Yeah Wall, I totally agreewith you about Casualty, but I think that's why I like it, predictability and repetition are recurring elements of my TV addictions. I tend not to get addicted to TV that involves any risk of brain activity on my part.

Hi again, in response to the last post: thisit what the University of Brighton tell their students aout JSA etc.

http://www.brighton.ac.uk/studentlife/money/benefits/index.php?PageId=540

I did part of my part-time teacher training whie claiming JSA and my office were fine about it, I suspect it depende on who you talk to.

======= Date Modified 24 Feb 2010 12:41:47 =======
Hi Wally, I wish there were more options - what about 'tittle tattle'? And that old perennial 'reality dross'? What about 'drama', 'films', 'politics programmes', 'soap operas', 'chat shows', 'game shows'?The existing choices are really only two: 'factual', 'news' and 'documentary' are often interchangable - it's serious factual stuff or comedy, really. So, I'm afraid I couldn't vote in your poll.

My all time top ever TV addiction is 'America's (and as a close second, Britain's) Next Top Model' : 'So you wanna be on taaaaaap, taaaaaaap, taaaaaap', 'Ya soooooo fierce, wooooowwrk it baby', 'I have two girls in front of me and one of them will...'. I have a secret, scary crush on the buff as buff can be, and groomed as groomed can be, J. Emanuelle, and j'adore Janice Dickinson. Although I don't get Living any more so, sadly, I've had to pet it go.

I also love 'Project Catwalk', 'Come Dine With Me', the amazing Nigel Slater's 'Simple Suppers' (another unsuitable crush on a gay man), 'Loose Women' (but I'm moving away from that now - I love Carol, but don't like Colleen at all), I've just got really into Casualty and I loved Dr. Who with David Tennat. I like Cracker, but not when I'm feeling fragile. I think that's it. Oh, and how coud I forget, what week would be complete without 'Survivors'?, makes Tuesday nights a thrill.

I was being productive today, doing all those fiddly things life demands of us - like getting my haircut and ringing the council, so must press on.

Hello everyone, I'm back at work tomorrow so the clear run for PhD work is over. I missed my (self imposed) deadline tonight because there was far more to the latest re-draft that I had anticipated. Reading my book on writing style during the settling time meant I saw loads that needed working on, plus, it just needed more clarity in parts - and it is now 12,500 words long... So I've re-set the deadline to next Sunday, by which time I will have typed up the necessary changes and sent the thing off. I have a lecture to write by Friday, one for next Monday and a load of marking to do in between. But I will make room for the 5 hours or so I reckon I'll need to do it.

I did about 10 tomatoes of writing today and about 1 1/2 hours of teaching prep.

Good luck tomorrow all you good people. I'm off for some beauty sleep now, so that I don't frighten the students first thing in the morning. XX

Hi Cobweb, I really enjoy the process of making a realy well written, innovative, relevant and sound piece of writing, and I love honing the writing and research skills I will have for the rest of my life. Someitmes it;s hard ot get going, but, as someone said to me once: It's like swimming, you really don't want to get in, but once you have you don't want to get out.

KB your research sounds amazing - I wish you all the very best with that.

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======= Date Modified 20 Feb 2010 21:26:43 =======
Hi all, thanks for your responses, I'm feeling a bit better today, I can think of a few worhtwhile relationships, and some of the others, I guess, are just not what I would want, but they makes others happy.

I just had a really bad experience last night, with my niece's ex-boyfriend offering me some intense and unrelenting 'advice' on how I need to do more for said family member because she is younger than me and I do not do enough. He had all these assumptions about me born of down right fibs he'd been fed, about me being a totally selfish person, which I am not, I have risked my health for my neice, my relationship with my father and given up great chunks of my youthful freedom and scarce cash to care for her as a child - all this is besides hospital treatment I needed after a serious physical assualt from her - for which I have never had an appology. So, I am told that I need to do more and give her everything she wants because she is younger than me and vulnerable. OOooppps I just flashed forwards to me sitting in shady pines being fed arsnic flavoured chocolates by my young relative to whom I gave everything, in-spite of all the bollocks. I wonder how that happened????

So - all I wanted was to thank my neices boyfriend for looking her so well when her mother was dying, for keeping her together for that period, and I got all this crap. Oh! plus a lecture on my relationship with my father, about which I imagine he know J-s***. The boyfriend had been a really good influence on my neice: no verbal abuse or serious manipulation for well over a year, plus she stayed sane during that horrendous time in her young life (she's 23).


I want my boyf - when he appears - to love me, not a load of old bull-shit, and I want to see him properly too. That seems like quite a difficut thing to find from where I'm sitting, but it's that or nothing for me.


Thanks to you all XXX

Thanks for replying Sue, I was joking about the cat - I think Morissey had one for a long time, that's all. A cat would not fit my lifestyle, it would need a permananct that I cannot offer.

