Writing up the meeting notes took longer than I intended, as they kept reminding me of small jobs I needed to do! Oh well, all done now. I have half an hour til I need to leave to catch my train (unless I want to stay an extra hour) so that's just time to do my timetable. Or mess around on the internet. Hmm, I wonder which I'll end up doing...?

======= Date Modified 05 May 2011 15:22:36 =======
A good break sounds like an excellent plan, star-shaped. Hopefully it'll all seem straightforward when you get back! Exercise does seem to lift my mood (or at the very least, thrashing about in the water when I go swimming burns off some frustration!) - hope that works for you too.

Just had my supervision meeting. My supervisors are sweethearts! I told them I was feeling anxious about my data collection and they talked it through with me and made me realise that it's all fine, I'm on track to have my data collected in very good time, and the final stages are not as daunting as I think they are. Sanity restored.

Tasks for the rest of today (what little remains):
1.) Write up notes from supervision meeting and email to supervisors
2.) Work out plan of action for between now and end of June (when I go on a summer school and then on holiday)
3.) If I'm not quite ready to go home by then, work on poster design for university showcase

Heh, that was my thinking. And I wouldn't have started the thread if I hadn't got some vague memory of there being a similar thing once before!

I think Ady's right, and probably most of them don't even notice the 'helpful user' button or realise what it does - and fair enough, why should they?!

Oh dear. We've let the mods down, we've let the boards down, but most of all, we've let ourselves down! :p

Good morning!

Today, I will mostly be preparing for this afternoon's supervision meeting. I'm feeling like things are a little out of control and not really getting sorted properly, so I need to work out what needs doing and a strategy to achieve the things I have to achieve. April didn't seem scary but now it's May I'm feeling like time is running out! Calm, calm, calm....

Do they mean ethics approval before starting the whole PhD, or before starting any data collection? Maybe it's different in your discipline, but in mine (cross-disciplinary but kind of social sciencey) the early stages are all about identifying research questions and designing the study, and it's only been in my second year that I've actually started approaching people and collecting data, and haven't needed ethics approval before this second year stage.

It sounds like it might be worth you having a discussion with the head, if you just put it that you're looking for a fresh perspective you may be able to feel out their opinion and that might help clarify things for you. Maybe perspective is getting a little fuzzy for both you and your supervisor after working for so long on your research. It does seem like it would be a real shame to quit when you're so close to the end - at the very least, exploring the other possibilities seems worthwhile before taking such a drastic step. Sorry, I can't offer any more helpful advice than that, but good luck with whatever you decide!

Yay keenbean, did I just nudge you into the fifth star? Cool! Congratulations!

Sorry, I don't have access to either of those. But hopefully someone else will be along who can get it for you.

I clearly need the kind of stimulus that would keep a small child happy. Anyway, you just got a vote so maybe you'll nudge towards that next star soon! :-)

Hey Dunni, you're definitely a helpful user so there's one more vote towards the next star... Bet you're not far away now!

You have to create a thread to vote for other people, but other people have to vote for you on their own threads for you to collect stars. Hope that makes sense!

And Ady - have you gone up a star class then? That's great! This thread is like magic...

======= Date Modified 04 May 2011 19:00:19 =======
Okay, that's votes for everyone on the thread so far - and congratulations Dafydd on your first star!

This is far more fun than PhD work. And if only I could vote twice to celebrate things like people being efficient!!

And yes - the 'helpful user' button only appears on threads you start yourself - but of course that means everyone on this thread can give out helpful user votes by starting their own threads....

Wow, someone certainly did! Thank you! Woo, that's great, I'm a three starrer! :p

But I won't forget you all now, I'll keep clicking people who come on here! (Just might not be for a while, I have to leave uni and catch a train home in a little bit...)