Quite exciting...

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.

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

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

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

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'

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!

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?!