Making progress

I’m up to about 9000 words now. Not bad. The whole thing has to be 8000 – so there will have to be some trimming and rationalising and reorganisation, but that’s do-able. I have to finish the background, and write my abstract and conclusion. Then to proof-reading. I think I’ve pretty much had it with the critical appraisal section. It’s as good as it’s going to be. It makes my brain hurt reading it, and I can’t bear to go through it again. Anyway, I reckon I’m well on track to being finished on time so that’s Very Good.

Obviously I haven’t been doing anything else this weekend, and it’s back to work tomorrow, so I don’t really have a great deal to report. Newt and I discussed The Plan now that we know where I’ll be working, and at the moment we’re still planning to move over the border to Lancashire. Will mean that Newt’s travel costs and time are greatly reduced, and it makes little difference to me in terms of travelling, as I’m on the road at stupid hours of the day and night when most other people are either still in bed, or safely at home watching TV. At the moment the plan is to start clearing out the house around the end of August (when I’ve handed everything in), and then probably put the house on the market when we get back from holiday in September. Then I suppose it’s just a matter of waiting and hoping that someone wants to buy our house, and that we can find a house that we like and can afford.

I should be turning into a much nicer person by the end of the week, and also one with a bit more time on her hands, so I will definitely get round to posting some pictures of Newt’s Dr Who scarf in progress, my shawl, and the scarf I finished a while ago! But now, back to critical colonisation of wounds….

Finally some progress!

My entire dissertation is now 7859 word long. It needs to be 8000. OK, so this is a bit misleading because the 7859 includes appendices and notes and all sorts that won’t be in the final word count. But it definitely shows that progress is being made. My appraisal section is currently running at over 4000 words – which seems a little on the heavy side, so that may need some trimming down. We’ll see what it looks like when I’ve written my background, introduction, conclusion and so on.

I’ve also discovered that Research Methods in Health is not only the most useless book I’ve ever spent thirty quid on, it is also the smelliest. It stinks of fish for some reason, probably best not to go there…..

Stangely I’m also making good progress on the wrap that I’m knitting – after I’ve written some of my project, I take a short break and knit a few rows. This approach really seems to be working – progress on both counts!

So, my plan for the next few days.
Today: write introduction and background (should be do-able because I know what I’m writing, just need to get it on paper)
Tomorrow: write implications for practice and conclusion, and review critical appraisal
Monday and Tuesday: review whole document and try to make it ‘flow’, and probably try to reduce the word count to a manageable level
Wednesday: final proofreading and formatting
Thursday: take entire thing to media services and get them to print and bind it
then HAND IT IN!!!

So, at least I have a plan. Now I just need to stick to it.

Well, I’ve got a job!

My feelings about it are all a bit muddled though. Basically, I applied for two trusts, and purely due to geographical location, this was my second choice. Within this trust, there are two hospitals, and the hospital where I’ve been offered a job, again is my second choice – simply because I’ve worked at the other one, and I know that I like it there.

So while I’m really pleased that I’ve actually got a job to go to, I can’t help being a bit disappointed that it isn’t at the other hospital, and that I didn’t even get an interview at my first choice trust.

I’m sure once I get it all sorted, and I’m not so emotional, I’ll be much happier about it. So provided I pass my course, in October, I’ll be a fully qualified, practising Midwife!

Interview

I had a job interview today. All in all, I thought it went OK. Unfortunately, they were interviewing a lot of people, for very few jobs, so I’m not all that optimistic about my chances. Also, while I was there, I was chatting to one of the other interviewees, who I know from previous placements, and she has an interview in a couple of weeks at another place where I’d applied to. So it’s not looking great for me getting a job there either. And the third place that I’d thought of applying to is still saying that there are no jobs available. I’m sure I’ll find something, but it may not be where I want, or as soon as I want! They said they’d let me know about this job by the end of the week, so keep your fingers crossed for me!!

Christening

Newt and I went to our Godson’s Christening this weekend. Photos are here for those who want to see them.

We had a really great time. It was gorgeous weather, and the hall for the reception was beautiful, with really lovely grounds. And best of all, it was a break from my dissertation.

On that subject, things aren’t really going all that well, I have to admit. I have nine days left, and I still don’t really feel as though I understand enough about research processes to be able to critique the papers that I’m reviewing properly. For example, I don’t know whether the studies are descriptive or correlational (or a bit of both?), and whether they’ve used a cohort sample, or a population based sample, or whether I’m just making those things up!!! I’m hoping that as long as my logic is reasonable, I won’t get too heavily penalised if the terms I use aren’t technically completely accurate.

I’ve also got an interview on Thursday that I’m a bit nervous about. I went out and bought a suit today, so at least I now know what I’m wearing. I’m just concerned that it’s come at a bad time (with the dissertation looming) and so I won’t be able to prepare for it as well as I might like. Ah well, I’ll just have to do my best, and hope that it’s good enough.

Computer crises

Over the last two weeks I’ve had horrible computer problems. It’s all a very long story that I won’t bore you with, but in short – my computer got a virus and died. I convinced Mr Newt to let me borrow his, then with the help of NTL tech support, I broke that. Mr Newt mended that, and now I’m almost back to normal. I can’t print at the moment, and Endnote crashes quite frequently, but at least I can now open Word and the internet simultaneously.

Amazingly, I haven’t had a nervous breakdown. I have fifteen days to write my dissertation. I also have to work full time and go away for the weekend to a Christening during that time. Not good. Not good at all.

Dr Who scarf problems

I’ve knitted about 190 rows of Newt’s Dr Who scarf so far, and have realised that it’s not quite right. I didn’t bother to do a tension square, because I thought it doesn’t really matter for a scarf, and I don’t think my tension is usually that way off anyway.

But, based on what I’ve done so far, I’ve calculated that the final length will be just short of eight feet long. Waaaaay shorter than it’s supposed to be. Partly this is due to my tension being out, and partly because I’m knitting the scarf in acrylic yarn for economic reasons(!) which means that I won’t be able to block it to size.

I did ask Newt whether he wants me to start again using bigger needles, and maybe using the pattern from season 16 which seems to be longer. He says no. But I’m very much not happy. I’m far more of a perfectionist, and whilst Mr Newt might be happy with a longish stripy scarf, I’m not.

So. I think the plan will be to carry on with this scarf as it is. Then do a proper tension square with this cheap DK yarn to work out what size needles I should be using. Then I’ll either use the pattern from season 16, or I’ll reknit the season 12 pattern, this time doubling the number of rows given. It will still probably not be exactly right, but I think it will be a lot closer. That will also give me the chance to make the colours much more accurate, as I still think the ones I’m using at the moment are far too bright.

When Mr Newt brings the camera home from work, I’ll show you all a photo.

On a brighter note, my Wendy Shimmer scarf is really coming along. I’m almost ready to start my final ball, so I suppose in a week or two, it will be finished.

New car!!!

Yesterday Mr Newt and I picked up our new car. It’s a 2002 Skoda Fabia in silver. No picture I’m afraid, because Mr Newt has taken our camera to work, but it looks just like this one, but without the alloy wheels.

We had to take it somewhere, so we took it for a drive to Sainsbury’s. Not the most exciting place in the world, but it was the best we could come up with. I then spent the rest of the evening reading (and not really understanding) the handbook and instruction manual for the radio.

Today I played about with all the switches and stuff. Fortunately someone had already tuned the radio into BBC Radio 1-5, so all I had to do was replace Radio 1 with Classic FM. It’s also got one of those traffic programme thingys where it interupts whatever you’re listening to with traffic announcements. I’m going to try that on Monday, though I’m guessing that will get very annoying very quickly.

I can’t believe how much electronic gadegetry is on this car though. It has a trip computer that calculates all sorts of stuff about fuel consumption, and average mph. Then every single feature has it’s own light on the dashboard. Lights for when you forget your seatbelt, lights for when the door is open, lights for if the airbags, power steering or ABS fail – all of these accompanied by their own little noises, it even tells you when the windscreen washer bottle needs filling, and finally there’s even a light on the dashboard to tell you that the lights on the dashboard aren’t working!!!

We may well take the car out again tonight, because otherwise I probably won’t get to drive it until monday, and that’s just too long to wait!