======= Date Modified 25 Jul 2011 13:45:24 =======
Hi Snowdrops,having read your posts, my view of your situation is as follows:

You are a very well respected expert in your professional field, hence you are super confident and secure, plus you sound very mature and happy with your self. These are unusual attributes for most supervisors to encounter in a PhD student, many supervisors are used to feeling as if they are at the more sorted ended of a student/tutor relationship. It sounds to me as if your sups feel threatened by your expertise and confidence, and are trying to cut you down. It also sounds as if you really enjoy the research element of what you are doing. So, perhaps youshould shop around for some more mature and level headed supervisors who will see your expertise, confidence and maturity for the boons that they are. You CAN work in a particular field while researching at the same time, you just have to have the right supervisors. How well respected are your tutors in their research field? And can you go elsewhere?

Best of luck!

Hi Kean Bean, 10 days to go eh! Although I haven't been through the writing up thing... yet, I do sleep a lot when work stressed. In my final year at undergrad I used to need to sleep for two hours in the afternoon, plus 8-10 hours at night, just to be able to keep going with the work. I'm sure your body and mind know what they need. Good luck, and it's great to see you so close to finishing. X

======= Date Modified 24 Jul 2011 20:22:07 =======
WOW, can't beat a bit of bushy...

Adam Ant was never my thing really, although he is beautiful.

Here's David Bowie doing the best standing in a smokey room with a torch of all time. My main thing as a kid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgcc5V9Hu3g&ob=av2n

Blimey - I'm shocked they ony charge 3k for a PhD! I'd want at least 60k to write another one, and that's without overheads... My fees are 3 tiimes that!

How about we post some of or favourite and most entertaining videos/performances here? It's been a while since we've had a dose of fun.

I'll kick things off with The Human League on Top of the Pops Christmas 1981: back when men were men and so were women - and vice versa:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpbOkyuyADU

Looking forward to watching yours...

======= Date Modified 22 Jul 2011 13:07:43 =======
I've done 2 so far, am aiming for 4 today. Easing myself in after a break and taking it easy because it's the summer... and I can!

p.s. am editing two peices of writing together.

Hi Delta, I began my PhD hoping for an academic career - that was the whole point. I'm half way through and have had a few interviews, I think I will get there, it's just a matter of time... and then some more time.

Academia isn't everything I'd hoped for, although I'm pretty sure it would have been ten years ago, so perhaps what I don't like: pressure, over work, stroppy students, would have their equivalents in another job.

If I could start all over again I think I would do the same thing I have done; although I often think I would like to be an artist - another rocky path.

Thank you Ady. Also, I'm finding it more and more difficult to see what I am doing objectively the deeper into I get. I was really sure about th contribution it would make at the start, but as learnt more about what has been written - I can see that what I'm doing is more a development of a branch of my subject - not a 'splash'. What you say about the way I do things is really interesting too - I think I could present that as a 'unique' method. I like that, I reckon I could be happy with that for a very long time :).

Sneaks you are right, the big splash PhDs seems so at the time and then I walk away and what they do is really more of a development.:-)

Thank you Sneaks.

What I'm researching has only been written about in one book chapter so it is new. Plus I think it's really relevant in the grand scheme of my topic, but I just don't think it's that fashionable a topic right now. I guess, like you say, it's up to me to make it fashionable.

Maybe also because I am only half way through, my work is still pretty much unformed.

HHHmmm, I think I may be having a half way through the PhD crisis or something.

I don't know why my work is important. I like doing it and it is fascinating, but I just don't know why it would matter to the wider world that much.

Plus I have become aware of PhD students who are making a real splash with their work and I can't see now how mine will do that. It's great, and my skills in some areas of the field are fab - my supervisor says I have rare strengths - he's even said I can do things he can't. But I'm worried that my stuff may not be fashionable enough and cause a splash. Do we have to do this to be well known and respected in our fields do you think?

I think it's a good idea to have some way of regulating the supervisory process and curbing behaviour, but I also think this method would be open to abuse. Anyone could just go on the site anonymously and say anything, or allocate any rating as many times as they like. Say a jealous colleague, or a rubbish student who is angry - this happened to me this year with anonymous student feedback - I had 6 forms filled in by the same student. So feedback must also be monitered properly or it could become a tool for bullying supervisors.

In the absence of any organised monitering, I think it is good to check how your supervisor sees his or her students or ex-students, and what they have achieved. Mine lists their achievements on his profile page, he is obviously very proud of them and sees their work as, partly, the fruits of his own as an educator. I think this is possibly the best thing to look for. Plus you can ask other students, but be mindful that, perhaps faint praise will be the strongest damnation you'll find.

======= Date Modified 17 Jul 2011 23:41:31 =======
Hi all, thank you for your responses. I've had a total rest over the weekend - seeing friends all day and evening yesterday, and recovering via vegetating and roast dinner today. Hopefully I will get back to a steady pace next week.

I'm kind of glad I took advantage of the good weather when we had it though, so I don't regret my relaxation. Plus I've arranged to go and stay with my family for a week or so in France later in the summer - that's made me feel better.

Thank you people! X

My supervisor built his entire career on the back of a review he wrote, in 1984 - and he is right at the top of his field. I quote the review in my stuff, and it has been much quoted by many others. He basically pulled apart key concepts of his chosen topic area by chewing up and spitting out two books. He had no PhD at the time and the books were written by established figures, but he got it in a top journal, and it caused a major stir. However, as I'm humanities I can't comment on the specifics of the sciences.

I guess it depends what you say in the review and the profile of the journal.

Hi folks, I've not been around for a while but I hope you can help me, nevertheless.

I took a week off, starting almost two weeks ago and I can't get going again - I just feel so tired, like I need two months off. I had a really tough year of teaching - more than full time hours in 3 different unis, running programmes and dealing with a horrible group of 100 first years, bleurrggghh.

I'm still really into my PhD and when I look at the print out of the bt of work I'm meant to be doing I get a lift, a feeling of excitement, but don't get round to actually doing it. I fell asleep on the sofa today after eating loads of icecream instead, and yesterday I had a 1 1/2 hour yoga class, plus 40 min walk there and back which turned into mooching about in town and enoying a 4 mile saunter along the river front in glorious sunshine. It felt like a holiday -somethign I would love, but can't afford.

During yoga when I was meant to be tuning out etc and this moring when I was meditating I kept having thoguhts about my reseacrh and teaching, so I'm not switching off completely. I'm in no man's land.

I presented at the top conference recently - just before my break - and my work went down well. But I wish I were further along, I know I am capable of finishing mroe quickly but am just so tired during the holidays and have not time at term time. I feel I've lost my umph.

Oh KB, what a ********** (fill in your own letters - I just used a word I hate and am trying to phase out of my vocabulary to describe her, out-loud and at some volume...)

It's good that you're about to finish, and that you can stay with your family for support. Just keep you eye on the finish line and then soon you will be free.

There almost certainly is something wrong with your supervisor - whether it's illness or the usual academic toys out of the pram trick. But that is not your concern, it's hers and her employer's. Your job is to get on with your thesis.

And, as someone else has already said, at least you have witnesses - even if the department would almost certainly back her in a dispute.