a graduate stipend can be a great basis for doing whatever you want. In my case, I used the last year of my fellowship to get back into programming.
Man, that is my exactly experience! The thesis I eventually handed in bore almost no resemblance to the work I was doing and interested in :)
I'd definitely echo the "prolonged dark night" comment too. Sometimes, you just have to accept that and keep on plugging away, albeit maybe taking the night off to recharge a bit (it's like debugging, it's hard to see how that's going to achieve anything but it can make a huge difference).
Man, that is my exactly experience! The thesis I eventually handed in bore almost no resemblance to the work I was doing and interested in :)
I'd definitely echo the "prolonged dark night" comment too. Sometimes, you just have to accept that and keep on plugging away, albeit maybe taking the night off to recharge a bit (it's like debugging, it's hard to see how that's going to achieve anything but it can make a huge difference).