and change it to Proper Academicness, with quotes and info from my theory peeps. Then I have finished! I reckon I will do the writing tomorrow, the editing on Friday and send it off on Saturday and then get DRUNKKKKKKKK and be happy :0) Then I shall have some days off with my family until I return on Tuesday for a new chapter.

Sounds alright dunnit?

I watched a silly tv programme last night and the guy on it was all motivational (army boy) and saying things like 'its the lows that make the highs' and 'anything worth having takes a lot of work to get' and i was thinking oooooh, you are so right. Dunno about the lows making the highs bit yet, but I can imagine that we have to go through the shit to get the prize or it wouldn't be much of a prize would it.

x J

Did it :0)

2011-12-27T20:49:00.000+05:30

I have worked out what I am going to say, have written it out in my own words (not my complicated intro jargon) and put it in bold as a template to fill in tomorrow.

All of a sudden I know what I want to say, where the evidence is I need to substantiate my claims, and what my conclusion is and how it fits into the thesis as a whole.

And the thing is, it is just the same as weeks ago.

I am so thick.

NOW, time to go and drink tea, clean my house and cook dins for my wee family xmas :0) Am going to be very good and sober to be tip-top for tomorrow. This chapter will be written!

x J

jiggery pokery AGAIN

2011-12-27T19:49:00.001+05:30

Christ alive.

I have just spent the last few hours bloody moving words around again. I am trying to get a good, clear order that I recognise and can follow but then another quote comes and buggers it all up and so I end up moving quotes around and still not really writing anything new! It is so annoying!

I am going to finish today's jiggery pokery soon and go downstairs and unpack Bean's gazillions of presents and do some cleaning. I want to work but have the distinct feeling I will never feel like today's work is done! So best to go down and consolidate in my mind what I have (not) done today and what I will do tomorrow before bean comes home and chats my head off ;0)

I cannae wait for me roast dinner! Won't be cooked till blinkin god knows when as the boys have only just gone out to buy it. Oh well, I shall just have to come down a gear or two and let my head get into holiday slo-mo.

Bean is in with the childminder tomorrow and thursday so work continues as normal... I do feel better for getting back to it, but not... because I am in the SAME SITUATION and have made no progress.

Two steps forward, one step back...

x J

Back! Thank goodness!

2011-12-27T16:15:00.001+05:30

I am back to work this morning! hurrah!

I have been a right christmas grump just waiting to get back to it really. I left it at a good place on, er, whenever it was, and am keen to carry on with it. My aim (the complete and utter-it-has-to-happenness actually) is to get this finished for Friday, then spend fri pm and sat am sorting out this, and the other chapters so they fit together... send them to sup... and then I would have nearly half of the PhD done proper-like. Then I shall get drunk and celebrate NYE in a good mood, rather than one of doom ;0)

Hope you all had nice christmases. Mine was nice but most strange. We sat in silence a lot until DB made mother in law put the tele on so we could at least hear some xmas tunes, opened presents really, really slowly (making MIL frustrated bless her) and then had our vegetarian buffet lunch... and then MIL said we didn't have crackers because no one ever wanted what was in the middle apart from her so they were pointless. We pointed out the fact that they were tradition and meant to be silly, which overcomes functionality in this case but she then said they were generally rubbish. So no crackers! hehe! I nearly cried a little bit, then nearly laughed but settled for staring into the middle distance while pushing more pakoras and thai vegetable bites into my gob.

TODAY I am HOME! And I am working until about 1pmish, or until I feel I have got a handle on me work as DB is also home and looking after little bubs. Then I am making a roast dinner, with all the chrimbo trimmings! devils on horseback! YUM. Sprouts with chestnuts and bacon! YUM! ANNNNNNNNNDDDDDD *crackers* :0)

Anyway, back to the essay.

laters y'all and happy chrimbletide/other religious festivals ja

x J

Ah ha!

2011-12-23T02:40:00.000+05:30

I think I have finally got this chapter sussed...

I seem to have a structure, an argument and the evidence to back it up. Hurrah! tentative joy, and tempered by the fact that I am working at night but still not really working. It's chrimbo isn't it, my mind is on pressies, things I need to bake for peeps, trips to get stocking goodies tomorrow and packing.

But really I know I can't be arsed, and the best way I can relax and appease my conscience is to secretly watch tv with my laptop open. How silly.

I am going to totally go mental with stress when I start back proper in jan. mental! only two months to go though... eek and phew.

I wonder if I should leave the chapter and sit in front of the tv with this book I have to read that would be good for this chapter. I reckon writing wise I shall probably get as much done tonight as I would in half an hour of proper work. And no, I refuse to shut myself up in my room to work, it is xmas for goodness sake ;0)

Ok, I shall look at my chapter, see if there is any easy writing to do and if so, do it, if not, get out mah book and shut the laptop for the last time till tuesday... hurrah and hurray! And eek!

x J

Good work

2011-12-22T21:12:00.000+05:30

Did some good work today. got about 1000 words down, nonsense really and in the wrong order but words I knew would be used somewhere for something so all good.

My lovely lunch did the trick. I have worked at the ktchen table today with the radio on, and had DB working on the next room - was like old times! I worked much better with him around - I couldn't skive off like i normally might or he would notice! I forgot how much his presence used to keep me in check!

Am off to get my LO now! Today has gone sooo fast. I think I will work again later, this chapter is nowhere near finished and is boring me to death, want it out of the way soon. but then again, I am making myself work next week when normally I would have taken it off for xmas so might just work then. No, I will work when I can until 9.30pm and chill.

laters!

x J

Sweet hangover...

2011-12-22T16:32:00.000+05:30

I am having the best hangover ever!

Yes, I got drunk last night... DB came home and just the mere mention of boozy time and I was agreeing and pouring the drinks. So needed to relax and talk and get out of my headspace of evilness for a while! Hardly had any sleep and today is amazing! My hangover is like I have taken some valium so instead of being all hypertense and overthinky I am calm, serene and just plodding along. Consequently, I am working really, really well!

I also have lots of juice, a bacon sarnie and some hash browns. Bizarre combo but am comfort food eating ;0)

I am going to write loooooads today, I can feel it in my water. And then I shall write looooooads tonight. We are off down south tomorrow night. last bits of xmas shopping to do tomorrow and biscuits to decorate and suitcases to pack (only for three nights tho, no biggie).

Valium, I tell thee! (not that I have taken valium? Well, I have actually, once - on a cockroach infested boat crossing from sumatra to java where the cabin was shared with gazillions of women and children and kiddie-karaoke on mtv and we needed to sleeeeeep. But it was a dud. SO i haven't taken it really.)

x J

Durrrrr

2011-12-21T21:11:00.000+05:30

Arg I have spent the day bogged down in detail AGAIN. Why can't I just get on with it?! I seem to be unable to write unless it is right. D'oh.

My sup has just send me a book pdf that is exactly on my topic. I have to read it asap. I am reluctant, I HATE reading stuff on my topic, it scares the life out of me. I would much rather bury my head in the sand and just write my thesis now. I would lol but I am not in the mood!

I have so much to do, so little time, and seemingly, so little ability. Yes, I am blue about it all again. god I HATE this PhD.

I am going to get my bubs then make biscuits with him (how, I am sooo mardy) and when DB comes home come back to work asap. I just don't know what I am doing and I won't be able to sleep until I have sorted this out! Ug but I need a holiday. My brain is frying and my stress levels are uppity up up. I am going to have my walk to get the bean and have a good talk to myself and try and put this whole thing into perspective. I mean, it is jsut a piece of work, right? it isn't worth losing your mind (or health) over is it? Just do a little at a time, work on a sentence here and there and don't worry so much.

Really, it isn't a big deal and remember NO ONE EVEN KNOWS THIS WORK EXISTS. IT WILL NEVER BE READ BY ANYONE BUT YOU AND YOUR EXAMINERS. IT IS JUST A BIG OL' ESSAY.

Don't sweat it.

Better now. God I'm good.

x J

Lunchtime

2011-12-21T17:46:00.000+05:30

Right. So far I have totally revised my intro and chapter (!) to have the same content, but a different angle that is far more in keeping with what info I have from my research and also, doesn't tread on the toes of my discussion quite so much.

In fact, I am reet pleased with it.

I am off for a break for half an hour and then shall come back and carry on copying and pasting the relevant bits from my old version into my new version, in the new order. That's as far as I am thinking for now so as not to get too bogged down ;0)

x J

Work Schmurk

2011-12-21T16:30:00.000+05:30

Arg I am hating working today ;0)

Mainly because I just want it to write itself. Because I am sooooo bored of this chapter and am confused by it. I don't think I have enough empirical evidence to make this chapter work so I feel i am clutching at straws that are so obvious the viva will kick me into the stratosphere. But what can i do? I can't nip back to India and ask the questions again, and even if I could I would get the same answers. Cagey/uncomprehending was the name of the game really. Arf if only I had had longer than three weeks to do my interviews - if I could have got to know my interviewees like I wanted to then my responses would have been sooooo much better. But I was preggers, what can you do?! I shall work with what I have got it will be fine. And I want to be all christmassy :0(

BUT, I have written 5,400 words and don't feel like I have really said anything yet so obviously once I *have*, and edited it, it should be tighter ja? I think I am so keen to get it all written and concise and structured that I am getting bogged down. I shall concentrate on just getting the outline done today, and tighten it up tomorrow ;0) That is much less stressful than thinking 'I have to get this chapter done before christmas and that only leaves me today and tomorrow aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggggggggggg!'

Ok, perspective gained. Calm. No biggie.

I am also stressy because my stressiness is affecting my Bean - he is playing up and I know this is because my mind is elsewhere. When I would normally be playing with him I am making my xmas pressies, and when I am playing with him I am clearly not very enthusiastic. Playing 'don't fall!' with glee (where he dandles on my leg and wobbles about until he falls onto the settee...) when you are grumpy and worried about getting xmas together and finishing a PhD is really hard. I am also stressy because I am yet to finish shopping for DB's xmas pressies, which I will have to do on Friday before wrapping and packing to go to the South - all with Bean in tow being bored, whiny and grumpy. Arg I do not look forward to it! Plus, I keep feeling nauseous which is a surefire sign that I am stressed (I always feel sick when stuff is getting on top of me but I am trying to ignore it to, you know, get on with life like we all do). Bums to it.

Anyway! On with something I can deal with now, and that is this chapter. So, today I am writing a rough outline for it. I have re-organised my intro better and just hope it works.

I just cannot be arsed to concentrate! I wanna do christmas stuff!

x J

Pushed on through

2011-12-20T20:56:00.000+05:30

Aw I am chuffed with myself today.

I didn't do as much work as I would have liked. i did a lot of internet reading of shit.

However, I did also have a horrible realisation that my chapter was not going to work as beautifully as I had thought, having read through my interviews I realised that the info I *have* does not correlate with the grand statements my ch intro was making! hmmmpf. I did wonder what the hell I was going to do but then made myself go back to it time and time again (i kept veering off) and finally have started writing it again and feel like I am standing on firmer ground. I was motivated by the thought of spending this evening with my bean and feeling all cross and worried about work and know that will spill over into our relationship. Also hate the idea of coming back to it tomorrow still feeling clueless. I still feel pretty clueless but I have 10 minutes to sort myself out and jot down some notes on what to do tomorrow so I am not worrying about it tonight. If DB is around I will try and do 2 hours of work tonight but don't think he is so am not planning on it... Am basically not worrying too much about how I say things (being pretty colloquial in places!) but just geting the ideas and quotes down, and the word count UP! I will refine with more textured analysis and lovely namedropping of pertinent authors at a later date. For now, I just need it to have some kind of shape to work with :0)

Am feeling really pleased with myself. Normally I would have had a meltdown and stropped off somewhere. But I don't have time to be a diva!

x J

Back to the grindstone

2011-12-20T16:10:00.000+05:30

Aw, oone of my colleagues has sent his thesis off to be bound today! He must be having the best lie in EVER! Good for him :0) Is inspiring but a bit depressing too - I feel so far away from that!

