Be Excellent To Each Other

As I'm sure I've bored you all to death with already. I'm writing a Thesis at the moment. And it's killing me.

I know some of you here have written thesii* here. Do you have any advice? Or horror stories? Lets have a thread about how writing lots IS THE WORSE THING IN THE WORLD.

I'm sitting a computer about 18 hours a day at the minute (slept 6 till 10 last night) and it's DRIVING ME INSANE.

Me I'm using Latex and I've written 85 pages so far (including figures, and contents and so on). Once I'm finished I may never write again and throw my ibook in a fire. Then once the fire is out salt the earth so nothing may grow there forever more.

That and you are constantly battling this:



Seriously fuck people who wrote their thesisiums* before the advent of the internet. You had it easy you dicks!

* who the fuck knows, thesises? thesisies?

Thetans. They've come for your mind.

That's what, I would estimate, 80% of the people on this board do inc. myself. Except for when I go to the loo.

No laptop CUS?

My penis is also in my lap, though, and that's the whole point of going to the toilet in the first place. I apologize in advance, Lave, if this now becomes the 'Do you use your laptop on the bog?' thread... I have nothing to offer, sorry.

I remember late nights and early mornings when I was doing my final year project at Uni, but that was purely because I'm a bad student who spent most of the year not doing the work I should have, and crammed most of it in at the end. As such I have no sympathy for myself. If that's what you've done here, I can't feel sorry for you either Lave, although I'll agree finding the motivation is hard.

Well 1) Thats fucking retarded, and 2) as did I, but now I can't just say 'fuck it' - and so it's become A FESTIVAL OF PAIN.




Don't worry it's more of a RAGE THREAD at the moment.

ARGH!

I think the plural is Faeces, or Theses.

I think the most important thing is to make sure you make time for a break. Say next Thursday, 7pm-Midnight.

Getting started is always really difficult, especially as I've never been good at sticking to self-imposed deadlines. When I got really stuck, I had to pull the network cable out. From time to time I would even resort to VI just to bash things out. I don't like working late but would munch raisains and sip on one glass of port* to keep myself going.
I somehow managed to turn in a quasi-acceptable piece but if I find out that anyone other than the examiners has read it there will be hurt.

Good luck!

* seriously. I would never drink and work normally, but I found I could make a tumbler of port last the session. Drank pints and pints of water though.

Copy 3 different thesises from the internet but swap them round a bit.

And put your name on the bottom.

Sorted.

And I wished I'd thought of the following as a thesis topic rather than the one I chose:

< http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2008/06/your-g ... e-into.php >

It's a time-analysis of the age of Playboy pin-ups and Miss America winners.
Probably SFW...

Oh god, don't get me started on why the deadline has become so massively important, because it's down to the university being COMPLETE CUNTS. Rather than any of my procrastination.

Fuck it: Short version. My PhD is a new fangled 4 year one. Which requires a 1/3 more content than a 3 year one. But unlike the 3rd year Phd where you're money runs out and then you've got a year to submit it before anything bad happens to the uni, they've decided NOW that if I submit a day late, then the university gets the same consequences as a 3 year PhD student overan into a 5th year - which is losing funding for a PhD place.

And as I lost a month of work due to my Dad breaking his back, and I've not got a supervisor for the last three months of my PhD because she's had a baby. This sudden deadline has become, what you might call, tight.

Is there nobody else providing cover in the department? If not, she's really dropped you into the gooey stuff.

Good job your science is too, then, eh?

Drinking (a little) whilst working is seriously was of the most consistent pieces of advice i've had. I think because you are a little drunk you lower you standards to what you are writing so you get something down on paper - and as we know that is half the battle.

Unfortunately, I've got an astygmatism (?), so drinking makes my eyesight a little squiffy, so I get headaches when I've tried it. Still I think its really good advice if you can do it.

A bad ass has come out of retirement (like a fucking rambo flick) to help out. Because he is awesome.

Unfortunately though, he's got no idea about the code I can't get to run, that really needs to. So it isn't brilliant.

A still fucking adore him for it though.

Oh and my second supervisors current help extends to checking if he was my second supervisor. 2 years ago.

God, I'll probably melt Beteo's swear filter as this cocking rate.

Fitbin!

That is amazing.

Might sound obvious, but eat healthily. When I was doing my masters' thesis I ate nothing but biscuits and tea. As such I slept poorly, meaning I wastired and couldn't concentrate, etc. And go for a jog or something as well. Sleep with the window open, and get some ear plugs. Don't bother setting an alarm, it is better to wake up naturally and be alert than be forced awake and be tired and just trudge around all day.

