Time for an update..!

I haven't updated my blog in ages. I cannot remember what I last blogged about. But here it goes. I appologise in advance for the waffle. This is not a thesis so I can say what I want!

Outreach :-)

I arranged an event called Blood on the Kitchen floor which was totally awesome. It helped the university win an award. Check out the details: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/about/news/2414

It was fabulous. We will be organising another one so keep your eyes and ears open... I am VERY excited!

PhD

Well I finally submitted my PhD thesis (yes it took bloody ages I know!). I am currently reading through it and cringing at my awful mistakes! I am going through and correcting these so I know what they are in time for the viva. There are just so many. I cannot believe how I missed them. But if you saw me or interacted with me on the days prior to submission will probably be able to realise why! I was a wreck! A tip to anyone writing up: Everything you say you will do later... do now because it will only come back and bite you in the bum. Label you diagrams etc because those tasks take ages. I am bloody brickin the viva. Its so scary. I just have this awful feeling that I'll fail but if that happens I will just have to deal with it but hopefully it will be OK. Everyone tells you that its unlikely you will fail if you get to this stage but that insecurity is there no matter what anyone says. I think everyone feels like this. Everyone feels like their thesis is crap - but extra crap, its worse than anyone else's thesis and you actually end up thinking 'why was this ever a good idea? why is my supervisor making me do this? is it worth it?!'... doing a PhD is not easy... i know everyone knows that but its good to remind yourself of that when its getting a bit difficult. Everyone has to do it, you have to have a viva to get a PhD, so its normal. It kind of feels like your being plunged into this shark pool where people are going to eat you up and you HAVE to do it. How do you survive without getting eaten up?! Obviously I do want to pass, I do want a PhD, I just wish I could have made my thesis better... but I will just have to suck it up and deal with it... I wonder whats going to happen.... watch this space!!!

Life

Everything is as ok as it can be...........

Lots of Love

A very stressed PhD student !