Arg! I just had a call about our visa applications and apparently from the Birmingham office (which we have to go to because we are up north) you can only apply for a 6 month visa. I asked for a year multiple entry visa so I could stay then for a six month period. But no, I have to have a six month one and it will be valid from the day of ISSUE, so in about a week. This means that for this visa I will have only four months actually in TN to do my research! This is massive. I need to think. DB thinks we should apply in a month, obviously, the later the better. But then we will have no flights still? We must book the flights without the visa I reckon then. I am booking these on the first of sept. I shall only be able to go until the beginning of march max. SoI won't be spending my 30th on a tropical island any more. BOOOOOO. I will be in the rubbish UK. And it isn't long enough - I am bound to have to go all the way back for a few months which means when I come back I won't have finished my fieldwork yet and will add on another few months to the time I have allocated to my PhD.
Gosh. This is complicated. I am confused. I need to cancel the application and reapply. Arf.
Our car broke so we are still in Cornwall. Mr AA man came and fixed it and so DB is now faffing. I am going to go and kick his butt and let's go home! I need to sort stuff!
I have been wondering if, IF (when?! please god when) I have finished this fieldwork and am busy writing up and decided to have a baba (if? when... ?!) if I can live in Cornwall and commute up to The North when I need to see my Sup. Would this be insane? I go to uni so rarely and have few friends (sadly) and down here is my whole life - friends, sea, relaxing, hometown, family... And I see my Sup every few months. And also, he spends quite a bit of time down in the South in Plymo - we could even meet up there.
I wonder...........................
laters y'all
x J
Thursday, 31 July 2008
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
Hmmm, well, erm...
Ok Ok I have no excuses. I went to my friend's house and spent the day watching boys play Wii. In my defense they did pull the silliest faces and DB was losing terribly which is always fun (!poor wee mite, I wasn't much support) and we don't have such technology up north (because we both work at home and can you imagine how corrupting it would be?!!). And I am on holiday - a bit. So I did some work this morning - enough to be happy that I am back on track - and then skipped off and never came back.
To make matters worse I am now going to the pub. Then to a friend's to eat some stir fry and do some middle-class lady binge drinking (two large glasses of wine. On top of a pint of cider. woooo! Careful there!)... We are meant to be returning home tomorrow but I don't wanna. If I do some worky tomorrow can I stay?
Off now, I think the boy may even be ready before me. Woah!
x J
To make matters worse I am now going to the pub. Then to a friend's to eat some stir fry and do some middle-class lady binge drinking (two large glasses of wine. On top of a pint of cider. woooo! Careful there!)... We are meant to be returning home tomorrow but I don't wanna. If I do some worky tomorrow can I stay?
Off now, I think the boy may even be ready before me. Woah!
x J
Hello There!
I have been missing my blog. I couldn't post yesterday because I was out and about and am sooooo happy to be able to splurge again today. It is quite addictive.
I didn't do that much work on Monday... Not as much as I wanted to do but I did do some. Yesterday we went to DB's mate's house and sat there for hours for no reason other than, well, just hanging around a mate's place... Then finally we went out to the beach in th pouring rain. It was great and the sea was actually surprisingly warm. (I didn't go swimming, I paddled). I was a bit miffed and stressed when we got back because of the hours of hanging around when I could have been here working etc. DB was a bit frustrated that I was so worried about work. Today I am more chilled though and am going to start working after this. I am pretty hungry but there is never any edible food in this house. Just a LOT of cheese and pasta. And for some reason a draw full of carrots... I made some carrot and lentil soup the other day, that was yum. I am going to work and reward myself with a proper pasty. Bizarrely, in Cornwall the best place to get a pasty is at a Spar shop. I kid you not.
I really want to go back to the beach again but we really have to work... Booooooo. It's raining again. Booooooo. Cornwall in the rain is utterly devine though. I am not Cornish but there is something about this land that feels so like home and I just adore it. DB is telling his friends we are coming back soon, chatting away while I am staring at him. Either that or I am going on about London and think-tanks and he is staring at me! I think 'well, it seems that DB just wants you to come to cornwall and breed... how lovely!' But then... Well. I am very keen on getting a job and earning some of my own money for a bit. I think I will let DB be a househusband for a few years then I will come to cornishland and take over. I really would like a bookshop. It would be the most amazing bookshop ever. It would be full of giant old tables and plants and books. And I would have second hand books I buy and sell for tourists. And I would sell fairtrade homemades cakes and coffee. And would hve reading clubs and school clubs and teach about greek myths and stuff. And I would have students from the college and uni in and get them special art books. And would sell my art and pottery in ot (have around as art and ornaments). It would be magic. And then I would go bankrupt and close down. But it was lovely while it lasted.
I also have been having a childer-wobble. I went to my dear friend's cottage t'other day at teatime. She has two young boys - about 3 and 1 and WOW it was MANIC! When I left I just wanted a glass of wine in a quiet pub, to realign my sanity and to feel happily without child. The oldest was barging into the youngest and throwing stuff and shouting, while the youngest was eating sand outside in the rain... My word. I was thinking maybe I have got this mostly-full-time Mum thing a bit rose-tinted because that sight was not for me. I just can't be like that all the time, I would go insane. DB would be good at it though. However, yesterday at the beach another dear friend and her childers came and they were perfectly charming - about 9 months and 2 and a half maybe? Much quiter and just building sandcastles/gurgling and being cute and just lovely. Apparently they also can be terrors but agreed probably not on the scale of these others' children. Much pondering about children has been had this weekend I tell you. My faith was restored momentarily - but DB was a hellraiser as a kiddie and I know mine will be too. Oh dear, what to do?!!!! Seeing friend #1 and hers made me realise that PhD and young child is not the way forward. But then they would be very young and DB can have them at the manic stage.
Hehe.
Hmmm. Better work, have been skiving here long enough. I will go and see what DB has planned for the day and wheedle a pasty plan out of him I think. Then I shall work.
I shall return soon!
x J
I didn't do that much work on Monday... Not as much as I wanted to do but I did do some. Yesterday we went to DB's mate's house and sat there for hours for no reason other than, well, just hanging around a mate's place... Then finally we went out to the beach in th pouring rain. It was great and the sea was actually surprisingly warm. (I didn't go swimming, I paddled). I was a bit miffed and stressed when we got back because of the hours of hanging around when I could have been here working etc. DB was a bit frustrated that I was so worried about work. Today I am more chilled though and am going to start working after this. I am pretty hungry but there is never any edible food in this house. Just a LOT of cheese and pasta. And for some reason a draw full of carrots... I made some carrot and lentil soup the other day, that was yum. I am going to work and reward myself with a proper pasty. Bizarrely, in Cornwall the best place to get a pasty is at a Spar shop. I kid you not.
I really want to go back to the beach again but we really have to work... Booooooo. It's raining again. Booooooo. Cornwall in the rain is utterly devine though. I am not Cornish but there is something about this land that feels so like home and I just adore it. DB is telling his friends we are coming back soon, chatting away while I am staring at him. Either that or I am going on about London and think-tanks and he is staring at me! I think 'well, it seems that DB just wants you to come to cornwall and breed... how lovely!' But then... Well. I am very keen on getting a job and earning some of my own money for a bit. I think I will let DB be a househusband for a few years then I will come to cornishland and take over. I really would like a bookshop. It would be the most amazing bookshop ever. It would be full of giant old tables and plants and books. And I would have second hand books I buy and sell for tourists. And I would sell fairtrade homemades cakes and coffee. And would hve reading clubs and school clubs and teach about greek myths and stuff. And I would have students from the college and uni in and get them special art books. And would sell my art and pottery in ot (have around as art and ornaments). It would be magic. And then I would go bankrupt and close down. But it was lovely while it lasted.
I also have been having a childer-wobble. I went to my dear friend's cottage t'other day at teatime. She has two young boys - about 3 and 1 and WOW it was MANIC! When I left I just wanted a glass of wine in a quiet pub, to realign my sanity and to feel happily without child. The oldest was barging into the youngest and throwing stuff and shouting, while the youngest was eating sand outside in the rain... My word. I was thinking maybe I have got this mostly-full-time Mum thing a bit rose-tinted because that sight was not for me. I just can't be like that all the time, I would go insane. DB would be good at it though. However, yesterday at the beach another dear friend and her childers came and they were perfectly charming - about 9 months and 2 and a half maybe? Much quiter and just building sandcastles/gurgling and being cute and just lovely. Apparently they also can be terrors but agreed probably not on the scale of these others' children. Much pondering about children has been had this weekend I tell you. My faith was restored momentarily - but DB was a hellraiser as a kiddie and I know mine will be too. Oh dear, what to do?!!!! Seeing friend #1 and hers made me realise that PhD and young child is not the way forward. But then they would be very young and DB can have them at the manic stage.
Hehe.
Hmmm. Better work, have been skiving here long enough. I will go and see what DB has planned for the day and wheedle a pasty plan out of him I think. Then I shall work.
I shall return soon!
x J
Monday, 28 July 2008
confused confused...??
I am, finally, touching base with the internet and starting to feel like the world is making sense again. I have been away traipsing all over gloucester and wiltshire for the past few days going to weddings and then avoiding the M5 on Saturday because it was just one giant traffic jam... Travelled, finally, down to cornwall yesterday. I have been eating fry ups every morning and full meals for lunch and dinner and feel like the size of a HOUSE. I haven't exercised either. However, I have been having a very lovely, very slovenly time that would be perfect if I weren't addicted to the internet and so incredibly worried about my work.
At the moment I have in the pipeline:
*Visa applications I am convinced will be turned down, jeopardising my whole PhD.
*An overseas fieldwork expenses claim I am convinced will be turned down because I had to put as part of my application that 'communications from their office were not forthcoming' - to explain why I was handing the form in now and not in June at the three month deadline... The office are cross with me for saying this but it is true and now I feel bad but IT IS TRUE! Hmmm.
*Am waiting to hear back from bulky waste people that I need mattresses and all sorts to be picked up by but they won't come and do it until I put everything on the pavement for 7am. DB and I have been making sure someone is always in the house as they said they would come and pick it up sometime last week and as they can pull up outside our garage we can just pull them out, into the van. Then they say they won't come and pick it up unless it is on the pavement 'outside my house' from 7am to 5pm, and 'kept dry for health and safety reasons'. How to keep two double matresses and a double divan bed base dry?!!!! In this windy, wet (not this weekend but generally eh) weather?!! They are INSANE. I have asked them for their advice on this and am curiously awaiting the answer. Also they want me to be up at 6 to be dragging this stuff to the pavement. Stupid evil people. Also they don't seem to realise that I have NO pavement, I am up a little side street and to put all these items (clue is in the title: 'bulky waste') on a pavement nearby would block the pavement, the road where people park and the access road to my and four other houses in time for both rush hours. How ridiculous. The thing is as well, that we live two seconds away from the tip but have a tiny car. We can't take it or we would. And now there is all this faff. So I am angry with them too and waiting thier snotty reply.
*I have had to write to my bank again with serious complaints. This is stressful and for all I know some kind of reply is waiting at home. Along with visas, passports that need to be signed for etc etc. I am NOT a happy 'holiday' bunny. I am worried!!
Arf.
I have finished whining now!
I feel that I have been away for EVER and EVER. But it has only been since Thursday evening. I have only missed one working day! How funny. I am so happy to be working again. I will work for a few hours this morning and am going for a three mile run later to get my body back to feeling like mine again...
One good thing is that last night I drove back to cornwall and it was a beautiful sunny day, so upon arriving I tucked into the vodka and coke and sat in the garden feeling all summery and, finally, here. I can relax. Had some more booze, ate some curry (bleugh. was tasty though) and then met some friends at the pub for a couple of hours - and didn't have a cigarette! Normally me + booze = fags. Especially when I have been abstaining for several hours to please certain family in-law members and then get let loose to see friends... But no! I hope to keep this up a bit you know. I think I may try and give up for good. We shall see.
Why is it that whenever I am away from home I feel completely dopey? Like trying to work now all I can think about is going downstairs and watching sky tv. why? I wouldn't do that at home so why here, now? Hmmm.
DB is going out to see his grandfolks with his ma in a bit. I am relieved from the granddaughterly-in law duties because I have to work. This is lovely as it means I will have the house to myself for hours. I haven't had a single moment to myself for days and days and am really looking forward to it! What shall I get up to?!!
DB has been perfectly lovely this past few days. We have decided that our house is an ogre pit of stress and evil and we will have to change our ways when we come back from TN. We live and work together too much now and we are too far away from friends who could otherwise dilute the atmosphere in our stressy nest. I love it when DB isn't working, he is so lovely. I am still an ogre though.
Better work I suppose.
Arg I feel so dopey. Who has been drugging me?! I am really irritated as well because I just cannot face eating for a while but my stupid tummy is really hungry. It is used to 1500kc meals (at least) every few hours now. WELL! It shall have to learn to not be so greedy again! hmmph. Moderation schmoderation.
x J
At the moment I have in the pipeline:
*Visa applications I am convinced will be turned down, jeopardising my whole PhD.
*An overseas fieldwork expenses claim I am convinced will be turned down because I had to put as part of my application that 'communications from their office were not forthcoming' - to explain why I was handing the form in now and not in June at the three month deadline... The office are cross with me for saying this but it is true and now I feel bad but IT IS TRUE! Hmmm.
*Am waiting to hear back from bulky waste people that I need mattresses and all sorts to be picked up by but they won't come and do it until I put everything on the pavement for 7am. DB and I have been making sure someone is always in the house as they said they would come and pick it up sometime last week and as they can pull up outside our garage we can just pull them out, into the van. Then they say they won't come and pick it up unless it is on the pavement 'outside my house' from 7am to 5pm, and 'kept dry for health and safety reasons'. How to keep two double matresses and a double divan bed base dry?!!!! In this windy, wet (not this weekend but generally eh) weather?!! They are INSANE. I have asked them for their advice on this and am curiously awaiting the answer. Also they want me to be up at 6 to be dragging this stuff to the pavement. Stupid evil people. Also they don't seem to realise that I have NO pavement, I am up a little side street and to put all these items (clue is in the title: 'bulky waste') on a pavement nearby would block the pavement, the road where people park and the access road to my and four other houses in time for both rush hours. How ridiculous. The thing is as well, that we live two seconds away from the tip but have a tiny car. We can't take it or we would. And now there is all this faff. So I am angry with them too and waiting thier snotty reply.
*I have had to write to my bank again with serious complaints. This is stressful and for all I know some kind of reply is waiting at home. Along with visas, passports that need to be signed for etc etc. I am NOT a happy 'holiday' bunny. I am worried!!
Arf.
I have finished whining now!
I feel that I have been away for EVER and EVER. But it has only been since Thursday evening. I have only missed one working day! How funny. I am so happy to be working again. I will work for a few hours this morning and am going for a three mile run later to get my body back to feeling like mine again...
One good thing is that last night I drove back to cornwall and it was a beautiful sunny day, so upon arriving I tucked into the vodka and coke and sat in the garden feeling all summery and, finally, here. I can relax. Had some more booze, ate some curry (bleugh. was tasty though) and then met some friends at the pub for a couple of hours - and didn't have a cigarette! Normally me + booze = fags. Especially when I have been abstaining for several hours to please certain family in-law members and then get let loose to see friends... But no! I hope to keep this up a bit you know. I think I may try and give up for good. We shall see.
Why is it that whenever I am away from home I feel completely dopey? Like trying to work now all I can think about is going downstairs and watching sky tv. why? I wouldn't do that at home so why here, now? Hmmm.
DB is going out to see his grandfolks with his ma in a bit. I am relieved from the granddaughterly-in law duties because I have to work. This is lovely as it means I will have the house to myself for hours. I haven't had a single moment to myself for days and days and am really looking forward to it! What shall I get up to?!!
DB has been perfectly lovely this past few days. We have decided that our house is an ogre pit of stress and evil and we will have to change our ways when we come back from TN. We live and work together too much now and we are too far away from friends who could otherwise dilute the atmosphere in our stressy nest. I love it when DB isn't working, he is so lovely. I am still an ogre though.
Better work I suppose.
Arg I feel so dopey. Who has been drugging me?! I am really irritated as well because I just cannot face eating for a while but my stupid tummy is really hungry. It is used to 1500kc meals (at least) every few hours now. WELL! It shall have to learn to not be so greedy again! hmmph. Moderation schmoderation.
x J
Thursday, 24 July 2008
Thursday 24 July
Hellooooo
I have been busy working this morning - my Sup emailed me over a book review someone had written about a few of my core books as well as a new one I haven't read which looks spot-on for my research. My work is a bit radical in its critique so I am always grateful to hear of any people who are on my wavelength (and back up my arguments!!). The book review was fab - I have read the books she talks about at length but she wrote about them much more intelligently than I could I fear. Oh well, she is an established Dr and I am only half of one. I would never write a lit review now - so much to learn!!
Today is a confusing day! Because it is half holiday really. I didn't think I would feel so holiday-ey but I really do! Only working until 1.30 today - will then cook us some big food and after than I doubt I will have time to come back and work. I am hoping that with having dinner at two pm DB will then pack and tidy up his work so we can go. Am the one driving today which bizarrely I am quite looking forward to. I really want to arrive in time for some dinner, not at 10pm or something stupid. I know, I will look on route finder and see how far it is, then at least I know what is what.
