queen’s birthday is good for writing

The Queen’s Birthday, a good excuse for a public holiday but as I indicated in my last post, it has not really affected my schedule but yet it has. Although I wanted to treat it just like any other weekday, I did start work a bit later. Psychologically, knowing that the rest of the city (and country) is on holiday gave me a renewed impetus to work, and work I did. Except for the lunch break, I did work (mostly steadily) through the day and managed to make some progress in my writing.

Maybe its because that the building is empty (save some other isolated PhD students), I felt less distracted. I couldn’t make the excuse of running upstairs to the department office to ‘get some stationery’ or to drop by into the office of some of my colleagues or peers. Even my (recent) favourite coffee-stand is closed. Instead, I read a little and powered on with my writing. Ah, if only everyday is like today. The trick I think is that I felt relaxed and not pressured to get things done. How can I find such opportunities again?

And another thing that is starting to bug me is how to answer friends’ well-meaning queries about how my writing is going. What can I say beyond, “its going along…slowly”, or “fine,” and on some days, “its not going so well”. These curt but vague answers are all I can think of and muster. In some ways, it actually reflects the uncertainties that I face when I try and gauge my own progress. I can’t do much better than those short quips if I were to ask myself that question. How does PhD candidate know how well he/she is progressing when writing the thesis/dissertation? Some ‘how to write a PhD thesis’ books suggest that we give ourselves a target number of pages. It doesn’t feel quite right yet for me but perhaps that is how I have to do it.

A Tale of One Thesis

I was reflecting on this blog while walking into the city tonight to meet my friends for dinner and I suddenly chuckled when I remembered that this blog was to chronicle my adventures in the UK, Europe and now life back in Australia. While tales of my wanderings have kinda fitted in with the blog, the entries since I came back had more of the ‘doldrums of PhD’. Has life stopped becoming an adventure after one’s overseas trip is finished? Was it an adventure because I was not in the country I ‘normally’ live in and now that I am back, so too the adventure? Ah…the predictable tangent of a PhD-soaked brain-never fail with the questions and analysis.

But it is a stretch if I were to chronicle my daily routine as an adventure. However if I can try and frame it in a more interesting and creative way, say perhaps sketching my writing up process more like a ’struggle of life and death with an enemy’ or even through the genre of a detective story, whereby the protaganist is trying to solve the mystery of the PhD despite great obstacles, a tale that is filled with unexpected twists and turns. Perhaps that might even make the actual gruelling (and thankless) process more engaging.

Ah, the things we (PhD students) do just to waste more time

153 days

As of today, there are 153 days left to finish and hand in my PhD thesis. The revised date for my completion was adjusted to 19th of October 2008. This date also marks the moment when my scholarship officially runs out: no more money to live on.

Judging from the horror stories I have heard from others and the caution that has been thrown my way, this number represents a bleak state. I can choose to surrender and accept that it will be impossible for me to do it by that date or I can fight my darnedest to cross that line on time. If I choose the latter, then I will have to do something to change the way I have been working so far.

I am scared, worried and yet determined at the same time. I have not even completed a single chapter (out of the planned 9) and have only thrown down 10 000 words to date. I better get moving.