Had a talk with a friend today about how his dissertation was going.
With 9 days to go, he's only at 50% of the minimum word count (6000 words). He's not exactly a slacker, so he must have been reading continuously since November or something. Which leads me to think that whatever he hands in will either get the highest mark, or flop.
I'm very happy to be at the point where my appendices are done, and, minor edits aside, only the introduction and conclusion remain. If there's one thing I've noticed, it's that my stress seems to be decreasing as we reach the end, whereas many others' is increasing.