Finish my PhD

It’s quite funny reading the past entries, one for every year…
The deadline and the funding passed officially on 31st December and I am not finished. To quote the great Catherine Tate: “Am I bothered?” No, I’m not. I’m sure that’s completely the wrong attitude, but I’m feeling much happier now there’s not a fixed deadline, but more of a fluid one along the lines of: “Anytime in the next three months will be good.” And I’m working and writing much better, hell, more often than not it’s even fun.
Just worked on comments my supervisor gave me five months ago and they made a huge difference to progress and structure (Yay for Latex!! Go and get it now, if you are a postgraduate. It’s so motivating to see text beautifully laid out and ready to print).
So, I have till the end of January, then I need to start work, maybe part-time for a month and then a month next to work for revisions, is that realistic?
I will report back, would be good to get the Viva done before June so I can graduate this summer. Waiting another year would be such an anti-climax and it would be a good excuse to get my family over for extensive celebrations.

And another year gone, eeek!
Around four months to go and where am I, well, procrastinating as much as I bloody well can, writing here is part of that.
Not all bad, absolute heaps to do, but structure, 100 pages of writing and most data in place. The thing is, I’d be happy to potter along with this for another year and finish leisurely, not rushed, but not much chance for this.
Wish me luck, or better, give me a kick in the backside.

Astonishing how six months can just vanish! Ok, so now it’s just over a year and a half to go, I am making progress, but oh so slow, especially writing is very difficult, while accumulating raw data is no problem at all. I am positively drowning in good data, but what to do with it all? And while my supervisor is very motivating, he is also a bloody workaholic and I just can’t keep up with that.

Oddly the item on the list I am least concerned about achieving, thanks to a super-motivating supervisor and great work atmosphere and still over two years to go anyway. I guess having fallen into this by accident, I am not pressurizing myself too much, though I do work hard.