Earthdownunder

A new adventure has started in my life. With the PhD off to the land of marking I have left Wollongong to travel Australia for six months looking at rocks. Of course there are a couple of new blogs you can follow for this stage of life 
http://earthdownunder.blogspot.com.au/

or
http://earthdownunder.wordpress.com/

We all wiped away the tears as we said farewell to our dog Alex. Due to dogs not being welcomed in National Parks he just couldn't come too.  Luckily a lovely family is looking after our house, dog and life whilst we're away.

First night we stayed at Albury horse equestrian club. We know little about horses. 

The next day the kids learnt about real life minecraft by experiencing underground mines and gold panning in Bendigo. Schooling was a challenge today - we got there with giggles and amazing resources from Sydney Distance Education School.

Printing

Last Friday I printed the thesis for examination. To celebrate I headed off to Waterfall Gully to hike up Mount Lofty (8km return). My flight back to Sydney left that afternoon and I figured I had plenty of time. Well, I locked the keys in the boot of the car- whoops. Closing of the boot occurred in slow motion as I realised what I had done. Help took 1.5hrs to arrive with a spare key. I still managed to fit the walk in then flew home a free person. No more thesis to write or corrections to do (for a long while). I've many signatures to track down before I submit. Not long now ; )

 

 

Waterfall Gully at the base of Mount Lofty

 

Mount Lofty Lookout

 

 

 

Lofty Ranges

Exciting times indeed

My entire draft thesis was emailed to my supervisor on Friday. What a great feeling. Tomorrow I can go to the beach, shop, swim, ride or whatever I feel like. It's the first real holiday feeling where there is no point working on my studies. LOVE IT!! Freedom for a week...

Mount Bold Reservoir 4 months after the 2007 wildfire

The hare and the tortoise

Been a bit slack on the home readers lately. This morning I ignored the mess and made some time for my little man. What an appropriate story to be reading today "the hare and the tortoise". I'm still trying to work out whether I've been a  hare or tortoise with this never ending PhD. Definitely the tortoise when it comes to pace- plodding along continuously and slowly. It feels like I must of taken a huge rest like the hare but truly that is not the case. Each week something progressed on the PhD, maybe not as quick as I would of preferred.  The finish line is getting closer. I had a minor melt down the other day thinking it will never end and that I could not spend another day on it. I'm hoping it's like the transition phase with birth. Just when its all too much its time for the little head to pop out. Fingers crossed. I wrote the conclusion last week. Geez that felt good!!!!!!!!!

Silkworms

Have you ever watched a silkworm spin a cocoon? Tranquil - yet lots of work. The last few weeks PhD-procrastination effort has involved a short walk to the local uni carpark to pick a few mulberry leaves to feed the worms. Ok I get strange looks and the odd question, I'm fairly used to that outcome in life. The worms hatched in June (of course we forgot about them) so only half survived the year long wait to emerge from the envelop in our pantry. Starvation probably beats last years culling effort - I fed the excess worms to the chooks. My Mum used to keep silk worms when we were kids and for some reason I have followed the tradition. Our boys know about the life cycle, watching with varying levels of interest as the worms grow from being a millimetre in size to the current 7cm fat caterpillars. Just last night two started to weave their cocoons. Its time to place more egg cups in the box so they have a safe spot to build their sleepy homes ready to emerge as moths for the fun-reproductive stage of life ; )

I woke with a cold this morning. Great excuse to hang with the boys rather than bury my head into statistics. We'll visit the local growers market, change the silkworms home with clean newspaper, play computer games, build bionicles and dare to shop for school shoes. I remember a motivational speaker at school who recommended doing the ironing when you were sick as you may aswell get the horrid jobs out of the way when you feel awful. She also kindly referred to buckets of chips as buckets of fat. Yes she was the famous nutritionist, Rosemary Stanton who was the Mum of numerous kids at our school. Back then she wasn't as well know as she is today. I tend to use sick days as no thinking days - these normally turn into fun-productive homedays.

Failure

Alas it's official, I've failed to complete my thesis before my candidature ran out. It appears to not be possible to finish a PhD whilst raising three kids, remaining married, birthing a child and moving interstate. Tomorrow my PhD is due- whoops. I still need to finish a paper and the discussion - there is no way I can hand it in.

Tears ran down my face today at the school assembly. I tried really hard to not let anyone realise I was crying. It dawned on me that what I was experiencing at school was worth the wait. My eldest son (10yr old) played the piano at the start of the assembly. I was so proud of him. He volunteered to do it and he played beautifully. He is no Mozart but the Boogie jazz piece he played off by heart made me proud. I wish I had the confidence like him to just give it a go. I watched the kids dance and sing, entertaining all the proud parents in attendance. I was so happy to have the opportunity to see them. It's been lovely watching the kids grow over the past 7.5 years. Just last week the kids dressed up for bookweek. I took an hour away from study to watch the parade. An hour well spent : ) Being a part of the kids life was the type of parent I wanted to be. I can accept an unfinished PhD knowing I managed to be there for most of the little moments such as assembly today.

I'm sure the tears were provoked by my knowledge of the eminent failure. At the assembly I felt anything but a failure. I felt like a proud mother of three gorgeous boys. Ok I failed to finish my PhD before my candidature ran out. Life and family is worth this slight failure. Luckily I have one years extension on my candidature so I'll still finish the PhD monster. Stay tuned- its getting close!

Aims or objectives or hypothesis or goal or enlightenment= 42

The answer is 42. If only we knew the question. Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy is a classic book that seems to answer why a PhD thesis is so difficult. If we know the answer then we need to know the question. Neither is easy to define. Today I have put the entire day aside to make my thesis aims and objectives clear.

Studying across three differing universities makes the "simple" (lol) task of writing my aims seem impossible. Everyone has differing views and styles. Hmmmm which one is correct? Well that is the beauty of it, clearly if no one agrees then there is not a black and white answer. The main thing is to make them clear so the reader can work out what you are attempting to do and so the discussion can link nicely back into them.  I'd be fascinated to hear if any student used the same aims/objectives in their final thesis as they did in their proposal. Your ideas are refined during your candidature and it's unlikely they are the same at the end as when you started. If they were the same as your proposal was the journey really worth it? Did you learn on the way?

So in order to better work out the ideal "aim" I've been procrastinating by searching the web. Here are some interesting sites I found- just to fuel your own procrastination. If you know some good sites for thesis writing - especially  aims -please leave a comment.

How to write a PhD thesis

http://3monththesis.com/how-to-write-a-phd-thesis/

 

What is a Thesis Statement?

http://www.experiment-resources.com/what-is-a-thesis-statement.html

How to Write a Thesis:

http://ciips.ee.uwa.edu.au/pub/HowToWriteAThesis.pdf 

 

Marias Diploma and Ph.D Thesis writing suggestions

http://www.genetik.uni-koeln.de/groups/Leptin/links/thesis/Thesis_writing_rules.htm

 

Writing a thesis proposal

http://sydney.edu.au/stuserv/documents/thesisproposal.pdf

 

10 easy ways to fail a Ph.D.

http://matt.might.net/articles/ways-to-fail-a-phd/

Aims, Objectives and Guidelines for PhD Students

http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/Teaching/learning/phd-guidelines.html

Planning a PhD: Getting Your Research aim/question Right

http://www.brighthub.com/education/postgraduate/articles/68825.aspx

With this small selection of web-sites and numerous completed PhD thesis to guide me I'm a step closer to knowing the question, but then again maybe my answer isn't 42.