Intention to Submit Form

OM actual G I am filling in my intention to submit form!

This is the standard form I think everyone fills in (not specific to my uni) a month or two before submitting to say they are actually going to hand in, so the dept can scurry round getting your examiners ready for your viva.

Eek!  I have to put my deadline (31 Dec) and my title...  I don't actually know what my title is so am making one up with my Sup's help.  I am too nervy to fill it in for proper, will sleep on it then write it and send it in to Uni tomorrow!

I am actually going to do this!

Eeeeek!

x J

Busy Bee!

I have been soooo busy, I don't know where the day has gone!

I have, amazingly, practically managed to edit this chapter :)  Am so happy!  I thought it would take a couple of days and would be a huge job, but actually it has been going a-ok.  I have my necessary 8000 words, it has a structure and is a unique chapter (I was worried it would be an amalgamation of the other two and, therefore, superfluous) and says stuff. 

Tomorrow I just need to do the intro and concl, which will be easy as the structure and arguments are all there.  Then it is done!  a whole new chapter!  Then I am editing empirical chapter no. 2.  That should not be too bad a job as it is all written, just needs maybe some more theory and linking to empirical chapters 1 and 3 :)

AND this means I don't have to work tonight!  YAYYAYAYYAYAY!

x J

All Sorted!

And PHEW!

It is all sorted :)  I can now email my thesis to the dept for the 31st of Dec and this will count as my submission.  When the admin team come back from holidays on the 2 Jan they will forward my thesis to the copyzone for binding :)  Hurray!

This is the best possible outcome for me as it means I have right up until the 31st to submit if I need it.  Really want it done for xmas but, tbh, I just really want it done full stop and if that means working after xmas then it does.  But whatever, am so pleased!

phew!

x J

Fighting Fit

Today I am feeling assertive.

I have to do something about my deadline fiasco, so first of all have emailed my uni admin to ask straight out if there will be anyone there to receive my thesis on my submission deadline of the 31 Dec.  If there is not (I suspect not) then I shall start my fight to have my deadline extended to the 5 Jan, which will give me time to have it bound at uni when the copyzone opens on the 2 Jan, then hand in straight away.  It is the soonest I can hand in after xmas.  I will fight the sort of idea they have told me (no one has said yet I definitely have to hand in on the 20th but no one has said I don't either) that I have to have it bound on the 17th for hand in on the 20th.  I will demand answers asap as I need to sort out childcare!  (and my worry levels!)

I would LOVE to have this done for the 17th, but as it is if I am to work well it is not looking likely.  Literally one extra week to write, until the 24th as originally planned, will be amazing.  I had planned to work until the 24th, it is my actual right to work until the last minute and they have pulled the rug out from under me because they are on holiday!

So am now starting to sort that out.  Hurrah.

Today I am working on finishing my first (the added) empirical chapter, tomorrow I will finish off the second, and Thursday I will finish the third and go to a hospital appt.  Each chapter has at least 7200 words now so I just need to go through each and:

• make sure they make sense
• make sure they contribute something to the thesis
• make sure that from the outset I state what each ch. contributes to the thesis
• make sure each subsection is argument driven
• make sure theoretical analyses are in there all the time; wave that theory flag!
• make sure each chapter interlinks

After these chapters I then have to rewrite my discussion into a conclusion, and check another new chapter needs to be a chapter or intersect it into other chapters.  I hope to do the latter as it will be easier but we shall see!  Then most of the writing should be done, bar constant revisions!

x J

No Chapter is Safe

Oh. 

I just did a wee bit of carving of the third, as yet untouched 'model' empirical chapter...  I am a bit frightened about this!  And a bit excited?!  No, just frightened.

I was really stuck on my first empirical chapter (the very newly made-up one) and just knew that there was at least a paragraph, if not a whole section in the third chapter that was relevant...  and in the end I decided just to have a look...  and it turns out it is rather useful...  and was 1000 words...  so I took it.  Ooh!  and Eeek!  I now have to find about 600 words for that chapter but that should be ok, it is very analytical so think I can take some from the rubbish discussion chapter.  And it still neatly fit together, as if that section was never there...  And it means that this other chapter is nearly finished...  no more scrabbling around for something to write (thank goodness).

But now I know I have fiddled with it that means it is Tainted and that I will have to proof read it properly before handing in my first draft.  Boo and bugger.

I could be so addled with boredom, desperation, a need for a wee and to watch tv that I have just spliced away and not really checked that it does work...  (I think it does).

Anyway, it goes to show how the lines between chapters are blurring into a 'thesis' and no chapter is safe from my meddling.  I don't know if this is a sign of madness or progress!

Back tomorrow around 6pm.  Arf.

x J

Just sat down

Meh.  Today I have been busy so haven't been able to work yet, but am here now.

This morning DB needed to go to the gym and then went food shopping, then after lunch I had a party to take Bean to, and only got back from that at 4.  Got in, had a cuppa tea and a life-changing convo aabout finishing uni, DB leaving work and us all moving house then mooched on up here to start my shift!

DB and bean are downstairs playing with stuff from Bean's party bag.  Am so envious, I want to be down there playing too. 

I will work until I have done 500-700 words or at 8pm, whichever is sooner.  Hoping some nifty copy and pasting will take the sting out if it all for me - I am not in the mood to write original text at all!

And in I plunge...

x J

 

All done for today :)

Well, I have done my work for today!

I don't feel like I have really and would like to work more but with a family downstairs I should probably go and join them.  I had a goal of writing 500 words but a preferred goal of 700 if i could and I have reached that target :)  Well, more than that actually.

I have managed, through sheer luck, to find two old but complete drafts of what I wanted to say in this chapter before I edited it down to 1000 words, so am able to plump up my work with these drafts.  Am so very, very happy about this, I just knew I had more thorough old texts around but couldn't remember what I had saved them as (am going as far back as 4 years here!).  The one thing I do have to keep checking though is that I haven't taken the text and used it somewhere else in the thesis!  So far I did take about 400 words that, on checking, I have used in another chapter.  I recognise it all so much it is hard to know if that is because I have actually used it or just because I obviously worked on these discourses a *lot*.  So, anyway, finding these quotes and info has helped a lot, and will carry on helping later/tomorrow. 

So I have over 5000 words for this chapter so far, just need 2500 more!  Hopefully I'll get a good pace on tomorrow (or later) copy and pasting more chunks in.  I hope so!

x J