But I know that is because I haven't looked at my work since Wednesday. Bean's birthday was on Thursday and was the Best Day, we took him to an aquarium and he nearly peed his pants (er, nappy?!) with excitement! Brilliant.

This week I am super keen to complete this chapter, in any form, rough first draft will do. I have today, tomorrow and Thursday, then on friday night we are off to the South to spend xmas with the in laws. DB is off for that week so I am keen to be able to spend it with him and Bean, maybe go away somewhere, and not be feeling wretched about work. I could do with some time off after this chapter anyway so I can come back to it fresh, edit it and then send it to my Sup and start on my discussion chapter.

Still rather amused at my epiphany of 'don't get it right get it written' that made me get writer's block. Hehe! the thought of 'just write it' made me unable to write! silly me.

I found another motto that I quite like, apparently from churchill that is 'if you are in hell, just keep going'. Tis true - at some point you will come out of the other side.

Onwards and upwards!

x J

Madness

2011-12-14T20:28:00.000+05:30

I haven't done any work again today!

I have gone MAD!

Today I have faffed, avoided work like the plague, changed bedding, taken delivery of internet shopping and baked my wee boy a choccy cake for his beeday tomorrow. I think I am feeling a bit holiday-ish to be honest. My xmas pressies are arriving thick and fast, the weather is hideous and it is my boy's birthday tomorrow and I can't WAIT! We are taking him to his first aquarium where I expect him to pee his pants with excitement at all the fish and water and colours, which invariably means it will be met with a 'meh' at best ;0)

I dunno. Just being really, really naughty.

I will work sometime soon I promise. Maybe friday night. I have extended my deadline for this chapter to Christmas - which starts Friday week here as we are travelling down south to be with the in-laws. My own darling family are still not talkng to me for my wedding choices! Bad rabbit. But I am working the week between xmas and new year and may end up also doing this chapter then too as I can't imagine starting a new one when all drunk and festive...

Anyway, even though I keep trying to frighten myself again I can't, I am ignoring myself. Is so stupid as I know I am setting myself up for massive stress in the future but then again, at the mo I just can't help but be ok about it all!

I'll try and work tonight. Although I shan't because I have presents to wrap, a cake to decorate, friends coming over for tea (literally tea, not dinner) and balloons to blow up.

Excited!

x J

Much better :0)

2011-12-13T19:56:00.000+05:30

Noooo, not workwise!

I have done NO work today, but I haven't tried to yet so don't feel bad...

DB and Bean got home at 2.30am, so I put little Bean to bed straight away but he needed settling so we were shattered at 7.30 this morning. Rang the childminder to say we wouldn't be in till 11.30 and went back to sleep ;0) Dropped him off and since then I have been online doing food and pressie shopping. It's Bean's birthday on Thursday and I have to make him his cake tomorrow but have no time to go to the shops... also realised that my homemade gifts need organising - I am making body scrubs, curry pastes and biccies for peeps this year as well as buying rubbish ;0) BUT I can't just 'get' them, I need to ordr in the ingredients first! I was planning to head into town (by town, I mean place full of bookies, Asda and cut-price shoe shops) on Friday to get the gubbins but that is leaving it pretty late, especially for the birthday cake and anyway, we have no food in and NO time to shopping. SO thought I would kill a gazillion birds in one fell swoop and did a nice online shop that will arrive tomorrow morning.

My hand are so cold it is hard to type. My house is freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezing. am going to make a cup of coffee and put the heating on (shhh don't tell anyone).

Soooo I have an hour. I shall make my cup of coffee and ponder my next move. Bean will be up late tonight as he has been with the granparents for the past few nights who don't like to reinforce bedtime. Playtime at 12am is waaaaaay more fun. (*tut*) So I won't be able to work tonight, but will tomorrow night, after the Bean's cake is baked and decorations done and pressies wrapped :0) And thursday I am off! Shit! I totally forgot! oh lordy, this blows any chance of meeting the deadline out of the water. Sheeeet.

Oh well, at least I have practically got all my christmas pressies, one less stress! And I am waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay happier now my family are home!

x J

Not very good!

2011-12-12T22:21:00.000+05:30

Today was rubbish! Complete rubbish!

I tried to work and got really confused, even though I was pretty sure there was nothing confusing about what I had to do - just write! Sadly, just writing was rather more complicated than I thought!

I finally, finally - at half three - walked away from it after a whole day spent literally with one sentence under my belt. I watched a politics programme (so I didn't feel like a total skiver!) and have got some perspective since. I have also been feeling ill today bizarrely - am putting it down to too much sleep ;0)

I have decided that I need to read through my interview transcripts and take out the bits relevent for this chapter. I can do this with a highlighter and the tele, which I think will relax me and make me more productive than the horrid writer's block I have had upstairs. I was thinking maybe I should go through the copies I have on the laptop instead of my hard copies, then I can just copy and paste the info? This would be quicker but also mean I have to keep my laptop on and we have seriously fallen out ;0) Nah, I shall do it that way, it will be more expedient. Then, tomorrow when I come back to it I shall have all the citations I need and can write around them. Jobsagoodun. Better than nothing eh? For some reason I have noticed that this weekend I have not been able to work very well until I am down to the wire (i.e it is getting on to evening time). How funny. I have also learnt:

That I do not work well any more with such long stretches of horrible hours in front of me and do anything I can to avoid it!
That I am really lonely without the hubbub of my family around - a noise I previously resented when trying to work!
That I work best in shorter bursts of 4 hours or so.
That I miss my down-time with my bubsicle.
That before I had said bubsicle I would work for about 4/5/6 hours a day but not the 12 hour stints I have since become wistful about. Memory plays cruel tricks! So even though with the baby I work about 5 hours a day, four times a week, this is actually not much less than before! And I have been working evenings! Before I would do my internet procrastinations while working, resulting in probably not much work but over many hours, whereas now I work better during my 4/5 hours and do my internet rubbish largely in my own time.

So there we are. My family are home tonight and I cannot wait to see them. Not until early hours of the morning, but tonight nonetheless. And tomorrow bean is due to go to the childminder's as usual, meaning I have somehow set myself up with a ten days with no breaks! Stupid me. I can't work that much, and, as we have seen, don't work that much ;0)

I am behind on my really cramped schedule but not freaking out. After my lovely Sup email yesterday I feel i must be on target otherwise he would have said to me I need to buck my ideas up. He wouldn't let me fail! He said work on a sentence a day and build it up to five. I know he doesn't mean that literally (although I have seemingly taken him at his word today!) but is saying little, little to bigger and bigger and not to sweat the small days. So, I am going to look through my interviews and then start tomorrow with all the info to write around and build up to the analysis and hopefully start getting somewhere.

I am off to go to the shops, I need some air I think to clear my guilt and generally lethargic sicky feeling.

x J

Four seasons in one day...

2011-12-11T22:30:00.000+05:30

I got a reply from my Sup!

He was lovely. Reassured me that anxiety at this stage is perfectly normal but not to let it control you. To know that it is only three months, then I will never, ever have to do this again. That being a PhD scholar is a great thing to be proud of. That when I have finished next year I can take bean to the zoo all the time (too true, all those lovely long days of freedom! One big giant holiday of amazingness!) He said that I should watch an hour of tv every night before going to sleep - or even better go for a run (I know, I know, I should run. I don't want to run). And to talk to myself about it all day, write a sentence and build it up to five sentences and not get bogged down by the wider implications of getting it done. And not to get stressed about it and enjoy chrimbo.

He is so wise. And even though I *know* all of this, and tell myself these things all the time, it is nice to hear it from someone wiser than yourself isn't it. I love having a supervisor. And also, he *didn't* say, which is very important, 'OH NO, OMG YOU WILL NEVER FINISH IN TIME! EEEEEEK IT IS ALL LOST! ALL LOST! QUIT! YOU HAVE FAILED! AND LET EVERYONE DOWN! WASTED THE FUNDING AND ALL MY TIME! GO AWAY LOSER!'

So. I feel most happy and encouraged. AND, i told him my total and final blueprint for my thesis and he pointed me toward an academic who says something wonderfully along the same lines, who will contribute to my thesis, but also shows that I am barking up the right tree. Phew wee. I feel so tired! Like I have been through the wringer today. And, bizarrely, i feel like celebrating. Celebrating being normal, and feeling back in control again. I wish I didn't have these crises of confidence. They waste so much time and energy, and every time is like the first time so I don't learn and just work through it :0( I can't dwell on what a loser I have been wasting this precious, most amazing opportunity though, that would be utterly pointless, particularly since I am almost in a good, positive mood. No, instead I shall draw a line under this particular episode and today entirely. I shall make a cup of coffee and read the paper and take some time for myself (I feel like I am always doing this hehe) and then tomorrow... well, tomorrow is gonna be the best goshdarn schizzle of a working day EVA. I will awake refreshed and positive (I did not wake up feeling this way this morning. more bad dreams of doom) and work reasonably hard (really hard, actually, but don't want to frighten myself again) and really make inroads into this chapter.

In fact, I think I will just make a coffee and a crumpet and go to the chapter now and make it so when I come back tomorrow I am confident about where I am. Do a bit of structuring and signposting. Yep. And I will do this downstairs as this room at nightime is well depressing.

Still not crying. Almost smiling. Might even whistle. Nope, no whistling yet. It's annoying anyway and what would I whistle?

x J

New Motto

2011-12-11T20:23:00.000+05:30

to be scrawled all over my walls...

'DON'T GET IT RIGHT, GET IT WRITTEN'

I have been scouring findaphd.com, a site I used to use a lot but only go on about twice a year if that, and found a thread about someone who had to complete in 3 months. People said it would be possible and that all reading had to be ruthless and practical, that this was not the time to go on tangents or make new brainwaves, that if you are having a bad brain day, then sit and do refs and formatting instead of writing, and don't worry about getting it right, just get it written! I am so going to follow that. I am a total twat because I remember now that I wrote on here a couple of days ago that I really have to avoid being all perfectionist at this stage and just get on, and what have I spent today and last night doing? Being unable to work due to being all perfectionist. What happens is I tinker with a paragraph for ages, then it is 'just right' and I get the feeling of it being just right and forget that i then have to go back into just-get-it-down-mode. And I can't write for worrying it isn't good enough.

Just write!

I am going to 'just write' now, until 5pm. Then I shall have to have a bath because my breastfed baby is away for three days and i am in a certain (small, but inisistent) amount of pain. I also fell over yesterday and am very sore! What a fool!

Feeling more on top of it now. Really, much better. Am seriously going to scrawl my new motto onto a piece of paper and put it right in front of me, on the wall. And maybe in the bathroom to remind myself every time I go to the loo (to hide). Am still really glad that I have confessed my situation to my Sup though. I feel I need to share my burden and that's what they are there for, no?

x J
(still not crying)

Sink or swim?!

2011-12-11T20:05:00.000+05:30

Arf. I just took the plunge and emailed my Sup to say that I think I am f*cked.

