Final year

So here goes. In two days I end my holiday and begin a serious push towards completing my PhD. By the end of this year I should be a doctor. In the short term I've got to produce two chapters worth of content over the next 5-6 months, and then write them up to go with the two chapters I've got so far.

Obviously four chapters might not sound terribly impressive with those who are not familiar with doctoral thesis. I'm not entirely sure what the average is, or if anyone even collects statistics on that sort of things, but thesises (theses? thesiss? Or just thesis?) tend to be around a hundred A4 pages or so, although some of that may be filled with tables of data. Certainly mine will, as I don't intend to prove things. I'll go into the current contents of my theoretical thesis in another post, for those of you who are already drooling at the prospect of hearing about my research.

The problem with original research is that it is just that: original, meaning no-one has done it before. As a result, its not impossible to get stuck, as I have on my current problem. Over the next three months I have to try and resolve these problems and get results, or face being seriously behind schedule. The time up to Christmas was an attempt to solve these problems, and I've certainly encountered some solutions, although I would like to be further along- the problem, which again I'll talk more about in future, is actually pretty interesting and could stand a lot of exploration, if I could get past the hurdles that are currently proving insurmountable. Along with that I'll be preparing a presentation which I'll be giving at a conference in the first week of march, which will be my first at a serious conference. Oh, and during this period I've also got to create a poster for laypeople. So all in all, somewhat busy!

Mission Statement

Hi there,

I'm starting yet another blog. The goal, such as it is, is to produce a focused, more dedicated blog, unlike a more general blog at lies, damn lies, which is a sort of repository for my thoughts.

The aim of this blog is to give a bit of insight into the final year of my PhD: what its like, how it feels, my triumphs and failures. It'll be in some ways a diary, but hopefully written in such a way that its accessible to the interested reader, and I may, if the mod takes me, dedicate some posts to some interesting topics in statistics.

I'm going to aim to update several times a week- ballpark three, but we'll see how that goes. I hope you enjoy yourselves.