Let's pull your shit together!

It's enough resenting! It's enough blaming! It's enough getting angry and frustrated and stuff! Missing a deadline or not, being disappointing at myself or not, being pissed off and upset and everything that I have experienced during the past months/year, let's put that all aside. Let's put everything aside and reset. Let imagine that I am starting from zero. What do I want to do?

I know, there are two things I absolutely want to do:
1- Defend my thesis before January 1, 2018
2- Do a good job teaching the course

This means I absolutely need to focus on these two tasks and make sure that I do them, the way that I want to do them.

I need to AVOID ALL DISTRACTION at all cost. Whatever it takes me to do them justice.

I will survive... Yeh yeh...

These past couple of days have been crippling. And today, I almost collapsed. But never mind. I will get up again. Let's be positive.

Anxious, stressed and all that sort of stuff! Need help...

I'm anxious, stressed and in no way I can see myself at the point of finishing my PhD. It really put pressure on me now. I really need to start writing things to complete my manuscript. This is no longer acceptable and is hurting me too much. What should I do? What should I do? Need help... Need help...

I feel like a piece of shit today!

I feel really bad today! Like a piece of shit! And the worst thing is; I don't want to get rid of that because I think I deserve it! It hurts... It needs to hurt...

Whatever does not kill me makes me stronger!

Today, I've had a meeting with AD and CM. I presented my results and ideas. In general, it wasn't ideal. They agreed with some of my arguments but it was far from what I was hoping for. Maybe to make this a nice paper I will need more work to be done. However, as I said before, it's really time for me to move on. So, maybe I'll do my best to make this a proper manuscript, but in the end, this will be a chapter in my thesis. Later, I can work more on it to make it journal worthy publication.

I need to constantly remind myself not to be a perfectionist and work towards completion and not necessarily perfection. I quite like that quote: "work towards completion and not necessarily perfection!" I need to have plan, stay focused and work hard. I must not allow distraction, disappointment and doubts to occupy my mind at this time. There are all hindrances which prevent me from reaching my goals. So, whatever does not kill me makes me stronger!

Speaking of goals, I quite like the idea of having my health goals on the side. This help me keep focused as well as reaching my short-time goals gives me a sense of satisfaction. Writing this blogs helps a lot as well though! :-)

What are my health goals? The ultimate one at this point is hitting 70 kg mark. Oh, even thinking of that gives me a pleasureful sense of satisfaction! That's a side effect of being under continuous external and internal criticism for being overweight all my life. It's so important to me, it gives me happiness seeing it happens. A lot of happiness!

Concentrate kid! Concentrate!

Yesterday! It was not ideal, but at least I managed to gather some resources and give some thoughts to the manuscript. I was serious and worked better that my average in the past.

Today, I need to be more consistent and work on my tasks. Same as before, there are three main tasks: write the introduction, write the methodology, prepare the presentation. I gathered some notes and ideas that I need to work further on today.

I really, seriously need to maintain my focus in order to not to loose it. While I am in focus mode, I can really get a lot of things done. Unfortunately, I am not able to maintain that for long yet, but I am getting better at it and this blogging certainly helps a lot.

So today, I will do all those things and also I will not forget my exercise!

Keep up buddy! Do not think about distraction too much. Focus! Concentrate kid! Concentrate!

P.S. keep up the good work with amazing results in weight loss! I know now that I can. Just need commitment, consistence and concentration. Keep up!

Working on a paper like this!

Okay, it was planned like this: I will prepare a presentation to show to my supervisors and discuss the potential outline of the paper and most important conclusions. Then I will prepare the paper based on what we agree upon.

Now, the question is: how do I approach this preparation process?

There are certain things to be done: one, I need to write the Introduction and methodology parts. This is possible without having to go through the results. So this two section task is to be done by Thursday. Two, I will need to go through a few sample papers and see what do they contain. I will need to use my presentations from Plasma-Quebec and ITSC 2017 and prepare the presentation. This is the scary parts since I am not confident that I have an interesting story to tell. But I must not give up and I would have to continue pushing to finish the whole thing. Even if the final result is not a journal worthy article, at least I will have completed another chapter of my thesis.

So here's the summary:
1- Write the introduction section.
2- Write the methodology section.
3- Read a couple of examples of similar works and PQ & ITSC slides, then prepare the presentation for Thursday.

Now, I'm tired and I want to go home. I will continue my work from home tonight.

Bye ...

So, it has begun!

So ...

I have decided that I want to defend my thesis and finish my PhD in 2017!

I am writing this to organize my thoughts and create a semi-plan for the coming week.

First of all, I thought that to be able to do this, I need to submit my thesis by October 15. This means I have 9 weeks left which is pretty scary! But I need to do it, so no escape there and hence the name 63 days. See 9 weeks, 63 days, that's what I have and I need to be incredibly organized, focus and efficient in these 9 weeks like I have never been in my entire life.

Let's divide the whole plan into three stages: stage one, priorities and timetable; stage two, detail of the plan; and stage three, strategies. Let's begin ...

Stage one, priorities and timetable
to be able to submit my thesis, I have to finish writing its components. The remaining components are the "splatology" chapter and the performance chapter, revising the introduction and writing conclusions etc. Oh it's a lot, but don't panic and don't get discouraged as well. let's see...

Over all, until the end of 2017, I have two main priorities: one finish my thesis, and two teaching my course. Everything else is just distraction that needs to dealt with in the proper manner.

For "splatology" paper, I need to bring my thoughts together. The plan is to prepare a story board (a.k.a. presentation) and discuss it with AD and CM on Thursday. This way I will have a road map to follow for writing. Meanwhile, I can write the introduction and methodology parts to save time.

For "performance" paper, I have had plans for long. Now, I can use the same strategy i.e. create the story board, then start writing the chapter. The good thing is that it does not necessarily have to be submit-ready version to be able to put it into thesis.

For the rest of the thesis, I really need to spend time on preparing the introduction part and the whole template.

For the course, this is probably the easiest part, but I need to have a complete plan to make sure I do not miss any points in creating a nice course and get really good evaluations here.

So, it has begun like this. I will post hopefully everyday to keep myself motivated and keep my mind organized.