He sent me a lovely email wishing me a happy Xmas, no mention of the fact I am meant to be sending him my first draft any day now... So I emailed back saying thanks and decided it was probably about time I admitted where I am (not) with my work. I haven't come clean for hmmm... about a year?! It's not like I have been lying, more that I have been bigging up what I am doing and not mentioning what I am not doing/have not done. I said about how I wasn't sleeping for worry but that I am sure this is normal at this stage, but was so concerned with disappointing people if I shoould happen to not manage it on time. i said about how this past month Bean and I had had norovirus and about my childminder cancelling on me and that although I am working evenings and weekends this is in no way full-time. I really hope that he emails back saying either yes, two weeks per chapter is fine, you can do it keep going or No, you shan't finish on time, here have an extension/go and see so-and-so, it doesn't matter, just get it done bla bla. I said that I hadn't wanted to mention anything and had been putting my worries down to being a bad patch but that I thought I should bring it to his attention before it was too late. It is most definitely getting to a stage where every day i don't produce stirling work is a nightmare, I just have to work really, really, well - but then, like this weekend, I heap so much pressure and expectation on myself I can barely think! My mind is like butterflies. And I cry alot ;0) Does everyone cry a lot at this stage? I expect to cry a bit, but a lot... I am feeling that every new bad patch is worse than the one before. I can't give up, I know this, I think I just need some breathing space. But I have NO TIME for breathing space. No time.

I am panicking. It is because I absolutely have to have this chapter done for tomorrow night but I know this isn't possible. but I have to. I have no room in my schedule for missing deadlines, and perversly knowing this makes me unable to concentrate. I am too busy trying to desperately look for a way out. I need calm I suppose. The irritating thing is, and I am glad I have had this time to know this, but I am sure I would work better if bean and Db were here! How funny and silly. If they were here I would be cursing their presence I know, but NOW I know that the whole day stretching out with only work to do is actually daunting, and unhelpful at this stage of work. I need to be able to be distracted, just for five or ten minutes, then to come back to work. I work best in 4/5 hour hard bursts than 12 hours of unending 'concentration'. But I didn't know this before! And they have gone away so I can work and all I can do is stare at it, feel confused and then panicky and then cry and feel like I am letting all these kind people down.

I wish I could leave :0( I am a quitter, I know this. I love quitting stuff that makes me feel bad! But I know I can't quit this and find that really, really annoying.

I know I have to stop whining and get on. And the thing is, I don't whine much in real life - that is what this blig is for though i suppose, it is my headspace. I am sad for any of you people who have to read my stream of shitty consciousness though ;0)

right, back to work. back to not knowing what the heck I am saying, or why, or who even cares, and anyway it isn't going to be finished on time and I will be kicked out so why bother? and cue more crying ;0)

x J
(am not crying actually. am fine)

it's ok!

2011-12-10T23:36:00.000+05:30

I am so silly and impetuous. Impetuous should be my middle name. And I shouldn't talk so much ;0)

But I do feel a bit better already about my boys being gone. And about working. I feel really, really lonely BUT is ok. I am going to have a small glass of wine and look at my chapter while also perusing facebook and other such sillyness so I feel I have company and am not chained to work. If I feel i am chained I will run away, but if I am flexible about it and just have the chapter open I am much more likely to keep looking at it and do some editing. And I have to remember that I have waited alllll day doing nothing much for DB to leave - if he had left earlier, around lunchtime say, i woould have got into work so much quicker. But it is saturday night and *starting* work is always going to be difficult now! And i am naturally low because my baby boy has been spirited away to the other side of the country for two WHOLE days and nights so am not naturally inclined to feel warm and confident about work. It's all about context and perspective yes?

It's ok really. And anyway, when I start having palpitations about work and bad dreams it really is time to sit down and have chats to myself. And maybe more wine! Although drinking wine at the same time as chats with myself may mean I am crazy. Eek.

x J

I just don't know...

2011-12-10T23:13:00.000+05:30

what to doooo, with myself...

My boys have left me! They are en route to Down South for the weekend, back on Monday night. My house feels gloomier, colder, stiller... I have never been at home in the evening alone since bean was born! I have never gone to bed alone! I have never gone to bed alone and sober for sure and not ever at home. It will be most strange. I wonder if I will be able to sleep...

But of course, I do know what to do with myself... I have to work!

I am so sad at the moment because I miss my darling boy. I don't know what my plan of action should be. Chill time is scheduled for 8pm when the X Factor final is on. I was planning to write up my references in front of it. But now I am not so sure and wonder if I mightn't just zombie out in front of it and enjoy a moment of quiet instead of stewing in it. Workwise I am completely aware that I have to work now for a couple of hours. However, I am also aware that I am shattered today (terrible nights sleep as I was dreading today, bean was up lots and had bad dreams), feeling reet sorry for myself and really down in the dumps. I don't know whether, in the longer term, it might be an idea to just sit out this couple of hours and draw a line under today and come to it tomorrow fresh and strong and madferit. I have the whole of tomorrow and all of Monday. I plan to work from 9.30/10am until 6.30 with a break for a swim with mah mate (and to see a person!) I need stamina! I was going mental after just four hours of work yesterday! I have been scared of work all day today, like an audition or interview or something! I was scared of it all night! how silly to be so scared of soemthing I have set up myself. I work for myself for goodness sake! At my own pace, in my own environment! I should take a chill pill and not be so frightened of it. I am completely terrified of not completing this chapter by Monday night. But it will be ok. I will get it done.

I also have to admit, and this is ridiculous, but I feel really blue since I read on facebook that my mate (my MATE) has just completed chapter six of nine... and I am working on chapter four! Of nine! And we are handing in at the same time! Well, actually, I think she is handing in a month earlier than me but she doesn't have to hand in then, she can get an extension as she wasn't funded. So I guess in a month's time I will be finishing chapter six of nine. No, actually, chapter 7. So, I guess, it is ok. I think I am saddened because before I had Bean I was always far out in front writing-wise and it just shows how far I have slipped. But I am also saddened by my reaction because it is clearly jealousy (or, more kindly, envy?) that I am not as far ahead as she is. I am delighted for her but also miffed with myself that I haven't done more I suppose. And here I am wanting the night off! What a contradictory fool! I think it just knocked me and has made me realise that my peers are so far in front (another is nearly completing) and I am scared I might not catch up! But I suppose the point is not catching up with them, just meeting my own deadlines. Why do i have to be so competitive?! jeez louise.

Anyway, I am off to read my chapter and try and do a bit of work if I can. (I can't, I am all of a dither). But I will try at least. And tomorrow is a new day. I shall arise, I shall work, work, work all refreshed from having today off and hopefully appreciative of the silence rather than drowing in it. For want of a bit more of a dramatic turn of phrase ;0)

x J

Heart in Mouth Syndrome

2011-12-09T21:03:00.000+05:30

Is it a syndrome? Am not sure. BUT anyway, I am finding that at the moment I really am working with my heart in my mouth.

For example. I have a citation in one chapter that, although it is ace where it is, would also be fabulous in another chapter. I then have to take it from one to the other and make sure I remember to go back and fill the gap I have left. I then have to be sure that the whole paragraph I am blabbing on about hasn't been said somewhere else. What if it has? In fact, maybe it shouldn't be in this chapter at all - or the other, but in my literature review! And if so, I should write a note about that somewhere so I know, when I come to my lit review, to write about it. And then I think, but do I know enough about it for it to be in the lit review? Will I have to do lots more research on it to make it proper, rather than just something I know about, or something I used to know a lot about but it has actually been 4 years since I studied it so obviously I have forgotton... but I must have the notes somewhere. Somewhere. I think I know where. but it will take me aaaaages to dig them out! And that is such a waste of time right now. So I should just leave a note. And know, in my heart, that i shall have a tonne of work to do in a months time reading up about it. But I don't have time!

Oh god, oh god. I even forgot which chapter I was writing about earlier, and was writing for a different one! And then I noticed I had drunk all my coffee but cannot remember doing that for the life of me!

Oh god!

I am losing it. And I haven't even got to the hard bit yet! How on EARTH am I going to be able to edit all these chapters and remember what I read and where in order to delete/add bla bla? I just can't remember!

PANIIIIIC!

Please say this *is* the hard bit...

But at least I have worked lots. And it really is coming together and sounding good (I think. Probably not but I can't think about that.) Honestly, I get all adrenaliney trying to remember everything and type it in quick enough before I forget my other points bla bla.

I think it is getting time to stop ;0) but I am definitely getting to the point where I wish I didn't have to sleep or make myself lunch or anything. I am so happy I *have* to stop to get my Bean and *have* to switch off to make his tea and play with him. And I do switch off - my brain is such that it is hard to look after him and meet his needs *and* fret about this rather high-level mental juggling ;0)

Is going to take all my willpower not to drink wine and blurb on at DB tonight. but I must be with it tomorrow.

And anyway, I am exhausted! And I feel a bit sick.

x J

Tinker, tinker

2011-12-09T17:59:00.000+05:30

This morning has been great!

I have managed to work out that my original chapter order was fine, and that it is probably not a good idea to meddle with it too much at this stage... BUT that one of my chapters needed to be re-jigged a bit so it fit into the thesis more neatly. I originally wrote the chapter for a conference paper and you can tell - it sort of sits on its own rather too well!

Which meant I got to take 500 words out of it and put it in the chapter I am currently writing, which is totally cheating but makes me feel very productive! I have also re-organised the two intros and now need to make sure the main text is true to they and not wandering off like before. Is more tinkering than anything, but it all brings it together and makes me feel that it is working. Am only a stone's throw away from not knowing what to do next though and that makes me feel constantly queasy. Literally. The stress and pressure is unbelievable. I am smoking again, funnily enough. Anything to get me through to be honest.

Last night I wrote up some references in front of the tele (finally, at half eight, the child was asleep) and went to bed at 11, totally exhausted but, as usual, unable to sleep. I did sleep though and feel better today than I have for a while! About a week actually.

AND DB told me yesterday that he is off down south with bean tomorrow for the weekend! They won't be back until monday night! So I shall have tomorrow afternoon (i hope but knowing DB's organisational and time-keeping skills probably not) and all of Sunday and all of Monday to work ALLLLLLLL TOOOOOOO MYYYYYSEEEEELF! Hurrah! I shall work like a demon. I am going to type up my references in front of the X Factor final with a bottle of red for company and no child to put to bed! i shall go to sleep and sleep alllllll night with no child to need reassuring! I shall wake when I want to with no child saying 'it's 7am mummy, let's get up!' And I shall work like i used to pre-baby, alllllll dayyyyyy long :0). I can't wait. though I shall miss my family, I know it, and the house will be too quiet, but I shall fill it with the sound of mumbling and typing.

So with this in mind, by Tuesday I shall have this chapter written, most refs typed up (in the eveningtimes) and all four chapters (35,000 words out of total 80,000) sent to my Sup for xmas. I shall also have made serious inroads into my discussion chapter... I am VERY scared of my discussion chapter. It is such an important chapter - can I write it without doing more reading? What if there is a key text I haven't read (I know there is but I would have to go all the way to uni to get it and is £50 on amazon and I don't have TIME) is it worth trying to blag it and write it anyway, or should I prepare more? Or is that procrastinating as surely writing *something* is better than nothing because I am planning and preparing *again*... And I don't have time to plan and read all cosy any more. And I do have it pretty much planned out and I even think I might have a couple of thousand words of it written already...

See, am hanging on by a thread.

Anyway, I am hungry and off to make lunch, and a cup of tea, then I shall come back and work on my current chapter, with a view to getting it finished asap.

ASAP is my motto at the mo really. I have to remember that I have from March to June to tinker and perfect. For now I just need to get my ideas down so my sup can see them and tell me they are shite.

x J

Quite ok

2011-12-08T21:10:00.000+05:30

Today has whizzed by! And I can still work tomorrow yay!

I printed off me chapters and have read through them and am puzzling over the order I should have them in. Until I know this I shan't be able to write the rest of my current chapter as I need to know what I can talk about without treading on my (own) toes or being repetitive... I have tried writing but to no avail.