I will try and do some work today. I really ought to go out for a run as well but seriously just cannot imagine it. It's like I have never exercised before - you know that immense leap of imagination that takes you off the settee to lumbering down a country lane... And then you think, hmmm, maybe not and settle back on the settee again. I am like that today. I just cannot possibly be bothered. I don't really have time to be honest. I could always go when we warrive later... (as if).
I found out that in cornwall some of our friends are going to go camping for the night and have bbqs and beers and wonderful fun on a little beach. I am THRILLED because I love my friends, I love beer, I love sausages - especially bbq sausages -, I love the beach and I adore camping. So it's perfect! What fun shall be had! All my friends in Cornwall are teachers so they are all off on holiday now for the summer and just hanging around being irresponsible.
I am sat with nail varnish drying on my toes and a face mask on at the mo. DB has popped out - I hope no one comes to the door... My guide books were posted out yesterday... I wonder if they will arive today? If they do that would be ACE and I can read about them while in cornwall. I doubt it though, I think they are being sent by snail mail.
I had dreams last night about being skint (I am), worrying about visas and passports (am totally fretful that my visa application will be turned down, thus placing my whole PhD in danger) and I forgot my make up and body wash and shampoo and stuff to go to the wedding. Do we, do we - at all - think I may be a bit stressy?! Oh I had a terrible discovery yesterday too, my lovely new, very cheap dress has little holes in it, it is that badly made. It is soooo pretty though! But has a little hole just on the seam under the empire line which I am paranoid everyone will notice. Or it will get bigger! Arf. It means I won't be able to sell the dress on which is a shame - I love it but it is a bit western to wear in India and therefore neither use nor ornament. However, maybe I will wear it to the beach and things if I am not feeling precious about it...
And I think that is me sufficiently garbled out! Can't believe it is half ten. Better do some work!
I shan't be back for a few days - probably Monday with lots of stories of how I humiliated myself at the wedding... I am always far too drunk, far too early at these things.
x J
I have been busy working this morning - my Sup emailed me over a book review someone had written about a few of my core books as well as a new one I haven't read which looks spot-on for my research. My work is a bit radical in its critique so I am always grateful to hear of any people who are on my wavelength (and back up my arguments!!). The book review was fab - I have read the books she talks about at length but she wrote about them much more intelligently than I could I fear. Oh well, she is an established Dr and I am only half of one. I would never write a lit review now - so much to learn!!
Today is a confusing day! Because it is half holiday really. I didn't think I would feel so holiday-ey but I really do! Only working until 1.30 today - will then cook us some big food and after than I doubt I will have time to come back and work. I am hoping that with having dinner at two pm DB will then pack and tidy up his work so we can go. Am the one driving today which bizarrely I am quite looking forward to. I really want to arrive in time for some dinner, not at 10pm or something stupid. I know, I will look on route finder and see how far it is, then at least I know what is what.
I will try and do some work today. I really ought to go out for a run as well but seriously just cannot imagine it. It's like I have never exercised before - you know that immense leap of imagination that takes you off the settee to lumbering down a country lane... And then you think, hmmm, maybe not and settle back on the settee again. I am like that today. I just cannot possibly be bothered. I don't really have time to be honest. I could always go when we warrive later... (as if).
I found out that in cornwall some of our friends are going to go camping for the night and have bbqs and beers and wonderful fun on a little beach. I am THRILLED because I love my friends, I love beer, I love sausages - especially bbq sausages -, I love the beach and I adore camping. So it's perfect! What fun shall be had! All my friends in Cornwall are teachers so they are all off on holiday now for the summer and just hanging around being irresponsible.
I am sat with nail varnish drying on my toes and a face mask on at the mo. DB has popped out - I hope no one comes to the door... My guide books were posted out yesterday... I wonder if they will arive today? If they do that would be ACE and I can read about them while in cornwall. I doubt it though, I think they are being sent by snail mail.
I had dreams last night about being skint (I am), worrying about visas and passports (am totally fretful that my visa application will be turned down, thus placing my whole PhD in danger) and I forgot my make up and body wash and shampoo and stuff to go to the wedding. Do we, do we - at all - think I may be a bit stressy?! Oh I had a terrible discovery yesterday too, my lovely new, very cheap dress has little holes in it, it is that badly made. It is soooo pretty though! But has a little hole just on the seam under the empire line which I am paranoid everyone will notice. Or it will get bigger! Arf. It means I won't be able to sell the dress on which is a shame - I love it but it is a bit western to wear in India and therefore neither use nor ornament. However, maybe I will wear it to the beach and things if I am not feeling precious about it...
And I think that is me sufficiently garbled out! Can't believe it is half ten. Better do some work!
I shan't be back for a few days - probably Monday with lots of stories of how I humiliated myself at the wedding... I am always far too drunk, far too early at these things.
x J
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
Exhausted?!
Hey y'all
I am sooooooo tired! I just realised it when I was being a dope staring out of the window again (I mention how I stare out of the window a lot. Sadly, the view is nonsense - the side of the neighbour's house and the sky. And there's Winnie and Fred my magpie friends who flirt on the opposite roof when they haven't hurtfully defected to my neighbour-but-one's garden...)
I have worked out this chapter and given it its bones of a structure and am literally going through my notes padding it out. This is ace but pretty boring; I have the radio on. Then I will need to analyse these writings, which I have done really but will need to bring it up to scratch. Then I will need to do macro-level analysis and tie it in to the whole PhD... then it is finished! Hmmm. I reckon, I reckon, I will be finished... hmmm... At the end of the first week in August. Is that three weeks late? That will leave me with 6 weeks to do my methodology. That will have to do I say. This chapter will be done well then and won't need lots of revising. May as well do it properly now and save a whole load of pain later.
I think working that out has flooded my body with relief and the adrenaline of anger and concentration that was sustaining me has departed, leaving me as little use other than as a deflated, sleepy, wine receptacle. But there will be no wine, oh-no, but there may be some fatty food in the offing instead.
Today I have also managed to coerce my dept secretary into posting my allowance form to the ESRC peeps at uni in the internal post and have posted my own little letter of appeal, so that has saved me a trip into uni. I have also posted a snotgram to one of my banks, we are having a major falling out and they are taking AGES to sort it out. Is no fighting involved - they are in the wrong, changing my account details on the whimsy of some stranger amongst other oddities - is just taking time, and time, and time. I am finding it stressful as I am not one to court confrontation by nature and especially not with giant banks who have my money. Quite honestly I just want them to look into it, apologise, send me enough money to get the heck out of their cruddy, scary system and be done with the whole thing. I can dream I suppose. That letter took HOURS and all my concentration. Then some nice gardeners came whom I wasn't expecting... Then I emailed uni to ask about a risk assessment form and got a wee rapping on the knuckles for not having filled it in with the school Sec (now on leave allllll summer. Skiver) when I did my insurance form... And had to draught an email back admitting that I haven't actually filled in an insurance form either. This could work in my favour, not having been in the vicinity of any forms of any type, or against my favour, making poor Sec lady frustrated with another disorganised PhD student...
Now I am doing this chapter and plodding along - not unhappily no no, can't complain - just waiting for someone to distract me... DYING for someone to distract me. There is a logistical problem with this wish though, being on my own as I am. The sun is out too and my office is a-boiling! Is like summer outside and everything.
I have to pack to go away for yonks later. Boring. Hmmph. My back hurts a bit from sitting here all day every day. Poor me.
I bought two travel books for TN yesterday! wooo! How exciting. Also, I made contact with my first TN person and they invited me to their house when I get there. How sweet! DB thinks they are a Pervy Old Man. He is just jealous because I am such a fabulous networker and already have friends in TN and he? Well he has a car to sell. Which he can't sell because - and beware, this is a sad story - he cleaned it out which took HOURS because it was a total hole, vacuumed it and everything all ready for selling. Then he went to the garage to clean it and the carwash machine whacked into the back of the car and broke off the spoiler!!! Oh NO! DB was furious but they made him fill out loads of forms and said really they wouldn't be liable and there are signs everywhere saying this. DB was fuming by now, as I would be. Not liable! It was YOUR machine that broke it?!! ARGGGG. Corporate madness. Apparently he had to wheedle to get his fiver back he paid for the privilege. He has now taken it to another garage to get it stuck back on for £50. It's comedy. Tragic, desperate, infuriating comedy.
But we are on the wagon so no boozy. Though today, of all days, we could do with some alcohol and a good chinwag. Could even sit outside! how lovely!
But no.
Am going to try and do some more work. Or wander round the house or something.
Ah! Db ringing! I wonder why?!!
NOOOOOOOOOO! DB just rang in Morrisons supermarket and didn't mention wine. Not at all. he is on another planet to me, a sober, well-behaved planet.
Oh dear.
x J
I am sooooooo tired! I just realised it when I was being a dope staring out of the window again (I mention how I stare out of the window a lot. Sadly, the view is nonsense - the side of the neighbour's house and the sky. And there's Winnie and Fred my magpie friends who flirt on the opposite roof when they haven't hurtfully defected to my neighbour-but-one's garden...)
I have worked out this chapter and given it its bones of a structure and am literally going through my notes padding it out. This is ace but pretty boring; I have the radio on. Then I will need to analyse these writings, which I have done really but will need to bring it up to scratch. Then I will need to do macro-level analysis and tie it in to the whole PhD... then it is finished! Hmmm. I reckon, I reckon, I will be finished... hmmm... At the end of the first week in August. Is that three weeks late? That will leave me with 6 weeks to do my methodology. That will have to do I say. This chapter will be done well then and won't need lots of revising. May as well do it properly now and save a whole load of pain later.
I think working that out has flooded my body with relief and the adrenaline of anger and concentration that was sustaining me has departed, leaving me as little use other than as a deflated, sleepy, wine receptacle. But there will be no wine, oh-no, but there may be some fatty food in the offing instead.
Today I have also managed to coerce my dept secretary into posting my allowance form to the ESRC peeps at uni in the internal post and have posted my own little letter of appeal, so that has saved me a trip into uni. I have also posted a snotgram to one of my banks, we are having a major falling out and they are taking AGES to sort it out. Is no fighting involved - they are in the wrong, changing my account details on the whimsy of some stranger amongst other oddities - is just taking time, and time, and time. I am finding it stressful as I am not one to court confrontation by nature and especially not with giant banks who have my money. Quite honestly I just want them to look into it, apologise, send me enough money to get the heck out of their cruddy, scary system and be done with the whole thing. I can dream I suppose. That letter took HOURS and all my concentration. Then some nice gardeners came whom I wasn't expecting... Then I emailed uni to ask about a risk assessment form and got a wee rapping on the knuckles for not having filled it in with the school Sec (now on leave allllll summer. Skiver) when I did my insurance form... And had to draught an email back admitting that I haven't actually filled in an insurance form either. This could work in my favour, not having been in the vicinity of any forms of any type, or against my favour, making poor Sec lady frustrated with another disorganised PhD student...
Now I am doing this chapter and plodding along - not unhappily no no, can't complain - just waiting for someone to distract me... DYING for someone to distract me. There is a logistical problem with this wish though, being on my own as I am. The sun is out too and my office is a-boiling! Is like summer outside and everything.
I have to pack to go away for yonks later. Boring. Hmmph. My back hurts a bit from sitting here all day every day. Poor me.
I bought two travel books for TN yesterday! wooo! How exciting. Also, I made contact with my first TN person and they invited me to their house when I get there. How sweet! DB thinks they are a Pervy Old Man. He is just jealous because I am such a fabulous networker and already have friends in TN and he? Well he has a car to sell. Which he can't sell because - and beware, this is a sad story - he cleaned it out which took HOURS because it was a total hole, vacuumed it and everything all ready for selling. Then he went to the garage to clean it and the carwash machine whacked into the back of the car and broke off the spoiler!!! Oh NO! DB was furious but they made him fill out loads of forms and said really they wouldn't be liable and there are signs everywhere saying this. DB was fuming by now, as I would be. Not liable! It was YOUR machine that broke it?!! ARGGGG. Corporate madness. Apparently he had to wheedle to get his fiver back he paid for the privilege. He has now taken it to another garage to get it stuck back on for £50. It's comedy. Tragic, desperate, infuriating comedy.
But we are on the wagon so no boozy. Though today, of all days, we could do with some alcohol and a good chinwag. Could even sit outside! how lovely!
But no.
Am going to try and do some more work. Or wander round the house or something.
Ah! Db ringing! I wonder why?!!
NOOOOOOOOOO! DB just rang in Morrisons supermarket and didn't mention wine. Not at all. he is on another planet to me, a sober, well-behaved planet.
Oh dear.
x J
It's Mine! Alllllll Mine...
I have done it! I have made this chapter mine! I know what I am doing and why and am busy doing it and can see it all laid out in front of me! (Well, at least half of it which is exciting enough for now).
I am THRILLED!
WOOOO! I have at least a few hours of happy work of copy and pasting (the work I 'deleted' yesterday has a space now) and jiggling and editing and then I hope, I really hope, that it will be mostly done. I do have 6500 words, they were just all naff and in the wrong chuffing order.
Haha! I *own* you PhD - you are MINE.
Time for a celebratory cup of Earl Grey tea methinks.
x J
I am THRILLED!
WOOOO! I have at least a few hours of happy work of copy and pasting (the work I 'deleted' yesterday has a space now) and jiggling and editing and then I hope, I really hope, that it will be mostly done. I do have 6500 words, they were just all naff and in the wrong chuffing order.
Haha! I *own* you PhD - you are MINE.
Time for a celebratory cup of Earl Grey tea methinks.
x J
Bit better
I can tell that I am on a bit of an upward trajectory because I woke up this morning and had two positive thoughts about this work I have to do today! Hurray! I am soooo relieved to be out of my glitch and also to have realised that I don't in fact have to analyse a whole load of reports - again - but my condensed, already analysed and written-out notes will suffice.
Hurrah.
Better get on and analyse them eh?
Ooh DB is getting us a new car today. We have a car but it is very old and tired and needs an MOT before we leave for TN, which will be prohibitively expensive. So DB has thought of getting a new car and seeing if he can sell it back to the current owners when we leave in two months and part exchange our little Saxo. I will miss this car, although I have to admit it is a bit dangerous seeing as the brakes hardly work. DB has also had the brainwave of getting us a big-old estate to help us move. This is fabulous idea and would save us £££s in fees hiring a van for a couple of days. I was very against getting a new car for two months but am coming round to the idea a treat. We will be a bit skint for a while though. *sigh*
DB has also informed me that for tomorrow's drive we will be eating home-made sandwiches - courtesy of a dispatches programme on C4 on Monday that we have seen advertised all about the ills of packet sandwiches... I like packet sandwiches because I work at home and so don't eat them that often but this trailer does look scary. Boooo.
Can't WAIT until 3pm tomorrow! Then we will head off to beautiful Bath and be freeeeeee for a couple of days and are staying in a lovely little B and B in a world heritage village place then going to a lovely wedding. I can't wait to wear my dress, is scrumptious.
Better go, worky worky.
x J
Hurrah.
Better get on and analyse them eh?
Ooh DB is getting us a new car today. We have a car but it is very old and tired and needs an MOT before we leave for TN, which will be prohibitively expensive. So DB has thought of getting a new car and seeing if he can sell it back to the current owners when we leave in two months and part exchange our little Saxo. I will miss this car, although I have to admit it is a bit dangerous seeing as the brakes hardly work. DB has also had the brainwave of getting us a big-old estate to help us move. This is fabulous idea and would save us £££s in fees hiring a van for a couple of days. I was very against getting a new car for two months but am coming round to the idea a treat. We will be a bit skint for a while though. *sigh*
DB has also informed me that for tomorrow's drive we will be eating home-made sandwiches - courtesy of a dispatches programme on C4 on Monday that we have seen advertised all about the ills of packet sandwiches... I like packet sandwiches because I work at home and so don't eat them that often but this trailer does look scary. Boooo.
Can't WAIT until 3pm tomorrow! Then we will head off to beautiful Bath and be freeeeeee for a couple of days and are staying in a lovely little B and B in a world heritage village place then going to a lovely wedding. I can't wait to wear my dress, is scrumptious.
Better go, worky worky.
x J
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Ah ha!
Today I have been working like a DOG (a butch, dedicated working dog, not an itsy, obese, sleepy lap-dog. Just to clear that up). I am feeling like a proper worker now, thank goodness because I wasn't allowed to finish today until I did.
This morning was horrible, I felt really blue and like this PhD was getting the better of me. I realised that I really ought to read some more journal articles properly because I love them and they really influence my analysis. Anything less than thorough knowledge would not do. So I realised already that I was not going to start on the next stage of my chapter yet AGAIN. I have so little time! My stress level was getting to the stultifying level, where you sort of sit and stare out of the window and just feel despair. Usually when I am like this I think about food that may jolly me along for the day - a kind of bribe to keep me at my desk and not just leave and get more miserable - but today that wasn't working really. I just felt overwhelmed and blue about it all. I think it is because of this wedding weekend - otherwise I could just tell myself I will have to work at the weekend and would know I had the opportunity to get some momentum going. But I will be away from it for three entire days and then I will be in Cornwall where it's hard to work (someone else's house is never that easy to work in I find)...