To be honest, I used to think like you, that most of my frends were in happy, healthy relationships, and they would say that they are, still. They are happy in their delusions, usually one partner about the reality of the other's character in some way - that's what I see. But I really think people are so easily taken in by the opposite sex and will believe any old b******t if it fits some convenient picture. Most men I know have been totally hoodwinked and manipulated by a woman and have never really realised to what extent - very often, they will count said woman as the love of their life and pine hopelessly if separated from her.

Ok folks, it's 3 in the morning I've just had the kind of evening that would qualify for the equivalent of a lifetime of flashbacks, plus lots of red wine on top of that: Tons of old friends, really old friends, with accompanying memories and partners, some fond acquantances and a bit of family appendages thrown in. And I have one question: WHY IS IT THAT WE ARE ALL SO DUPED and so easily have the wool pulled over our eyes by the opposite sex? I swear, of the couples I know there are kinds

1. The woman dominates and lets the man know what a klutz he is just for being a man ala Wally's previous post.

2. Some really lovely man believes the woman is a saint when she isn't she's actually a lying manipulative low life and he blindly worshps the ground she walks on.

3. The reverse of the above scenario: The man is a total wanker and the woman is an angel who has ruined her life by being married to him for the last 20ish years.

Ohhhh god, are relationships really worth it? You know what, I love all of these people so much, so deeply and for so long, but I just wouldn't want to be in their relationships for all the successful vivas in the world. I get so scared of this wierd delusional dynamic that people seem to get into. Does this make me the female equivlent of Morrisey? Should I just get a cat? I really don't want to be the, long term, object of somebody's delusional fantasy

Maybe I'll regret writing this post in the morning when I'm sober, but it makes sense now. I hopw the list makes it more coherent.

Hello taxing, you could try the accountability threads here, I find the second year one really useful for keeping track of myself. I also find it useful for seeing how other people are doing, it makes me realsie I am not alone and that sense of camaraderie gives me a push, and makes me work more easily. Perhaps a first year one would give you a bit of that peer support too, or you could just join one of the existing ones, all are welcome. Aside from the accountability threads, all are welcome at the forum generall, it's a nice community, and makes you feel as if you have colleagues! Something I find otherwise lacking in PhD work.


Also, I work almost full-time too, and often find myself frustrated by lack of time or focus on the PhD work, but I think the thing to do is just make the time. That's what I've decided tot do this term, just to remember that the point of the job is because it should facilitate/help my academic career, and I need the PhD research, more than anything in order to make that happen.

Good luck.

Hi KC and MK, I'd love to be going to a Strictly show as well, although So You Think You Can Dance is my favourite and would be a dream.

I'm having a funny day today, I got up really late - 10:45 and have no great urge to do the PhD work. This is because there isn't that much left to do on it - I have Sunday to work as well, and maybe some time tomorrow morning -I like to leave a fare amount of time, a day if possible, between drafts.


Also, I got this email from my boss saying she wants to speak to me about 'important issues regarding semiar teaching' but didn't say what they are. I don't like this boss, she is manpulative and has undermined me with students in the past, so her mysterious tone is bothering me. Hmm, must find something to do, so my mind is occupied. Might do some reading.

I don't know of anyone who has done a PhD in this, but I do know someone who wrote a book on public art in the North West of England, if you PM me I can send you the details. I think your project sounds fine, interdiscplinary is all the rage, in the arts anyway. I'm interdisciplinary: art history and film - and studies of national identity (not sure if that last one merits another multiple disciplinary browny point, I guess its a bit of anthropology - Benedict Anderson's ideas comes into it quite a bit).

My interdisiplinariness has meant more reading etc - you have to get to the bottom of two distinct areas, but it's exciting to build something new out of that, and it will mean your work is more original - it sounds like your project has a lot ot offer, I'm presuming you're looking into art in public society. Also, I'm sure this kind of research has been done quite a lot before, maybe it's an established sub-discipline; art galleries and arts organisations are always very interested in this kind of thing.




.

======= Date Modified 19 Feb 2010 11:29:00 =======
That was a double posting again, wonder why it keeps happening.

Te snowman thing reminded me of something that happened at school. My friend became convinced the school smelt of cress, and was going on about it all day. She was very confused and couldn't understand why no-one else could smell the overwhelming whiff of cress she was getting. At the end of the day she realised she had a piece of cress wedged in her nostril. We still find that hilarious.

Loving the carrots Mog. 8-)

Yeah, there are some great men! And rubbish women, unfortunately.

Hi folks, I've done my 10 tomatoes, been to the shop, read the tabloids at the local cafe and had a nice bath. I always work much faster in the morning, funny that, it's like I slow down and get tired later on. I'm pleased because I finished my first re-draft of the thesis outline today, I'll leave it too settle now and read through it again tomorrow. I think I'll pay particular attention to my definitions section. These tomatoes are fab!