I feel bizarrely in control. In fact, I felt so warm and fuzzy in my brain I had a bath! A bath! I remember pre-Bean I used to have baths as an alternative place in which to have thinky time but no time these days ;0) i have been 'on' since sunday, either looking after bean or working and so I think I just needed a bit of chill time. I never do anything for 'me' these days as if i have time for that it is used working! Anyway, I feel nice and not as wired and edgy as I have done so that's good. If I get Bean in bed before 9pm tonight (! I know but his wind-down time is taking forever at the mo) I shall do some work tonight - thinky stuff if my brain has come back, references if not. I think that the chapter order thing will just come to me when my subconscious has finished dealing with it. It doesn't feel like something i can badger myself into working out, it will just happen. I shall try and mull it over when I walk to get my bean.

I am pleased I sat and read all the chapters though and am very,very pleased that they seem to be just fine. I worked out that they were around 27,000 words worth of work: well over a Master's dissertation, just for three chapters! I can't wait to have number four done (realistically should get it done on saturday) and then print it out and add it to my pile of PhDness! It is brilliant seeing the work there. It puts it all into perspective and makes it easy to refer to. It is all so abstract just being on the computer but as a pile of chapters it is brill. All i have to do is keep writing chapters, add them to the pile, write an abstract, print my refs off endnote and then shove in some appendices and the first draft is done! Woooooo yeah!

I wish I could bottle this simple optimism.

x J

Quite exciting...

2011-12-08T16:39:00.000+05:30

I sorted through all my chapters last night and did a bit of proper filing, backing everything up and making sure I knew which where my proper chapters and which were drafts etc.

All done so I feel a lot better knowing where my work is! I have realised that I have a *lot* of references that need putting into endnote... great fun. BUT I have printed off the chapters that I have 'finished' (for now) and they are in a neat little pile and starting to look a bit like a PhD! I realised I needed to read through the chapters that lead up to the one I am writing now - I have done three already and if this is to be the last before the discussion then obviously I don't want to be repeating myself with points I made in the others, but need to make sure there is a a thread of a thesis throughout them. So I have had to print them out and put them in order so I can see them all and read them as if it was one piece of work. This is exciting! Such a change from seeing each chapter as an individual piece of work! It also made me realise that I need to separate my empirical chapters. I thought I would have them as pt 1 and pt 2, next to each other, but actually think I shall pop a different chapter between the two (which is also an empirical chapter as I have four really, but the other two are discourse analysis rather than from my fieldwork). I shall have to read through them and see if this will work. Is a good job I have done this because some of my analysis from this chapter has already been written in an earlier one, and vice versa.

So my task for today is to read these chapters and then carry on writing my latest one in full knowledge of what I have already said.

I still hope to have this latest chapter written by Saturday. Then I will need to tighten these chapters so they link together properly and then get on with writing my discussion.

Don't think DB is going to be visiting his Mum with Bean this weekend :0( I was soooooo looking forward to having three solid days to write. Guess it will be a muddled weekend of trying to work where I can and feeling guilty for ignoring the family/ hard done by when DB wants some time to work/go to the gym and being all bickery because we are both so tired and stressed. hurray.

Am completely drained today. Will power on through though! I had dreams last night of trying to urge my knackered car up a massively steep hill, knowing if it stopped we would just fall backwards (I don't have a car btw!), then got lost in a maze of a kitchen (?!) and would have got in big trouble if I was found so was all stressed trying to get out. Funny that!

x J

Its okay. I think.

2011-12-07T21:09:00.000+05:30

Well, part of another day done!

Part, because I intend to come back later when DB is home and work until 9pm when I shall slink off and watch some tv and try, try, try to sleep before 12. I cannot sleep at the mo, it is not good.

I have managed to finally plan this chapter (I take heart from the fact that planning is so tricky as I have lots I want to say and can't rabbit on about it too much in the intro!) and have started re-reading old chapters that I want to sort of feed into it - so they all start to link to each other instead of being stand alone pieces of work. I have started writing the main part too so it isn't too daunting to come back to.

I am worried about my old chapters as they seem good, but not quite right and will need re-working. I don't like this. I am also worried that I am finding old drafts of chapters for the conference, or for monitoring meetings/appraisals etc instead of the proper one - and then I wonder did I write a proper one or think that would do?! Eek! I suppose I need to put them all together in one place a bit neater. Or maybe I am just being silly and looking in the wrong place as I am sure I would have noticed before.

I am really scared about going outside. The weather is as menacing as if I lived on a rocky outpost of the bebrides and it has started hailing again. There is *no* sun even though it is too early for it to have gone down and it looks, well, apocalyptic out there! I wouldn't mind so much if it was just me but having to put my poor bean into his pushchair and wheel him through it is daunting. I hope he lets me put on his rain cover (he won't).

So, am back later - weather beaten or no. Not a bad day's work really and, at least, we are sort of friends again.

x J

chug chug chug

2011-12-07T17:52:00.000+05:30

After a slow start I am working. I am back at it. come ON!

Had a text from my PhD friend and we are in the same boat. We concluded it was a very stressed out non-sleeping boat. And then decided that we must be doing okay cause we are worried - if we weren't worried then that's when we should worry!

hehe.

This work is making me actually feel sick. It's just awful! is okay tho, you know, keep on, keep on.

x J

Deep breath and dive

2011-12-07T15:51:00.000+05:30

Righty then. I am back after a massively long haitus! I stopped work on Thursday and haven't looked at it since :0(

I couldn't work over the weekend because I was being hugely drunk with my lovely ladies in London and couldn't work Monday night because I was still hungover, and couldn't work yesterday because my childminder had to cancel. Although she has said she will look after bean on Friday instead for me so I shall work fri which is just dandy.

I have to finish the second empirical chapter this week. Problems are that I am so very tired that I am dizzy (wtf?!) although really I don't know why I am so tired and so am ignoring it; and that I haven't done any work for so long I am, again, terrified of it, horribly overwhelmed and daunted.

Today I plan to have sorted the intro to this chapter and to be writing away. That is that really! Just get it done. Don't think too much about it. Better to hand in something that is a bit shit than not have written at all because I am trying to be perfect about it all.

I just cannot wait until this is all over :0) I was thinking about trying to wag an extension somehow, just a couple of months. And then I thought how gutting it would be to still be doing this in june and july when I should be sat around being all pregnant and chuffed with myself and excited about my new life where my brain is all mushy and full of fiction novels... FICTION! About how I will hate every word I have to write when I should be sunning myself on my celebration holiday! I have June in my head so firmly as my deadline that, really, that is that... is THAT. I would be extending it only so I could have an easier time of it now, but still in Jan I will be stressy and in Feb I shall be back where I am now. The only reason I am working so hard now is because I am under so much pressure - take the pressure off and the work will slow down.

There is a phrase isn't there that goes something like 'A PhD takes as long as the time you have to do it.' I have five and a half months. End of.

Wish me luck!

x J

better late than never

2011-12-01T21:03:00.000+05:30

Just got back on the horse for half an hour...

managed to write the first para of my intro which includes all the major arguments and threads of the chapter so I can come back to it later and have some idea of what I am doing!

generally the day disappeared in some kind of weird caffiene-induced haze but I had a lovely time regardless ;0)

Glad am going to go out and get some fresh air!

x J

jinxed mesel'

2011-12-01T19:37:00.000+05:30

Oh dear! I have done nothing today but float about on the internet! My brain has frozen up!

What has happened?! I am motivated... I open my page to start editing and for some reason get nowhere and before I know it I have wandered off. I am procrastinating. My mind won't settle and concentrate. Oh dear!

I know what is wrong really. I am a bit high from that cup of coffee I made - it sent me through the roof! I was all jiggly and excitable and realised it was most definitely from coffee. So I thought I would wait it out, only I am still excitable! I have bought some presents for my Son's 2nd Birthday (in two weeks can't WAIT) and looked up how to make cheese straws (why?!). I have facebooked and mumsnetted (I don't post, just read) and eaten a few pringles (to sober up). I am just in too good a mood to work. I have tried putting the Fear into myself (I have no time, no time!) but instead I am just, well, content. This is no good! I know i am too excitable because, despite having a rumbly tummy, I don't want to eat lunch. Lunch is for losers! Yup, am a bit manic (and feel a bit sick from the coffee).

I am going to go away for, erm, 15 mins and just sit somewhere else and try and calm down. Then I am going to come up and try and sort out this chapter before I have to go and get Bean. Somehow it has got to 2pm. I am so naughty. But I don't care! I don't care at all! Oh dear. I am being like Bean when he is all mischievous and wants to be naughty and doesn't care if he gets told off. In fact, he does naughty things while looking at me square-on, giggling away, waiting for a stern voice from me. This is what I am doing to myself.

I dunno. I will work later instead, when the coffee has worn off and the novelty of it being Chrimbo soon and am weary and run-down and have nothing else to do ;0) I really need to settle down and think about this chapter but instead I am just hiding and giggling.

BYE!

x J

A Tribulation!

2011-12-01T16:29:00.000+05:30

Oh happy day! Oh happy couple of days! And happy xmas season! Love chrimbo me, especially with a two year old ;0)

I have been working really, really hard. My eyes are itchy with tiredness, but happy tiredness. I am ploughing on in the knowledge that it is only for three months, then I can sleep for two weeks ;0) I am definitely booking a weekend away with my DB (sans child?!) when I have handed in my first draft. Definitely. A posh weekend. Jacuzzi, bathrobe and tele weekend.

I worked Tuesday night in front of the tv, so didn't get much done. Worked really hard yesterday while bean was at the childminders and got back to it at 6.30 until frozen planet was on at 9pm (love it). Have started writing my new chapter but still need to do a bit more reading and then it should be tip-top. Reading all my old theory notes has really upped my standard and am talking like a PhD student again :0) I ALSO *drum roll pleeeeeeeassssseeeee* worked out my actual, complete, and total thesis yesterday. I knew most if it but then, in a flash, the final piece of the jigsaw slotted into place and now I have an A4 piece of paper with lots of writing on and arrows that link each idea to another and, the piece-de-resistance, the idea that links the arguments back to the original concern, showing a nice neat cycle of nasty evil oppression that, thanks to my expert scholarly-ness (?!), can now be broken. Or neatly debunked and dispatched ;0) Anyways, it is MY work, my ideas, all miiiiine and not too shabby so there we go. Now what I am doing is making sure each point is addressed by each chapter, which in the main they are hurray. I can't believe that I have the actual blueprint of my thesis now :0)))))) It is the best, most amazing feeling ever. I have my PhD there, in front of me, all I have to do is write it out. I don't need any new thinking, or any complications, I have done all the hard thinky-work. I would say that I have broken the back of it really. And I know now that I *have* to finish it or I shall turn into a drunk and in 20 years time will still be pulling out this tatty piece of A4 and trying to tell people that I nearly got a PhD and this was my idea and I will stink and be depressed and have no excuse for why I never finished it.

I am working sooooooo very hard :0) I will work all today, get Bean, have tea with him and put him to bed for 8 and then shall work until Rev is on tele at nine (nice, gentle, clever humour - it pleases me) and stop for five minutes and a mince pie, then work again from 9.30 to 11pm. Then I shall sleep :0)

I am off to London this weekend to meet my best mate's new baby girl so shan't geet a chance to work again till Monday night. I will be refreshed though...

Today I am making sure that this chapter has a nice intro and that my practical, empirical stuff dovetails nicely with my fancy schmancy theory. Then I will be able to come back to it on Monday night and hit the ground running. I won't want to be doing any thinky stuff then really and I don't want to dread facing it either.

