my mum is the one who never asks and even when i try to tell her about it she seems completely disinterested. i was surprised the other day to know that my dad knows the precise title of my thesis. he's become so interested that he's been asking after my drafts which he reads regularly. he events sends me conference details and papers or just newspaper articles.. i only wish my phd was going that well and i could keep up.

thanks Nimrod81. not doing so badly after all...

oops... typo : in the last couple of days, i was so motivated and the paper was going well, til i met my sup who trashed my thesis - to which the paper is related..and with all the reading to do by then..

Hangseng - good on you to have found such a person.. who can emphathise and all..

Pea n Katq - ya, i know what you mean, i did consider dropping out of a conference presentation and he just kept pushing.. you can do it sort of thing - like its just writing a b c d.., the deadline is coming up on Monday. in the last couple of days til i met my sup who trashed my thesis - to which the paper is related..and with all the reading to do by then.. ah well, i guess he's talked me into stickin it out - for the right or the wrong reasons - who knows.... only doing it to impress him don wanna look like i gave up..

am currently being driven by passion trying to live up to Mr. Positive's expectations.. let's see how it goes.

** hope he never finds this site. my biggest secret.

try Warwick, they call their PhD, LLD. same as the conventional DPhil or PhD..

i had a really bad day yesterday, having been trashed by my supervisor and all. decided to put off my work for the evening, and then did the worst thing ever.. went thro my phone book catching up with friends, then i decided to call this guy a have a huge crash on. he asked how my day was and i just went on and on about my PhD blues.... managed to confuse him for a therapist perhaps... :-( before i knew it, i had been going on and on for half an hour or so....and he obviously noticed my NEGATIVE attitude syndrome... that comes up once in a while since beginning my phd.. used to be such a positive person, n i am most times... but do you find that your other halves understand what you're going thro or do they get overwhelmed? should we talk about our rubbish days with our other halves or should we leave that for postgraduateforum.com???

thanks MistaG, you just made my evening.. taking tonight off to take my mind off things, will revisit it tomorrow.

Jojo.

hi everyone,

i saw my new supervisor today and i am unsure of my research topic. she reckons i should change it slightly. i also agree that i should be more precise. feeling very low now, wondering if i will ever get a phd having wasted one and a quarter years. can anyone console me that it's gonna be ok in the end??

jojo. :-(

scamp - maybe it's just nerves. i find that most things get a lot more interesting the more time you spend on them. my topic is like that, was great during my masters, i have had a few ups and downs since, esp when i first started. the perspective my supervisors made me take for my lit review has since changed, and i have adopted a perspective that appeals to me. so maybe you can look at it in a different way, from an angle that interests you? best of luck.

best of luck Wickid. keep us posted on how it goes.

happy for you Wickid!

actually, it's not that unrealistic. i did that in my first year. however, as time went by, i narrowed my research more and changed a lot of parts of it. so i don think no. of words is an issue.

there are a couple of courses going on, but they have already started, and their times conflict with my teaching times. so i can't attend.

second year? am not way off then.

thanks .

Good for you, your research is going somewhere.

do you work at the John Rylands? will be popping in this afternoon to borrow some books. no worries, i wont say hi.

J.

hi,

am in my second year and am just beginning to familiarize myself with quantitative methods, eg. statistics. I met a first year in another department who has to learn them in his first year. I spend the whole of last year writing a literature review which honestly needs a lot more work. what i can say i got from last year was narrowing down my research question. my supervisors are not really interested in my research, i think they just picked me coz they needed a student. they research aspects related to my broader subject are and its been 4 months since we had a meeting. i have emailed them several times and they just don seem bothered, so i've decided that am the one who wants the phd and i'll do it on my own. what's worse is that even if they were bothered, they would have nothing to say about my research, coz they don have a clue. anyone in the same situation? i hoping to get opinions from conferences instead - at least people there know something about my research. did you do your empirical research in your second year? am a social scientist.

J.

J.