As the completion date approaches

I am fast coming to the end of my time as a PhD candidate.  The thesis is due on February 26, and although I am making good progress in my revisions, I feel that there is more to do that I really have time for.  I have turned a draft version of my entire thesis into my advisers at this point and am primarily working to revise it to their satisfaction.  My conclusions chapter has essentially been returned to me with the rather simple comment "you need to discuss how your research relates to the field as a whole".  This is, in fact, one of the requirements set forth in the PhD statute for the university.  Its not something that I haven't done at all.  I spent a good portion of Chapter 2 setting the scene for where my research will sit in the field.  At this point, I simply need to connect the new discoveries that I have made the work of other people.  I think I can manage to that without further direction, but I'm worried about the time.

I have just begun revising Chapter 5, which is the chapter that primarily presents my work in the Auckland area.  I still have Chapter 6, where I attempt to tie all of my work together.

I'll leave the post here though.  I need to get back to work.

Christmas Holidays

The holidays have turned out to be great fun, even though I'm spending a lot of my time working.  I took half a day off on Christmas eve, and the whole day of Christmas.  Since then I've mostly been working as normal.  I bought myself some awesome new shirts from Nicholas Jermyn, can't wait for an occasion to wear them. I also bought myself a small moleskine planner to use next year.  I really like the look of it.

I'll be moving to Onehunga next weekend.  Can't believe how quickly that is coming up, but I'm also really excited about the move.

Back to work for me though, I need to get all my notes put together so that I can start writing my next chapter.

No internet today

Gah, no internet (besides email) in the office today.  Someone's borked the proxy system or something.  I guess I'll get more work done today.

Year in review

Well, its certainly been a long time since my last post. I'm really not that good at this blogging thing. At least not doing it regularly at all. But I figure I should give a bit of an update on my life. Since my last post in May, I've continued to work on my thesis, cooked lots of tasty food, and traveled to Egypt and the US. I've got some pictures of the Egypt trip available on my photobucket account. I'll try to post here more often, but with my thesis coming down to the wire, I'm going to be a bit pressed for time.

Food Talk

Wow, its certianly been a long time since I've written anything for this. Suffice to say, I've been very busy with my thesis work. I'm going to take just a few minutes here to let everyone who reads this know that I'm doing pretty good. Also, I've been having a lot more fun with cooking lately. My wife and I have put a lot of work into trying some new recipes lately, and in a few cases I have documented these with pictures which I have uploaded to my Photobucket account. Eventually I'll get around to actually posting some of them including Thai Green Curry, Spicy Lentil Soup, and a few others. I'm rather proud of my cooking ability now. I know I'm not a chef by any means, but I can make some good tasting food.

For example, I tried something rather new last night: roasted squash. I've always been a bit shy about trying new vegetables through most of my life. Afterall, veggies are not ussually as tasty as sweets. I cut a butternut squash in half, added some butter and a tiny bit of brown sugar, and roasted it in a pan for about 45 minutes. It was nutty and delicious. I have another squash waiting for me at home, and even though I'm going to have curry with some veggies in it, I'm thinking about roasting the second one to eat with dinner as well.

Also, just checked scores the Basketball scores, and Denver pulled off a win. Woo!