I carried on reading the articles anyway and then went and posted the visa applications (half yay, half hmmm... am convinced they will be sent back with red pen all over them) and went for a half hour run. The run was NOT something I wanted to do but I really want to do this half marathon and have to get used to running asap. Jiggling about in public is so not cool when you're miserable and good for little else other than a massive hoodie, hot chocolate, real chocolate and knackered joggers... Anyway, I felt loads better afterwards so I did! I knew I would but wasn't interested in this particular method of self-improvement... Upon returning I had to finish one last article, read through an email from my Sup re: overseas fieldwork application and then, at around 4 opened my chapter again.
And I am glad to report that I did something productive and have got over that sticky bump I was facing. I just coudn't move on with it and so kept going to the intro. Finally I realised that I was approaching it all wrong and deleted about 1500 words (saving onto a new page of course!) and felt MUCH better. I had it in two sections which was silly; I can easily condense it into one, with the themes I have been banging on about as part of the main text rather than having it as its own special section. Focussing on these themes was the cause of my impediment! And now they have been banished (well, subsumed...) I feel much better. Also, I was doing my fantastic trick where I assume all 'old' work/notes are rubbish and nonsense and started looking at the primary material again only to realise I know this inside and out and canNOT read it again. So the old notes will, thankfully and naturally, suffice.
Basically I have gone about this chapter in exactly the same arse-about-face way I did my last one. Except it took me three weeks to work out my problems in my lsat chapter and about... hmmm... two (?) with this one. Progress!!
So, hopefully, I should get stuck in tomorrow. Unless I have to go to uni which will take half the day. No, I will not go, I have to work alllllllllllllllllll day tomorrow and get stuck into this work for when I come back to it next week. Thursday we are off at around 4pm so won't have much of the day to concentrate and we may even take some stuff down for storage when we are away. All of a sudden though I look around my house and need everything...
DB is home with some random stories. Ah! A human! Conversation!
x J
This morning was horrible, I felt really blue and like this PhD was getting the better of me. I realised that I really ought to read some more journal articles properly because I love them and they really influence my analysis. Anything less than thorough knowledge would not do. So I realised already that I was not going to start on the next stage of my chapter yet AGAIN. I have so little time! My stress level was getting to the stultifying level, where you sort of sit and stare out of the window and just feel despair. Usually when I am like this I think about food that may jolly me along for the day - a kind of bribe to keep me at my desk and not just leave and get more miserable - but today that wasn't working really. I just felt overwhelmed and blue about it all. I think it is because of this wedding weekend - otherwise I could just tell myself I will have to work at the weekend and would know I had the opportunity to get some momentum going. But I will be away from it for three entire days and then I will be in Cornwall where it's hard to work (someone else's house is never that easy to work in I find)...
I carried on reading the articles anyway and then went and posted the visa applications (half yay, half hmmm... am convinced they will be sent back with red pen all over them) and went for a half hour run. The run was NOT something I wanted to do but I really want to do this half marathon and have to get used to running asap. Jiggling about in public is so not cool when you're miserable and good for little else other than a massive hoodie, hot chocolate, real chocolate and knackered joggers... Anyway, I felt loads better afterwards so I did! I knew I would but wasn't interested in this particular method of self-improvement... Upon returning I had to finish one last article, read through an email from my Sup re: overseas fieldwork application and then, at around 4 opened my chapter again.
And I am glad to report that I did something productive and have got over that sticky bump I was facing. I just coudn't move on with it and so kept going to the intro. Finally I realised that I was approaching it all wrong and deleted about 1500 words (saving onto a new page of course!) and felt MUCH better. I had it in two sections which was silly; I can easily condense it into one, with the themes I have been banging on about as part of the main text rather than having it as its own special section. Focussing on these themes was the cause of my impediment! And now they have been banished (well, subsumed...) I feel much better. Also, I was doing my fantastic trick where I assume all 'old' work/notes are rubbish and nonsense and started looking at the primary material again only to realise I know this inside and out and canNOT read it again. So the old notes will, thankfully and naturally, suffice.
Basically I have gone about this chapter in exactly the same arse-about-face way I did my last one. Except it took me three weeks to work out my problems in my lsat chapter and about... hmmm... two (?) with this one. Progress!!
So, hopefully, I should get stuck in tomorrow. Unless I have to go to uni which will take half the day. No, I will not go, I have to work alllllllllllllllllll day tomorrow and get stuck into this work for when I come back to it next week. Thursday we are off at around 4pm so won't have much of the day to concentrate and we may even take some stuff down for storage when we are away. All of a sudden though I look around my house and need everything...
DB is home with some random stories. Ah! A human! Conversation!
x J
Tuesday...
Here is an interesting article written as part of a 'comment and debate' piece in todays Guardian about how the arts and academic freedoms are being threatened by the restriction on speech due to terrorism policies...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/22/terrorism.uksecurity
I learnt some lang last night and did some research on life in TN. Had another fantastic sleep and seem to be rather uncoordinated this morning. DB and I are circling each other like cats at the mo - he has had to move out of his office (the next bedroom) to downstairs because of back/neck ache. Which means the whole house basically has him in it ALL the time, morning, noon and night; sat on the settee, tapping into his laptop. Makes it a very small house. We are getting on each others nerves now which is a bit upsetting, I don't like it when I am annoyed with him...
Well, off I tot. Work to be done!
x J
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/22/terrorism.uksecurity
I learnt some lang last night and did some research on life in TN. Had another fantastic sleep and seem to be rather uncoordinated this morning. DB and I are circling each other like cats at the mo - he has had to move out of his office (the next bedroom) to downstairs because of back/neck ache. Which means the whole house basically has him in it ALL the time, morning, noon and night; sat on the settee, tapping into his laptop. Makes it a very small house. We are getting on each others nerves now which is a bit upsetting, I don't like it when I am annoyed with him...
Well, off I tot. Work to be done!
x J
Monday, 21 July 2008
Important Day Indeed
Well, I am not sure if I am pyschic or what but in fact, today has been a Very Important Day.
Didn't work on my chapter though.
As already blogged, I spent this morning being a busy visa-bee, and THEN managed to get hold of someone who could give me my Overseas Fieldwork Allowance form and info. Yay! So they emailed this tiny form over (why, why, WHY could they not have done this over a month ago? It is just a form. She sent it to me while we were on the phone even.) which all I had to do was sign and my Sup fills in the rest. Thing is, we are now in late July, and where are Sups in July and August? Awayawayawayawayaway. Luckily I have the bestest Sup in the world and he is in tomorrow so I have posted the form special delivery to him so he can sign it for me. He even said he would chase it up in the internal mail if he doesn't get it by the avo. I heart my Sup. He is off to Devon on Friday 'to get his hair cut' (He is wonderfully strange. I told him to get an afro. My sup is highly respected in his (our) field, published all over the shop, of OAP age, fairly bald and looks fab in an old-dog sailing hat. An afro would just kill me).
Even though this form was tiny though it took me ages to get my studentship number etc as I have only one piece of correspondence from the ESRC - everything is done through the Uni now (or this incompetent dept I have). I had to write a note with it explaining that it was late (they state they need three months to complete the application - eek!) because of THEM and that even though they want the original research proposal (from 2005) to show I always wanted to go to TN (I didn't - HELLO, research changes! I originally wanted to go to Bolivia, Burma and Sri Lanka!!! Busy girl eh?!) I had to print off some of the studentship guide that says in the same breath that Year One proposals after the MRes will suffice as well. I printed it, highlighted it and wrote a note to them. (Well, as much of a note as a PhD student does. Suffice to say I was very pleased with my level of formality, succinct turns of phrase and grammar)
It still won't be enough, I can feel it in my bones. I want my flight money!
...and so I spent the last three hours negotiating this and going to the post office to send my form off and STUFF. I really want a glass of wine in the garden to celebrate my manic day. DB has started making human noises again too. I am not going to persue it though, it would be Unwise considering the amount of work I have got to to before skipping town on Thursday eve. I have barely looked at my chapter. Getting this stuff done is such a weight off my mind though! Moving forward... If it can be being processed and out of my hands that is fabulous.
I am HUNGRY! Am too busy and het up to eat though. Will have a look at work.
And I haven't been outside - on this, the only sunny day of summer so far! This is not fair - I am a student who works at home - why am I not outside?! I am disgrace to the world of students.
Ok, so I will do some work now and then chill at around 6ish.
BUSY!
x J
Didn't work on my chapter though.
As already blogged, I spent this morning being a busy visa-bee, and THEN managed to get hold of someone who could give me my Overseas Fieldwork Allowance form and info. Yay! So they emailed this tiny form over (why, why, WHY could they not have done this over a month ago? It is just a form. She sent it to me while we were on the phone even.) which all I had to do was sign and my Sup fills in the rest. Thing is, we are now in late July, and where are Sups in July and August? Awayawayawayawayaway. Luckily I have the bestest Sup in the world and he is in tomorrow so I have posted the form special delivery to him so he can sign it for me. He even said he would chase it up in the internal mail if he doesn't get it by the avo. I heart my Sup. He is off to Devon on Friday 'to get his hair cut' (He is wonderfully strange. I told him to get an afro. My sup is highly respected in his (our) field, published all over the shop, of OAP age, fairly bald and looks fab in an old-dog sailing hat. An afro would just kill me).
Even though this form was tiny though it took me ages to get my studentship number etc as I have only one piece of correspondence from the ESRC - everything is done through the Uni now (or this incompetent dept I have). I had to write a note with it explaining that it was late (they state they need three months to complete the application - eek!) because of THEM and that even though they want the original research proposal (from 2005) to show I always wanted to go to TN (I didn't - HELLO, research changes! I originally wanted to go to Bolivia, Burma and Sri Lanka!!! Busy girl eh?!) I had to print off some of the studentship guide that says in the same breath that Year One proposals after the MRes will suffice as well. I printed it, highlighted it and wrote a note to them. (Well, as much of a note as a PhD student does. Suffice to say I was very pleased with my level of formality, succinct turns of phrase and grammar)
It still won't be enough, I can feel it in my bones. I want my flight money!
...and so I spent the last three hours negotiating this and going to the post office to send my form off and STUFF. I really want a glass of wine in the garden to celebrate my manic day. DB has started making human noises again too. I am not going to persue it though, it would be Unwise considering the amount of work I have got to to before skipping town on Thursday eve. I have barely looked at my chapter. Getting this stuff done is such a weight off my mind though! Moving forward... If it can be being processed and out of my hands that is fabulous.
I am HUNGRY! Am too busy and het up to eat though. Will have a look at work.
And I haven't been outside - on this, the only sunny day of summer so far! This is not fair - I am a student who works at home - why am I not outside?! I am disgrace to the world of students.
Ok, so I will do some work now and then chill at around 6ish.
BUSY!
x J
Update
I haven't done at ALL what I thought I as going to do! Again! I got my new passport this morning (yayayayayayayaaaaaa!) and was thoroughly inspired to apply for our visas. Unbeknownst to me this little application form was, I agree, little in stature but ARGGG! So loooooong in concentration and detail! In the end I think I bought us year long, multiple entry visas (yay!) but with a special £20 permit each that I am sure we don't need. But I am not sure I bought these permits because, joy of joys, I have recieved no breakdown of what I have paid for. It just said 'Pay!', so I did and thought it would tell me what was whattie (seeing as my memory is startlingly poor) and it didn't. I don't even feel confident that anyone but me knows I paid.
Hmmph. Luckily I have a couple of days to think about it and have emailed them to say 'Hey! What have I just paid for and do you know I paid for 'it'?!!', while DB gets his passport photies done and signs where I have out little crosses for him... I was a visa-virgin and have been put off for LIFE. It is tricky! they don't tell you very clearly what is what! I can have the passports posted to me, I should go into and give them to them (miles and MILES away. Not bleedin' likely, and - virgin or no - I have heard about visa queues, even seen them on the tele. Not a pretty sight). If I have them posted I have to give them a special delivery envelope but I am not sure if this is for my passport or another one again for the visa form. I don't know anything. It is at times like this parents come in handy I think, with their innate calm and common sense. DB is doing his taxes so I daren't even walk past his door let alone ask him confuddleicious questions about visa applications.
So I have been flummoxed about that (although quite happily) all morning. I forgot to eat in my concentration and so exercising at the moment is out of the window until I get some energy. Also there is the glaringly obvious fact that this Very Important Day has been spent not doing the important work to which the day's title rather grandly pertains.
I shall get on the case now. I shall work for an hour then reward myself with some sunshine. OK?
Am sooooo happy to be on the road to getting these visas though. Then it is just finding the flights and THEN a looooooooong drink.
Oh, I have been on couchsurfer too. New procrastination land. I emailed a lovely seeming lady in TN to ask if she will meet us for a coffee and introduce us to her lovely, confusing, dazzling, exciting, exhausting, scary, advernturesome land. I hope she says yes! I have been on facebook too, but not to play scrabulous, oh-no, but to find a group that may teach me some of this rather elusive language I need to know on my travels - and lo and behold! There it be! I am now able to learn basic words that CDs and books thus far have witheld in favour of such beginner-friendly phrases as 'I can't wait to go to the barbecue on the beach tonight!' and verb forms and tenses before I even know how to say 'no problem' or 'sorry!' (essential phrases I think you'll agree) or even the alphabet sounds. *Tut*
Am off. God I don't want to look at this essay. I must remember that this loathing will only last ten minutes then I will be off and at 'em in a world of concentrated thinking - and, perversly, almost enjoying it...
Let's go! (again)
x J
Hmmph. Luckily I have a couple of days to think about it and have emailed them to say 'Hey! What have I just paid for and do you know I paid for 'it'?!!', while DB gets his passport photies done and signs where I have out little crosses for him... I was a visa-virgin and have been put off for LIFE. It is tricky! they don't tell you very clearly what is what! I can have the passports posted to me, I should go into and give them to them (miles and MILES away. Not bleedin' likely, and - virgin or no - I have heard about visa queues, even seen them on the tele. Not a pretty sight). If I have them posted I have to give them a special delivery envelope but I am not sure if this is for my passport or another one again for the visa form. I don't know anything. It is at times like this parents come in handy I think, with their innate calm and common sense. DB is doing his taxes so I daren't even walk past his door let alone ask him confuddleicious questions about visa applications.
So I have been flummoxed about that (although quite happily) all morning. I forgot to eat in my concentration and so exercising at the moment is out of the window until I get some energy. Also there is the glaringly obvious fact that this Very Important Day has been spent not doing the important work to which the day's title rather grandly pertains.
I shall get on the case now. I shall work for an hour then reward myself with some sunshine. OK?
Am sooooo happy to be on the road to getting these visas though. Then it is just finding the flights and THEN a looooooooong drink.
Oh, I have been on couchsurfer too. New procrastination land. I emailed a lovely seeming lady in TN to ask if she will meet us for a coffee and introduce us to her lovely, confusing, dazzling, exciting, exhausting, scary, advernturesome land. I hope she says yes! I have been on facebook too, but not to play scrabulous, oh-no, but to find a group that may teach me some of this rather elusive language I need to know on my travels - and lo and behold! There it be! I am now able to learn basic words that CDs and books thus far have witheld in favour of such beginner-friendly phrases as 'I can't wait to go to the barbecue on the beach tonight!' and verb forms and tenses before I even know how to say 'no problem' or 'sorry!' (essential phrases I think you'll agree) or even the alphabet sounds. *Tut*
Am off. God I don't want to look at this essay. I must remember that this loathing will only last ten minutes then I will be off and at 'em in a world of concentrated thinking - and, perversly, almost enjoying it...
Let's go! (again)
x J
Deserving of its Own Post
THE SUN IS OUT!
It's true. It looks actually like summer out there. Summer! Anyone who lives in the UK will appreciate this anomaly.
Ahhhhhhhh. Today WILL be a good day.
The Monday of an Important Week
This, dear friends, is an Important Week. I shall make this chapter mine this week. Today is an important day to get the ball rolling. I got up late this morning which would normally be a shame but today I am in a working vortex where time is immaterial and so I am not affected by this. (I had the BEST sleep. Didn't go to sleep until late which was frustrating but was fast, fast asleep and dreamt about having a real job as an admin person for £15k as well as doing this course and it was lovely to have all the money, but horrible having to worry about getting up at half seven...)
Today I am just going to work away, without any faff. I need to go to the gym because I feel like a horrible jelly-belly after my roast dinner yesterday. My roast was lovely but was annoying because it would have been better somewhere else or if I had made it myself. It was a bit naff but it was still a roast dinner - and I didn't have to make it myself which makes it special anyway.
Better get on with this work I have decided to do. No more introduction! I feel quite energised and not in the mood for slack laziness.
We're off!
x J
Today I am just going to work away, without any faff. I need to go to the gym because I feel like a horrible jelly-belly after my roast dinner yesterday. My roast was lovely but was annoying because it would have been better somewhere else or if I had made it myself. It was a bit naff but it was still a roast dinner - and I didn't have to make it myself which makes it special anyway.
Better get on with this work I have decided to do. No more introduction! I feel quite energised and not in the mood for slack laziness.
We're off!
x J
Sunday, 20 July 2008
Hmmmmmm....
