My supervisor

I realise now, looking back, that I was stupid to stay with my supervisor throughout this DPhil. I should have moved or left or something, she too scatty. Too late now I know.


She doesn't really hear what you're saying sometimes or know what she's saying and then makes up things she thinks she'd said. I often left meetings with her, which would typically be 30 mins to 1 hour, confused and with very little meaningful information. I tried to cancel these meetings, suggesting that we meet much less frequently but she then started to phone and email more and try to get me in the corridor or just turn the group meetings into discussions about my work. After a while I gave up fighting it and just kept meeting with her once a week. Often I daydream in these meetings. I go in with some questions I need answered and the rest of the time I let her ramble till she feels better and then leave.



She had another student before me. He was from far away and English wasn't his first language. He left before I completed my first year. Given that I don't understand my boss most of the time, I can't imagine how difficult he must have found it. He left without his DPhil for many reasons but just before he left he gave me and a colleague dictaphones. He wanted us to use them in our meetings with the boss. He was very angry with her for not making sense in their meetings and (he said) constantly changing what she thought had been decided. He was always angry though. He had behaviour issues, he almost threw a punch at a different colleague after chasing him around the meeting room once.



She's a nice person is my boss, a genuinely nice person, but I do agree with her ex-student in part. She often doesn't make sense and rarely answers a question directly. She'll usually ramble on incoherently and tangentially. She's disorganised, occasionally makes inappropriate comments (e.g. talking about her son's personal life in a group meeting).

Stress causes performance anxiety causes stress...

29 days to go

I am so stressed out at the moment... I have to prepare some records for inspection. It isn't really stressful in itself, but I have now I think developed some kind of anxiety disorder. I can't help it, everything makes me anxious. Deciding what to have for dinner makes me anxious, deciding when to go to the gym, what to wear, what to do with figures in the thesis... So now, thinking of preparing records AND writing AND being unemployed/unemployable is making me feel so stressed I think I could throw up. I can't wait till the fucking DPhil is done. Stress is even getting in the way of boyfriend-related activities.

Hey there stranger

Writing

31 days to go!

Hi there, it's been a while. How are you? How am I? Yeah, not bad... done fuck all writing and have about a month before my deadline... ok, it's a fake deadline, the ultimate one being in mid Jan, but it's still scaring me.

So why haven't I written? Because... I don't know. I'm lazy? I just can't write well? Not motivated anymore? Panicking about having no income? Having to work in shitty lab with Mr. ArSeHoLe to make enough money to pay rent is making me depressed? Yes, they could all have something to do with it. Mr. ArSeHoLe and generally being unemployed and in my 5th year here are actually motivating me enough I think. I am getting there, slowly but surely. I'm staying in Poxford over Christmas to write.


Hot neighbour

No sightings for weeks now... The Dr. and I are planning on having him over next month, though I think we will probably have to invite the whole house. I'm not really sure how many people live next door, but it shouldn't be a problem. I'm getting nervous just thinking about it.


Jobs

I've got nowhere on the job front either. I have an interview coming up in a 3 weeks but that's like the only one.


Random

C and I nearly bought a 40 piece crockery set from We-sell-junk channel. White with silver rims, it looked pretty boring but ok for general use at home, you know, not our finest crockery but ok for us at home, and the price dropped to below £30... if it wasn't for the fact that none of it could go in the microwave, it was a done deal.

I got offered a job...

... a job that I'm 99.99% sure I can't have. Not a tax accountant, but on the way there. Poo.

I get worried when I hear myself say things like "I want to train as an accountant". It's not natural is it, even at my age there's something nauseating about that statement. It's also not natural to be talking to yourself so much, I hear.

An ok-ish morning at the office today: had a semi useful meeting with the supes. They now think I will have 4 results chapters. Yesterday I was still under the impression it was going to be 2.3 but is one of the wonders of DPhil misery. How much have I actually written in the last 6 days? ZERO. How many graphs have I plotted of the same flippin' data!!?!?? Hundreds(!)

Other news: BBC1 are showing Speed instead of Jonathon Woss tonight.

Bad bad bad Tesco

I have a drum

55 days to go


The boy

I have a boy
The boy is mine
I will treat him poorly
There is no need to whine

Ok, I don't treat him poorly.

I used to love The Kids in the Hall. So weird! "I'm crushing your head"



And work

Interviews next week: 2

Job offers: 0

I had a chat with a finance person for a very big IT systems and hardware company which was useful, she told me about what she does, how she started, why she changed from practice to commercial accounting. I'm researching the finance programmes offered by a whole load of firms, from accountancy practices to chocolate manufacturers.

