The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

Originally I was supposed to take the whole week off to work on the dissertation but well, .... the best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray! Matters at work has a way of screwing up my priorities for the week. Only managed to take one day off today. Back to the grindstone tomorrow as there are urgent deadlines to be met at work before the long Chinese New Year hols.

I have had barely 5 hours sleep today. Went to bed early this morning at 7+am and got up about noon. The brain is not functioning properly, the eyes are grainy, etc, etc. I remember furiously typing away last night when the muse hit but yet somehow now, the brain is empty once again.

I wonder if any of you who have had the "pleasure" of working on a dissertation ever faced the problem of having a subject matter growing into a life of its own and getting out of hand. The more I type, the more the topic seem to move towards the opposite direction of my original thought intention. Now I am worried that my original hypotheses would not work and that my questionnaire is incorrect. Even though Mr. Z has taken a look at it and approved it, I have a sneaking suspicion that my thought process is diverting to something else.

Yet there is no turning back. As of last evening, I have had a total of 85 respondents. I have not checked if all the questionnaires are "usable". I was told by a friend that most likely NOT all are "clean" data. In any case, the goose is very much cooked. I definitely have to relook at the flow of my literature review and realign it to my original proposition.

Gosh! I am tired and beyond desperate.