danny’s space

Nearly there. Drafts for chapters 1, 2 and 3 done. Chapter 4 to go, but hopefully this one will be short. Then the abstract, then the acknowledgements. Then the title page. The funnest till last.

74 pages of text so far. 117 pages all up.

And was the purchased article worth it? Not really, they only had one sentence that I wanted, and it was essentially data not shown anyway. Argh! You live, you learn.

- Edit -

Ok no I lie. Still need to do the introduction to chapter 2, argh, I forgot all about that. Nooooooo…

What a rort.

Thank you for purchasing an article through the Nature Publishing Group.

You purchased the following article(s):

Identification of DNA sequences required for activity of the cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter

The total cost of the order is: US$ 30.0

The article is three pages long. That’s US$10 per page. But it’s not available on USYD, UNSW or UTS library servers, argh! Which meant I would have had to go into uni just to get a three page article. At this stage in the game I thought it would be worth it. Maybe I’m an idiot for purchasing it. But hey it’s done and I can (perhaps) sleep easier. It’s an article I needed - that’s my excuse. Mind you I haven’t read it yet.

Hmm, that’s almost as much as this server costs a year… I feel so jipped.

Chapter 2 results done. Need to revise chapter 3 with changes that one supervisor sent over. Then need to get a mooove on with chapter 2 discussion. Already 0.75 days behind. But should be on track for finishing. This however leads to laxity.

Making bi-daily updates is fun.

Trying to find a reference to cite for a simple statement like “alpha helices are stable” is not.

The sky is blue (Dog, pers. comm.).

The draft for chapter 2 is done. Chapter 2 has been swapped with chapter 3. Which means chapter 2 (the old chapter 3) still needs work, namely the intro, results and discussion. Eek! But hopefully there’s not that much to do for the intro, nor for the results. Not like the 20 or so colour plates containing a zillion images I had to do for chapter 3 (the old chapter 2). And not to mention me having a brain freeze and accidentally deleting a figure. Actually I overwrote the updated figure with the older, mostly empty backup. Drats!

My eyes have given up on me and now refuse to focus. I think I’ve gone partially cross-eyed from looking at the laptop screen for at least 3 weeks now. That’s waking up at 8, sitting on the computer and typing until 1 or 2 in the morning.

Needless to say, can’t wait till it’s all over.

But, scary as it sounds, I am looking forward to doing chapter 2. A change is as good as a holiday, perhaps. But I also want a holiday.

Oh man, that’s tighter than I thought. 2 weeks sounds so much longer than 13 days 17 hours. At least the main introduction is done, and the chapter 2 intro is done, and most of the chapter 2 methods are done, just need to compile the results into a respectable-looking format and start the discussion.

Chapter 3 still needs quite a bit of work. Nuts.

…and counting.

How cool is DHTML and Javascript? Ok maybe not that cool. Anyway, not long to go now. That’s a bad thing. Still have most of the introduction to write, a bit of methods, all the results and all the discussion. Stuffed? You bet.

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:

“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men - robbers, evildoers, adulterers - or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Luke 18:9-14 (NIV)

It’s not about the things we do, it’s about what we can’t do for ourselves - attaining right standing.