#AcWriMo (or how I try to actually do something)

Just a quick blog post, because someone once told me accountability really helps the process. Okay, a lot of people told me that, from various sources. I suppose I should listen. Now I have plenty of much more interesting blog posts in the works instead but this was important. So here are my commitments for November.

- 500 words writing per day. That can be blog/notes/thesis
- min. 2 hours of data processing.

The ultimate goals are to add 20,000 words to my thesis (although I haven't done the math, is it possible at 500 words/day??) and to finish up the input and start analysis of my 4 data sites. Big things are happening and it feels like that extra pressure is actually going to give me the necessary push.

On a more interesting note, I have a few blog posts up my sleeve. Some things about my working process and how I've finally managed to get on tract appropriately and a few posts on my recent travels. I've been lucky enough to spend a big part of the last 4 months outside the United Kingdom, working in a few amazing places. Can't wait to share!

In the meantime, anyone else doing #AcWriMo?

Social media involvement (or how I apparently have become noticed...)

Following a short informal meeting with my supervisor today, I thought about the fact that he knows all about my social media involvement. Apparently, people pay attention online and do talk about it. He told me that according to another, I am very visible online.

I've only just gotten involved heavily over the last few months, but I already can see the benefits. If someone who is not actively on the internet can still hear about someone's web presence, that's a good thing. I think that this is the way academia should go. Over the time of getting involved on twitter and starting this blog, I'm expanded my network extensively.

This has also had an impact on my PhD thesis. I'm using varied approaches and looking at things through the perspective of other disciplines, aided along by the people whom I follow and regularly interact with. This has increased my potential for multidisciplinarity and will boost my professional development. This impacts grants (as there is a large push towards collaboration in many fields), my teaching capabilities and my communication skills.

I encourage others to really get involved. I travel a lot and it's made me feel grounded within the academic community and has really opened my mind... And it really does get noticed. Who knows what it could lead to!

Finding optimal working times... (or how I learnt that sleeping in wasn't bad).

Recently, I came home to my parents in the effort to try and write up a large portion of my thesis. This was because an unexpected, long trip to Bosnia presented itself. I will be off to collect more data to make my thesis more complete. So I thought, I will go home for a few months and concentrate on writing as much as I possibly can before I get more data and re-run analyses.

So off I went to Canada and I began in earnest. I forced myself awake at 7am every morning so I could be in the study by 8am... And then I spent my morning reading the papers, the PhD related blogs, chatting to my twitter contacts and generally doing things thinly veiled as "productive".

I started thinking to myself, I'm not really getting much work done am I? And no, I wasn't. When I compiled the items I'd be writing recently, my progress didn't seem as great as I'd hoped. Through suggestions in the many PhD and productivity blogs I read, I came across apps that will record everything you're doing on the computer during the day. And all of a sudden, after a week or so of use, I saw in the little graphs where I was wasting my time and just how I was wasting it.

Miraculously, I realised that there was no point whatsoever in me getting up so early when clearly I was never getting any real work done. So why not get more sleep??? And the first day after I turned the alarm clock off (and never set it again), I started being more productive by realising that my late morning was better spent reading (and writing a few mindless notes) and my best writing time was in the late afternoon or evening...

I think that finding your groove and productive time is essential. My productivity has changed dramatically. And I'm no longer exhausted in the morning or wracked with guilt. Probably won't last, but at least I'm oddly calm these days...

The statistical holy grail of significance (or how I fell in love with stats)

Well it's been a while since I've put up a blog post and this one pertains to events from last month. I'm a terrible blogger. But in an effort to keep my writing flow going, I've chosen to blog rather than sit around staring at a blank screen. This is valuable advice I've gotten from writing productivity books and PhD blogs. Write... Just write something. And I have the Avengers to help me with it (can't credit it though, found randomly...)

Last month I spent time with my Uni's Applied Sciences statistician (who is great). We played around with some of the more obscure types of analyses, things that work with my type of data. My data is difficult, the outcomes are binary and the variables are a bit "vague" being as they represent body regions rather specific parts of the body. So I've been on a journey to multivariate and graphical methods to analyse trauma. And by golly... It worked.

I don't think I've ever been more shocked in my life. Except maybe when said statistician told me he thought I was "clever" and that I now knew what I was doing as I could anticipate his next move. So for someone who has an absolute abhorrence of math and was told she'd never do science (screw you grade 9 teacher and junior college administrators!) I have become enamored with statistics.

Someone needs to investigate my alien abduction.

The forensic and biological anthropology PhD (or how I shockingly became an anthropological statistician?)

Welcome to my blog... I think it's really an exercise in ridding my brain of all the PhD stress I have going on at the moment whilst using this as some effort to put myself out there for people to get to know me academically.

My path to PhD Candidate started a few years back when I'd finished my MSc thesis and wanted to expand on it. I took time off to earn some money in my fall back career of retail management.

October 2009 rolled around and I began my PhD. And then somehow two years passed. Without my being entirely sure what had just happened! I am a biological and forensic anthropologist, with research interests in trauma and conflict. My main area of study is blast injuries to the human skeleton (and quite possibly the boring title of my thesis).

And so here I am, in the final year of my PhD, about to start a serious writing up phase. Due to many unforeseen circumstances, I'm still doing analysis and will be going out to get more data during the summer. Not ideal, but these things happen. And the best part is... I've learned not to let set backs or bumps in the road slow me down. I've also learnt to love statistics. Properly love them. Love which makes me think of them night and day. Terrifying Love.

I intend to try and post regularly (diligently, I've already written out a list of potential posts). In the effort not to give too much away for now, I will keep this one brief. And promise to get into more detail about my work and things I've learned on my PhD journey...