Time it took me to write two pages of my thesis: about an hour over coffee at the local coffee place.
Time it took me to find, print, catalogue, read, and cite the proper references for what I wrote in one paragraph of those two pages: about seven hours.
It would have been faster if my internet connection wasn’t so crappy. I have to reconnect every few seconds. Then I called my provider and found out it was on my side of the cable modem. Then I emptied an entire cabinet (everything is still on the floor) to find another ethernet cable. That didn’t fix it. Then I surfed a bunch of Mac forums and learned that I should visit an “Apple genius” at the Apple store. It’s been wonky since April, but some days are worse than others. Everything is fine now that I restarted everything again, but it’s still annoying. I need my internet to find/catalog my papers!
The next few paragraphs are about things I have all the references for, so that should be a lot faster.
I also notice that I lack all motivation to write anything other than my thesis, but I had foreseen that. I’m only writing one piece for CRAM Science right now, about a topic related to my thesis, and other than that I won’t be doing any writing on the side until this thesis is out of the way (Although I’m waiting on edits for a piece, but edits are easy). (And blogging aside, but that’s a different, easier kind of writing). I could never have combined thesis-writing with the research-heavy stuff I did for ReGenesis. On the other hand, I could have (and would have) started writing my thesis earlier if I hadn’t had that job.
But despite all this, I’m still having fun! I also don’t hate labwork as much now that I don’t have to. Next week is very busy on the social front so I’ll have to write in the mornings, and I’m not good at that at all. We’ll see how that goes. I’m an evening person. I don’t function until about 2 PM, but I can easily work past midnight. It doesn’t matter how much I’ve slept, or how early I get up or how much coffee I have. I’m more alert at 2 AM after a few beers than at 9 AM after a good night’s sleep. Speaking of which, I should try to get one of those.
Yeah, digging out references is always a pain. My drafts get littered with “(REF)”. One once even gave me a yellow card.
I also notice that I lack all motivation to write anything other than my thesis
Bloody hell. You should see a doctor.
“I’m more alert at 2 AM after a few beers than at 9 AM after a good night’s sleep. Speaking of which, I should try to get one of those.”
The good night’s sleep, or the beer?
Cath, I knew someone would point out that ambiguous sentence and deliberately left it open for interpretation. I had both in the past 24 hours, but was initially aiming for sleep.