All entries for Thursday 01 March 2012

Bored of work – by Elle

So its been a little while since I wrote a blog, and I'm not really sure why I haven't. I haven't been doing much else with my time, or so it seems. I don't have any instrument time available to run experiments until April at the earliest, and so I'm trying to do other things to fill my time - organising conference travel/accommodation, writing abstracts, writing a presentation/poster, producing (shock horror) a thesis plan. This last bit was definitely the scariest, but its been sat in a corner ever since while I procrastinate with other things.

I took on an extra two days of demonstrating this week, and I've got more to do next week which will fill some of my time, but in some ways I would rather have a block of days with nothing planned where I can sit down and really focus on padding out the thesis plan with some text. I could write the first two chapters now as they are both introduction type chapters and aren't really going to change much over the next 6 months. I could have written chapter 1 in my first year, but of course I didn't. I don't know how to start, I think that is the problem. I think I am also put off knowing that even if I do sit down and write something, it will get put on hold in a days time while I do something else.

Its making getting up in the morning and going into the lab pretty frustrating and demotivating.

I'm off to my industrial sponsor for a placement next week, backwards and forwards between Warwick and Cheshire for a bit, but I don't know how I'm getting there or where I am staying yet so it doesn't feel real. I think once I get there I might get some motivation back for my PhD, but at the minute I am definitely just plodding along...

P.S. sorry for the fed up blogging! I'll get back into it soon...

Eleanor Blatherwick : 01 Mar 2012 08:00 |  Tags: Elle PhD Student Research Slump Work-Life Balance |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem