A new normal

To my surprise I realised today that it has been five weeks since I submitted my PhD thesis. That means that for five weeks I've been sitting around doing nothing much. Honestly. I've watched a lot of daytime TV in my pyjamas (mostly cooking shows for some reason), attempted some cooking experiments (with varying levels of success) and walked/run on my treadmill a bit. That's pretty much it. It is strange how quickly I've become accustomed to this lifestyle and yet how much time has passed with nothing much accomplished. 

This is me. [via]

I don't like it.

I do think I needed a long break after all the stress of the final couple of months of my PhD. My brain is starting to come out of the fog though and I want to start being active again... and yet at the same time sitting around and being a hermit just seems easier. It's a weird state to be in considering how ambitious I usually am. 

The other difficulty is the uncertainty. Not knowing where/when/if I'll get a job is very unsettling, as this is the first time since I was around 15 that I've had no idea what's next.

At least I have some more undergraduate teaching lined up as of next week. Nothing big or permanent, but something to tide me over until I get some sort of grown up job. Fortunately I haven't been booted from the PhD office yet (often they make people give up their desks once they've submitted) so I may also try to finish writing up my papers when I'm at uni. 

Err, so yeah. That's what's going on with me. What have you been up to? :)

Booked.

Plane tickets and accommodation for my trip to the UK have been sorted! I'll be in London for about a week, and then heading up to Bangor in Wales for my neuroanatomy course. I'm supposed to be organising to meet with academics from different universities for while I'm in London, however it has been quite difficult to pin people down to agree to meet with me. It is a bit hard to get a job if I can't actually talk to anyone! I still have several weeks to go though so hopefully it will get sorted. If not I will have a fair bit of time on my hands in London. Unfortunately I will probably be a bit boring and use the time to work on writing my thesis. At least I've been to London twice before so I've seen many of the attractions already. Also from what the travel agent told me yesterday, even though the olympics will be over by the time I get there a lot of the visitors will still be around so the city will still be super packed. All the more reason to avoid the really popular places! I'm sure I'll find some cool places to write though, and definitely do not plan to be cooped up in the hotel the whole time.

While I do mean to mostly write while there, the place I've booked to stay at is right near the British Museum which I haven't visited before, and I am considering one of those big day tours (if they're not all booked out).There's one that goes to the Cotswolds which looks pretty amazing.

[from here]

Then of course there's the train trip up to Bangor (which is pretty northern) so I'll get a good chance to see the countryside then as well. I'm also very nerdishly excited about the neuroanatomy stuff too. 

So here I am again, thinking of the UK instead of focusing on my thesis... oops.

Switch

If you saw my previous post, I was all 'woo productivity' and 'yay thesis' (how annoying!). Well, that definitely isn't the sentiment this week. Both Monday and yesterday were complete write-offs and today has not started the best either. I'm attempting to work from home however it's almost time for me to make my overly time-consuming elaborate lunch so I can procrastinate further.

I'm not entirely sure how or why this switch occurs from going really well, to kind of crappy. Maybe I just need a break. At least I've been assured that this reaction is fairly common in PhD land!

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got this to prepare...

Just kidding, but it does actually look pretty good (from here). 

Does this sort of thing happen to you? What do you do to get back on track? I could definitely do with some tips! 

New Plans or Just Dreaming?

I've started to become a bit reluctant to share (on here, but also with others in person) what I think is potentially newsworthy in my life, since I realised (eventually - it had to happen sometime) that I often come up with grand schemes that don't always go anywhere. The "we're taking a giant trip to the USA" post comes to mind. We were originally going to go this September, then it was pushed back to sometime next year, and now... well not sure if it's happening to be honest.

However at the same time, I doubt I'm going to stop coming up with big plans, especially since they're so fun to think about. Also it's my blog so I can dream on it if I want to!

I'm still hoping to finish my PhD by the end of this year. The plans/dreams concern what I would be doing next year. Originally I was hoping to get a job at a neighbouring university, and therefore stay in Sydney. However when discussing this with my supervisor, she mentioned that it is quite difficult career-wise to stay in the same place. Universities want to hire academics from different countries, or at least people with experience working in another country. I ended up speaking to Husband about this, and he was surprisingly fine with us moving overseas if I got a post-doctoral position somewhere. Post-doc jobs typically last 2 years, and then we could come back to Sydney, and I might have a better chance of securing a permanent position here with the international experience.

London (from my pinterest board 'dreaming of the UK').

Thinking about this possibility allowed my wish to live in the UK to resurface. I would find it hard to move there forever as I'd miss people here too much, but knowing I could potentially stay there for a year or two would be lovely. So now in the next few months when I have to start looking for work for next year, the UK is going to be my first choice. The hard thing though is - in my head I've already moved there and am having a wonderful time. This just makes it that much more disappointing if it doesn't actually occur. 

Plus, well I suppose I should also work on making sure I do finish my PhD first! But dreaming of my possible adventures over there is much more enjoyable right now...

Bored people are boring.

Usually in January/February in my PhD office it is extremely quiet. The new PhD students don't start until March, and neither does teaching. A lot of people (not me, unfortunately) take this to mean they have an extended holiday. Also, besides a couple of weeks of summer school, there's no first year psychology students to experiment on. So really, all that leaves to do is writing. 

I am definitely keen to finish my thesis this year, but am expecting it won't be until the end of the year. I don't seem to go very well with long term goals like that. Also, with no teaching or testing, there's no real reason to go into the office as I can read and write at home. 

So here I am, at home. I try to work, but it just doesn't seem to happen. I could always set shorter goals for myself, e.g. write 1000 words today, but I can always rationalise those sorts of things. What happens if I don't write 1000 words today? Well, nothing. My supervisor is working on a paper I sent her, so she doesn't really need to see any other work from me right now. So I don't even have that as a motivation. I guess I need to recapture the initial excitement I had for this project - I was one of those nerds in my office who got started early on their PhD by coming in to work even when my office computer hadn't been delivered yet, and was pestering my supervisor for suggestions of readings to do. How I can feel that again however, I'm not sure right now. It's not that I hate my project now, but I have no new experiment findings to think about, and no new experiments to plan (all the experiments I'm doing for my thesis have been planned, some finished, and others started, but I now have to wait until March to continue).

So I have some questions for you:

- Do you ever have problems like this?

- What do you do to overcome motivation problems?

- What do you do to overcome procrastination problems? 

- What do you think of this picture?

[via imgur]

That's boring. You're boring everybody. Quit Boring Everyone!

Well now that I've prepared you for what may be a potentially boring post I will continue (though hopefully I haven't biased you towards viewing it as boring by saying that - am I over thinking this? Have I had too much caffeine? I'd say so). Anyway...

A while ago I read this article about nesting in the office. Some argue that having a clean and clutter-free work desk leads to more productivity, while others suggest that 'nesting' (having personal items, and work organised in a way that is however you want) can make you feel more comfortable and at 'home' and therefore that is more productive. I personally agree with the latter. I am so glad in the PhD office that we each get our own little cubicle that we can decorate however we want. Here's mine in case you're interested: 

Astute/regular readers will notice my 'motivational' Productive June Poster - Sleeping is for Unproductive Losers.

Much to my surprise, that plant (named Artemis Esq.) has been alive in my care since 2008!

This is Percy. He is my favourite solar-powered toy. His little head and feet move and everything!

As you can see, when it comes to decorating I am a seven year old child. I like lots of bright colours and toys. Some people may find it distracting to have all this stuff on their desk, but it just makes me feel like it is my place. Most of the time I forget it's there while I'm working, but it's a good quick mental break (and eye exercise people!) to look around at a variety of fun things.

What do you think? Is 'nesting' productive or unproductive? 

P.S. Thanks to those of you who submitted questions for my valuable 'advice'. I will work on answering some soon! There's still time to ask questions also - HERE!

P.P.S. I have a facebook methingy now! Take a look and be my friend please :)

Instead of marking...

...I'd much prefer to pretend I'm still away at the Blue Mountains. We had such a good time, that we didn't really want to come back yesterday. Even though it was cold, and rainy in parts we still managed to do a lot of looking around. Not to mention a lot of eating! There was also the small issue of me forgetting my bag. When we arrived at the B&B (which was lovely, and the owners were so nice), I realised that my bag of clothes, pyjamas etc. was still sitting at home. A big oops. So we did have to quickly find a clothes shop so I wouldn't be stuck in the same clothes for four days. 

We went to Echo Point, which is one of the best places to view the Three Sisters; Jenolan Caves, which was really cool; Scenic World (a bit of a lame name if you ask me but still interesting) where we got to ride the steepest incline railway in the world down to the valley and look around the rainforest of the mountains, and came back up via cable car; and we also looked around Leura, which is a nearby town which is very pretty and has lovely gardens called Everglade Gardens. It was a great early anniversary present, and Husband and I definitely want to go back ASAP - like tomorrow, please?

Click to enlarge

Here are some photos I took! Clockwise from top left: the gardens at our B&B; View of the Three Sisters from Echo Point; Inside Lucas Cave at the Jenolan Caves; Tulips from Everglades Gardens; Another shot of Lucas Cave; Outside Jenolan Caves.

Instead of packing...

...well here I am. I am very thankful that it is a long weekend this weekend, and as a semi-early 1st anniversary present (our actual anniversary is at the end of Oct) we are going away for the weekend to the Blue Mountains. Google maps tells me that it's less than 2 hours drive away from home, but as we suspect many people have similar plans in mind for the long weekend, traffic will be interesting to say the least. 

If you have never been to the Blue Mountains before, I highly suggest it. It looks like this:

Photo from here, because I'm pretty sure the photos I take this weekend won't be as good!

The only minor glitch is that when booking I thought "Hey, since Husband actually has Tuesday off from work too, we should stay Monday night too and come back Tuesday". So we went ahead and booked. Exactly five minutes after that I remembered: I tutor two two-hour classes on Tuesdays, and have for the whole semester. They start at 11am, so guess who's leaving early to get back in time. Oops. Anyhoo - hope you all have a good weekend :)

P.S. Well I just checked the weather forecast for tomorrow for the Blue Mountains. Top of 10°C (50°F) and rain. Hahah oh dear.

Meh - part 2.

Do you ever have one of those days where you have big plans to accomplish a lot, and then you suddenly realise you're halfway through the day already and you've done absolutely nothing? Clearly (since I'm writing this), this is me today. It's a bit of a shame really, because I've been quite productive as of late. 

If you do have days like this, how do you fix it? Do you just call the day a write-off and start afresh tomorrow? Do you have any motivational suggestions to get the day back on track?? 

Help me! Otherwise, I'm sure this will happen:

[source]

Ten Signs It's Not an Overly Productive Day in the Office

No I did not do this - I wish! [source]

1. You're the only person there (seriously, I am). 

2. Your plant is about to die from overwatering.

3. You've caught up on all the 'celebrity gossip' on people you don't actually know or care about.

4. All your notes contain elaborate drawings.

5. You google map directions to places you're not actually going (possibly ever).

6. You ate all your food for the day in the morning just for something to do.

7. You go through your friend's online photo albums and photoshop tiny moustaches on everyone (I haven't actually done this, but it does look fun - see here).

8. THIS: 

Yes, I actually made this. Pretty huh!

9. You decide to clean out the office fridge (UGH. I've never been that desperate. haha sorry EK if you see this!)

10. You decide to make a blog post entitled: Ten Signs It's Not an Overly Productive Day in the Office

...any you'd like to add?

Do You Tweet?

[via]

A few years ago, I started a twitter account, and promptly forgot all about it. I eventually deleted it as it seemed a bit pointless to me. However I've been seeing a lot more of it again these days, and am kind-of considering getting one again - but I'm not really sure why haha (procrastination, most likely).

So please tell me:

Do you have a twitter account?

What do you use it for? 

Is it worth it?

If I get a twitter, should I add you? :P


Update: So, I caved. Here it is.

Productive June Recap

[this is a pre-planned post as I'm currently in NYC being super productive at a conference!] 

click to enlarge

As I've mentioned earlier, it's become somewhat of a tradition in the PhD office to have 'Productive June' - a time of attempted increased productivity to make up for the lacklustre efforts of the preceding months. It involves guilt-inducing propaganda posters and everything. Since it's almost over, I thought I would give a bit of a recap of how it went for me, as well as give you some productivity helpers and hindrances. For me, Productive June went fairly well; I did a lot of work on analysing results for my experiment, and putting them together for my conference talk. There were some less-than-productive days in there too, but I feel I made up for that somewhat by working on the weekend a couple of times. How was your Productive June?

Now onto some productivity helps and hinders:

Kitten riding tortoise. That is all.

Happy Friday!! I dare you not to get the song stuck in your head...

Yet again more thanks to AR. Do you do any work!? :P

Productive June Starts TOMORROW!

So May was particularly unproductive in the first year of my PhD (that's sooo 2009, but anyway). Only being 2 months in, I thought that I'd be still madly reading and coming up with awesome ideas for my thesis, but the procrastination had already set in. Another PhD buddy and I even bought a whole-year pass to the uni gym as a way to get out of the office. Bad news is we procrastinated from that too and actually wasted a lot of money by not really going ever. Oops.

So as a way to get back on track, 'Productive June' was born. Basically this meant we put up propaganda posters to try and motivate/guilt us to do more work. It wasn't overly successful - because mostly we spent June making posters and running around to see if other people were being productive. Yet it somehow stuck. Last year was yet another 'successful' Productive June.

This May has actually been (well mostly) productive for me (read: me going AAARGH and running around like a crazy person because of all the deadlines I had to meet). So hopefully that will spill over into June. At the very least, the conference at the end of June (in NYC woo!) will be good. 

So without further ado, behold my propaganda posters (and mad putting text over clip art skillZ) - feel free to use them if you also need to be guilted into doing work this June.

Click to enlarge; Feel free to use these (with credit)

Any creative Productive June slogans you can think of? Let me know and I might make more posters (after I've finished being super-productive, of course)! :)

meh.

I have a very important talk on Friday - it's to the psych department at uni about all my PhD research so far. Also, I invited some important people in my area to come listen and give feedback. I'm now regretting doing that!

I think this cool picture sums up pretty well how I feel about working on this talk right now:

[source]

Thanks to TriGirl for pointing this out to me!

*Update: Talk finished, ended up going quite well. Thanks for the support :)

Marking on a Saturday - BLERGH.

[source]

So this semester I have been involved in teaching two courses - a Forensic Psychology course for Criminology Masters, and also 2nd year undergraduate Psych. It just so happens both had their major assignments due within a week of each other. So guess what I get to do on my weekends. Well actually at the moment the answer is procrastinate, of course. 

The one thing that has opened my eyes from marking though, is the variety of students that take the courses. When you're actually doing a course you really can only go by how much effort you're putting in to your assignments. So it's interesting to see the range of assignments from intimidatingly awesome (where I feel like they should be marking MY work, not the other way around), and unfortunately to the other end of the spectrum - laughably horrendous. I of course don't go into marking hoping to laugh, but sometimes it's either that or cry out of frustration. Year after year I go into a LOT of detail about what I'm expecting from the assignments, and year after year there are people who just don't listen to me and do it all wrong. So perhaps now you can understand why I'm off to sweep, do the washing, and whatever other chores I can think of!

This comic sums it up pretty nicely (click to enlarge)!

I applaud you if you actually stuck around for that whole gripe of mine. I'll write about something more interesting next time, I promise (well actually it's subjective as to whether you'd find it interesting but I can only hope hey)!

UPDATE: 3pm, lots of cleaning done, not so much on the marking however. Oops.

Attempt at Creativity

This is something I've been meaning to do for a while, but forgot all about. However after being re-inspired, and due to my wish to expand my ever-growing list of ways to procrastinate from uni work, here we are.

I wanted to make a collage of memorabilia from our honeymoon. When going through all the stuff, I remembered I also bought a bunch of post-cards from nearly every place we went, so now I have enough for two large frames. They're definitely not finished yet but I thought I would show where I was up to anyway. I'm very picky so it may actually be some time before I get them to how I want.

This one is from tickets, maps, guides etc. from Greece, Italy and the UK. Currently I think there's too much white, and kinda just looks like a school project. (click to enlarge)

These are all the postcards I bought, I am having a lot of trouble arranging them to how I'd like!

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

P.S. It's now finished! Check here for the result :)

Police Puppies!

[source]

Super cute. You can vote on facebook to name them! 

"They will play catch like regular dogs but instead of balls and sticks they will retrieve drugs and explosives and track down bodies." ... AWWW (?)

Read more here.

P.S. Thanks again to AR, purveyor of cute things.

A Day in the Life of a PhD Student Working from Home

10am: Wake up, feel bad for sleeping in so long, but decide to rest for 'just 10 more minutes'.

11am: Wake up again. Oops. Actually get up this time. Check email, look at blogs and facebook. 

11.30am: Feel bad about procrastinating so look at motivational blogs instead, think about doing some work. Instead check email, blogs and facebook again.

12pm: LUNCH! Better whip up the most elaborate thing you can think of, especially since you forgot breakfast. 

12.30pm: Notice all the things in the kitchen that need cleaning. Get started, realise this is boring and decide - should really do some work. Check email again. Hey, look at those fingernails - you should really file them (and paint...? yeh good idea).

1pm: This might be a good time to clean your desk. Also, does your computer need defragmenting, or some big virus scan that means you can't work on your computer? Better do that now. 

[Anide, this one's for you]

1.30pm: QUICK!! Something exciting might have happened on facebook! Check it now and get distracted stalking people you don't really like all that much. 

2pm: Ever wonder what happened to that celebrity who was in that thing a few years ago? Why not research that instead of PhD-related topics.  Alternative option: you should probably look up symptoms of that rare and dangerous disease you think you might be developing.

2.30pm: Is today the day to start that new exercise plan? YOU KNOW IT!!

3pm: Wait - this seems hard, and really you should be doing some work. Check email again.

3.30pm: Actually start doing work. 

4pm: Feel very accomplished for doing some work; check facebook as reward.

4.30pm: Husband returns home from work. "Why do you have to be so distracting and noisy? Can't you see I'm working very hard?!" Oh well... consider getting started on dinner?

5pm: Start making elaborate dinner. Feel a bit bad about uni work, but people need to eat don't they!

7pm: Dinner; Throw out the idea of doing any more work today - at least you did that little bit, it was like 4 hours or so wasn't it? Right? Relax for the rest of the evening with big plans for PhD work tomorrow.

P.S. Yes I am working from home today - how did you guess?! :P

Made my day!

A cat playing with dolphins - awwww.

That is all.

P.S. Thanks AR for sending me this! :)