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