Thank you for all your comments!
bewildered, you're probably right and I will stay positive and think that and see what happens!

I got a response back to my email saying "give it a rest, get on with the next chapter AL!" how nice eh! Oh well!

Just come home to get some work done, switched washing machine on and then got knock on the door from guy downstairs cos he's got water coming through his ceiling!!!!! :-s got electrician out and everything, and washing machine broke! ARGHHHH why is there always something to spend money on and stress about, now its 8pm, not had dinner yet or done any work, and time is just slipping away from me. It feels like everything is against me.

Oh well, nothing I can do and just gotta get on with it, just so pissed off with sup, and feel like by asking for constructive criticism I have made him angry at me and its just going to make the whole process even worse.

well, time for food and then gonna hit the books for an hour or two, will get there eventually..........cheers peeps!

======= Date Modified 10 May 2010 21:43:06 =======
Thanks AQ, yes, you are right, i've got to be firm, i'm just not good at that with him as he's pretty disparaging, and yeah KB I know the feeling, he always looks at me like i'm a moron! But I'm going to stand my ground, and keep annoying him til i get what I want! I think he's just a bit lazy tbh and can't be arsed, but I think he owes me, in 4 years I've never demanded much of his time, i've got on with everything myself and even brought him in a good bit of money through grants, so I think he can at least give me this!

I've just emailed him and said ok, but i dont' understand, if its not good but not ugly that means its not great and therefore needs some work. I don't want to get to viva and find that there is major corrections and I don't have a strong enough argument, i'd prefer to deal with this now! So if I do need to work on it then please give me some feedback so i can sort it out and make it good!

I'll keep you all posted with what he says, I just don't know whether actually it is fine and he just doesn't have it in him to say so and therefore has to make derogatory comments, or whether it does need work! I really want him to come back and say it is fine, it will pass etc, and just leave it (as I don't have the strength to fix it!), but I'd prefer to do it now than later! or maybe i'm just so pathetic that I need to see it in writing that it's ok, for once in all these years I NEED him to say, you're doing fine, keep going and you'll be there soon! how sad am i!!!!!!

Hi all, thank you so much, its good to know i'm not alone! unfortunately I never get any GOOD feedback, just odd changes and what a load of rubbish - bit of a contradiction in terms but I guess its just the way he is. I just have to look on the bright side and think he wouldn't let me fail therefore he must just be being melodramatic and absolutely pathetic really!!

I do have a second sup, I gave him my chapter 2 at same time as main sup and still not heard back...he's also clinical rather than science, and although v. good consultant, not the best at scientist, so I count him as more of a proofreader, and good with the clinical side of my writing, which was mainly in my intro rather than experimental chapters. I do send him everything though, and hope at somepoint he might read them!

I have thought about going to the head of my monitoring committee who I get on pretty well with, and seeing if she could read through some of it for me, but I don't want to cause a rift, as i'm not sure if by going to her it would cause consequences, such as her having to deal with it professionally etc. I just want someone to read it and tell me if it is up to scratch and someone will give me my doctorate, or whether it is terrible. although, in some respects I would quite like to complain about the lack of help he has given me I would prefer to wait til it is all done and signed off!

Anyway, thanks for your comments and making me feel less alone on this. I just really wanted to know how much a sup is allowed to comment, or whether, as it is independent work they can not comment on your content.

Keep smiling, and just keep thinking that after this is over we'll never have to deal with them ever again - that's what keeps me going! :) AL

Ok folks, as some of you know I kinda have problems with my sup - as most of us do i'm sure! Anyway, i'm half way through the writing, and have been sending him a chapter at a time to go through.
My intro came back a while ago with highlighted points to change etc, but then he said if I make these changes he doesn't want to see it again!
Chapter 2 - he said was awful and wanted to go through it bit by bit with me so i didn't make the same mistakes again. So we sat down together for afew hours and went through it sentence by sentence, him changing one word to another cos he preferred that one! anyway, I understood with the majority where he was coming from and have done my best to avoid these mistakes again. however, judging by what we actually changed - mainly style, it wasn't SO awful after all. not great, but he was being melodramatic.