Well I have been having a surprisingly jolly day. I was perusing websites on my laptop in front of the tv for fun, then thought 'Hey! How about you open your work here?! Don't go upstairs to your lonely office, let's work in front of T4...' and it has been smashing! It's T4 on the beach today, a very high brow televisual experience with young people spraffing rubbish and looking super-cool and bands singing away on a beach in Somerset. Perfect working tele! I haven't worked in front of the tele for donkey's yonks and it's a-ok.
Having said that I am unsure how impressive it will sound when I confess that I have spend this time rewriting my introduction. Again. So, basically, I haven't moved on in any way. But I really like my new introduction. The way I had my work before was focussing on a conceptual analysis that I find quite boring and mainstream. I know have a new focus and direction that is much more radical and me and am quite looking forward to writing about it. I have, again reached the end of the intro, and again, reached a natural conclusion so will stop now.
Also, I am much less stressed about it generally and will have a fantastic amount done for Thurs eve when I am skipping off to the wonderful posh land that is Wiltshire for a wedding. I love having wealthy posh friends, they have the most fantastic weddings. If DB and I ever get wed then we have planned to have a little one in a lovely historical pub by the sea in cornwall. No flouncy meringue gowns or sweeping mansion vistas for us. Just isn't our style. It will be very stylish though aye because secretly I am quite posh and my Mum definitely is.
I really want to go to a theme park. When can this happen?
I am off for my roast dinner soon. DB, annoyingly, has gone to the gym. I should have gone out and about today but haven't got my arse off the settee for HOURS. But that, as we all know, is because I am a terribly keen and conscientious worker is it not.
So tomorrow, tomorrow.
Plan:
Haha! Not really. If anyone sees me fiddling with my intro again they should slap my wee meddling paw.
This week I shall break this bug*er's back! It will be MINE!
Black Kids are singing! woooooooo!
x J
Having said that I am unsure how impressive it will sound when I confess that I have spend this time rewriting my introduction. Again. So, basically, I haven't moved on in any way. But I really like my new introduction. The way I had my work before was focussing on a conceptual analysis that I find quite boring and mainstream. I know have a new focus and direction that is much more radical and me and am quite looking forward to writing about it. I have, again reached the end of the intro, and again, reached a natural conclusion so will stop now.
Also, I am much less stressed about it generally and will have a fantastic amount done for Thurs eve when I am skipping off to the wonderful posh land that is Wiltshire for a wedding. I love having wealthy posh friends, they have the most fantastic weddings. If DB and I ever get wed then we have planned to have a little one in a lovely historical pub by the sea in cornwall. No flouncy meringue gowns or sweeping mansion vistas for us. Just isn't our style. It will be very stylish though aye because secretly I am quite posh and my Mum definitely is.
I really want to go to a theme park. When can this happen?
I am off for my roast dinner soon. DB, annoyingly, has gone to the gym. I should have gone out and about today but haven't got my arse off the settee for HOURS. But that, as we all know, is because I am a terribly keen and conscientious worker is it not.
So tomorrow, tomorrow.
Plan:
- Work on my introduction.
Haha! Not really. If anyone sees me fiddling with my intro again they should slap my wee meddling paw.
- Work on the next bit. I wonder if I keep seeking the intro as a comfort blanket because I am not quite sure what 'the next bit' entails. Or, most certainly, I will have to fully concentrate to work it out and get into 'the zone'...
This week I shall break this bug*er's back! It will be MINE!
Black Kids are singing! woooooooo!
x J
Sunday
Hello hello. I hope weekends are going well?! Not doing too much work?
I am having an ok weekend. Not great - I have been a bit preoccupied with work and unable to properly relax. Yesterday I ended up re-writing a plan and realised that this chapter is going to take so much longer than I wanted it to. At least another couple of weeks. This is really bad, because the longer I spend on this chapter the more I eat into methodology chapter time and the more stressed I feel about what the chuff I am going to do when I am playing at being researcher in TN. This is not good. As a consequence of this thinking I ended up rather a little stressball come ten o clock last night and was running around in my head wondering about storage prices, getting my overseas fieldwork allowance in time for my flight money, saving up for flight money in case said allowance doesn't arrive in time (my ESRC contact at the uni is a willo' the wisp. Impossible to trace), learning language and realising it just isn't going to happen because language materials are scarce, moving and packing, our car is dying but we only have two months to go and an MOT in the interim, where to live when we get back from TN... methodology... Stressssssssssssssssed!!
So DB took me aside and plonked a glass of wine into my hand and we chatted about TN and the move into the wee hours. So today I feel better but a bit tired and dreading work. I am going to watch the Shipwrecked final and eat some eggs and toast, work for a couple of hours, go to the gym for an hour and then we are going out for a roast dinner carvery... YUM!!
I think I have decided this morning that I have to not take this chapter so seriously. I have realised that I need to introduce the chapter much more slowly and deliberately - at the mo I just dive into the meaty bit - and this was making me stressed yesterday as it will take ages. But today I am like, who cares? Get the gist of your arguments down and a thread of the principal contention running through it, a rough intro and conclusion and then leave it. As long as when you come back to it next year with little memory of what it is all about the content and argument and analysis is there, just needs a neater intro and tightening up, this is the main thing. So I feel less stressed. I was getting a bit perfectionist back there.
I am way too excited about my roast dinner. Way too excited.
Am training for a half marathon btw! I don't know if I already said this. I went for a very lazy 5K yesterday and am doing the race on the first Sunday in Sept. My exercise regime is starting to be very uninspiring and I am nervous about piling on PhD pounds so this seems like a good thing to do. Am excited! A lot of running is needed though - four times a week according to my wee regime! Arg! I will take trainers to cornwall with me. (Whether I go out or not though - different matter).
Am off to laze around in front of beach-tele.
x J
I am having an ok weekend. Not great - I have been a bit preoccupied with work and unable to properly relax. Yesterday I ended up re-writing a plan and realised that this chapter is going to take so much longer than I wanted it to. At least another couple of weeks. This is really bad, because the longer I spend on this chapter the more I eat into methodology chapter time and the more stressed I feel about what the chuff I am going to do when I am playing at being researcher in TN. This is not good. As a consequence of this thinking I ended up rather a little stressball come ten o clock last night and was running around in my head wondering about storage prices, getting my overseas fieldwork allowance in time for my flight money, saving up for flight money in case said allowance doesn't arrive in time (my ESRC contact at the uni is a willo' the wisp. Impossible to trace), learning language and realising it just isn't going to happen because language materials are scarce, moving and packing, our car is dying but we only have two months to go and an MOT in the interim, where to live when we get back from TN... methodology... Stressssssssssssssssed!!
So DB took me aside and plonked a glass of wine into my hand and we chatted about TN and the move into the wee hours. So today I feel better but a bit tired and dreading work. I am going to watch the Shipwrecked final and eat some eggs and toast, work for a couple of hours, go to the gym for an hour and then we are going out for a roast dinner carvery... YUM!!
I think I have decided this morning that I have to not take this chapter so seriously. I have realised that I need to introduce the chapter much more slowly and deliberately - at the mo I just dive into the meaty bit - and this was making me stressed yesterday as it will take ages. But today I am like, who cares? Get the gist of your arguments down and a thread of the principal contention running through it, a rough intro and conclusion and then leave it. As long as when you come back to it next year with little memory of what it is all about the content and argument and analysis is there, just needs a neater intro and tightening up, this is the main thing. So I feel less stressed. I was getting a bit perfectionist back there.
I am way too excited about my roast dinner. Way too excited.
Am training for a half marathon btw! I don't know if I already said this. I went for a very lazy 5K yesterday and am doing the race on the first Sunday in Sept. My exercise regime is starting to be very uninspiring and I am nervous about piling on PhD pounds so this seems like a good thing to do. Am excited! A lot of running is needed though - four times a week according to my wee regime! Arg! I will take trainers to cornwall with me. (Whether I go out or not though - different matter).
Am off to laze around in front of beach-tele.
x J
Friday, 18 July 2008
ARRRRRRGGGGGGGG!
Hmmph I am annoyed and cross! I have done virtually nothing today, and not by virtue of not trying or being motivated, I have just nothing to show for my day. Basically I think I have been suffering mild writer's block. My mind is colicky; it won't settle whatever I try and do and is just plain playing up for no reason. I have tried sitting in all different positions in my room, I have tried leaving my computer, I have tried reading notes, I have tried reading books, I have tried staring at what I have written so far, I have tried editing what I have written so far, I have tried more brainstorms. And I still have no idea what I want to write about.
Well, I do. I do, I do, I DO! But I can't seem to find it. It is somewhere in my brain and I just don't know where I left it. What is it all about again? On the one hand I think it is simple; 'it is this, this and this ta-da! Now write it.' On the other hand I go to write it and then think 'hmmmm. Is it not more complicated than that?' And I am in living in a confused jumble of not knowing whether I am just being a pain out of laziness, or whether I am actually, secretly knowing that there is more to this than I have worked out so far.
So what to do? I am having a mini-tantrum but talking about it is making me feel better. I think it is on days like this when working on your own so much is totally rubbish. Today I could do with a coffee and a PhD mate who is in the same fix so I feel better. But anyway, it is the end of the day and I am now going to go for a run. I don't want to go for a run in any way shape or form - I feel too miffed and a bit sorry for myself. If I could I would go straight to the booze. But I am NOT spending my Friday night in this mood. If I go for a run at least I would have achieved something today and it will probably perk me up afterwards too - running's meant to do that. Nice run, nice bath then a glass of wine and a whine at poor DB. He know's what's coming though, I have prepped him (by humphing and grumping my way round the house all day poor mite).
I am not working tomorrow any more, I will work on Sunday instead. DB was playing tennis tonight so it was going to be a dry night but has had to stop because of his neck poor love. So he is allllll mine. Hurrah! (Didn't have any boozy last night, I was denied. Thank goodness, or today's productivity would have been seriously compromised...)
(warning: J's rant is not over... I repeat, it is NOT over...)
I just feel so disappointed! And I know that on Sunday I will probably come in and just start working on my different themes and there won't be a problem. I wonder sometimes whether you need these periods of frustration and inactivity because they make you think and read to work out the problem, then you don't work out the problem in a 'eureka!' way, but do feel more confident to start writing without really knowing why. All this goddarned subtlety. I wish it would be more blinkin' obvious!
Am offffffff. Speak Sunday folks! Enjoy your Friday funtimes!!
x J
Well, I do. I do, I do, I DO! But I can't seem to find it. It is somewhere in my brain and I just don't know where I left it. What is it all about again? On the one hand I think it is simple; 'it is this, this and this ta-da! Now write it.' On the other hand I go to write it and then think 'hmmmm. Is it not more complicated than that?' And I am in living in a confused jumble of not knowing whether I am just being a pain out of laziness, or whether I am actually, secretly knowing that there is more to this than I have worked out so far.
So what to do? I am having a mini-tantrum but talking about it is making me feel better. I think it is on days like this when working on your own so much is totally rubbish. Today I could do with a coffee and a PhD mate who is in the same fix so I feel better. But anyway, it is the end of the day and I am now going to go for a run. I don't want to go for a run in any way shape or form - I feel too miffed and a bit sorry for myself. If I could I would go straight to the booze. But I am NOT spending my Friday night in this mood. If I go for a run at least I would have achieved something today and it will probably perk me up afterwards too - running's meant to do that. Nice run, nice bath then a glass of wine and a whine at poor DB. He know's what's coming though, I have prepped him (by humphing and grumping my way round the house all day poor mite).
I am not working tomorrow any more, I will work on Sunday instead. DB was playing tennis tonight so it was going to be a dry night but has had to stop because of his neck poor love. So he is allllll mine. Hurrah! (Didn't have any boozy last night, I was denied. Thank goodness, or today's productivity would have been seriously compromised...)
(warning: J's rant is not over... I repeat, it is NOT over...)
I just feel so disappointed! And I know that on Sunday I will probably come in and just start working on my different themes and there won't be a problem. I wonder sometimes whether you need these periods of frustration and inactivity because they make you think and read to work out the problem, then you don't work out the problem in a 'eureka!' way, but do feel more confident to start writing without really knowing why. All this goddarned subtlety. I wish it would be more blinkin' obvious!
Am offffffff. Speak Sunday folks! Enjoy your Friday funtimes!!
x J
Friday?!
Hmmph. Today doesn't feel like a Friday! I think it's because my week didn't start until Tuesday and also I have got myself down to work tomorrow... poor me.
I just read a forum post where no one goes on holiday. In fact the thread is about whether people do manage to get away EVER. I am always jaunting off - I need it as much as anything to get distance and run more efficiently. I couldn't produce a good PhD by sitting at my comp day-in, day-out for every day of four years. How do people last the distance? I do live in wary fear that my idyllic PhD bubble is going to burst imminently; with any visit or update email to my Sup I feel he is going to berate me for being lazy (he doesn't, quite the opposite so far, he thinks I am terribly productive), and as time draws closer to post-f/wk I am aware that my workload may increase wildly until I am a maniacal writter-upper. I do dread the last few months, they will be hellish. It's the formatting and the reference checking and the retyping and redrafting and spellchecking and appendices that make me nervous. I will have to make sure I am in a good place to do it... But until then, yes, I do take time off.
I think so that writing up next year isn't hell I have to get these chapters down now. I wonder whether I will really get this chapter done. I know I will but I also know that it is a 'fake' deadline and wonder if somehow I will play up to this and miss it. If I get this chapter down in the next couple of weeks it really would be one of the biggest turning points in my academic/professional life. It would mean that I am handling my PhD with a modicum of maturity and sense that generally I admire in other people but lack in myself. That would be cooooooooool.
So today. For some reason I woke up all of a startle this morning like I forgot I was alive at some point and had the deepest sleep ever. So I need to regroup. Open the chapter I am working on. Re-read yesterday's intro. Start on the analysis/quote hunting bit. I also need to read through old plans (again) just to affirm that I am barking up the right tree. My intro yesterday didn't raise any inspirational sparks in me. I am not sure that what I am saying is original as with my latest reading I came across my own principal insight a few times in other books (how annoying when that happens!! There you are thinking you're a genius, when anyone who is literate knows the same thing 'cause they read it. Durr. Although this is also useful as it means you aren't merrily barking up the tree marked 'straw man to knock down here'...) so need to just make sure that this chapter has it's own unique point that is all mine. Or points.
Basically, I need to plod on. This chapter is in two sections, each with empirical discursive evidence and then an analysis. I want the empirical evidence for section one down today (just a matter of copy and pasting and rejigging) and some analytical insights would be good too. Section one needs to be completed for Tuesday. Then tues, weds, thurs I do the next bit and then go to Cornwall. I was going to have the week off but am now taking my work with me... I did just go to london for three days though and was ill last week so I have catching up to do. I don't mind, DB would be working too anyway. I think I will do methods work though not this chapter, to give myself time off and reread it when I get back with fresh eyes...
I can't wait to go to the beach! I might even try and go in the sea!
x J
I just read a forum post where no one goes on holiday. In fact the thread is about whether people do manage to get away EVER. I am always jaunting off - I need it as much as anything to get distance and run more efficiently. I couldn't produce a good PhD by sitting at my comp day-in, day-out for every day of four years. How do people last the distance? I do live in wary fear that my idyllic PhD bubble is going to burst imminently; with any visit or update email to my Sup I feel he is going to berate me for being lazy (he doesn't, quite the opposite so far, he thinks I am terribly productive), and as time draws closer to post-f/wk I am aware that my workload may increase wildly until I am a maniacal writter-upper. I do dread the last few months, they will be hellish. It's the formatting and the reference checking and the retyping and redrafting and spellchecking and appendices that make me nervous. I will have to make sure I am in a good place to do it... But until then, yes, I do take time off.
I think so that writing up next year isn't hell I have to get these chapters down now. I wonder whether I will really get this chapter done. I know I will but I also know that it is a 'fake' deadline and wonder if somehow I will play up to this and miss it. If I get this chapter down in the next couple of weeks it really would be one of the biggest turning points in my academic/professional life. It would mean that I am handling my PhD with a modicum of maturity and sense that generally I admire in other people but lack in myself. That would be cooooooooool.
So today. For some reason I woke up all of a startle this morning like I forgot I was alive at some point and had the deepest sleep ever. So I need to regroup. Open the chapter I am working on. Re-read yesterday's intro. Start on the analysis/quote hunting bit. I also need to read through old plans (again) just to affirm that I am barking up the right tree. My intro yesterday didn't raise any inspirational sparks in me. I am not sure that what I am saying is original as with my latest reading I came across my own principal insight a few times in other books (how annoying when that happens!! There you are thinking you're a genius, when anyone who is literate knows the same thing 'cause they read it. Durr. Although this is also useful as it means you aren't merrily barking up the tree marked 'straw man to knock down here'...) so need to just make sure that this chapter has it's own unique point that is all mine. Or points.
Basically, I need to plod on. This chapter is in two sections, each with empirical discursive evidence and then an analysis. I want the empirical evidence for section one down today (just a matter of copy and pasting and rejigging) and some analytical insights would be good too. Section one needs to be completed for Tuesday. Then tues, weds, thurs I do the next bit and then go to Cornwall. I was going to have the week off but am now taking my work with me... I did just go to london for three days though and was ill last week so I have catching up to do. I don't mind, DB would be working too anyway. I think I will do methods work though not this chapter, to give myself time off and reread it when I get back with fresh eyes...
