hope it works out allright for you in the end! and just a suggestion - do you actually have to write the conference paper? maybe it will be enough to prepare the powerpoint presentation and a general outline of what you want to say,this will save time, I have found out for myself that this approach works and the audience seems to welcome a person that engages with the audience and doesn't hide behind the piece of paper. good luck!

no, I was googling "completing your dissertation" or something along these lines;)

I found this "dissertation calculator" recently, it is made with US PhD students in mind, but I liked the idea - http://www.lib.umn.edu/help/disscalc/

check out http://www.phddata.org/

Pat Cryer has a great section in her book on originality in the context of PhD thesis - somehow the original website disappeared since I last looked it up, but you can still see the cached page:
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:ZPxAGSfxycEJ:www.postgrad_resources.btinternet.co.uk/student-resources08-originality.htm+pat+cryer+website+originality&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk

did you consider going abroad for your Ph.D? i did my masters in gender studies at CEU, it's a small university,practically graduate school only,but academically excellent. below I'm pasting a message about scholarships in public policy at CEU:
The Central European University (CEU) in Budapest makes available four
scholarships for PhD students in the field of public policy starting from the academic year 2008. The deadline for applications is February 28, 2008.Interested applicants should contact the Department of Public Policy ([email protected]) and consult our hompage at
http://www.ceu.hu/dpp/courses/phd.htm .

hi, I'm second year - for the past two summers I took a week or two off and went on a volunteering holiday at a respite centre for people with disabilities [look up here http://www.vitalise.org.uk/Volunteer/Volunteer-at-a-Vitalise-Centre.aspx] - something to consider,if you're looking for very cheap, but I'm not sure if your idea of exciting includes for instance pushing wheelchairs around Southport (where one of the centres is).I loved it though,and had a great rest,at least it was something very different from what I normally do.

another thing I recommend greatly is the mindmapping software - you can get it free at http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page, I am using it now to make sense of my fieldwork-it's been invaluable in helping me coordinate getting 40 interviews done within three months at three different locations.and finally,recently I found this - http://www.completeyourdissertation.com/blog/ there's plenty of great resources there.hope that helps,good luck!

hi!here's some of the things I found useful - first of all, writing regularly and producing something for the monthly supervision meeting-I am lucky to have a great supervisor and so this way I can make myself accountable to her and myself at the same time, if that makes sense. In terms of some other "tricks"-endnote was of enormous help to organize my reading,and del.icio.us and citeulike [social bookmarking] helped me make sense of the various web resources that I was encountering on my way.

yes, the e-mail about acceptance/rejection is sent to you only.

thank you all for great tips - especially the one about transcription buddy, downloaded it already and will definitely try and get my interviews into mp3 files and transcribe in this way - once again thanks!

and i forgot to add this: http://www.bl.uk/services/document/theses.html
good luck!

I applied to ten universities altogether (in and out of the uk) and got two scholarship offers, one full funding and one partial funding

have a look here - www.phddata.org, should be helpful, this is a general database of phds in progress.

I heard of equipment where you have the machine connected to some sort of pedal so that you can stop or start the recording with your foot or knee -anybody ever use anything like this?is it really expensive?where do I look for stuff like this?If it's a huge investment,I'll resign myself to stick with what I have now,but forty interviews is going to be a lot to transcribe.Any advice on equipment and techniques welcome;)