Last week I sent off chapter 3 and I got it back on friday. I'm not sure if this is wrong but he goes through it and will change the odd word himself, or correct a spelling mistake and then just highlights it for me so I know (I feel like this is cheating and wrong, but its not actual changes in ideas etc, just odd grammatical errors or spelling mistakes so not sure??).
Anyway, at the top he just wrote - remember paragraph styles and stay in past tense, so I went through it all and made sure I had adhered to this and changed my tense errors etc. However he made no other comments, about whether it was good, content wise etc. So I emailed and asked him if this was good, bad etc, how was content.
He said, not good but not ugly! (that's it!), so i emailed back and said, ok, could you expand on that, should I be rewriting, sorting out my argument, which bits are bad, intro, discussion, results etc? And he's just emailed back to say, just leave it as is! - Now i'm just confused!!!!
I know sometimes he is just really sarcastic, and maybe he was being, and he's always pretty dry and doesn't do compliments etc (not that I expected any), but I am getting no critical feedback, and just dread getting to viva and finding out that its all a load of cr*p!!!

I'm not sure where the line is though? If content and argument etc are bad, how much does sup comment or just say redo it until you get it right? I've never had any feedback in any form from him so I don't know what is normal, and I don't want to go and complain and get a second opinion unless there's a reason to! He's never had a failed phD student, and I would hope he wouldn't let me down, therefore do I trust that although what i've written isn't amazing its enough for a pass, which lets face it, at this stage is all I really want!!!

Thanks folks,
AL

Hi Sue,

Wow, that's brill - well done! be proud of yourself, that's fantastic! Enjoy yourself on your trip and be safe - maybe you shouldn't take the work and treat yourself to some proper free Sue time?! :)

I'm ok, i'll get there, its just the frustration of never getting a full day of work, working all week and then weekends I have chores and stuff to do, and I don't seem to have the energy to fit in an odd hour here and there - its pretty unproductive as it takes me an hour or two to properly get stuck into the work! I so wanted to be almost finished by end of june/beg july and I just know with these last two chapters in such a mess its never gonna happen. Problem is, I don't think i care enough about it anymore, i dont seem to have the drive or motivation to do those late hours, etc etc, and I guess if i really did then I could be studying til 1am etc every night?
Just seeing all you folks getting the time to write and me not having even a full day a week at the moment, with the same deadline.....how am i ever going to finish this???

anyway, i'm off to bed, i'm depressed, tired and fed up! :( Sorry, but thank you for letting me rant and get it off my chest.

Take care, enjoy your break, you really deserve it, and savor that time you have to chill, read a novel and listen to the waves crashing - utter bliss!

AL xx

hey! hope you feeling better both, (or all), i'm having stress time!!
got chapter 3 submitted to sup and he's reading at the moment in New Orleans while at a conference - lets hope it puts him in a good mood....i doubt it though!

Trying to get on with chapter 4 but its a horrid mess! I had experiments that didn't work very well, I was creating a new piece of modelling system that no one has done before, it was going well but then had problems with machinery! unfortunately, (as i'm a pretty stupid scientist - one of the reasons i've left the lab), and had no post doc support in lab, i have made some fatal errors in my sample taking, therefore not sure how well i can analyse it :( Making it really difficult to know what to say in chapter, and how to structure it all. i'm just looking at it and wanting to scream! I've written all but one section of intro which i'm going to leave til the end and then see what i've written, but i just don't know what to do iwth methods and results section! don't have time to think as per with this other job and I just want to scream, cry and throw the bl**dy thing out the window!

Ah, that feels better, just needed bit of a rant and my poor partner is in a statistical hell all of his own! Thank you!

