No days left! Just a part of a day. A large part, but still only a part.
Bit of a scare before. The printer stopped working, wasn’t communicating with the computer. *Gasp* But I think it’s a cable fault (what the heck, that never happens) because when I used another USB cable it worked fine. Strange stuff.
Meanwhile, the thesis is at 74 pages now, phew. Just going through a final draft looking for mistakes, of which there are probably a lot.
It’s scream time!
Lessons of the day: learn how to colour-match screen and printer output before crucial printing needs to be done. Also, laptop displays are very bad at reproducing colour. On the Photosmart 3110, the ICC profile that came with the updated printer drivers is the way to go, along with the ‘absolute colorimetric’ setting, whatever that means.
Still waiting for updates from my supervisor but I think she’s called it a day, so will have to wait until tomorrow morning. Then will need to frantically update the thesis with her corrections, send it around to supervisors for them to have a read, and then hopefully make final corrections, print and check over a final draft, and then should be done.
Well, save for all that printing. Publishing four copies of a 150 page thesis on two colour inkjets is quite, erm, interesting.
Oh how I wish it was all over. I’m sure my supervisors feel the same way.
I’m so sick of having to find references for stuff that is like, duh.
Second draft is done. It’s down to 86 pages, so 11 more to cut. Shouldn’t be too hard for my supervisors, they’re very experienced at chopping things.
Another thing I’ve realised much too late is the value of good (electronic) note taking while reading. It makes finding references so much easier. Electronic is good because it’s searchable. I started using EverNote, but it has quite a few limitations including its bodgy search function. It’s built on a good premise but has many user interface issues. Hopefully the new version they put out in the last few weeks is better.
Anyway, need sleep. Argh!
How time flies. Am I having fun? Well, by definition, I must be.
The MMB people hand in today. Mind you, their thesis is substantially shorter and their projects tend to be better executed, just because they’re an, erm, better endowed school.
Anyway, still making changes and cutting out lots of stuff. So much to do, so little time left. Why am I blogging then?
Just when I thought it was smooth sailing…
Went in to uni today to get face-to-face feedback from my supervisors. And was talking to a friend and she mentioned something about double spacing.
DOUBLE SPACING?!
Turns out my thesis as it stands is 25 pages over the limit. Great. I still need to make lots of changes to the expression, also add a fair bit of stuff to the discussion, move things around, and even re-analyse one of my results. Also need to make a new figure or two, change a few existing figures. Plus we need to chop away 25 pages worth of thesis.
It’s going to be a long weekend. And not the good type.
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.