I am tired today so I have schnaffles to keep me company! I have mincey pies (yayayaya!) and pringles - proper chrimbo party food. I shall allow myself unlimited snaxies as long as I am working away although obviously I hope to work more than eat :0) i also have a lovely cup of fresh filter coffee to get my nerves jangling.

Better go, am late this morning! My festive cheer is making me lazy!

x J

Ps still yet to go on my morning run. Oh well, can't be brilliant at everything eh?!

Working my butt off

2011-11-29T21:05:00.000+05:30

Finally! The time is NOW! The iron is hot!

I had my nice plans yesterday about handing in my first draft 6 weeks before my submission date. Then I realised that in that 6 weeks I will have to do re-writes, have it proof read AND have my sup read it and mark it a few times and then have it bound and bla bla and 6 weeks will in no WAY cut it. Oh I wish I had a sup to tell me these things. So I have decided to work my ASS off until the 28 Feb when I shall have my first draft ready three months ahead of my submission date. This will give me plenty of time to let my Sup read it, so I can re-write and correct madly for a month, have a professional proof-read it and send it back to me, and then get it back to Sup, then bound and hand it in. I think it would be best if those last three months were done as calmly as possible, rather than in a mega stressful last-minute mad dash. So probably best I have the mad dash now while there is still time to sort out any major f*ck-ups and time delays ;0) I worked last night until about 11pm when I passed out and have worked in concentrated silence today. I finished the segment I was reading early so thought I would treat myself to a wee skive rather than start something new for all of ten minutes.

So, I have 6 chapters to write in three months. Don't scoff, I know someone with two children who wrote her whole thesis in three months ;0) And I did my entire MA dissertation in two months, research and all and got a lovely mark for it. I think at this stage just whizzing through it so all the info is in your head and spilling out onto paper is the best approach. I might go slightly mad but better now than when it is all too late. And I shall have two weeks 'off' at the beginning of march while my Sup is reading his vast, badly written copy of my first ever completed draft of my thesis. The thought of its giantness, its completeness, that last full stop, makes me giddy with excitement. I think I am happier with a horrible deadline like this. A) I work best under pressure and with a nasty deadline that I *have* to meet. And B) I HATE my work so much and cannot wait to be rid - so best get on with it! Living with it is becoming intolerable, I want it out, out out!

My study looks like I have gone and and just chucked paper everywhere. Everywhere. I blew up our blow up bed yesterday and made it up so I can sit in bed and do all my reading and writing late into the night. I hate working sitting on the floor and my desks are covered in notes that I can't move for if I disturb them I shall lose them! yes, I am definitely on the homeward straight.

Anyway, I better put some lights on. Outside is wet and gloomy and I have to go and get the bubsicle. poor me. And after he is fed and bedded, I shall read some more :0)

x J

life laundary

2011-11-28T21:49:00.000+05:30

This morning I woke up and felt really stressed! I am looking after bean today and *hate* being stressy on those, most precious of days...

So I have sorted out lots of issues and am feeling back in control again.

I still have so much work to do and this is scaring me. I cannot do anything about that when I cannot physically work. But I have decided to work monday evenings and wednesday evenings, and try at those times to leave any Bean stuff to DB. When he gets back from work, we have a coffee and a chat and then I am upstairs until I feel I want to stop - but doubt that would be before 9pm. That should give me at *least* 2.5 hours to work, more like 3. Tonight I will prbably work until 10ish. As I get more stressed I shall also work friday evenings. I can't work tues or thurs evenings because that is when DB plays footie, so phew for that ;0)

Weekends I would like to work 9-2, a straight five hours on a saturday. Then maybe I'll go back up at 6pm for the evening. And on Sunday... well, it's a bit when and if I can at the mo, until the pressure ratchets up I am sure I shall work sundays more too - just at the mo it feels like shift work looking after Bean - he seems to rarely be with both of us at the same time and sunday should be a family day for the mo. And DB needs to exercise and have some time to work too.

Exercise-wise I have decided to run home from dropping bean off with the childminder. If I take a slightly circuitous route then I can get a decent half hour run in, get back, shower and be at my desk for 10.45 at the latest. This would be brilliant as a) I have no other time to exercise seeing as every spare minute is either with bean or working now; b) now is the best time to be running with all this stress - I need to release the toxins and pressure - it worked a treat during my Masters; and c, working after running is great as running helps you concentrate apparently. So even though i lose 15 mins or so a day I would gain this in not faffing so much from being sloth-like and tired, or stressy. AND then I can eat choc while working to stay motivated but have worked it off beforehand! Hurrah!

This week is a big week and I plan to work very hard so come Friday I feel back in control again. I shall still have monumental amounts of work to do but I hope that I will feel that I am someway to making progress. This week I am reading my theory notes. I shall take what I need, capitalise on buzzwords and major strands of thought and incorporate them into my own analyses to make me sound well clever and considered ;0) I need to re-aquaint myself with these thinkers before I can write my next chapter, then can re-write my last chapter (should only take a day to add in the odd quote and buff up the existing analyses) and both will be done to a nice, polished standard. Then, come Bean's beeday on the 15 Dec, I hope to send them both off to my sup and start on my discussion chapter.

Am feeling so much better. Still swamped, but my head is above water and I am going to do everything I can to stay that way until the end.

x J

Hungry

2011-11-26T18:38:00.000+05:30

Arf, I stopped crying after a while and have got on with some work.

I had a look at my calender for writing-up and had to do some serious revisions to it, which has left me with only 6 weeks to do any re-writes, instead of the desired three months. I definitely need a month. Oh crikey it really is getting down to the wire.

Then I spent a couple of hours adding to my previous chapter! I came across a point from my fieldwork, that was exclusive to my fieldwork and just had to add it in. It is the only bit in my whole empirical stuff that draws from personal experience, from what I saw when I was travelling about etc so I needed to put it in and it sounds pretty good, like I actually did something other than turn up, interview a few peeps then spend five months on holiday ;0) However, it has also added 1000 words onto that chapter! Eek! And it sounds a bit conversational (how can it not when you are saying about how you travelled here and there and saw this and that and chatted to a a vendor here and a taxi driver there?!) and it needs some proper analysis on it. At the mo it is a bit 'i think that' which isn't really very analytical. Will have to read that stuff first tho!

So I am off for lunch now and hope to come back for an hour. Then I am looking after Bean while DB goes to the gym and shall read the paper and be silly. Then I shall make sausage and mash for tea and try not to lament the fact that I didn't do any work on the proper chapter today and be pleased that I wrote 1000 words of totally new material.

Be pleased goddammit!

Back tomorrow.

x J

Norovirus

2011-11-26T15:41:00.000+05:30

Eugh we had the dreaded norovirus (aka evil winter vomiting bug) at our house this whole week. And I got it on Thursday!

So I have done no work apart from what I did on Weds night, but rhe work I did on Weds was grand. Today I feel just awful, really really fatigued and well, a bit wiped out really, physically and emotionally... I need a good laugh! Too tired to do anything though ;0) Obviously that all has to go on the backburner for work though. I can't believe I have to work today. And not just a bit but a LOT! Am also a bit blue because #9out of the blue shocker hehe) I want another baby (!) but don't think it will happen this month. This, oddly, has made me really sad! I don't know why, we only decided to sort of see what happened because if I got preggers now I wouldn't be due until a couple of months after my other baby is due (haha, the PhD obvs)... so would (hopefully) be in fine fettle for handing in and doing my viva and then settle down with my family, all doctored up. Anyway, it has made me sad. I dunno. Is too early to tell actually but I did a test anyway being a silly, majorly impatient moo and am all grumpy about it. Am being really stupid aren't I.

OK! Cheer up. DB just got home, and he knows I am blue but not really why, although the fact I have spent a really intense week cooped up with a toddler with sicky bug and then having it myself, plus the pressure of having to have a week off work seems to be enough for him to feel a mite sorry for me ;0) Anyway, he has offered to make me a cup of tea and gimme a biccie so that is cool. Although in truth I don't want either, but I do want the gesture :0) To feel a bit looked after innit.

Am all tearful today!

RIGHT. Onwards! I am going to drink mah tea and eat mah biccie and get some energy going. Then I shall open facebook and mumsnet (I know, but they are like my office buddies these days! I get lonesome else and seek company hehe) and shall look through the fantabulous plan I wrote for myself on Wedsnesday, in anticipation of my all-too-predictable confusion whenever I sit back at my desk after a couple of days away.

Am fine. All Is Well :0) Am working until 2.30pm. BYE!!

x J

Blinking gastro virus

2011-11-24T00:17:00.000+05:30

My poor toddler has had a really nasty tummy bug since monday night. Awww. So I have done no work!

I have had the week off to look after him, but have dragged my sorry arse up to my study to do some work this evening while DB looks after the wean. In all honesty, apart from the puke and the grotty nappies and the worry and the washing (oh my word - SO much washing) it has been lovely! No really, I have spent the last two days sitting on my settee and having gazillions of cuddles from my darling boy and actually, he is a very good patient. And while he slept on me yesterday I managed to watch over 2 hours of 'come dine with me' and another two of 'four in a bed' - the kind of lovely daytime tv that I never normally get time to watch and snooze in front of.

Not being able to work has been a bummer though. I have come up tonight as I shall still have Bean tomorrow while he gets his strength back so won't have done any work this week and am getting to the point where I would rather just not work. I can't take long away from it or all the flow and motivation just vanishes. Like, on Monday night I was super stressed about the fact that I would have to take time off this week to look after Bean - not that I blamed him or anything horrible like that, but it has been stressful not being able to work - and today I had to drag myself upstairs to work! In that time I have gone from being totally motivated to not really caring and rather hiding from it. It is scary.

But realising this in itself has been an eye-opener and the fact I am here says something about my commitment doesn't it. I decided that even if I only spend an hour up here but manage to remind myself of what I am doing then that would be an achievement in itself, let alone doing any actual work.

DB is cool with the fact that I will be working all of saturday too. Sunday avo I have a birthday party to go to for Bean - he and his little buddies from my antenatal group are all turning two now so we are having a partay for them. AND I need to exercise. I dunno how I shall fit it all in.

Work must come first though. Sooooo to concentrate my mind... Tonight I shall: print off the chapter I just completed so I can proof-read it again (UG really don't want to so think I shall do this sort of informally while looking through) and use it for its partner chapter. I shall read through the intro I have written for the new chapter and see what content I have (about 5000 words apparently, though of what I am unsure) and look through my scrawlings to see if I can find the point of it. Hopefully it is really well written and really clever ;0) I don't think it is. THEN I will need to read my philosophy peeps as their ideas (that I have long forgotton apart from the bare bones) are fun-da-mental to this chapter, and also will need to be fed into the last chapter to tighten it up a bit. But no biggie. In fact, reading these peeps will scratch an itch that has been driving me crackers for, ahem, a year now but I just haven't had time or inclination. Now is the time :0)

Righty, old chapter: open. (oh no, please I don't want to look at it!)

x J

Finished the chapter!

2011-11-19T17:22:00.000+05:30

Blimey! After a gazillion months and three re-writes I reckon this chapter is cooked!

All proof-read, all flows, arguments are concise, references are there (bar one but whatever), fonts are the right size, word count super, bla bla blaaaaaa it is finisheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedddddddddddddddd!

Already thinking it is a load of rubbish and am bound to think later about stuff I haven't got in it but for now I am satisfied.

Amazing!

bacon butty for me now (haven't had brekkers yet and it is lunchtime) and boozey later hurrah!

Will probably be back tomorrow working on my next chapter... arf.

x J

STILL working!

2011-11-19T14:47:00.000+05:30

This could become a habit!