Obviously, these things may not help you, but I wish someone had told me these things.

No help here im afraid, but anecdotally everyone I know with a PhD supports your theory of " its a living hell" and recommended me not to do one.

So, you are in good company, as in, everyone else was in hell too.

You will get through it in the end.

Dunno if mine was a living hell but I certainly went very close to going out of my mind with stress and worry. I know I've told you the story before. All I can advise is to hang in there, you are certainly not in a worse state than I was (I was still generating data for my thesis up until a fortnight before the end of Year Four!) and I got there.

I have a 29Mb ish PDF of my thesis if you want a complete one as some sort of icon. I did mine in LaTeX too. Could be worse, you could have attempted it in Word, like loons in my department did.

My wife is currently writing up her thesis too - 148 pages so far, LaTeX again. She has reached the point where if you ask how it's going, her eyes well up and her knees knock. She's only doing it for the squashy hat. Rather than look at the Internet, she does DIY - I came home to find one coat of white paint on the Kitchen on Friday.

Her funding ran out on the 1st of July, at which point we get hit with the lovely double whammy of having to pay full council tax rather than 75%, and having to give the Uni £200 to keep her registered for her writing up year. She intends to finish by September. *touches, nay grips wood until fingernails leave marks in the grain*

I limit myself to technical support and discovering random tools on the MacUpdate RSS feed that make life easier. Plus tea and biscuits.

The Mac suite of tools for LaTeX writing really is rather wonderful. We use TeXShop and BibDesk, supplemented with R for the stats and OmniGraffle for the graphs. LaTeXIT also deserves props for providing a sane alternative to Microsoft Equation Editor.

Late nights/early mornings are a good time to get work done though as you have less distractions.

I'm under huge work pressures at the moment, so much so that I've had to order a Jesuslaptop so I can late night work at home + during the weekends. Previously as I was using a PC in the office I could work on the laptop but a side effect of buying the Jesuscomputer for work now means I need a Jesuslaptop as well to work at home. Gah!

But I work best at about 2am anyway. Which was what I was planning to do tonight until I found I had to be up at 9am. And I was in the right state of mind as well having sunk 2/3 of a bottle of Moet.

Dawn of the last day - 24 hours remain.



To everyone who has submitted a thesis here, I fucking bow my head in amazement at you.

I've 24 hours to finish my thesis before I miss a deadline that will get me in lots of trouble with lots of people. (For which I could rant a great deal about people screwing me over with - but thats a moan for when it means I fail my viva... RARG)

I've had an hour nap.

Fuck.

Whoever was thinking about doing a PhD. Don't.

Good luck, C'p'n.

Should we all write a line or two for you?

Best of luck mate. Me, I was always tops at exams and but completely useless at dissertations. I'm a remarkably punchy and fun essay writer, beyond that I'm guff.

Got my fingers crossed for ya. Hope through many coffees you somehow attain a state of thesis-completing-super-time-speed-grace like that bit in Futurama when Fry drinks his hundredth cup of coffee. (Or was it ninety-ninth?)

I'm about to complete my application for a Masters. I'm totally apprehensive, especially as I've not studied anything since I was 16. So, you know, all this is really cheering me up.

Thanks guys.



No one enjoys the last few weeks of a course, but I would hate my moaning to actually put you off your course. I'm just stressed.

Might have a nap...

I did it, Lave, and I was fucking useless. You can do this!

Plissken - go for it so we can stress together!

Lave - you can do it, you've come this far, have a nap if you need one and take a deep breath.

#Go Lave, Go Lave#

Oh. Okay.

He'll change his tune. I did.

Good idea!

With BETEO as my support group, what could possibly go wrong?

You'll be fine, Lave, so good luck.

Also: hurry up so we can have some Skeptobot updates.

So, you'd be laughing along, then your mood would be ruined by a vicious monkey slash ninja attack, but you'd beat them off and then feel smug about it?

Absolutly!

As excuses go, it beats the shit out of "the dog ate my thesis".

I have every confidence in Lave getting this done.

You've already had one today, good God man!

Get writing.

Fuck your thesis, where's my fucking book?

Well, I got accepted on the course.

*whimpers*

Congratulations.

So, who, here, actually HAS a job, nowadays?

Me. This is a online MSc I'll be doing in my spare time.

Oooh ditto, we really can panic together!

How long does it take to type in your card details to pay the $49?

Ooh look Mr PHD is getting all qualification snobberised.

Ahem. "Dr PhD" thank you.