I can't wait to go to the beach! I might even try and go in the sea!
x J
Thursday, 17 July 2008
Writing
Writing, writing.
Do it as you go along! Tis the only thing I can say. I asked around a bit today because I am now on chapter #2 and loooking to have another down for when I go away. My Sup is really pleased with this and says I will be too when I come back from fieldwork and start 'writing up' for real. But then today I thought - is this actually for good, or am I just wasting time writing what will be changed so much later anyway? Will the fieldwork mean everything I am thinking will be erased?
I think it is a good thing. I am writing all my ideas down for these discrete segments of the PhD. I am not doing it in a linear sense and have little interest in writing a lit review yet - I will plan it and am saving references as I go along, so when I come to do it I have a head start. But other than that, the intro and lit review must wait because these would change radically. I am working on primary analysis chapters really. Then I will have my methodology written before I go out. This will be for my own personal reference and also, if I know it - why not write it down? Why wait until next year when I am all fuzzy and can't remember the key terms/jargon?
I could never wait until next year to start writing. Where would you start?! How daunting. Much better to have some chapters to mess around with - even if at the end of the day they only serve as a template any more - much MUCH better than a gazillion notes and blank piece of paper. And also, after your first one it does seem to get easier.
Yep, writing as you go along is the best bet.
x J
Do it as you go along! Tis the only thing I can say. I asked around a bit today because I am now on chapter #2 and loooking to have another down for when I go away. My Sup is really pleased with this and says I will be too when I come back from fieldwork and start 'writing up' for real. But then today I thought - is this actually for good, or am I just wasting time writing what will be changed so much later anyway? Will the fieldwork mean everything I am thinking will be erased?
I think it is a good thing. I am writing all my ideas down for these discrete segments of the PhD. I am not doing it in a linear sense and have little interest in writing a lit review yet - I will plan it and am saving references as I go along, so when I come to do it I have a head start. But other than that, the intro and lit review must wait because these would change radically. I am working on primary analysis chapters really. Then I will have my methodology written before I go out. This will be for my own personal reference and also, if I know it - why not write it down? Why wait until next year when I am all fuzzy and can't remember the key terms/jargon?
I could never wait until next year to start writing. Where would you start?! How daunting. Much better to have some chapters to mess around with - even if at the end of the day they only serve as a template any more - much MUCH better than a gazillion notes and blank piece of paper. And also, after your first one it does seem to get easier.
Yep, writing as you go along is the best bet.
x J
Wooha!
Hey there!
So today did not go anything like as expected. I did keep the radio off, went for a swim, and worked on my chapter - but not as I expected to. Instead I have, rather naughtily, spent the whole day jiggling my introduction about. Now I have it just right. BUT, but, but it is only just right for now as I will have to change it again a gazillion times. How silly! Just do bullet points!! But no, I had to spend the day doing it. I am very bad at that but I really like a good introduction because: it makes me think about what it is this chapter is doing; it serves as a pointer for when I have forgotton what my point is later; and it reminds me of 'favoured vocab' that is particularly pertinent to this chapter - key words/phrases that make this chapter this chapter. So I have done that and I do feel much calmer. Tomorrow I will come and read and write about what I should have read today.
Thats a bit of a shock as well - that I am actually writing it now. I thought I was going to do some research and analysis with pen and paper, but actually my little PhD-man in my brain has decided without me knowing that it will be best to just research and write at the same time, therefore I shan't dwell.*
Having completed my intro then I have reached a natural conclusion for the day. Hurrah! I am also very hungry and completely obsessed with roast dinners. I have a beef/gravy thing going on. I was going to make tuna pasta bake for dins but think I shall have to change it to be about mash and gravy to curb this bizarre craving.
I have been on the forum too much today I have to say. But then, in my defence I do find that when I am writing up something like the introduction, where every sentence has to be just-so, it is useful to write and then veer off somewhere for five mins, and then come back so you can read it back with fresh eyes, realise it means scribble, and re-write. That's how I do it anyway. The main bulk isn't quite so anal - you need a bit more flow don't you.
I really want a glass of wine. I should stay schtum, poor DB is stressed and me teasing him with booze will make him angry - and we don't want that. Or do we? Hmmm, time for a risk assessment...
x J
*Nb: I have done all the research before in-depth so am just needing extra/more concise/more modern soundbites/quotes to put in the chapter to back up my argument. I wouldn't recommend such louche researching generally...
So today did not go anything like as expected. I did keep the radio off, went for a swim, and worked on my chapter - but not as I expected to. Instead I have, rather naughtily, spent the whole day jiggling my introduction about. Now I have it just right. BUT, but, but it is only just right for now as I will have to change it again a gazillion times. How silly! Just do bullet points!! But no, I had to spend the day doing it. I am very bad at that but I really like a good introduction because: it makes me think about what it is this chapter is doing; it serves as a pointer for when I have forgotton what my point is later; and it reminds me of 'favoured vocab' that is particularly pertinent to this chapter - key words/phrases that make this chapter this chapter. So I have done that and I do feel much calmer. Tomorrow I will come and read and write about what I should have read today.
Thats a bit of a shock as well - that I am actually writing it now. I thought I was going to do some research and analysis with pen and paper, but actually my little PhD-man in my brain has decided without me knowing that it will be best to just research and write at the same time, therefore I shan't dwell.*
Having completed my intro then I have reached a natural conclusion for the day. Hurrah! I am also very hungry and completely obsessed with roast dinners. I have a beef/gravy thing going on. I was going to make tuna pasta bake for dins but think I shall have to change it to be about mash and gravy to curb this bizarre craving.
I have been on the forum too much today I have to say. But then, in my defence I do find that when I am writing up something like the introduction, where every sentence has to be just-so, it is useful to write and then veer off somewhere for five mins, and then come back so you can read it back with fresh eyes, realise it means scribble, and re-write. That's how I do it anyway. The main bulk isn't quite so anal - you need a bit more flow don't you.
I really want a glass of wine. I should stay schtum, poor DB is stressed and me teasing him with booze will make him angry - and we don't want that. Or do we? Hmmm, time for a risk assessment...
x J
*Nb: I have done all the research before in-depth so am just needing extra/more concise/more modern soundbites/quotes to put in the chapter to back up my argument. I wouldn't recommend such louche researching generally...
Update
I am writing! I am working!
But I am not doing anything I said I would. In fact, I seem to be muddling my way very anally through my introduction.
Will I ever learn?!
Sometimes, working for me is like a lucky dip. This is the uncertainty that I hate. I open my work where I should be, then open my chapter on word and two hours later there I am still working out the wording for the second paragraph. It is working and for this I am grateful, but it is random and I don't like random.
Blah.
I keep daydreaming about kebab-shop chips... (while I am writing some particularly intelligent prose. I hope I don't end up with subconcious word-spills in my final PhD regarding fatty food...)
x J
But I am not doing anything I said I would. In fact, I seem to be muddling my way very anally through my introduction.
Will I ever learn?!
Sometimes, working for me is like a lucky dip. This is the uncertainty that I hate. I open my work where I should be, then open my chapter on word and two hours later there I am still working out the wording for the second paragraph. It is working and for this I am grateful, but it is random and I don't like random.
Blah.
I keep daydreaming about kebab-shop chips... (while I am writing some particularly intelligent prose. I hope I don't end up with subconcious word-spills in my final PhD regarding fatty food...)
x J
Wow. This is a scary story.
This is a news article in the Guardian that I just read about unmitigated violence inflicted on G8 Summit peace protesters in Genoa in 2001 by the Italian police. It's really scary, showing both the power of ideology and of institution within bordered, sovereign nation states, and seems to reflect the relative powerlessness of individuals within these states. Are we but pawns to justify states' powers, ideologies and games? A radical thought but curious nonetheless.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/17/italy.g8
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/17/italy.g8
Nervous!
SO although yesterday went swimmingly well and I got lots of work done, last night and this morning I have been feeling increasingly worried and nervous about it. I hate this stage of a chapter or of planning, when you do know where you are going with it - but you don't at the same time. So I could have a brlliant day with lots of ideas and finish it knowing how the chapter will pan out. Or I could have a day where I stare at my notes, forget what I just read, don't really link the notes and ideas together to form a coherent argument and finish the day still confused.
This is the uncertainty part of the PhD; the part when you don't know if you/it is going to work out or whether you have finally met your match with it.
Plan:
Re-read plans and thoughts and brainstorms.
Don't panic
Don't work overly hard or pedantically on stuff you already know. Get a quote to prove your point and MOVE ON.
Don't listen to the radio
DO exercise and clear the brain
Don't think about deadlines. If you're being slow at least you're working..
Do take it a day at a time.
*REMEMBER REMEMBER* THIS IS A DRAFT! A DRAFT TO GET YOUR IDEAS DOWN BECAUSE YOU HAVE HALF WRITTEN THIS CHAPTER BY ACCIDENT - OR YOU WOULDN'T BE DOING IT YET. IT IS ALL SUBJECT TO CHANGE... DON'T FRET, JUST DO IT.
I totally knew what this chapter was about and now I am not so sure.
Arg! This goddamn PhD!!!
Wish me luck...
x J
Ps. Am better now btw. Am soooooooo grateful!
This is the uncertainty part of the PhD; the part when you don't know if you/it is going to work out or whether you have finally met your match with it.
Plan:
Re-read plans and thoughts and brainstorms.
Don't panic
Don't work overly hard or pedantically on stuff you already know. Get a quote to prove your point and MOVE ON.
Don't listen to the radio
DO exercise and clear the brain
Don't think about deadlines. If you're being slow at least you're working..
Do take it a day at a time.
*REMEMBER REMEMBER* THIS IS A DRAFT! A DRAFT TO GET YOUR IDEAS DOWN BECAUSE YOU HAVE HALF WRITTEN THIS CHAPTER BY ACCIDENT - OR YOU WOULDN'T BE DOING IT YET. IT IS ALL SUBJECT TO CHANGE... DON'T FRET, JUST DO IT.
I totally knew what this chapter was about and now I am not so sure.
Arg! This goddamn PhD!!!
Wish me luck...
x J
Ps. Am better now btw. Am soooooooo grateful!
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
Success!
Today has been a successful day! Magic!
Workwise I did what I set out to do and have worked out where this chapter is going and read alllllll the literature for it. Now I just have to start to write it. Tomorrow I want to read the necessary websites for some primary analysis, work out some discursive themes (if they have changed) and then start typing the first third segment of it on Friday. I want to get this part of the chapter done for sat eve... unlikely I know. Most likely it will be done on Monday. Now I have a general plan I can see that I shan't have it done like I want to for next Thursday. I can try though. A few days over won't break the bank.
More excitingly though I have worked out what I want to do when I have finished the PhD! As anyone who may read this daily detritus of my brain may know, what I shall do upon completion has been angsting me for a few days now... I am now totally sure (for now, hehe) that I will work for a wee think-tank I know of in London. London! I dislike London with a vengeance on the whole but let me explain. This here think-tank is super duper for me - it means I can still do some research but not necessarily my 'own' project. It will be diverse and maybe part of a group project which would be nice. It means I can stay as an objective commentator on the world instead of part of its cogs (and downfalls) - which is what I am good at; analysing the big picture. It means I can go to meetings and work with other organisations, but also work on my own. It also means I can get the decent wage I am harking after. I read the vacancies page and they have a few vacancies at the moment for research fellows and I fill most of the specifications! And I read the staff list and their descriptive blurbs and yes! I am one of those people! I am so happy. As I said, they are based in London. But I hate london?! No! I don't! As long as I have some money instead of being on 12k (like previously, oh my WORD I was skint), can cycle around and avoid the tube (hate the tube, bleugh, hate it) and live near a park or common so I have some green... Maybe even I can buy a house! And have a pet! And a job where I go in and work for a few years, have colleagues and not work at home. Go out for long expensive sunday lunches with my friends, at a quiet pub by the canal... I want to be a drone! I do! I want to have my house that I live in with no plans to go anywhere. Maybe buy one! I want routine. I would like a few years of satisfied tummy-rubbing. DB wants to live in London too - which is quite a U-turn as I thought he had plans to whisk me off to the Westcountry as soon as I finished. Which would be cool, but not if I want to work. As for the children... well... I don't know. But I could have flexi time in this job and DB would be at home and there are childminders... They will be happy I am sure of it, whether or not they have me there in their face constantly. I will be there for their first 18 months, both of the first two, then will have quite a few years off before the next...
There are opportunities to work abroad in this job too. But that is something quite different.
I am excited about it! Now I have opened my mind a bit about the London thing. I don't have to go on the tube, be skint and miserable , constantly hungover, and open my front door to crazies on my doorstep in Camden at all! I can find a quiet bit of town and set up my tent there!
So that was me...
Am busy making a moroccan style lentil, aubergine and courgette bake. DB tried to get me to eat pizza and even have a beer! But I say NO! I have work to do you bad corruptor. So he has gone to the gym and I am making nice healthy food.
Better go and do some daydreaming. I may have a future! Wooo!
It's blinkin' raining again. Am most unimpressed.
x J
Workwise I did what I set out to do and have worked out where this chapter is going and read alllllll the literature for it. Now I just have to start to write it. Tomorrow I want to read the necessary websites for some primary analysis, work out some discursive themes (if they have changed) and then start typing the first third segment of it on Friday. I want to get this part of the chapter done for sat eve... unlikely I know. Most likely it will be done on Monday. Now I have a general plan I can see that I shan't have it done like I want to for next Thursday. I can try though. A few days over won't break the bank.
More excitingly though I have worked out what I want to do when I have finished the PhD! As anyone who may read this daily detritus of my brain may know, what I shall do upon completion has been angsting me for a few days now... I am now totally sure (for now, hehe) that I will work for a wee think-tank I know of in London. London! I dislike London with a vengeance on the whole but let me explain. This here think-tank is super duper for me - it means I can still do some research but not necessarily my 'own' project. It will be diverse and maybe part of a group project which would be nice. It means I can stay as an objective commentator on the world instead of part of its cogs (and downfalls) - which is what I am good at; analysing the big picture. It means I can go to meetings and work with other organisations, but also work on my own. It also means I can get the decent wage I am harking after. I read the vacancies page and they have a few vacancies at the moment for research fellows and I fill most of the specifications! And I read the staff list and their descriptive blurbs and yes! I am one of those people! I am so happy. As I said, they are based in London. But I hate london?! No! I don't! As long as I have some money instead of being on 12k (like previously, oh my WORD I was skint), can cycle around and avoid the tube (hate the tube, bleugh, hate it) and live near a park or common so I have some green... Maybe even I can buy a house! And have a pet! And a job where I go in and work for a few years, have colleagues and not work at home. Go out for long expensive sunday lunches with my friends, at a quiet pub by the canal... I want to be a drone! I do! I want to have my house that I live in with no plans to go anywhere. Maybe buy one! I want routine. I would like a few years of satisfied tummy-rubbing. DB wants to live in London too - which is quite a U-turn as I thought he had plans to whisk me off to the Westcountry as soon as I finished. Which would be cool, but not if I want to work. As for the children... well... I don't know. But I could have flexi time in this job and DB would be at home and there are childminders... They will be happy I am sure of it, whether or not they have me there in their face constantly. I will be there for their first 18 months, both of the first two, then will have quite a few years off before the next...
There are opportunities to work abroad in this job too. But that is something quite different.
I am excited about it! Now I have opened my mind a bit about the London thing. I don't have to go on the tube, be skint and miserable , constantly hungover, and open my front door to crazies on my doorstep in Camden at all! I can find a quiet bit of town and set up my tent there!
So that was me...
Am busy making a moroccan style lentil, aubergine and courgette bake. DB tried to get me to eat pizza and even have a beer! But I say NO! I have work to do you bad corruptor. So he has gone to the gym and I am making nice healthy food.
Better go and do some daydreaming. I may have a future! Wooo!
It's blinkin' raining again. Am most unimpressed.
x J
Right. New Start...
Ok chumps! It's time to get a-movin! I have had enough of my slovenly ways, it is time to be a proper student for a while (just for a while J, stop trembling)... My cold has nearly gone and my hangover has finally retreated. I almost feel human!
As part of my srping clean I endeavour to:
Work for 6 hours every day (plus one/two faffing hours). Hours are to be: 9.30 to 12.30. Exercise and lunch. Work from 2.30 to 6.30. Or just 9.30 to 6pm.
exercise 3 times a week
eat wholegrain grubalub that I made myself. Avoid takeaways.
Limit drinking da boozy to once a week.
Turn off the radio for at least half the day.
Let's go for the work hard, play hard ethic. But start working hard Missy.
I fancy starting to think again, no more of this half-arsed rubbish.
Today I am going to:
As part of my srping clean I endeavour to:
Work for 6 hours every day (plus one/two faffing hours). Hours are to be: 9.30 to 12.30. Exercise and lunch. Work from 2.30 to 6.30. Or just 9.30 to 6pm.
exercise 3 times a week
eat wholegrain grubalub that I made myself. Avoid takeaways.
Limit drinking da boozy to once a week.
Turn off the radio for at least half the day.