My poor DB was off work yesterday with the flu (sort of, not quite bedridden but pretty manky poor thing) so I took advantage and worked from 6pm until 7.30 when I put bean to bed and made us dins and chilled, it being Friday night. Today I am working again, have been since just before 9 and will continue until 11am.
I want to work all day really, but DB is too fragile to deal with a bouncy toddler for more than a couple of hours at a time! I want to get this chapter proof-read asap and put it to bed. It is soooo boring now. I will come back and work again sometime this aft, probably when the wean is having a nap and for a bit afterwards.

I am then going to go out boozing tonight and watch the X factor at a friend's house to celebrate having this chapter done! It will be done today!

Tomorrow I want to work too, I want to start digging my heels into my next chapter asap. Need to be finished by the end of the month really.

Busy busy!

x J

Nearly done :0)

2011-11-17T21:05:00.000+05:30

Well my working day is practically over and I shan't return until Saturday I expect...

But I have nearly finished my chapter wheee! I need to go through it again and check it flows and has enough references in it from my fieldwork, I need to type my references into endnote (in front of the tele) and make sure the intro and conclusion fits with the content. This will probably take a couple of hours but I am pleased nontheless. Not really pleased, as it isn't quite done yet, but pleased enough I suppose.

Going to go and get my boy in a bit and try and be nicer to him! Still feel stressy though! I suppose at the mo I just want to work and feel guilty when I am hanging out with him that I am not working, and fretful that I am going to forget how to do it... Nah, I really have written it, is just a case of a bit more editing so I shouldn't worry!

onwards!

x J

working away

2011-11-17T16:35:00.000+05:30

Still working!

Worked last night until 9pm, put the baby to bed, had some tea and watched tele till about half ten, then went to bed and couldn't turn my brain off until gone midnight. Oh dear.

Am tired and a bit stressy today. Bit bored of looking at this chapter and the house feels so quiet and empty - am a bit lonely ;0) Looking forwrd to getting my baby tonight and chilling with him tonight and tomorrow and putting work OUT of my mind. I was thinking about it this morning and ignoring Bean and by the time I had come to he had managed to make a right mess of the bathroom and landing and I have a house inspection from the estate agents tomorrow (makes me feel about 12 having my house inspected. Grrr) so I got cross. I feel really bad about it now and it is now making me unable to concentrate on work! how backwards is that?!

I hate working and being stressed about work and trying to be a Mum, I am not very good at it! Particularly now he is entering the terible twos. Some of the stuff he does is just so annoying! Like why pull stuff off the counter, or throw your big heavy toys, or knock stuff over?! WHY?! Because he is a toddler and he can't help it. Bah. My worries about work definitely affect my behaviour, my general sunniness and my tolerance levels. Poor Bean. I just can't compartmentalise my feelings/worries very well. But I must learn.

So today I am proof reading and editing this chapter. Hopefully the content is all there now, just needs neatening and tightening a bit. Then I can move onto the next chapter, which would be such a relief!

x J

Evening all

2011-11-17T00:16:00.000+05:30

So it is the start of my first evening shift...

My DB has come home early (well, not fannied around at work when he should be coming home) and is looking after the wean for the evening so I can do some WORK hurrah! I plan to work until 8/8.30 depending on hunger, tiredness, work and Bean. I hope to miss having to put Bean to bed altogether (I do it every night and the thrill of sitting in the dark cajoling a toddler to go to sleep is wearing thin ;0)) and skive at my laptop then skip down the stairs for me tea and some tele before bed.

I did good work today, despite having to be at the hairdressers for one and a half hours. What I was there for for that long I don't know; I hardly have any hair, I didn't have any colour or fancy schmancy stuff done (never do, I hate fancy schmancy stuff) but anyway, I was. But it was fine really, I have nearly, nearly, nearly got this chapter done. I have got the word count down to 7,500 and put lots of it into my next chapter which has brought that word count up to 5,000. That is pleasing as the aim is for 8,000 wds per chapter. If I could have both chapters done by the end of next week I would be a very happy lady indeed. Tonight I need to go through this chapter with a fine tooth comb and riddle it with lots of quotes from various sources from my fieldwork to look like I talked to loads of people and back up every argument. I then need to make sure all my arguments are linked to theory in some way, so they look well clever. I need to make sure that it flows and isn't jumpy, and that the intro and conclusion state what this chapter is about, what my main contentions are and how it contributes to the thesis as a whole.

Then I can relax.

Pretty sure I am not going to get all of that done tonight but I hope to make a big dent in it for tomorrow.

x J

Arf

2011-11-16T15:44:00.000+05:30

Well, since I worked out that I have only three months to write up my PhD I have been a bit down as you can imagine.

I have been such an idiot letting it get to this stage! Today I am working all day, although I have to get my haircut which is most annoying. Then DB said he will come home early and look after bean and put him to bed and everything so I can work. And we have agreed that I am allowed to work evey weekend until Jan. I am seriously worried! I can't work evenings, I am soooo tired with getting up to bean twice a night (at least - still, when will he sleeeep?!) and then working, then getting him and being with him until he finally goes to sleep at 8/8.30, then I have to cook and eat dinner - it is pretty relentless and the last thing I want to do is start work. I guess at some point I shall just have to crack open some pro plus and get on with it... But then again, if I am up with Bean in the night and up at 5-7am can I keep working like that before I get stupid and depressed? I say not.

Anyway, I am going to work, work work and desperately try not to overthink this chapter and just get the info in there and MOVE ON.

x J

The Fear

2011-11-15T20:06:00.000+05:30

Oh no.

I just went and made my coffee and realised that it is the middle of November! I want to have my first draft done for the beginning of March - that is only three and a half months away! With xmas bla bla that gives me three months to write my intro, concl, methodology and discussion chapters - and finish these two chapters!

Oh my goodness how on earth am I going to manage that? I was thinking I would have a month per chapter, but I don't even have that any more and I have so much to do and really it takes me about two months to do a chapter if I am working hard!

Oh noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

shit.

x J

juggling

2011-11-15T19:50:00.000+05:30

Arg I am just juggling text and ideas!

So annoying and time consuming. I hate fine tuning! I have kept my revised chapter structure but have decided to split it into two chapters so I can go into a bit more depth. This means changing some subheadings and the focus a bit, but for the better. Doing this is so tricky though! My brain hurts.

I am going to get a coffee now and then when I get back I will have just over an hour to ~~get even further into this hole~~ clear this up and go and get Bean.

I hate it when I get Bean and my mind is all full of work worries. It makes me a rubbish, stressy mum. It's worse with this too cause there is nothing I can do about it without full-on concentrated proper work with hours to spare. Not anything I can do with him buzzing around wanting me to draw moons and windmills... Am no good at compartmentalising!

Am also miffed that I am doing this and not halfway through wrtiing the next chapter. Although I suppose if I take a few thousand words out of this chapter to put into the next, which is my plan, then that is writing of a sort isn't it?! That makes me feel better.

x J

boo and yay

2011-11-15T15:56:00.000+05:30

Weeeeeelllll

I did LOADS of work on Saturday! I worked all day until 4pm. It was great!

Sunday didn't work though. DB needed to go out and run off his cabin fever, then when he came back it was lunchtime so I agreed to going out for lunch so we could chill and have some family time before I came home and worked... Got home and by the time I had put Bean down for his (very late) nap it was 4! And I was full and snoozy! So I didn't do any work.

Also, I went swimming last night and on the way home thought that maybe my empirical chapters were getting rather too bogged down in analysis, rather than being demonstrative. An example of this being that I don't have enough room ini my word count to put many more quotes from my research but I need to put in a LOT more quotes. SO I reckon I should get on with putting in these examples of my research and leave some analysis for the discussion and conclusion. NO bad thing.

It has made me fret though that the work I did on Saturday may end up being defunct... I think I may have messaed around with something that was perfectly fine the way it was but needed a bit of smartening up. Being a busy fool basically.

Today I am working my socks off. I am so motivated by the thought of never having to look at my empirical stuff again! I would LOVE to be in the position where I 'only' have my chapters left that don't need much original research, like the discussion, lit review, intro and concl. Eek and methodology. Hmm maybe I have quite a bit to do ;0)

Anywho, am off to procrastinate for ten minutes then shall worky work work.

x J

Working!

2011-11-12T16:38:00.000+05:30

Yes, I am working.

It is sunny for the first time in a week so I am gutted that I am having to spend it at my laptop and not out with my family but at the same time am so pleased to be getting back on track! It is important for Bean to spend some time with DB on his own too so is good I am up here. And I could do with some time off being the main cooker person and cleaner and tidier so is nice to have DB downstairs making me crekky while I work.

Big incentive for me today is to get as much done as possible so I can try and have some of tomorrow off to spend with my family. Priority is though to get this chapter done.

I have noticed that as my PhD progresses the writing process seems to get muckier. Whereas before when I needed to write a chapter I would write a plan and then write the chapter, now it seems that I plan, plan again and then plan again, having to cross reference with other chapters all the time to make sure I am not repeating myself. And I need to re-write the intro all the time, when previously the intro would be my guide now it is always in doubt as I get new ideas or fancy writing in something different or the structure changes.

I don't like it!

x J

Busy!

2011-11-11T02:18:00.000+05:30

I did lots of work today hurray hurray!

have nearly finished re-jigging the first chapter of my empirical stuff, just need to finish the necessary copy-and-pasting and then read through and make it make sense. And then read through and make it sound clever ;0). I am doing the copy-and-pasting tonight in front of the tele (I know it's bad but I have only just got the little dude to sleep and want some down time before bed. This is as good as it gets!) and will do the thinky-work over the weekend. DB has been forewarned that I shan't be around much this weekend, and anyway they could do with some bonding time without me.

I really hope to have this chapter done by the end of the weekend, then I have three weeks until Dec, when I would like to have written the next chapter. The thought of a) having the empirical stuff DOWN so I never have to look at my interviews or notes from India again and b) sending my Sup two complete chapters is very exciting! I would love to be able to move on and start on the discussion - then I really will feel like i am getting somewhere.

Pleeeeease nothing get in the way! (like childminder having to be off, or bean getting ill, or me getting ill, or DB randomly inviting people to come to stay...) fingers crossed!

x J

haha

2011-11-10T17:49:00.000+05:30

I have just realised why, perhaps, all of a sudden my work is so appealing!

May have something to do with the fact that my darling boy has succumbed to the terrible twos (all of a sudden this weekend... he is two next month so not doing too badly really) and is, ahem, becoming rather a handful! So being here, working, ALONE, in silence, with no-one desperately clinging to my leg saying 'mummymummymummy' then shouting at me when I go to pick him up (how dare I misread the situation so?!) for obviously squashing his independence is really quite lovely. You see, here I am being a Grown Up, and entering a land that is otherwise barred to me as the stay-at-home Mum-to-a-toddler. Previously, being with my Bean has been by far the preferred option, him being so lovely and funny and caring and kind and just yumptiousness. And now, all of a sudden, he is so confusing! And so very demanding and yet if I respond I have probably got it wrong and deserve a good growling at. This work is lovely respite and really rather straightforward. And it doesn't answer back. Or make me feel guilty (all guilt feelings from me, not purposefully induced by him!) And if I want to make a cup of coffee then I absolutely can, without negotiating with anyone (I'm going to make a coffee then I shall be straight back for cuddles and yes of course I will watch Abney and Teal the rainbow episode with you for the gazillionth time). And I just feel like ME.

Hurrah.

Am not procrastinating btw. Am pontificating. Reflecting. Rationalising and analysing *everything* that happens to me, as is my wont as a researcher ;0)

x J

The PhD Paradox

2011-11-10T17:38:00.000+05:30

Is the fact the I hate my work, I resent having to do it and the stress of it infiltrates every corner of my waking life.