Words on thesis since last blog: 0

I did however look up some stuff on Igf2 signaling. How relevant will that be though? The thesis is boring!

Looking for work

57 days left

I had an interview today. My first non-science interview. I've been VERY indecisive about what to do next, after the PhD.

(Words written on thesis during the last 6 days: very few)

My current fad is finance. I'm thinking of becoming a finance person who audits and analyses numbers and tells rich people and businesses how many monies they have and that they can pay less tax and pay me more fees - yes that's right, a tax accountant. Apparently the pay is good, the work is not bad and you're not always on some client site auditing.

Him-indoors isn't impressed with accountancy and has expressed this quite clearly. He's not impressed very easily though and because I have talked about certain research fields I'm interested in, he thinks I'm better off staying a scientist. I don't think I'm an academic. I'm not made of the right stuff. I'm not like them. I think. May be I'm not finance material either. Oh, this is too hard! I have a finance interview and a science interview coming up next week. I have no idea what to do. Today's interview was neither finance or science.

Other news: prawns contain cholesterol.

I'm looking forward to hoovering

63 days left

I've set aside this whole afternoon for writing. I'm free until 5.30pm (hoovering time).

2 and a half hours into this writing afternoon I've added a staggering 12 words to my thesis.

I did have a productive* meeting with my supervisor this morning though, and left feeling positive, ready to write about the magnificent things I've done and what I've learnt and how meaningful my work will be to whoever takes this avenue of research further. (*supe meetings are usually a drawn out waste of time)

I haven't completely lost that feeling, I squeezed 12 words out of it, and I reckon I can get a few more. In the process of getting those 12 words though, I also learnt, with the help of the internet, that Madonna said Guy Ritchie is a retard (I love that I saw that on the Telegraph, not Heat or Perez Hilton, but the Telegraph); Deutshce bank bosses are giving their annual bonuses to their staff, I don't buy it; and metal faced mobiles can give you a rash. Fascinating. I can't wait till it's time to hoover.

64 days to go

What did I do today:

1. Attend a seminar on how NHS money for translational research is being spent in Oxford.

2. Get very worked up and annoyed at a toss pot with too much power. Thankfully I don't have to see the irritating fuckwit often at all, but when this wanker-extraordinaire impacts on my life, it's usually in a negative way, such as today.

3. Have a discussion with another senior person whose name or position I won't mention. All I will say is I hope I never become as insensitive, tactless or offensive.

4. Run.

5. Go bowling and celebrate the recent successes of the Dr :)

Words written on the thesis: 0

Is there a Dr. in the house? Yes there is!

Congratulations to my housemate on passing her PhD viva today. It's all over, you did it! Well done!

We lowly students are in awe of you people.

Days and dates

Firstly, today's an important day: GOOD LUCK to my housemate, it's viva day!

I will submit before Christmas. My extension is for one term, which technically means I have till the start of the new term. Here are the term dates and the new term starts on

Sunday Jan 18th

I have to submit before then and my aim is to submit before Christmas.

I'm assuming nothing will be working Christmas week, university offices will be closed and Oxford will be in hibernation so it'll have to be by Friday 19th December. It's now Tuesday, 14th October which means I have 66 days. Or 96 days, if you count till Jan 18th.

You do realise that this blog will now become a really boring account of how little I get done everyday, how much I panic about being skint and how desperate the jobsearch is. Only the best quality entertainment for you.

The window

Yes!

If I sit in the window, the sunny window, where happy sunshine enters the room, I'll want to write, and write better. I'll be inspired by sunshine to think like a scientist, overlooking the natural beauty of the... the neighbours overgrown weedy garden, or our miserable plot of nettles and the old rug that was in the dining room and the landlord seems to want to bury under grass cuttings till it rots. I should face the other way... that's better, these neighbours have an apple tree, flowerbeds and birdtables, that'll get me thinking about placental mosaicism... only now the sun is on my laptop screen and I can't see anything.

Testing

My first blog!

This isn't a good idea. I already know that. I have spent too long setting this up. The thesis is still just fragments and I'm in the mood to do ANYTHING but write.

This however, this blog, this is going to FORCE me to write.

I AM GOING TO SUBMIT IN DECEMBER.

It's a sunny Sunday afternoon here in Oxford and rather than waste/spend time out in the sun, I'm forcing myself to "write" (not this kind of writing).

It'll all be worth it in the end.