99 days, and then I'll have a good beer spree

I've set the deadline for myself on the 18th of March to submit my thesis. Officially I have until the 31st of March, but I figured I'd leave a few days slack... just in case.

I had a very good, long "chat" with Le Boss yesterday, which gave me a good boost of confidence on finishing. In case I forget, I am going to breathe a thankful noise of acknowledgment to my mentor out into the ether. I really owe him a lot, and he deserves lot of good karma his way.

In other news, my scholarship has been reinstated. Well, it never really went away, but I lost a considerable portion of it after an administrative issue about the source of funds. Apparently, the contract for the other source had expired. It meant I had to live on half the amount in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Le Boss had a big hand in me getting more funding. After having a row at all the people responsible, he was not getting any positive responses for months. Ultimately, he asked the administration to dip into his own funds to append to my scholarship. That was excellent, and will help me heaps. Thank you <3 :) Clears my worries greatly, and makes me focus more at the tasks at hand.

The holiday break is coming up shortly, and I will not be seeing Boss M until January 2010. He invited me to stay in contact over the break, but I figured since he is going on leave early, he'd appreciate the silence. Though he insisted so, since it's quite important to us both that I finish on time, and do a good job of it. For now he has told me to focus on the thesis, and shelf the other projects for now, until I submit.

I am lucky I get these encouraging exchanges with him. From some other students I hear they are not in good terms with their supervisor and get very little time to talk to them. Or even if they do get the time to chat, it sometimes still amounts to them feeling confused and as if they've wasted time.

With only a few weeks left in my official enrolment in this degree, I feel more pressure and actually have more appreciation for this chance to work with Boss M. Even today I feel sad that the time is to end soon. It's not always that you spend a lot of time working on problems and have a brilliant mind to help you work it out. After this stint, it's going to be more about me doing all the thinking and driving on projects, with other scholars considered on level ground. Technically at least.

I hope the community of scholars do welcome me and grant me the award. With Boss M's signature, I think I have a pretty good chance. When I do get awarded, I will not accept his refusal for that sampler of beers, and he MUST have a beer spree with me!

Seven months later... and Four months until submission

I've got four months left... FOUR months. It doesn't sound like much at all.

I'm doing my best to keep working at a steady pace, or faster. At this point I am scared to the core, so I have a lot of adrenaline every day. I wonder when I will hit a wall? I imagine I will, but I am hoping it doesn't come at an inopportune time.

So what's going on now?

I've got 2 papers being written, hopefully ready for journal submission before December. I've got one project that needs writing up, and one other that hasn't even started.

Thesis writing has been put on hold, but I have to produce a good "complete" draft by first week of December. I've enlisted a couple of friends to do some editing/proofreading for me next week, so I ought to work on it this weekend. I can't do anything else in the next couple of days since I'm busy with work and writing for the other two papers lined up for submission.

That's all I've got at the moment. Hope to sound less somber in my next update.

Another episode of writer's bloc

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http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1159

This is exactly the point I am in my writing. I've got my existing and about-to-be-submitted papers, and I've been moving text around, inserting bits here and there. I've gotta get my act together and actually make it look like a thesis and not a series of publications.

I stumble upon two situations which cause me grief: (1) the writing and rewriting of sentences that I already understand, but have trouble communicating an idea in a concise manner, and (2) just not knowing what else to say.

Situation (1) is not a fun place to be in. I get lost in time sometimes and get stuck on a sentence/paragraph for hours. Situation (2) isn't too bad, cause it clearly is a signal that I should stop writing, and work things out on a whiteboard, or hunt down articles and do more reading.

I mention grief, but it's not that I don't enjoy this process. Sure there are non-fun periods of time. But that's part of it. Overall, I have a vision in my brain how I expect things to turn out.

But my main adversary is TIME. I resent the calendar as the days are whizzing by now. I've got so much I still want to do, but there must be a point where I just have to stop the ideas and get the writing done.