Let's go for the work hard, play hard ethic. But start working hard Missy.
I fancy starting to think again, no more of this half-arsed rubbish.
Today I am going to:
- Go through the last of my academic reading notes. Will take an hour/hour and a half tops.
- Go through my NGO lit notes and see what kind of analysis I have so far - work out if I need to do more (try NOT to! NOOO more analysis - get writing!).
- Write out a plan of action from now to next Thursday.
- Follow plan of action.
I really should exercise today. I am not sure if I will though because I still feel a little bit coldy and maybe one more day of quarantine is needed before I go prancing and coughing about town. We shall see........... (generally means no).
Does anyone else need continuous revisions of plans and re-motivating?! I seem to exist on a constant plane of near-failure, near-success; never quite meeting one or the other. Although I would say I tend to start more at the former and move toward the latter as deadlines or the heavy hand of my Sup looms in front of me... Well, I have so far. Can't rely on that though - so get moving!!
x J
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
Nearly there...
I can see five o clock. It is in my beady sights, at which point I will stop working. Or stop worrying about not be able to work - a far more truthful account of my day... I am currently sat with laptop in front of the sad spectacle that is Deal or No Deal, a tv programme which has no basis in sense, a dependence on a whole lot of superstition and a fantastic line in rhetoric. Noel's (presenter) job is to strut around the set spinning yarns about 'game play' and positive thinking, instilling the belief in the contestants that they can control what will be inside the boxes they open by dint of positve attitude and faith in fate. If you have faith and the right attitude then you are much more likely to win, to be blessed, to beat the banker - this is 'successful' game play. It is a load of old nonsense but very clever. The lady on the floor is now being advised not to do it but to 'think about it', to really think about it. Think about what you ask? Which, out of the two boxes that are left, to ask to be opened first. It is LUCK lady, no amount of thinking on this earth will change what is in that box. This is science; it is fact. I know this and I'm a postmodernist.
Apparently she deserves the money because 'she played a blinder'. And she did get it - further reinforcing the message that faith and good game play will ensure the numbers in the boxes are the ones you derserve. What is completely vile about this show is when they 'lose faith' and take the banker's offer - and stop opening the boxes and leaving it to fate - even if they have done well, at the end Noel will berate them and shame them for their lack of faith and chickening out, like they are miserable losers who let everyone down and could have won so much more. It's not nice. Noel loves it though. Vile little man.
I do have some good news today though. I emailed my sup - I haven't spoken to him since my transfer meet when I left to work on chapter four and he went on leve for a bit. So I thought I should let him know what I have been up to and said maybe we should meet for chats at the beginning of August, just to touch base. He wrote back (my sup is super-swift at email, it is a blessing I know) and said all sounds good! So I am still on track and all is well in the land of J. This is reassuring today for sure, especially considering my mashed little brain... I am not sure I will ever complete this PhD.
I am really sure I am going to work in an office when I have finished... I was thinking of not doing this and either being a full time mum, writer, artist... consultant... Not being told what to do basically. I posted this a couple of days ago but the more I think on it the better the idea seems to be. I will go to work for a few years I think. I want to settle down... I think I want to go to India and get my itchy feet out of my way. Then I want to finish my PhD without too much faff and maybe create a wee human at the same time. Then I want to either take a year out and bring up one or two littl'uns, maybe two years... (is this too long?) write and publish and tout myself about, then get a smashing job somewhere leafy for 30k odd, work, get a dog and a house and a wedding ring... and then see where I am when I'm about 36... hmmm. I think I am bored of being such a self-reliant nomad. I fancy a bit of imposed structure, someone to pay my wages
and tell me off if I am late. Meetings... Maybe I will be allowed to be a manager. I hope so! wooooooo... I do have issues with being a working mum especially when they are tiny. But then again who know what will really happen and being able to provide for your kiddies is amazing.
Daydreaming, daydreaming.
R and J have a section on turkeys it looks like. Silly R and J. When I was in Guate I was learning Spanish and my teacher, who didn't speak a work of english, tried to tell me what the word 'chompipe' means, which I understood quite clearly to mean 'key'. It was some while later during my stay that I realised it had actually meant turkey. I realised this while I was drinking coffee in a wee restaurant with DB and couldn't stop laughing. Poor chap thought I had gone mad. I tried to explain to him all the hilarious situations that would have arisen if I hadn't worked it out - particularly if I lost my turkey, or wondered if someone had handed in my turkey, or needed another copy of my turkey, or was explaining that I had left my turkey on the table and did anyone pick it up?
Ahhhh. It was very amusing for me. DB was amused, but not as amused as me. But then it wouldn't have been him there trying to convince someone that you had definitely left your turkey in their restaurant...
Kerazy.
Am gonna work tomorrow! I am, I am!
J x
Apparently she deserves the money because 'she played a blinder'. And she did get it - further reinforcing the message that faith and good game play will ensure the numbers in the boxes are the ones you derserve. What is completely vile about this show is when they 'lose faith' and take the banker's offer - and stop opening the boxes and leaving it to fate - even if they have done well, at the end Noel will berate them and shame them for their lack of faith and chickening out, like they are miserable losers who let everyone down and could have won so much more. It's not nice. Noel loves it though. Vile little man.
I do have some good news today though. I emailed my sup - I haven't spoken to him since my transfer meet when I left to work on chapter four and he went on leve for a bit. So I thought I should let him know what I have been up to and said maybe we should meet for chats at the beginning of August, just to touch base. He wrote back (my sup is super-swift at email, it is a blessing I know) and said all sounds good! So I am still on track and all is well in the land of J. This is reassuring today for sure, especially considering my mashed little brain... I am not sure I will ever complete this PhD.
I am really sure I am going to work in an office when I have finished... I was thinking of not doing this and either being a full time mum, writer, artist... consultant... Not being told what to do basically. I posted this a couple of days ago but the more I think on it the better the idea seems to be. I will go to work for a few years I think. I want to settle down... I think I want to go to India and get my itchy feet out of my way. Then I want to finish my PhD without too much faff and maybe create a wee human at the same time. Then I want to either take a year out and bring up one or two littl'uns, maybe two years... (is this too long?) write and publish and tout myself about, then get a smashing job somewhere leafy for 30k odd, work, get a dog and a house and a wedding ring... and then see where I am when I'm about 36... hmmm. I think I am bored of being such a self-reliant nomad. I fancy a bit of imposed structure, someone to pay my wages
and tell me off if I am late. Meetings... Maybe I will be allowed to be a manager. I hope so! wooooooo... I do have issues with being a working mum especially when they are tiny. But then again who know what will really happen and being able to provide for your kiddies is amazing.
Daydreaming, daydreaming.
R and J have a section on turkeys it looks like. Silly R and J. When I was in Guate I was learning Spanish and my teacher, who didn't speak a work of english, tried to tell me what the word 'chompipe' means, which I understood quite clearly to mean 'key'. It was some while later during my stay that I realised it had actually meant turkey. I realised this while I was drinking coffee in a wee restaurant with DB and couldn't stop laughing. Poor chap thought I had gone mad. I tried to explain to him all the hilarious situations that would have arisen if I hadn't worked it out - particularly if I lost my turkey, or wondered if someone had handed in my turkey, or needed another copy of my turkey, or was explaining that I had left my turkey on the table and did anyone pick it up?
Ahhhh. It was very amusing for me. DB was amused, but not as amused as me. But then it wouldn't have been him there trying to convince someone that you had definitely left your turkey in their restaurant...
Kerazy.
Am gonna work tomorrow! I am, I am!
J x
Back in Town
Right. What is the day? It is... Tuesday? Yes, Tuesday. I have clothes, check. I have coffee, check. I have my laptop, notes, and pen and some books. Let's go! Oh but I left my brain in London. What to do?!!!
I had an amazing weekend in London Town with my dear friends, partied way too hard and am feeling my age today. DB and I came back yesterday but just hung around like zombies and today I am not feeling much clearer I have to say. I did post yesterday and then deleted it so if you saw it and it went, that would be why! Funnily enough I have lost my voice but, strangely, my cold just disappeared on Friday night. Saturday when we left I was a bit coldy but nothing major and it has subsided a treat over the weekend. Which is odd given the poor hammering my wee body has been getting. Maybe it's all the adrenaline and lager...
SOOO what is my plan. Needless to say I am not really up for working today. I am going to though oh yes. I need to make a new plan for completion of this chap and starting on the next. Am getting very worried and think some long days are forecast over the next two weeks. I don't mind this, as long as it is planned for. I can't stand ad-hoc late night working - it makes me feel unorganised and a little bit like I am panicking - not a good look. If I plan for them though I don't mind. I will be doing some weekend working too. I abosloutely have to have this chapter done for when we go to Bath in a couple of weeks. And I just have to get on with my methodology! I am so scared of not having it done on time!
I think I will read some philosophy today and try and get my house in order (metaphorical that is) ready for tomorrow...
Today, to be honest, I just don't know how it is I do a PhD. Am feeling a little bit overwhelmed!
x J
I had an amazing weekend in London Town with my dear friends, partied way too hard and am feeling my age today. DB and I came back yesterday but just hung around like zombies and today I am not feeling much clearer I have to say. I did post yesterday and then deleted it so if you saw it and it went, that would be why! Funnily enough I have lost my voice but, strangely, my cold just disappeared on Friday night. Saturday when we left I was a bit coldy but nothing major and it has subsided a treat over the weekend. Which is odd given the poor hammering my wee body has been getting. Maybe it's all the adrenaline and lager...
SOOO what is my plan. Needless to say I am not really up for working today. I am going to though oh yes. I need to make a new plan for completion of this chap and starting on the next. Am getting very worried and think some long days are forecast over the next two weeks. I don't mind this, as long as it is planned for. I can't stand ad-hoc late night working - it makes me feel unorganised and a little bit like I am panicking - not a good look. If I plan for them though I don't mind. I will be doing some weekend working too. I abosloutely have to have this chapter done for when we go to Bath in a couple of weeks. And I just have to get on with my methodology! I am so scared of not having it done on time!
I think I will read some philosophy today and try and get my house in order (metaphorical that is) ready for tomorrow...
Today, to be honest, I just don't know how it is I do a PhD. Am feeling a little bit overwhelmed!
x J
Friday, 11 July 2008
As promised...
I have done nothing! Nada! Rien! I played on the internet in bed this morning had some chicken soup (British necessity when ill enough to be in bed all day) and then zonked out for the afternoon! Woke up about 20 minutes ago and feel soooooo much better. I am still poorly but have a bit more verve. I haven't done a single thing. Well, I hung my jeans up on the radiator to dry. Normally I wash up, cook, clean, do laundry, obviously work, work, work, go out to the gym... Today I am banned from the kitchen by DB who finally noticed that I was ill (!!), and after some berating for his tardiness he has been most lovely and made me soup and smoothie to make me better. Bless. Thank you DB! (He doesn't read this blog btw. Best that way eh?!! He does know he is written about in it though. I find his lack of curiosity astounding. It is either representative of admirable contentment and trust, or a symptom of sociopathy, so unnatural does it seem to me.)
I have to pack to go away for the weekend and I don't want to. All that moving and bending down and up again! Bleugh.
Just thought I would check in.
Toodle pip!
x J
I have to pack to go away for the weekend and I don't want to. All that moving and bending down and up again! Bleugh.
Just thought I would check in.
Toodle pip!
x J
Blinkin' 'Eck
Ah dear reader I am, alas, not yet well! Arg! Last night I slept fitfully, my blocked nose and scratchy throat kept me up. And today my cold seem to feel better but my throat is the size of a house and I am quite fluey. I really shall not attempt any work today, today is definitely a day to be wrapped up and watching daytime tv. Can't concentrate and am exhausted and in a horrible achy pain. Rubbish! DB is staying away so he doesn't get the lurgy but is sure he already has. I am a bit sad actually because he hasn't even asked how I am today, and on disclosing that I felt bad he ignored me! Strange. I would wonder if I had overplayed my whiny card but he has barely been in the same room as me this am so can't be that.
So no work news today, I am having a sick day. Tomorrow I am going to the party in London... I have to take a 'prop' apparently... I thought of taking a party bag full of sweets, party poppers, balloons, party hats and that... and people could have a lucky dip! I wanted to take some stuff like this anyway for when it turns 12... But I wonder if I would be so fortunate as to get all these things together, or would spend about £15 buying them all independently... I wish I felt well! Then I would just go to the shop and see but it is raining so hard outside and the idea of walking the necessary mile to the superstore is depressing.
Well, I shall love you and leave you dear reader.
Have a good weekend!
x J
So no work news today, I am having a sick day. Tomorrow I am going to the party in London... I have to take a 'prop' apparently... I thought of taking a party bag full of sweets, party poppers, balloons, party hats and that... and people could have a lucky dip! I wanted to take some stuff like this anyway for when it turns 12... But I wonder if I would be so fortunate as to get all these things together, or would spend about £15 buying them all independently... I wish I felt well! Then I would just go to the shop and see but it is raining so hard outside and the idea of walking the necessary mile to the superstore is depressing.
Well, I shall love you and leave you dear reader.
Have a good weekend!
x J
Thursday, 10 July 2008
struggling!
Arf! I am struggling! As the day goes on I feel worse not better! I am fine for the first two hours after taking my cold and flu tabs but then it starts to go downhill. Wonderfully, the rest of the reading I have to do, on the whole, consists of articles that I know inside and out anyway. They are just in my pile to remind me of their relevance to this chapter. I have about three more sets of notes to read and then this section is done, and it is straight on to my NGO lit for analysis tomorrow... woo! I shall work until 4 and then slope off downstairs and lie down on the sofa for the evening. I really wanted to exercise so much this week and have been once so far, and I am eating too much because I have no willpower - staying sitting at my desk is using it all!!!
I washed my hair earlier and my wonderful new hairstyle has been compromised by my lack of styling skill or imagination... Instead of looking like a coquettish pixie, because of an overzealous application of wax I look more like a greasy-haired letch. Especially with my rheumy eyes and heavy breathing. Not a look I wish to keep.
It's so annoying because the work I am reading now is really exciting but I am just flat as a pancake. grrrr.
Hopefully tomorrow will be better eh?!
x J
PS: It's ok, we can all breath easy because I found my Mp3 player yesterday. Yes, yes I did. 'Phew!' I hear you say. It was hidden in the bottom of a shoe (of course)... Poor plumber, I ask his forgiveness in my imagination, although really it was DB who cast the initial suspicion so maybe he should take the blame...
I washed my hair earlier and my wonderful new hairstyle has been compromised by my lack of styling skill or imagination... Instead of looking like a coquettish pixie, because of an overzealous application of wax I look more like a greasy-haired letch. Especially with my rheumy eyes and heavy breathing. Not a look I wish to keep.
It's so annoying because the work I am reading now is really exciting but I am just flat as a pancake. grrrr.
Hopefully tomorrow will be better eh?!
x J
PS: It's ok, we can all breath easy because I found my Mp3 player yesterday. Yes, yes I did. 'Phew!' I hear you say. It was hidden in the bottom of a shoe (of course)... Poor plumber, I ask his forgiveness in my imagination, although really it was DB who cast the initial suspicion so maybe he should take the blame...
Big ol' mess
I apologise for my frankness but arg, today I am a big walking mess of snot. My head is full to bursting, my ears hurt and my throat is scratchy and tickly. Yes, I have A Cold. I went downstairs this morning (I know! It's so early! nuts) and described the above symptoms to DB who, in a serious voice, declared that it sounded like I had what he had a little while ago when he too suffered a blocked-up nose and sore ears. Yes, Darling Boy, you are right, I think I do. I have, dare I diagnose it,
A Common Cold!
I can sense the hushed intake of breath and clutching of chests and inevitable wailing that this diagnosis will cause. Or maybe not, maybe that was just DB upon waking when he had this most dreadful of afflictions. Boys eh?!! (Apologies to those boys who may read this blog who aren't so sensitive to malady and near-death experiences. Although if you are outraged by this nasty aspersion on the male character you are, probably, most likely to an offender. Take heed...)
So I am up and at 'em, being a brave soldier. I do find that whenever someone else has a cold, even if you are the kind of person who gets a lot of colds, it is impossible to really empathise. Like childbirth, you know it was a bad experience but the actual visceral horror of it was neatly wiped out of your memory. Well, maybe not quite like the 'visceral horror' part of childbirth (unless you are poor DB). It is, however, like childbirth in principle: we all have colds but are rubbish at sympathising when others have them because we think 'It's just a cold! Get over it dude'. When really, colds are horrible, horrible things and people with colds should be treated like special beings. I have decreed it so.
I think I know where I got it from as well. I went swimming at the public pool twice last week. Twice. And once directly after the primary school kiddies. They were there, in the changing room when I went in. I bet one of those little creatures gave it me. I shall be aware in future of these lurgy-carriers. Nasty hobbitses.
So, what shall I do today?! I shall read academic articles that will help provide a macro level analytical context for this chapter of course! I only have today and tomorrow to get through the rest of my reading. It will never happen, principally because I forgot that for some of the reading I have to be performing some lengthy critical discourse analysis. But I can still get a lot of the way through it and be set in some way for Monday.
I am so annoyed I have this cold. It better go away for this weekend. The idea of sashaying around London in some fantastic wedges and skinny jeans whose pockets are a-bulging with snotty tissues just isn't doing it for me.
