Stuff, stuff and more stuff!

[starrylizard]

Hehe! Nabbed this link in amireal's LJ. irregular web comic!

In other news I just finished writing yet another crack!fic. I just can't get away from them. This one is a weird-o crossover thing too!

Please go and read ljmckay's latest fic, especially if you've seen the movie Cube (starring the sexy man himself, David Hewlett), or even if you haven't. SGA/Cube crossover = *squee!*...and make her write more! *evil grin* Sorry ljmckay, but now I know that I can egg you on, you'll never be free!

Some real life stuff:
I finally got into some experiments again today. I've just been mulling around reading papers and bringing my cell cultures back up since I got back from holidays, and even though it's only some PCR's, I finally felt like I was getting into things again.

I've arranged a meeting with both my main supervisors next week (yes, I have THREE of them) and told them I want a full war room scenario, with whiteboards, lists and dead-lines. I'm in a complete panic about how in the name of anyone's god/s I am going to finish enough experiments to write up this year. It is truly terrifying! My lab book is a mess and I am yet to write much at all. My main main supervisor has been sort of "nah, don't worry about reading papers and writing and stuff, you can do that later", but now I wish I had listened to other people and not been that way. I have three packed lab books to wade through and many, many failed experiments that I've forgotten about and I'm only just starting my lit review.

*looks in the mirror* Oh, so that's what panic looks like! Nice to know!

*whimpers*

Comments

[arwen75]

I seem to remember panicking myself around this stage... Of course I was not helped by the fact my final 18 months I was working full-time as a teaching fellow, as well as trying to complete the PhD experiments and write-up. So I had a full teaching load, and I must admit in the last couple of months before I gave my supervisor my final draft I was working 100 hour weeks at times. The security guards at uni. got used to finding me in my office when they came round sometime after 10pm to check that lights were off and doors locked.

As to literature reviews - my field moves so fast that although I had some written from my transfer report I pretty much started again from scratch. However a lot of my background material was originally taken from a research report I had written for an industrial project I had worked on while I was a RA (I worked all through my PhD). The reuslts from the project formed the initial basis of my PhD work and as I ahd written two thirds of the report I was able to use a lot of that to form some of my early chapters.

That said I advise my new PhD students to start off with a lit. review, which they can keep updated as the field moves forward. And I tell them to write-up - at least in draft format as they go along. But that alkl comes form my own bitter experience

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

I know I'm not the only one in this position...in fact my best friend is in a worse state...six months to go and not one word written, though her results are a litle more organised I think. (We both have the same supervisor and she's still doing lab work for him.)

I'm trying to just get organised. I should have done things earlier, but shold've/could've doesn't really cut it, so I really just have to get my butt into gear now...write less fic (gah!), procrastinate less, read more papers and write even if it sounds crap (because at least then it's on paper).

Wow...I don't even demonstrate to earn my keep. I guess I have it kinda cushy compared to you, but I never would have done a PhD if I'd had to work as well. The PhD is work as far as I'm concerned. I wasn't planning on doing one, since I was a research assistant for my current supervisor and happy with it, but some people are just too persuasive...got talked into it. :p

My field is moving along at a cracking pace and I'm really hvaing trouble figuring out what to put into a lit review. I tried to sit down and write heading and sub-headings and even that was really hard. I'm sure I'm missing out lots and lots.

*sigh* Off to 'work' with me now.