However, when I am doing it, when I have broken into it and have some rhythmn and basic understanding of what the hell it is all about it is incredibly fulfilling, rewarding and, dare I say it, enjoyable.

So why, when I am having to do it, when I am procrastinating, when I am having sleepless nights over the horror of it, can I not just remember that I like it really? Then I wouldn't be anything like as stressed or worried, and I would surely look forward to sitting at my desk when I have to?! I am having a grand time at the mo! I am working, I have a lovely autumnal view of my garden, I have a quiet house and am actually using my brain for something that has nothing to do with anyone but me. SO why do I hate it so much?!

Bah, contrary mary.

x J

No more faff!

2011-11-10T16:18:00.000+05:30

Today I am AT WORK.

I am working, working, working. Am going to be a perfect student.

I have been hating my work so much but am sure this is largely because of a) life events bla bla and b) having been away too long. I was thinking about what in particular was making it so horrible and really it was all about being so very bored and it being so very boring. That, my dear, is NOT a good enough reason to not work!

So, boring or not, here I go. Hours and hours ahead of me to succeed and be brilliant.

laters!

x J

ps. the baby slept for 7.5 hours straight last night. Can you tell?! hehe.

Feel rubbish but...

2011-11-09T16:09:00.000+05:30

am at work proper today. Am upstairs at my desk and trying to get organised. Am eating healthily and trying to balance myself to get better. Had a whine at DB last night and he was most supportive so feel much better.

Just need to start sleeping again, am shattered!

Today I aim to do two hours of work, no more no less. Building up slowly but surely :0) I have a healthy lunch awaiting me and may take a nap this afternoon! thinking about joining a gym, think that would help. Running seems too daunting and swimming takes up so much time getting there etc it is only feasible on a weekend - which I already do.

Ok then, better get on!

x J

Don't ask

2011-11-08T16:31:00.000+05:30

Arf. I am mardy. Too mardy to sleep, to mardy to socialise, too mardy to work. It's all I can do to hide it from Bean.

Today I am thinking about working but really, really want to just hide under some covers and stare at the tv. I would take a sicky if this was a normal job. Thing is, what if I stay mardy for weeks? I can't take every day off and last week was pretty unproductive. It's getting to crunch time - not a time to be wagging off feeling sorry for myself!

I am so mardy I can't even tell anyone. Am a completely depressing, grumpy, knackered idiot.

I think I shall take a look at my work and see if there is anything i can concentrate on. I really think I should try and give myself permission to take the day off and lounge about and wallow a bit, with a view to getting better later and hopefully waking up tomorrow feeling spritely and with my coping mechanisms nicely back in place.

I know I should go swimming or something, get some happy hormones kicking in. But I am so fatigued even walkinig makes me ache. I am such a feeb! Oh what to do.

I shall try and work and then hide and try and recuperate enough to be cheery for Bean when I need to get him later. The guilt that we are paying for his childcare, to be loved by someone else while I sit at home wallowing in nonsense doesn't really help though.

Hey ho, peaks and troughs. It's only work.

x J

Okay but...

2011-11-03T17:45:00.000+05:30

Right ok, so yesterday I crowed about my working brilliance, nipped off to make lunch and didn't really make it back again.

Disappeared into a procrastination-induced black hole I did. Today I have been actively avoiding my work by being at a friend's house drinking tea. In my defence I am absolutely fine as goes meeting deadline targets so just taking advantage of being hugely well organised (erm... or deluded) and have had a really crrap week so am nurturing myself yes?! Anyway, now I am going to eat some lunch and then work! I will work for a good couple of hours plugging away at this here empirical chapter. It is all going just fine, no surprises or confusions at the mo, is just like any old essay that has been researched and planned and is ready to write.

For now anyway...

x J

I'm working!

2011-11-02T17:51:00.000+05:30

I am working hurrah!

I was procrastinating terribly, mucking about on t'internet and texting people who are too busy to reply and making cups of hot drinks I didn't actually want ;0) Then I had a talk with myself and realised that it wasn't the work I didn't want to do, it was having to go upstairs to my quiet, lonely office and sit and type. Too intense... so I made a deal with myself and am now happily working away in front of the tele. Well, sideways on to the tele. And am completely ignoring it and typing away. I have made a big mess of the sitting room with all my paper which isn't ideal as I will have to pack it all up later which may be irritating. But, wonderfully, we had the biggest, softest settee delivered last Monday (a proper grown-up one! not second hand or a hand-me-down but a proper big family settee! Ooooh get me) and me, my laptop and all my notes fit on it superbly *and* I still have room to have a wee lie down and a ponder when necessary.

Huzzahs!

Am hungry so am off to make my leek and potato soup - with the milk I poached some smoked haddock in last night so it'll be kinda like a chowder. Tasty! I shall make, eat, then resume my work. I am babysitting a friend's toddler tonight but first have to give him *and* Bean their tea. Together. At the same time. I will be horribly outnumbered. Eek!

x J

it's ok

2011-11-02T16:02:00.000+05:30

Ah ha.

I am not depressed - PHEW! I realised yesterday evening that actually I have been really struggling with the fact that my Mum has cut me off since we told her that we wanted a small wedding and that she wasn't going to be able to come. I know that is harsh and any mum would be sad about it, but she hasn't talked to me since except to tell me not to contact her again. Well, she called to apologise but just argued instead. I tried to make it up somehow but she isn't interested and this has been getting me down - but because I am busy and confused about it all I didn't realise. Now i do and can just get on with it. It's a long story but anyway, that is that! I will not let it get me down any more.

Workwise I am ready to do some writing! Hurrah! Or not, as I am scared of having to write after all this time! I need to re-write my first empirical chapter and set up the second properly. This is scary and will take lots of concentration and in all honesty I can't be bothered ;0) I must do it though! UG working in concentrated silence seems so horrible. Pleeeeease can I work in front of the tele?! Please?! No? Oh boo.

Anywho, better get on with it. Arf. Don't wanna.

x J

tiiiiiired

2011-11-01T21:10:00.000+05:30

Oh I am sooooo tired.

I did some work today, the first time I have been able to for weeks it feels. First we had the drink daaan saath, then came home and the childminder had to be off with her sick child so last week I did nossing. Today I did some which is ace.

Am feeling so very tired because my own baby has been ill and because I haven't been going to bed early enough basically. trips away, people to stay, house to clean for guests, on and on. Oh and I have been under the weather and rather an insomniac. I am hoping to get some sleep tonight.

Workwise I have realised today that my first draft deadline of Dec or possibly Jan is a delusion. I am not working on a first draft deadline any more but just a get-it-done one ;0) No more promises of drafts, just going to plough on and start sending chapters off as and when I can. No promises even when they are written, but basically am trying to do one a month and hope to have the first edit done for, ahem, the end of feb. Then I shall have march, april and may to re-write and polish. There is no point slogging my guts out and being miserable to hand it in early.

Am generally very low in myself at the moment and trying not to give in to it. Am seriously worried that I might be approaching one of the bouts of depression that seem to get me every couple of years and last for a few months. Then they go. I have been feeling like this for about 6 weeks I suppose, though I was putting it down to stress/hormones. but whatever I do I only seem to wake each day feeling more dejected. I just can't bring myself to do anything apart from look after Bean (goes without saying he needs to be looked after) but without him I think I would be in my pjs all day just dipping in and out of work and feeling useless. I hate these bouts and just really hope it is hormones and that I snap out of it with a bit of exercise. Must do some running/swimming to get on an even keel again.

All will be well. That I am oon here is a good sign, I haven't even been bothered to write about it - too mardy ;0)

Laters y'all off to pick up the wean.

x J

arf

2011-10-26T17:43:00.000+05:30

UG it is one of those weeks... or months.

I just haven't any time to work. Am either away (not my choice) or the childminder can't work, or the plumber is here (again), or people are coming to stay (not my choice), or ill and so working is on the backburner. ARG!

Anyway, it is getting towards the end of this period and I should be abck at work properly next week. At last! I shall work now if poss, (the wean is napping, the plumber is, ahem, probably napping) but more likely faff getting ready for peeps to come and stay tomorrow. I shall exercise tonight I think, or might work instead. Actually, I will work until 9 then watch a new david attenborough programme on t'tele, then go to bed ;0)

Just saying yo. Am not shitting myself yet about how little work I am doing, but that will happen very soon...

x J

Odd week

2011-10-18T16:25:00.000+05:30

This week is a bit hit and miss workwise.

Today is DB's birthday and although he just seems to be grumpy I am in a jolly old mood and not in the mood for working at all! I have made him some brownies for his birthday cake and will go and do some more work in a bit. We are off Down South on Thursday night (all night driving - 7/8 hours of it with a restless toddler?! UG! hope he sleeps all the way ;0)) and back on Monday, so although this won't cut into my working horus too much it does make me all out of my routine which always leaves me discombobulated.

Today I will work until about 2/3 when DB is coming home from work early and apparently we are off into twon to do, er, chores! yaya for birthdays! Then we pick up Bean and come back to open pressies, drink tea, eat a brownie mebbe and then at 8 DB and are going ooooooout for dinner. A friend is babysitting hurrah! Am excited but also kind of not. Db is just grumpy so am a bit fed up with his company ;0) he hates his birthday and this is our first at home maybe EVER - we always go away to try and get rid of the horror of it all for him. Anyway, twill be nice. Am still waiting for his big pressie to turn up (a watch).

Am really very tired today! why I know not.

Ok so I am still going through part one of my empirical chapters, annotating and writing a list of changes, while simply re-familiarising myself with what it says. This should not take too much longer and is nice work to do. After this it might be an idea to either edit this chapter formally (I need to change the order of it - I don't like the subheadings I am using at the mo so lots of copy and pasting) while the iron is hot, or just know that I have all the edits noted down and get on with trying to write the new chapter. I shall see what my mood is ;0)

I feel very autumnal today! Oh how I love Autumn. This time of year really reminds me of being big and pregnant with Bean too. I was such a happy pregnant person!

I have been feeling very stressed out about the need to send work to my Sup, just to show I am doing something. But after seeing my friend and having new batteries installed I am trying to think that *any* work is good work, even if it is editing that no-one will notice but me. I won't send edits off to my Sup, will just wait until I send him the whole shebang. Or, with these chapters as there are two empirical chapters maybe I wills end them both off together so he can see the sum total of it and judge if it is good enough to warrant my 5 months in Inja! My Sup can always email me if he is worried about where my work is. What will probably happen is that he will get a lot of work in one go after xmas... hehe.

Gosh I can't wait until this is finished. I definitely want to see in the new year with a near complete first draft under my belt. I want to feel in control and ready for the final push...

Could I actually do this? WOW maybe I can. Can you imagine how it would feel to finish?! WOWOWWWWOOOOOW. It would be even bigger than having Bean in a way, cause he sort of looked after himself and came along when he wanted... But this I have to work for - every second, every minute, every blasted word...

x J

Ahhhh I seeeeeeee

2011-10-16T18:18:00.000+05:30

It is Sunday! I am working! Sort of! Only till 3 then am off swimming aye.

I saw my PhD friend the other day and she has cheered me up no end!

It turns out that:

Other people in the dept that should have finished last year are still hanging around, and they have niether job nor child to fret about but are just being very slow. Hurrah!
Other people at the same stage as me are dithering more and more as it reaches the final stages of the course. It is seemingly typical to be suffering fatigue and an increased inability to concentrate after all this time.
Other people are keen on multi tasking (having small distractions!) while working/writing as just sitting with the laptop and work is pretty boring and claustrophobic.
Other people are working about 5 hours a day - less than at any time during their PhD so far. And not every day.
Other people are losing their memory too! Seems that the work is now getting so big that other peeps are finding it hard to remember even something they read that morning so copious note taking/memory jogging notes are the norm.

