Sorry. Am I being stupid, what is the prize?

Do you ever feel so knackered and run down with life issues that you just cant even look at a book or your word doc? Thats me today. I'm going for a swim and maybe do some work tonight but an even worse dilemma has occurred: I have forced myself through the melancholy of the first 100 pages of Crime and Punishment and now that 'its' happened I can't put it down.... Suggestions?

Hi Sue

Please don't think I meant to be rude in my reply. I was just trying to help and hadn't intended to make out that you never went out at all!

Hey guys thanks. Do you think three months of my last two years wasted will be too much wasted to be able to finish. I know its hard to say but a rough guess?

Sue - I know exactly how you feel. I live away from my Institution and work at home, in a really small city where most people do not even know what a PhD is, let alone not having money at 28! I spend most of my time at home (trying to do) writing my thesis and have forgotten what interaction with people in the real world even is. When I am out, I just take the best of it as I can but no one really gets is at all because they work and have clear definition. But I think the alternative would be worse, imagine loads of structure and becoming a jobs worth?! No thanks, I enjoy my freedom.
A word of warning though. Having seen several colleagues finish writing, there is the danger of not getting the balance of writing up and living your life. I say this as I have just come back from a really enjoyable jog around the town and it made me feel part of society again. You see people 'living' their lives and you feel like you have been out and done something different. I also enjoy taking photographs of nature as it is also completely different and gets me out into a different place. I do think that sometimes as you become so deep into your own stuff, people cant understand so it is good to talk about what you do have in common.

I'm not sure I even had any social skills at all before this but oh well!! Good luck and just be you.

Hi all

I am at the end of my second year and I just can't seem to get into any sort of flow or routine with my writing up. I just keep finding excuses to no write or read and fill my hours with other 'really, really important things' that need done. I feel like I have no motivation at all to finish it and recently felt close to quitting the thing for good to put some of my other more life experiential skills into practice in the real world. In short, I feel like I have lost the passion for it.

I was just wondering if any of you have had similar experience(s) and if you had any tips about how to plough through the thing. I am back three months now from my field research and am trying to write up my history/ context chapter by January to be 'upgraded' at Uni but I cant help but see the mountain and not the small piles...

AGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!:-s