Thesis D Day (original) (raw)

30 October 2008 @ 01:12 am

I am finding it hard to be motivated this week... I have achieved very little. Which is not good when my submission date is DECEMBER 19TH! AAAAH. Please be sending your motivational energies to me. (Though I assume most of you are using all of yours for yourselves, and wisely I might add...)

On paper I look like I'm pretty much on course, but I can't help freaking out since I have SO much to do before the end. *curls into small ball for a while*

20 August 2008 @ 02:18 pm

Hey kids, how's the work treating you? Mental state alright? Stress levels reasonable? Hope so.

My current status:

FIRST DRAFT: complete
SUBMISSION DATE: 19 December
CURRENTLY: editing everything to get it to where it needs to be... Editing is kind of dull. Moving paragraphs, adding paragraphs, adding 103830 references, reordering things... But at least I can say that this is the home straight.

My stress levels (and emotional state) is pretty up and down these days! Sometimes feel quite relaxed and confident, sometimes very harried, sometimes just not motivated in any way at all. I'm wasting a lot of time staring at the screen but not achieving anything. Oh well!

How are things going with you?

hola, me again. i submit my thesis in a week. there's one quite important quote that i've not been able to find a verified reference for, been looking for ooh, 4/5 years.

turned up in a random google search today. i love the electronical linky web and the people that contribute to it :)

hope everyone's well out there in thesis-land, happy tuesday!

first-time-post, long-time-lurk. hello all. hope you're enjoying the sunshine!

i'm nearly there with the redraft and submission - 1 month exactly in fact to the final final deadline for my PhD, which i've been doing for YEARS now due to a combination of personal rubbish and having a full-time job for 5 years in the middle of my student-ness. i resigned from my job in january with the intention that i'd be finished by this point in time. best laid plans, etc...

last week i was absolutely miserable, but this week i can't even seem to work up the motivation to feel scared about it. i've got so much work to do, i don't feel anything like on track, and i'm really disappointed in myself that i've not got further on / been a better student / etc. people keep telling me that it'll be worth it when i'm finished, but i'm finding it hard to believe them.

[blatant request for reassurance]i'm hoping that this is a common reaction... tell me it's not just me? [/blatant request for reassurance]

I'm so used to thinking of myself as behind - "I should have finished this chapter a week ago", "why haven't I written more on X?" - that even though my supervisors have assured me I'm on course, I've tended not to think so. BUT I pulled up the timeline I made partway through my second year (I'm now in my third), and saw that I had tentatively put having a complete draft of my thesis by the end of April of this year. Well, I'm not quite there - but it's also not that far off. It's nice to see I wasn't being overly optimistic!

Things have definitely settled down since I last posted - I had a few weeks in a bit of a funk, but that seems to have passed. I think it helped that a few weeks ago I had a very helpful Thesis Advisory Panel - basically where my review is progressed - and I came out of that feeling pretty positive about my work.

My main concerns right now? Finishing the thesis, needing to beef up my CV in terms of publications... And finding something academic to do after all this! But right now I feel reasonably positive about all that...

How are you?

21 February 2008 @ 10:26 pm

Don't really know if i am using this LJ thing right... but yes this a procrastination activity whilse i finishe my field work and start writing up in APRIL. I am scared. I camt believe it has to finish one day :-(

18 February 2008 @ 07:14 pm

Hi all,
I've been reading along for a while, but was in denial about my own upcoming d-day :-)

I'm writing my dissertation on Old English literature (Aelfric, more specifically), and have been a member of the Dissertators group as well, from which I've been conspicuously absent.

My d-day:
5 March, which is when I'll be in Ireland to hand it in (working in the Netherlands at the moment).
I REALLY need to finish, this is my fifth year, and although I studied part-time, it's been enough.
So, here's hoping I'll manage. And that Word will not inexplicably change all my translations into a minuscule font again at the print shop.

Mood: scared

13 February 2008 @ 09:51 am

(partially cross-posted from themikado)

So, on Monday I had my PhD viva, which I passed. :-)

The way it works here is that you write a thesis and submit it, which is then read by two examiners - an internal examiner from your university and an external examiner from elsewhere. The external is an expert in the field, and it's this person you have to impress to pass the PhD. When they've read it, they organise a viva voce examination where they quiz you about the thesis to a) make sure you wrote it; and b) make sure you know what you're talking about.

My viva lasted a little less than three hours, and they went through the thesis asking me various questions about the chapters. Why had I done it like this? Could I explain the relevance of that analysis? What does this mean in the bigger picture of the literature? It was challenging. I couldn't answer all the questions, but I gave it my very best shot.

At the end both the examiners told me that the thesis was very well written and that they'd enjoyed reading it (!) and they wanted to pass me with only very minor typographical corrections (!!). The external even complimented me on my use of the subjunctive. I said I didn't know what that was, never having been taught grammar at school, and he replied: 'if I were to tell you, it would insult your intelligence'. Oh, so that's what it is. Right. He also said that he wanted to keep a copy to refer to (!!!).

I got my corrections today, and there's about 8 things they want changed. So I should be finished by the end of the day, and then I can get the thing hard bound and submitted to the Student Registry in time to graduate in July.

All done! :-D

I will probably be leaving this community very soon, but feel free to ask a just-examined newly-minted doctor any questions you might have!

ETA: many thanks for the congrats guys!

Location: Work

Mood: accomplished

13 February 2008 @ 01:40 am

Today I had my first real serious meeting with my two thesis advisors.

And my brain exploded. I have been informed of two things.

One I had to completely rethink my exact tack on what I wanted to say, and two, apparently I have a fantastic idea for a book. Alas, I am a lowly B.A. History student and haven't the time, research grants, or y'know degrees to write it.

This semester is kicking my ass in new and different ways.

Mood: busy

09 February 2008 @ 09:49 pm

So, I've been feeling for the last couple of weeks like I've finally committed to the sprint to the finish--uncharacteristically, I'm eager to get up in the morning and get out of the house to get some work done, and I've been working pretty much all day long on the weekends. (And yes, I'm actually writing/editing, as opposed to frittering my time away on the internet.) But a slightly funny side effect is that I've trimmed my music playlist down to a handful of really, really loud punk rock-type songs that I listen to pretty much constantly. My husband seems to find it a little disturbing. The kids were with me up until a couple of days ago when most of the classic rock got edited out--now they clearly think I'm a freak, too. What I want to know is this: is this a sign that the end (of the dissertation) is near? Or am I losing my mind? Because while I definitely have that "home stretch" feeling right now, the fact of the matter is that it's a really BIG project and I'm guessing that the home stretch phase is going to last another four months or so... What other bizarre symptoms do I have to look forward to, and can I expect them to come and go, or will they be my constant companions? Will my children suffer longterm ill effects from listening to too much Green Day? If you have kids, how cognizant are they of the work you are doing?