Overview of mathkitty

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Second year accountability thread
M

Thanks Eska and KC. Made it through the meeting and was so exhausted and ill I flumped on the couch for the rest of the day, just doing a little writing on the meeting work before bed. Feeling better today and have piles of work for the next meeting on Monday. Tomatoes are great for goal setting and motivation. Wish I had them in my first year when concrete goals were harder!

Eska, think I'm the opposite of you for working style, I get warmed up as the day goes on and hit my stride around 11/12 at night, when I've to head to bed. The joys of married life and phd don't always combine so well!

You are so lucky KC heading to strictly come dancing! My husband used to tape these for me and we would watch them then when my work was finished for a day. Really got him interested in dancing too which is great!

So goals for Monday:
Understand the two cases of theorem so far
Write these up and type it in
Rewrite the latest case in original terminology
Check the details of paper X
Try to generalise to the next case!

Somewhat unrealistic goals and so much involved in each one but I'll be trying along those lines.
Hardest thing will be working full days over the weekend, always bad at that when Himself is around.

Second year accountability thread
M

Argh! Ended up having to do a translation for someone else so have just enough time to head to meeting, eating as I go, completely unprepared! Bad day :(

Second year accountability thread
M

Wow a thesis outline! Go Eska! Hope yourself and KC keep up the good work. It's really been helping me to keep at it. Feeling really poorly today and have to meet the sup for a long meeting. No idea how I'll get my 10 tomatoes done, or the work for the meeting. But I'll certainly try to!

Sneaks' accountability thread
M

Best of luck with the victim and I'll be waiting to hear how you get on with your introduction! Sick victim myself today but trying to persevere with work anyway.

Getting emotional support for PhD students
M

Check the end of chapter 7 (pg104) The Dissertation Support Group, in 'Writing you Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day' by Joan Bolker.

My university has nothing like this, neither does my faculty or department. Several attempts of setting it up within the department either degraded into social discussions (non phd related) or people stopped attending.

Best of luck!

academic integrity
M

This is a pet hate of mine. If you modify the data set then you are changing the original experiment and any statistics lose their significance. There are certain measures you can use which minimise the effect of outliers but removing them entirely (unless there is real cause, eg that was the petri dish accidentally left on the radiator for an hour) is as good as making up your results, statistically. Of course when discussing results, in a paper or thesis, one focuses on the interesting ones or makes things seem more important than they are, with words, or maybe uses certain measures to get the best representation of the data. This is not the same as claiming statistical significance when it's not there. Completely understand why people do it though.

Sneaks' accountability thread
M

Perhaps a small snack? To pep you up enough to work until he's gone? Well done on the paragraph!

writing style- arrrgh!
M

I find a good writing style and depth of language very difficult in my area because so many ordinary words have precise definitions. It's like someone chopped all the most useful descriptive words out of the dictionary! Usually 'clumsy' is how I would describe writing I consider imprecise grammatically or not approaching the crux of the argument in the most elegant fashion, coming at it from the wrong angle.

Sneaks' accountability thread
M

That's so frustrating! I give myself a little star on my reward chart for every day I write. It's very easy for me to get stuck reading or checking details and examples. The stars make me spend a least a little time really writing everyday. Hope today goes better for you!

Teek's word count
M

Trying to do the same thing this week Teek. Morning faffing is a pain! Best of luck with tomatoes and word count!

Pancakes!
M

Sneaks I am exactly the same. We only ever have pancakes once a year so I like to make the most of it! LOVE them! I also have some batter left over so to not be wasteful I'll have two days of pancakes this year :) Maybe savoury ones later...

Second year accountability thread
M

Well done Keep_Calm!

My three week aims got completely thrown off by my supervisor bringing me back to an older topic to further it on. So I'm trying to work on at least three projects at the moment and getting a bit confused. Made some plans yesterday and meant to post the goals here but forgot :$

this weeks goals are:
write every day.
min 10 tomatoes every day.

More specifically for Thursday:
Check details of new work.
Write notes on newer parts.
Understand new proofs.
Prepare for meeting

Then for next Monday:
Test the code (still on my list!)
Get real results.
Write report of work on this project.

That's certainly plenty of work but I really need some chair glue! (to keep me in my seat at my desk)

Pancakes!
M

None yet but the batter is almost ready and I intend to experiment with fruit, spices and of course chocolate dots :)

Day off sick - what do you do?
M

Almost wish I was sick so I could watch the ice-skating. Tempted to tape them and save them for my few days off at Easter :-) I love the winter Olympics.

The what I have left to do thread...
M

Firstly: *HUG*

My thesis has no structure or content as yet so the best I can offer at the time being is

Thesis: 2% done.

No papers, chapters or title yet! I've a few months longer than you, but not that much.

You're doing well just keep doing the tiny tasks and they'll all build up.
Can't wait for your next update where the percentages increase!