Well, had better go and let DB know that I have been officially decreed a 'special being' due to my cold status...
Laters
x J
A Common Cold!
I can sense the hushed intake of breath and clutching of chests and inevitable wailing that this diagnosis will cause. Or maybe not, maybe that was just DB upon waking when he had this most dreadful of afflictions. Boys eh?!! (Apologies to those boys who may read this blog who aren't so sensitive to malady and near-death experiences. Although if you are outraged by this nasty aspersion on the male character you are, probably, most likely to an offender. Take heed...)
So I am up and at 'em, being a brave soldier. I do find that whenever someone else has a cold, even if you are the kind of person who gets a lot of colds, it is impossible to really empathise. Like childbirth, you know it was a bad experience but the actual visceral horror of it was neatly wiped out of your memory. Well, maybe not quite like the 'visceral horror' part of childbirth (unless you are poor DB). It is, however, like childbirth in principle: we all have colds but are rubbish at sympathising when others have them because we think 'It's just a cold! Get over it dude'. When really, colds are horrible, horrible things and people with colds should be treated like special beings. I have decreed it so.
I think I know where I got it from as well. I went swimming at the public pool twice last week. Twice. And once directly after the primary school kiddies. They were there, in the changing room when I went in. I bet one of those little creatures gave it me. I shall be aware in future of these lurgy-carriers. Nasty hobbitses.
So, what shall I do today?! I shall read academic articles that will help provide a macro level analytical context for this chapter of course! I only have today and tomorrow to get through the rest of my reading. It will never happen, principally because I forgot that for some of the reading I have to be performing some lengthy critical discourse analysis. But I can still get a lot of the way through it and be set in some way for Monday.
I am so annoyed I have this cold. It better go away for this weekend. The idea of sashaying around London in some fantastic wedges and skinny jeans whose pockets are a-bulging with snotty tissues just isn't doing it for me.
Well, had better go and let DB know that I have been officially decreed a 'special being' due to my cold status...
Laters
x J
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
Quittin' time
I am giving up! I have done some really good reading today and have one more article to get through and then am leaving it for today. And I have 'learnt' some lang... Bit of a lame effort in all though considering how long I have sat here for. But I am feeling rough as rats AND I have taken some cold capsules. I have a headache and blocked up face and am mightily miffed and feel that nothing can be done except a spot of deep-wallowing. I am trying to get DB to enthuse in said wallowing but he seems to be coping just fine and ignoring my beseeching eyes and sniffly attempts at garnering sympathy. I shall crank it up a notch in an hour or so. Although he did offer to buy some take away dins to cheer me up but actually that seems pretty gross. I fancy some veggies so am making carbonara and salad.
Ag DB has just walked by making a lot of noise about his poor back and has got himself some peas from the garage to put on it. I have informed him that there is only room for one wallower in this town, and that is me. To no avail so far. Well we shall see!
Better run down and hog the settee before he gets there and settles down. Oh no! I can hear the tele whine - I am too late! I had better not be subjected to stupid sport or I will be angered. Maybe we can cut a deal and watch The DOND (deal or no deal) and have a chuckle at the idiots who seem to have missed the maths lesson about probability and chance at school...
Tomorrow will be better!
xxx
Ag DB has just walked by making a lot of noise about his poor back and has got himself some peas from the garage to put on it. I have informed him that there is only room for one wallower in this town, and that is me. To no avail so far. Well we shall see!
Better run down and hog the settee before he gets there and settles down. Oh no! I can hear the tele whine - I am too late! I had better not be subjected to stupid sport or I will be angered. Maybe we can cut a deal and watch The DOND (deal or no deal) and have a chuckle at the idiots who seem to have missed the maths lesson about probability and chance at school...
Tomorrow will be better!
xxx
Sleep!
Ahh today I am new person! I got some sleep! This may sound really lame but I am just not a morning person and so getting up at 8 for the plumber (who has never turned up before half nine incidentally) has been such a strain. One of the perks of this PhD is being able to work around my own hours, and my inner clock likes to get up at 9am. I need a lot of sleep or am a grouch and last night I got some. Wooooo! I woke up during a dream where I was in Big Brother and had to barter some fancy hot chocolate I had and some wine gums (?!) for ten pence to ring DB who I hadn't spoken to for a whole week and I was sad. And then I awoke and he was there! Fabulous.
But, but, but... And there is always a but... I have a cold. Yes, it's true I am lurgy-fied. I haven't felt tip-top for a while, and now I can finally get some sympathy for it. I think. I am worried though because this weekend is going to be Party Central... I cannot be ill for this weekend! Well, it is Weds now so hopefully it would have gone by then... Or tomorrow even!
Oh oh oh I have other sad news: I have lost (hopefully misplaced) my Mp3 player. It's just a cheapie (am wilfully resisting the clone-land that is the Ipod, magnificent though I am assured it is by friends and family...) but has the radio which I love to listen to while I am running around the bleak landscape that forms my local environs. And today I keep thinking (rather marvellously) I am going to go for a run later but no no no! Not without some company I am not. 5k will be like climbing a mountain all on my own; feeling every strained muscle and strangled intake of breath. It will not be tolerated! I must find it. DB thinks one of the plumbers may have skaefed it, and I do wonder as plumber #1 never came back and was there when I was taking it off - the last time I saw it. But I don't really think that - mainly because I really want to find it and if I think he took it, well, there is no hope then is there? Why this nice lad would want my rubbish little Mp3 player anyway I don't know. Can't even really burn anything on it cause it's memory is so small. I am bereft though dear reader. Twice I have had to leave the house now with my ears unplugged and my eyes fully open and aware, and I don't like it.
OK down to business!
WORK. I am completely convinced I have to go out later but I don't!! I don't have to do anything today but feel really like I have two hours then am off out for the day. Strange. I will work until lunchtime, and then work after lunchtime and get this reading really dented. This afternoon when I get sleepy (around 4ish) I will work out another plan to scare myself into working really hard. I need to have this reading done by this weekend, and then I have two clear weeks to write. I have to have this work finished for July25, then I am off to a wedding and have a few days off in sunny cornwall. Then I will come back, check it, re-jig anything then put it to bed for next year and start, finally, thankfully, my methodology. I am so desperate to start the methodology and have a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that I will be getting on a plane in Oct with no idea what I am doing or why. And no textbooks to tell me the answer!
Plan: read the rest of philosophy and then read ethics today.
Oooh I am being good as well and putting each ref I am going to use into endnote andwriting the abstract in there, and some notes on why the article/book is useful, and only writing to do spider diagrams of principal tenets/arguments etc.
AND yesterday I got my passport posted off! YAYA! I am very concerned that I wrote the town I live in in the county box and that the computer won't be able to read it and they will send it back. At the time I thought it wouldn't matter and now I am anxious.
Anyway, better go. Scrabulous to play. Not reaaaaaally. Speaking of which, a contender of mine who is v v clever and a man patronised me in the last game and now I am beating him HARD. Haha, just because I am a girl and seem to vaguely represent a pixie these days does not mean I don't know my scrabulous onions! No sir!
x J
But, but, but... And there is always a but... I have a cold. Yes, it's true I am lurgy-fied. I haven't felt tip-top for a while, and now I can finally get some sympathy for it. I think. I am worried though because this weekend is going to be Party Central... I cannot be ill for this weekend! Well, it is Weds now so hopefully it would have gone by then... Or tomorrow even!
Oh oh oh I have other sad news: I have lost (hopefully misplaced) my Mp3 player. It's just a cheapie (am wilfully resisting the clone-land that is the Ipod, magnificent though I am assured it is by friends and family...) but has the radio which I love to listen to while I am running around the bleak landscape that forms my local environs. And today I keep thinking (rather marvellously) I am going to go for a run later but no no no! Not without some company I am not. 5k will be like climbing a mountain all on my own; feeling every strained muscle and strangled intake of breath. It will not be tolerated! I must find it. DB thinks one of the plumbers may have skaefed it, and I do wonder as plumber #1 never came back and was there when I was taking it off - the last time I saw it. But I don't really think that - mainly because I really want to find it and if I think he took it, well, there is no hope then is there? Why this nice lad would want my rubbish little Mp3 player anyway I don't know. Can't even really burn anything on it cause it's memory is so small. I am bereft though dear reader. Twice I have had to leave the house now with my ears unplugged and my eyes fully open and aware, and I don't like it.
OK down to business!
WORK. I am completely convinced I have to go out later but I don't!! I don't have to do anything today but feel really like I have two hours then am off out for the day. Strange. I will work until lunchtime, and then work after lunchtime and get this reading really dented. This afternoon when I get sleepy (around 4ish) I will work out another plan to scare myself into working really hard. I need to have this reading done by this weekend, and then I have two clear weeks to write. I have to have this work finished for July25, then I am off to a wedding and have a few days off in sunny cornwall. Then I will come back, check it, re-jig anything then put it to bed for next year and start, finally, thankfully, my methodology. I am so desperate to start the methodology and have a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that I will be getting on a plane in Oct with no idea what I am doing or why. And no textbooks to tell me the answer!
Plan: read the rest of philosophy and then read ethics today.
Oooh I am being good as well and putting each ref I am going to use into endnote andwriting the abstract in there, and some notes on why the article/book is useful, and only writing to do spider diagrams of principal tenets/arguments etc.
AND yesterday I got my passport posted off! YAYA! I am very concerned that I wrote the town I live in in the county box and that the computer won't be able to read it and they will send it back. At the time I thought it wouldn't matter and now I am anxious.
Anyway, better go. Scrabulous to play. Not reaaaaaally. Speaking of which, a contender of mine who is v v clever and a man patronised me in the last game and now I am beating him HARD. Haha, just because I am a girl and seem to vaguely represent a pixie these days does not mean I don't know my scrabulous onions! No sir!
x J
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
Ah bejaysus
There is a man on R and J making a snickers bar himself! It is AMAZING. I was quite scornful when the segment started but wow, he is going for it! How fabulous to be able to make that yourself! He has a gazillion of them on this baking tray. I am jealous.
Today was a better day of work! Much better - I concentrated and got through quite a few articles. I only did about 3 hours worth though, as I went to the pool and then got my haircut. My haircut is amazing amazing amazing (am taking my cue from Big Brother's Belinda. She breathlessly introduced herself to about 13 people as 'Belinda, Belinda, Belinda' and THEN explained to each one as they said hello and dared to say their name that 'if you say your name three times people will remember it! Belinda, Belinda, Belinda!'.
Kill Belinda.
Anyway, my hairs are lovely and all short! Hurray! I had this lovely young girl do it and she took about an hour and a half... because she hasn't cut this kind of hairstyle before so was v slow and also wasn't listening very hard to my description. I showed her pics and she totally ignored them after a while and did her own thing. At one stage I had a giant bob and had to convince her I wanted short hair. Yes, yes, short - go wild! But the finished article is fabulous. I hate going to the hairdressers (see previous hair-obssessed entry) and I realised today that it is simply because I am such a control freak. SUCH a control freak. Maybe I realised this before and posted it but I can't even let a very trained hairdresser cut my hair without having controlling thoughts and being bossy. Not assertive; bossy. Never make me a manager. How would I have faith in anyone to do the work?!! I would watch and fidget and then storm over huffing 'I'll do it mySELF' like they did something wrong - just so I could take over. Hmmm. Maybe I should address this. But how do you get over being a control freak? Eugh what if it was through conditioning, like for arachnaphobics when they put the spider on them? I would have to watch DB cook a meal with my mouth taped up and be tied to a chair so I couldn't intervene or say anything. Poor chap, he has - much to my chagrin - totally stopped offering to cook ever. Because when he does I say YEAH! Fab! and really mean it. Then he says what he will cook and I don't want it. Then he says something else and I say we can't have that (because I think he will ruin it, like steaks. He WILL - I have empirical evidence), and on until he cooks something that I have told him he can cook via a process of elimination. And then he will cook and I have to stay in the living room (boring) so I go in to say hello and see carnage or inefficiency and get twitchy and can't not say anything. So there. I am a bad person. What shall I do? How can I have more faith and less control of other people when they almost invariably get it wrong?!!! HAHA. I am a nightmare. Does anyone else have this and hold down a good job? Not work for themselves?!! I doubt it.
Speaking of which last night I started seriously considering getting a real job after this PhD. I think I really want to work for a while. I am really scared that I will never have a 'proper job' (earning over £30k) because I am convinced no-one would employ me at such a high level. I have had a lot of jobs, the highest I have earned has been 14.5k, because I have had stop-gap jobs (while I look for a better one or before I start another degree...) but no real jobs. I am really scared of this. If I got a real job for a bit and some childers I would be a satiated lady. I don't aspire for much more (what else is there?!!!). But for some reason I have convinced myself over the past few years that I just want to do this PhD then live in the country and be a bit of a recluse. I have a dilemma though that is VERY serious: children. I want to have two kids by the time I get this 'proper job' - hopefully incubate one sometime next year and another after I have submitted. I want to take a year off after the PhD, try and get the bug*er published, write articles and tout myself around conferences. I also want to write to agencies I want to work for and show them what I can offer, (with a contact from a conference etc) or apply for jobs etc. I think networking will be the way forward anyway. So now we are looking at me having a two and one year old (ish) when I want to start to work. And I will miss them growing up which would just be devastating for me (yes, I had a fractured childhood, no need for any psychobabble please). DB will be a house husband - he has offered that. But that breaks my heart. They would see him all the time and me only in the evenings. They would be the family and I would be a hanger-on with other priorities. Lord no, I couldn't do that. So what to do?!!! In my perfect world I would be an author and independent researcher and artist at home while they are growing and then when all are in school I would go and get a job. I get very stressed trying to work it all out. And then I question what on earth I think I am doing, trying to organise and predict the future. Who can possibly do this?! However much of a control freak I am, even I have to leave that to providence. I never EVER would have expected to be doing a PhD in a million years and should remember this more often when I get fretful about the future.
Silly bird.
x J
Today was a better day of work! Much better - I concentrated and got through quite a few articles. I only did about 3 hours worth though, as I went to the pool and then got my haircut. My haircut is amazing amazing amazing (am taking my cue from Big Brother's Belinda. She breathlessly introduced herself to about 13 people as 'Belinda, Belinda, Belinda' and THEN explained to each one as they said hello and dared to say their name that 'if you say your name three times people will remember it! Belinda, Belinda, Belinda!'.
Kill Belinda.
Anyway, my hairs are lovely and all short! Hurray! I had this lovely young girl do it and she took about an hour and a half... because she hasn't cut this kind of hairstyle before so was v slow and also wasn't listening very hard to my description. I showed her pics and she totally ignored them after a while and did her own thing. At one stage I had a giant bob and had to convince her I wanted short hair. Yes, yes, short - go wild! But the finished article is fabulous. I hate going to the hairdressers (see previous hair-obssessed entry) and I realised today that it is simply because I am such a control freak. SUCH a control freak. Maybe I realised this before and posted it but I can't even let a very trained hairdresser cut my hair without having controlling thoughts and being bossy. Not assertive; bossy. Never make me a manager. How would I have faith in anyone to do the work?!! I would watch and fidget and then storm over huffing 'I'll do it mySELF' like they did something wrong - just so I could take over. Hmmm. Maybe I should address this. But how do you get over being a control freak? Eugh what if it was through conditioning, like for arachnaphobics when they put the spider on them? I would have to watch DB cook a meal with my mouth taped up and be tied to a chair so I couldn't intervene or say anything. Poor chap, he has - much to my chagrin - totally stopped offering to cook ever. Because when he does I say YEAH! Fab! and really mean it. Then he says what he will cook and I don't want it. Then he says something else and I say we can't have that (because I think he will ruin it, like steaks. He WILL - I have empirical evidence), and on until he cooks something that I have told him he can cook via a process of elimination. And then he will cook and I have to stay in the living room (boring) so I go in to say hello and see carnage or inefficiency and get twitchy and can't not say anything. So there. I am a bad person. What shall I do? How can I have more faith and less control of other people when they almost invariably get it wrong?!!! HAHA. I am a nightmare. Does anyone else have this and hold down a good job? Not work for themselves?!! I doubt it.
Speaking of which last night I started seriously considering getting a real job after this PhD. I think I really want to work for a while. I am really scared that I will never have a 'proper job' (earning over £30k) because I am convinced no-one would employ me at such a high level. I have had a lot of jobs, the highest I have earned has been 14.5k, because I have had stop-gap jobs (while I look for a better one or before I start another degree...) but no real jobs. I am really scared of this. If I got a real job for a bit and some childers I would be a satiated lady. I don't aspire for much more (what else is there?!!!). But for some reason I have convinced myself over the past few years that I just want to do this PhD then live in the country and be a bit of a recluse. I have a dilemma though that is VERY serious: children. I want to have two kids by the time I get this 'proper job' - hopefully incubate one sometime next year and another after I have submitted. I want to take a year off after the PhD, try and get the bug*er published, write articles and tout myself around conferences. I also want to write to agencies I want to work for and show them what I can offer, (with a contact from a conference etc) or apply for jobs etc. I think networking will be the way forward anyway. So now we are looking at me having a two and one year old (ish) when I want to start to work. And I will miss them growing up which would just be devastating for me (yes, I had a fractured childhood, no need for any psychobabble please). DB will be a house husband - he has offered that. But that breaks my heart. They would see him all the time and me only in the evenings. They would be the family and I would be a hanger-on with other priorities. Lord no, I couldn't do that. So what to do?!!! In my perfect world I would be an author and independent researcher and artist at home while they are growing and then when all are in school I would go and get a job. I get very stressed trying to work it all out. And then I question what on earth I think I am doing, trying to organise and predict the future. Who can possibly do this?! However much of a control freak I am, even I have to leave that to providence. I never EVER would have expected to be doing a PhD in a million years and should remember this more often when I get fretful about the future.