SOOOOO I am not stupid or a freak or crap. I am actually typical of a PhD student at this stage (Well, not necessarily typical but not alone anyway). I thought I didn't work enough hours, had a poor memory, poor concentration and was easily distracted because I was a *mum* more than a student, but in fact these are all hallmarks of being a final year PhD student! How life affirming it was to find that out. And I am not rubbish because I like to work in front of the tv if I can, but in fact doing *any* work in *any* way is a bonus.

I believed several myths. That final year students were: wise; organised; very, very hard working (i.e. constantly working); did not procrastinate; did not use facebook in working hours; had strict working hours and immense discipline; did not need chocolate to bribe them to work; could concetrate for long periods of time; could proof read their own work superbly; did not forget important nuggets of work but of course, worked on them straight away. And that they worked now more than ever. And that writing up took a Very Long Time - but in fact it seems that is the reading and planning that takes up loads of time, writing can be done very quickly with the right preparation. (Hurrah! because every time I want to write something comes up that means i have to do more reading/planning and I thought I was dithering. I think a PhD is largely about productive dithering ;0))

So the myths are, ahem, not true. And I know this, because my PhD friend is one of the most perfectionist-y, hard working, conscientious people I know. So if she is learning that having a life is as important as this course, and that we should just work when we can rather than beating ourselves up because we haven't worked four hours straight in a dark, silent room, written 6,000 words in the process and edited an old draft. And read Foucault in the original french.

So there. PLODDING is the key, just keep on and on and on in whatever way you can. Don't compare youreself to others and definitely do not imagine that everyone else is doing their PhD more perfectly! Hehe, I felt so much better on Friday night having spent the day letting off steam and getting all the gossip on my colleagues. Oh AND she saw another of our friends who is due to submit at christmas and a) this girl was in a pub and b) enjoying herself and c) not having a breakdown and d) she is a perfectionist type too. Which all gives me hope that I can complete and not in too much pain either... we'll see ;0)

My PhD friend is due to complete a month before me - April next year. So we should graduate at the same time which would be so cool. And we both said that the next three months are crucial for our work and she said that she was aiming to have her first draft done for Jan as xmas was not looking good any more. Which is fab because that is the same as me! I did panic that maybe my first draft was going to be too late, or was too late already but she said that she would be pleased to get it done with only a month after for edits (i have given myself three months). So am not behind or anything! and she said that considering I was aiming to complete on time, having had a baby and done a triathlon that that was pretty cool. Which was very sweet and did make me feel like actually I was doing well, not just surviving. And that is brilliant for the self esteem boost I really needed to keep going. Am all recharged and ready to go.

So, my husband (!) and baby are out now and I am going to sneak downstairs and do some work in front of some silly tv and then swim at 3pm.

laters!
x J

The Dip

2011-10-12T15:10:00.000+05:30

DB talked to me last night and told me about this motivational something or other he has been listening to and it was pretty helpful really.

He said that this guy thinks that if you are doing anything difficult and huge then there will always be a 'dip' where you are stuck at the bottom and staring up feeling pretty helpless and useless. And that this Dip is inevitable and experienced by everyone doing the same thing. The idea is that you have to work out whether your situation is indeed a dip, or a cul-de-sac, in which case get the heck out ;0) I am not in a cul-de-sac and DB said that he will help me in any way he can, particularly with Bean, to make sure I can finish. The 'dip' chappy also said it is worth assessing your life when in this situation to see what can be trimmed or got rid of so you can focus on what matters. And so I have quit my super scary swimming club for now as it is an extra mental drain (I dread going and sometimes nearly cry when on my gazillionth timed lap) and challenge I really don't need, and will exercise in my own way in my own time. I can easily go back if I want to.

I don't think there is much else I can do other than try and work more on weekends if DB doesn't mind. I told him that really I just need lots of time over the next three months as this is really make or break time. If I am still dithering over this chapter or simply writing intros in three months then I have blown it. Until then...

Little bean is under the weather today, though he is at the childminder's nonetheless. She's closer than lots of our family to him now so it won't be a drain for him and he is her only child so I know he will be well looked after. I am better today and able to have some perspective. Also, I read an old chapter of mine last night as I need to remind myself of what it says for this chapter and actually it is very good and sets up this chapter nicely. That was pleasing. I have also decided to just get the PhD, rather than trying to set the world alight which was preventing me from working properly because I felt so stupid all the time. Just get it done, in any way I can!

If I did get this PhD I would be so very very pleased. This time next year it will all be over and history and I won't even remember today or yesterday.

So today I am going to start writing this empirical chapter and when I get stuck I shall do some more reading. I have some chocolate and it is all cosy inside out of the rain so I hope to get stuck in. I will be so proud when I have written this chapter! Tonight I have to type up pages of references into my endnote. Oh joy - but it is a big chore and when it is done I can relax that little bit more!

x J

How not to get a PhD

2011-10-11T20:04:00.000+05:30

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2002/nov/08/highereducation.books

I found this just now looking at dropping out. It is from Derek Bird's 'how not to get a PhD'. I tick the overestimate what a PhD wants, losing contact with your supervisor and getting a job (having a baby) boxes - three out of seven. No wonder I want to leave. But it does make me feel a bit better.

x J

Typical Tuesday

2011-10-11T19:50:00.000+05:30

This is what is becoming a typical tuesday post.

But I am stresssssssssssssssssssssssed and very, very unhappy. I haven't worked because i can barely remember what I was doing last week. Even though i worked at the weekend and in the evenings and tried to stay on top of it, without working for hours every day I can't keep up with it.

I am thinking about jacking it all in. If DB is right, and this is a hobby (he sincerely regrets saying that btw, it just sticks in my head) then why am i doing this? Because this is NOT a hobby! It is hideous! It is a half life, a shadow over everything I do - and for what? I won't work in academia. I won't work in any job for about 10 years while I am bringing up small kids. And when I do I want to work in charities, and not on a giant scale at that. If I carry on with this the likelihood is that I will be overqualified for the kind of work I want to do! I like my work but hate the side-effects and the stress it is causing with each missed deadline and I can't concentrate.

I am finding it really hard to work without a supervisor :0( I have no one to talk to or check in to. but if I make a fuss about it then someone may step up and start making deadlines for me that are impossible to keep with a Bean. Bean still isn't sleeping through and is very jealous of my work. I can hardly work in the hosue with him around cause I hear him shouting for me downstairs all the time. I tell DB to take him out but how bossy can I/should I be?! It's their house too!

I want to finish. I really do and I know that if I don't I will always regret it. But I don't know if I CAN without working on it all the time. Other mums work part time on it and manage, I know, but they must be so clever and adaptable. I am not clever, I got onto this course from working 15 hour days and thinking of little else. I was naive to think I could do both. If I am not going to use it, is it just for vanity that I persue it - at the expense of my family and even my professional life? I mean, Bean didn't want to go to his childminder today (the first day ever he hasn't and it was so sad), I haven't worked today as my brain is too scatty (am a bit under the weather) and I feel dreadful about this. So dreadful. And I have the deadline of may next year looming, looming, looming - it is all I think about. And I have no money. Would it be so bad to stop? And go out and get a job I would actually like for two days a week, earning money and gaining experience? Would anyone really care that I didn't finish apart from me?

Maybe it is really selfish to carry on doing this.

I am going to talk to DB tonight. I don't think I can carry on living this life where I am niether a happy, stay at home mum or a good worker. I am doing neither very well and feel like such a massive disappointment.

Then I think of my funding and feel sick about it all.

What am I to do?

x J

Reading

2011-10-05T14:55:00.000+05:30

Arf I have done what I do *every* chapter or essay and it is very annoying.

each time, honestly for YEARS, I do all my research, get together all my sources and then think 'right! let's get writing!' Then I sit around for a few days sort of stuck and thinking am just procrastinating. THEN finally I realise that I am not actually ready to write and, UG UG UG, I have to re-read all my sources in one fell swoop to get all the info into my brain ready to regugitate it. And I forget every time because I hate doing it and secretly just hope I could do the reading once, do a plan and then write it out like a genius memory person. I give myself too much credit and forget (haha the irony) that I have a terible memory and have to work twice as hard as anyone else. SO I am not writing today, I am re-reading (quickly, but thoroughly) all my sources relevant to this chapter and then will write it out.

The thing is that i cannot leave any time between reading and writing. So if I spent today and tomorrow reading, as I probably will, I must, must must start writing tomorrow night (uh oh can't as DB has footie all night) or Friday night. As soon as I can basically or the info will be forgotton and I shall have to do it ALLLLLL again. No please, no.

This is the kind of thing that is hard with a baby. They just totally take up your time even if you are committed to the nth degree ;0)

So better not waste time. Actually, would be best to read as much as I can today wouldn't it, to start writing tomorrow afternoon hopefully. I can't rush it though, I must remember that this reading bit is actually very important cause once it is done I write pretty quickly.

I hate being thorough.

x J

Back to work proper like

2011-10-04T15:16:00.000+05:30

Yo yo

Am back to work today! Am actually quite relieved to be able to get on with it. The wedding and honeymoon was brilliant, and I did relax although I did think about work a lot. but I think at this stage of one's PhD that is inevitable.

What is important is that I *did* have a break and so I feel that I am starting afresh, facing a big ol' ski slope that I have to navigate down, down, down and get some speed and some rythmn and finally see the finish line. And maybe pass it!

And, as Zalfa kindly pointed out, looking at the edits from my Sup last night I did realise that actually they were kind pointers about grammar rather than anything substantially awful about even phrasing, terminology or crossing outs and expletives related to my general incompetence :0) This has to be a good thing! So am taking the no news is good news approach and just getting on with it. I went and told DB while he was bathing Bean and he couldn't believe we hadn't thought of that before. Instead I was just being negative and in a bad frame of mind about the whole thing when we went away (I did some whining about it all on holiday lol). Am not better really, I am so terrified and overwhelmed but I am feeling better equipped to get on with it.

I have friends coming to stay around the 22nd and they will be in this room (poor things) so I want to get this chapter down for then... another 7,500 words... It is well planned though so should be ok. I really need to stick to deadlines now. In all honesty, and I hate admitting this, I don't think I will have my first draft done until the end of Jan now, instead of xmas as I hoped. But I will get it done. Another thing about completing this chapter is that I really don't like doing it! I am not enjoying writing up my empirical work; it is weak and I am not very good at it. My strength lies in more abstract analysis and theory so it just doesn't do it for me. And it is completely new I suppose - I have never really had to do my own research and then analyse it seriously as if it was any good. So maybe in that way it is a bit scary. I hadn't really thought of that.

At the mo I am going to go through my thesis synopsis and just write out obvious things that I forget, such as the fact it is apparently in two parts (hehe I had forgotton this) that address two different things, so I can remember what part this chapter addresses and stay on track - rather than treating it as an essay in its own right based around my research question. Focussed and tight. I am going to get out ALL my notes on reading and put them on the floor and take out anything relevant to this chapter - largely theoretical stuff - so I can refer to them quickly and easily. I am going to read through the intro again and get it IN my head and read any of the theory notes that I am a bit hazy on. Then I am going to do some writing! I expect the organising will take until lunchtime, then after lunch I shall write.

Tonight I am going to my swim club (eek am scared!) and don't get back till 8 and by the time I have eaten and got myself sorted it is usually pretty late and it knackers me out, so no work tonight. I do intend to work most evenings now though. It isn't a hardship really, sitting and watching tv doing nothing just makes me feel stressed about all the work I have to do!

x J