I will be back on with progress hopefully at somepoint, but busy week and then weekend i've got my nephews first birthday party! :) (gift)
Can't wait, but again, cuts out the time for writing even more! :( why is life so cruel....................

Hope you're all doing better than me! :) xxxx

Hello Peeps!! goodness, we must all be working very hard - its ages since we've posted, I hope you're all ok?
Well, i've had a busy couple of weeks of normal work and trying to work evenings and weekends :( eventually got the basis of my chapter 3 down on paper, i have all the text and now I just need to proofread and check it all, not 100% happy with discussion, but will see what sup says, if he doesn't say anything then I dont' care anymore!! :-s

AQ i hope you're feeling better now and seeing the positive, how's chapter 3 coming on? And sue, I hope the rewrite is going steadily, don't worry about sup, they are sent from hell to kill us softly,or maybe not so soft, but you can only do your best, just be proud of what you are doing.

Right, i better get back to work.
take care all and keep smiling, AL xx

Thank you all! I'm am so glad I didn't dream up this fact! :) Cheers Cytochrome, I will have a look at these papers after my tea! :)

Hi folks, I"m no protein expert, but as part of my discussion i'm comparing a couple of studies using rt-PCR and ELISA to measure cytokine responses. I'm sure i've read somewhere or been told (and have always thought), that you can not directly correlate the level of gene expression with actual protein produced.
I'm just wondering if someone can tell me if this is right, and if so explain it to me. I can not seem to find any papers which actually go into any detail about this, and i'm slightly confused! Don't want to make a random statement in the dissertation without backing up with a reference! (if anyone knows of paper which even hints at this, it would be much appreciated!).
Thank you, a stressed alpaca!

right, managed a mere two pages, with one discussion idea written out in full, with references!! thats me for the night though! I can't take anymore.....! Hope you've all managed to meet some goals, keep smiling, AL x

sneaks, I have daydreamed about it too, and have been saving it for a day when I physically can't face looking at chapters and do some more 'menial' tasks! now i have nothing to look forward to :(

Maybe we could write what we have to, and then after viva when it is approved and goes for final printing we could swap it for our preferred acknowledgments page? is that possible - i've considered doing it with a couple of things that my sup is determined about but I don't want to see in my final book!!

oh dear Amanda - I was looking forward to sitting down for that bit! :(
I can imagine though, there are so many people I would want to thank, but mainly non-academic like individually naming friends and family! And I would love to be able to acknowledge certain people on here too, or just the whole site for support and understanding!

I think i'll struggle to find people from lab and uni to thank - and i think having to write - thanks to my sup....will actually tear a piece out of my heart!

ok, need a goal for the day....to write something, a sentence, a paragraph, SOMETHING!!!! :( ARGHHHHHHH

======= Date Modified 19 Apr 2010 16:19:18 =======
Hi all!
I'm having a totally pathetic day! decided I need coffee and have read over what i've written of my chapter so far - hasn't really helped though!
I kinda know what i want to write next in my discussion, but I can't be pooped! :$

The thought of writing it, then searching for publications, reading them, probably finding that what i've thought and written is lies and starting again, just makes me ache to the bone...what do I do!?
I have coffee, but I know i also need to do the washing up, and clothes washing, change the bed, and get something sorted for tea before partner comes home. Back to normal work tomorrow too, have my appraisal, and really need to sit and think about what I want to say. Must get SOMETHING done of this chapter :-s

Thank you for your ears, I needed a moan!x

I totally understand this is a very annoying thing!

Haha DanB - my dad is THE loudest eater i know too - and he also loves talking, never stops, so the conjunction of them both drives is all crazy!

Satchi, could you just listen to music? then you could sit around lunch time and just put some relaxing music on with some big headphones/cans, and maybe do it before he just gets his food out, that way it's not like he'll just see you putting earplugs in when he gets his lunch out?

sympathy, AL