Silly bird.
x J
Revving Up...
Ok! I am gonna work! I am going to work so hard I won't know what hit me! I am going to sit at my desk and I am going to blitz through my notes, yes I am.
I can't have another slack day like yesterday, it's too depressing.
So I shall work until 12, then go swimming, then get my hair cut, then get my passport pics done for my passport. Then I shall go to the post office and post the application and the dress that I sold on ebay (and actually made some money from.)
Wooooo!
x J
I can't have another slack day like yesterday, it's too depressing.
So I shall work until 12, then go swimming, then get my hair cut, then get my passport pics done for my passport. Then I shall go to the post office and post the application and the dress that I sold on ebay (and actually made some money from.)
Wooooo!
x J
Monday, 7 July 2008
Disappointing!
Ah well, today was rubbish. A really bad monday. I spent the day half-working, half-trawling the internet and generally giving in to my love of daydreaming and marvelling at the rain. In my world I have had a really nice day: I worked out how to get my passport money so I can send that form off (a huge thing for me, this needs to be done NOW so I can then get my visa, and then book my flights in time for oct!), I booked a hair cut (I am going to grow up and get over my hairdressaphobia and am going to get it cut into a crop with a big fringe - really funky - so I can wear it with a big fringe, back in little clips or up in the air. Woo! I am really excited about it. I hope it works...) and spent the day in a very pleasant reverie planning my outfit and make up for this weekend's fantastic shindig in London (bumpkin goes to the city...). This was not productive in my PhD-world though, which, obviously, reigns supreme during the weekdays. I have been a very bad rabbit and am not proud of myself. Writing it in here does highlight my failure to concentrate rather too starkly and I feel quite ashamed. In my defence I got way too little sleep, woke up in a skitty mood, and couldn't carry out my day in the way that would make me work well. This makes me sound like quite a cranky stick-in-the-mud, and I suppose in a lot of ways when it comes to working I am reather inflexible. I like routine I suppose, and I do wonder if when you have no one to impose routine on you you are much stricter and more inflexible with it to yourself... To the point that should it be compromised a lot of concentration goes out of the window. I just knew I would be interrupted soon by the plumber etc and so couldn't settle down. I am also aware, however, that before I had sat down today I probably made some kind of subconcious pact with the devil not to do much work today because I wasn't in the mood. This will go as I have to mature and work harder; I think my inner child is playing up again and knows it doesn't have to work anyone's socks off right now so a day of nonsense if I am not feeling tickety boo won't hurt. Darned thing.
Tomorrow though (ahhhh tomorrow), it will be a different matter! I shall read lots - skim reading - I shall get my hair cut and I shall go for a swim whether I like it or not. It has rained too hard for running today, plus we have no shower and a strange man in the house.
I have done some reading though! Just not as much as I would like. AND I discovered that I can import references directly onto endnote from my uni library catalogue... and so spent half an hour thinking of all the authors I love, and sticking them in folders. This was a fantastically exciting find! Still don't know how to enter edited books though.
I am on my todd tonight and am most pleased. I shall spend time looking at my potential new hairstyle and working out if it will suit me. And I shall make some soup I think and some chips. I like having time to myself. Worryingly (to others) I chat to myself quite a lot and also worryingly (for me) I seem to be doing this increasingly while I am in company. This is not good and I wonder if it has a direct correlation to PhD pressure. I externalise my thoughts constantly, be it on paper or, as I said, vocally. DB said sometimes I actually sound like I am debating with someone. Uh oh. I will even tell myself things that I obviously already know but as if I am telling someone. I wonder who this person is?! I had invisible friends when I was little... I use to pretend I was called Ben and lived in a boarding school - the consequence of having too many friends that were boys and being a tomboy myself, mixed with too much Enid Blyton. I wasn't a racist though...
Until tomorrow then dear readers. I hope your days were more productive than mine!!
x J
Tomorrow though (ahhhh tomorrow), it will be a different matter! I shall read lots - skim reading - I shall get my hair cut and I shall go for a swim whether I like it or not. It has rained too hard for running today, plus we have no shower and a strange man in the house.
I have done some reading though! Just not as much as I would like. AND I discovered that I can import references directly onto endnote from my uni library catalogue... and so spent half an hour thinking of all the authors I love, and sticking them in folders. This was a fantastically exciting find! Still don't know how to enter edited books though.
I am on my todd tonight and am most pleased. I shall spend time looking at my potential new hairstyle and working out if it will suit me. And I shall make some soup I think and some chips. I like having time to myself. Worryingly (to others) I chat to myself quite a lot and also worryingly (for me) I seem to be doing this increasingly while I am in company. This is not good and I wonder if it has a direct correlation to PhD pressure. I externalise my thoughts constantly, be it on paper or, as I said, vocally. DB said sometimes I actually sound like I am debating with someone. Uh oh. I will even tell myself things that I obviously already know but as if I am telling someone. I wonder who this person is?! I had invisible friends when I was little... I use to pretend I was called Ben and lived in a boarding school - the consequence of having too many friends that were boys and being a tomboy myself, mixed with too much Enid Blyton. I wasn't a racist though...
Until tomorrow then dear readers. I hope your days were more productive than mine!!
x J
Sleepy!
Bleugh I am so sleepy today! I spent the weekend snoozing and eating bad food and it has caught up with me this morning. We had to get up at half seven for the plumbers but they still haven't come. I confess that I put on my clothes, brushed my teeth and went back to bed... And any sleep I did have was full of plumbers being late - or gardening when they should be plumbing... (!!) Apparently they are staying today until the job is done which is great. I really need to exercise today but can't as we have no shower afterwards so will have to just eat really healthily and get on with it (I feel twitchy when I need to run around and can't). I also really need to re-hydrate but can't as we have no loo! ARGGGG! Deep breaths...
How was the weekend ?! Mine was magic! Friday night was great fun; S and C were late because they were having a computer crisis (defo a crisis when you are a home-based PhD student!) but stayed till the wee hours and the fish curry was yumptious even if I do say so myself! And we got to sit outside for a bit which was lovely. I am going to have a bbq soon - maybe the first week of august... Saturday we chilled, being all sleepy and I bought a beautiful dress from Republic in Leeds for a wedding I have at the end of the month. I love it! Normally I am really stressed about wedding clothes because I leave it to the last minute to lose weight (!! I know...) but am thinner anyway now because of my new-found and enduring love of exercise-as-stress-management, and so went and got it early. I am glad too because it means it is one less thing to procrastinate with: dress shopping on the internet... !! Then, on Sunday I cleaned and organised and read the paper. And did lots of work for DB and watched the men's Wimbledon finals which was smashing. The girl's final between the Williams sisters was such a damp squib! The audience were so quiet, no one had any oomph to cheer for either of them because they have won it so many times and are sisters. The men's though... wow.
And it is Monday again...
Today:
Read, read, read. Radio off, highlighter out. Try not to write too many notes-of-notes. Make a good ol' dent in it. And hopefully go out and exercise.
This week:
I really want to have finished this reading, have a plan and some quick reference notes for next Monday and be off and running. Then I will have two weeks to write this chapter... This weekend I am going to London for a dear friend's 30th so have that as motivation.
Better get on eh?! I don't want tooooooo!
J x
How was the weekend ?! Mine was magic! Friday night was great fun; S and C were late because they were having a computer crisis (defo a crisis when you are a home-based PhD student!) but stayed till the wee hours and the fish curry was yumptious even if I do say so myself! And we got to sit outside for a bit which was lovely. I am going to have a bbq soon - maybe the first week of august... Saturday we chilled, being all sleepy and I bought a beautiful dress from Republic in Leeds for a wedding I have at the end of the month. I love it! Normally I am really stressed about wedding clothes because I leave it to the last minute to lose weight (!! I know...) but am thinner anyway now because of my new-found and enduring love of exercise-as-stress-management, and so went and got it early. I am glad too because it means it is one less thing to procrastinate with: dress shopping on the internet... !! Then, on Sunday I cleaned and organised and read the paper. And did lots of work for DB and watched the men's Wimbledon finals which was smashing. The girl's final between the Williams sisters was such a damp squib! The audience were so quiet, no one had any oomph to cheer for either of them because they have won it so many times and are sisters. The men's though... wow.
And it is Monday again...
Today:
Read, read, read. Radio off, highlighter out. Try not to write too many notes-of-notes. Make a good ol' dent in it. And hopefully go out and exercise.
This week:
I really want to have finished this reading, have a plan and some quick reference notes for next Monday and be off and running. Then I will have two weeks to write this chapter... This weekend I am going to London for a dear friend's 30th so have that as motivation.
Better get on eh?! I don't want tooooooo!
J x
Friday, 4 July 2008
At the week's end
Hmm this has been an odd week! It has gone too quickly and therefore I don't feel like I have achieved anything. But then I feel like I am in a strong position with my reading and the organisation for this chapter, so it has been a good week. I have a LOT to do next week though. I need to read, read, read, absorb, absorb, absorb until I am full, and then splurge it all out into my chapter.
I just hope my reading doesn't raise too many tricky questions... I like bit-tricky questions but not 'oh-no! I have been totally barking up the wrong tree for months!' or 'should this last 3000 words actually be in this chapter' kind of questions...
As I am sure you know (seeing as I have rabbited on about it all week) I am having some friends round for dins and so I better go off and do some getting-ready and cooking! It is soooo annoying because when the sun is out it is so lovely outside but when it goes in it looks very moody and uninviting. I think it is part of living up north that we hardly get a full sunny day because it always looks sunny and hot in London on the tv. Booooooo. It really is grim up north! As a southern bumpkin I take umbrage! Come out sun!
What does anyone have planned for the weekend? I am working for DB tomorrow to earn some pennies and then chilling and maxing. I have to learn some lang; I shall do this on Sunday.
The plumber never came btw. We rang up at half twelve - four hours late by this point- and apparently he was never going to turn up because he had hurt his wrist in a bike accident (pushbike I think) and had nearly died! But they were sure he will be ok for Monday. Grrrr.
Have fun Friday evenings all - don't, definitely don't, work too hard.
x J
I just hope my reading doesn't raise too many tricky questions... I like bit-tricky questions but not 'oh-no! I have been totally barking up the wrong tree for months!' or 'should this last 3000 words actually be in this chapter' kind of questions...
As I am sure you know (seeing as I have rabbited on about it all week) I am having some friends round for dins and so I better go off and do some getting-ready and cooking! It is soooo annoying because when the sun is out it is so lovely outside but when it goes in it looks very moody and uninviting. I think it is part of living up north that we hardly get a full sunny day because it always looks sunny and hot in London on the tv. Booooooo. It really is grim up north! As a southern bumpkin I take umbrage! Come out sun!
What does anyone have planned for the weekend? I am working for DB tomorrow to earn some pennies and then chilling and maxing. I have to learn some lang; I shall do this on Sunday.
The plumber never came btw. We rang up at half twelve - four hours late by this point- and apparently he was never going to turn up because he had hurt his wrist in a bike accident (pushbike I think) and had nearly died! But they were sure he will be ok for Monday. Grrrr.
Have fun Friday evenings all - don't, definitely don't, work too hard.
x J
Enjoyment
I have to confess, on the whole I really enjoy my PhD. I was just on the PhD forum and so many people are sad or stressed and worried about their work. I am too sometimes, such is the nature of life, but on the whole I really love it. I love days like today when my work is very organised, I have the next week planned out, I am reading material I am interested in and makes you think immediately (rather than more empirical articles just for data/information) because it is philosophy, the sun is shining (a bit) and generally I feel quite content and very lucky to be doing this course. I hope other people do too. Is it possible to get a PhD and be more content doing it than not? Or is there inevitably going to be a point when I want to give up? I know the last few months before submission will be hard and stressful but that is parr for the course really. Can anyone actually enjoy doing a PhD, and get one?!
Hmmm.
x J
Ps: plumber was meant to be here at 8.30am, a time I rarely see these days for my sanity and the wellbeing of anyone around me, and he is still. not. here. *GROSS-OUT ALERT*: And yesterday he did a smelly in my loo and didn't tidy up after himself. RANK :-((( Being British through and through though, I noticed, said nothing and cleaned up after him when he went. Ug I am disgusted at myself. But he was such a nice boy... what should I have done?! (I would seriously love some advice!) x
Hmmm.
x J
Ps: plumber was meant to be here at 8.30am, a time I rarely see these days for my sanity and the wellbeing of anyone around me, and he is still. not. here. *GROSS-OUT ALERT*: And yesterday he did a smelly in my loo and didn't tidy up after himself. RANK :-((( Being British through and through though, I noticed, said nothing and cleaned up after him when he went. Ug I am disgusted at myself. But he was such a nice boy... what should I have done?! (I would seriously love some advice!) x
Thursday, 3 July 2008
A Good Day
Today has been a lovely day! I am so pleased! I have managed to drag out a lot of old notes on philosophy and ethics, academic notes and the articles and reports I have for analysis and now I have them in neat piles ready to read... There is so much there! This is great because it means it shouldn;t take soooooooooo awfully long to get through... I would say maybe a week? And then a week of really good writing? I have an order of reading for them and a couple of other articles I may need to dip into... Later today I read through what I have already (again, I know) and thought it was really too light on analysis, looked into my MRes dissertation and woo! A whole chapter of analysis! Copy and paste, thank-you-very-much and ta da, I have 6000 words of my chapter down! Granted they are bad words, in a bit of a jumble and will be drastically cut back but they are a fabulous template to start with. Hurray!
So I feel quite relaxed and in control this evening.
I have just eaten a load of pineapple and have a really sore tongue...
And I went for a swim! A good, hard swim that I really enjoyed. Got a bit bored though. I know I should progress from the 45 minute threshold I have at the mo but up-and-down, up-and-down is pretty tedious.
All round then, a successful day.
I am quite interested by the fact that a march was held in London the other day about the stabbing of a young chap who was minding his own business... It's on the tv and they are all white. White faces all round. This concern is rising all the time - this guy's death is talked of as the 17th stabbing of a young man in London... But all these stabbings are completely unrelated to each other. But lumped together, discursively they can be used to represent something much more sinister. There is also a very bad habit of calling any group of black kids, or youths in 'hoodies' (am proudly sporting mine now...) a 'gang' - it is general vernacular in the media now because it is used to apparently innocently denote a 'group' but really it infers to a predatory, aggressive group of young men who rule a particular region with their own laws and violence. This term strikes fear in the heart of middle England and is used willy-nilly to encourage and escalate this fear. And then, what do you know, you have police now able to stop-and-search anyone who is 'acting suspiciously' or fits a certain profile of a particular kind of knife-carrier... I.e. black, poor, young, disaffected. This discrimination is used to too often as a weapon to humiliate gobby, irritated kids by white police officers in front of their friends - these searches are rough and accompanied by too much aggro. Who wouldn't be pis*ed off being treated like that? Who wouldn't feel marginalised, hopeless, disliked? It is unfair. What is this going to achieve but make a whole group of 'problem' kids more of a problem?
I worry, I really do. I can't see the logic.
x J
So I feel quite relaxed and in control this evening.
I have just eaten a load of pineapple and have a really sore tongue...
And I went for a swim! A good, hard swim that I really enjoyed. Got a bit bored though. I know I should progress from the 45 minute threshold I have at the mo but up-and-down, up-and-down is pretty tedious.
All round then, a successful day.
I am quite interested by the fact that a march was held in London the other day about the stabbing of a young chap who was minding his own business... It's on the tv and they are all white. White faces all round. This concern is rising all the time - this guy's death is talked of as the 17th stabbing of a young man in London... But all these stabbings are completely unrelated to each other. But lumped together, discursively they can be used to represent something much more sinister. There is also a very bad habit of calling any group of black kids, or youths in 'hoodies' (am proudly sporting mine now...) a 'gang' - it is general vernacular in the media now because it is used to apparently innocently denote a 'group' but really it infers to a predatory, aggressive group of young men who rule a particular region with their own laws and violence. This term strikes fear in the heart of middle England and is used willy-nilly to encourage and escalate this fear. And then, what do you know, you have police now able to stop-and-search anyone who is 'acting suspiciously' or fits a certain profile of a particular kind of knife-carrier... I.e. black, poor, young, disaffected. This discrimination is used to too often as a weapon to humiliate gobby, irritated kids by white police officers in front of their friends - these searches are rough and accompanied by too much aggro. Who wouldn't be pis*ed off being treated like that? Who wouldn't feel marginalised, hopeless, disliked? It is unfair. What is this going to achieve but make a whole group of 'problem' kids more of a problem?
I worry, I really do. I can't see the logic.
x J
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