Being a student in many respects is going to be B O R I N G. It will be impossible to study 24/7 but I will not have a lot of funds for typical tourist sight seeing, etc. Maybe a part time job would help? As a "mature" student, my partying days are a decade or so behind me and I have no yen to recapture my lost youth. I just imagine a bleak, dreary existence, staring over the Charles Dickens like cityscape, watching it rain, rain, rain, huddled near the meagre supply of heat, wishing desperately for McDonalds and Starbucks...

But I am a woman.

I am soon to live my ( mostly comfy) dual existence as professional and PhD overseas distance learner to finish my last year of my PhD resident at my UK institution. I am finding this transition unbelievably hard and sad--perhaps it is because it is around the holidays and I am leaving shortly thereafter.

I knew there would be so many people and things I would miss, but the leave taking is very hard. I am also familiar with the UK having travelled back and forth many times, so its not like I am headed to a complete unknown.

It would be great to hear from anyone else that has moved to the UK from another country to do their studies, and your perspectives on getting settled, dealing with homesickness, and so on.

Thanks!

I am a Shetland Sheepdog! =)

which is actualy very close to the type of furry critters that I have! who are shepherds of another sort. Although one thinks she is actually an art designer ( she did wicked Croc designs on my shoes, my jeans, my handbag!) and the other one thinks he is in charge of a wolfpack, and we all reside in a flat together!

I think it also has to do with the cold damp drafty buildings in the UK. Its always cold inside! And I think it being an island that it has damp humid air which fosters the sort of cold that goes into your bones and does not leave.

That sounds like an interesting area, actually, FatBob. I would imagine its very diverse as to who and how people are held in contempt of court. Do you ever take part in any of the socio-legal conferences held by various groups in the UK ( SLSA or SLS, etc)?

Belisarius--the question is asked, I believe, out of intellectual curiousity! One of the mysteries of the ages!

Please check out the Flying Spaghetti Monster ( www.venganza.org) which demonstrates, regardless of whether the chicken or egg came first, pasta was prime ( evera? not with out veggies I suppose, and without the eggs no carbonara either).

I prefer the McDonalds breakfast burrito---yummy!

So..which came first Genus Galla or the egg....

I think we care about which came first for the obvious reasons that we also wonder why the chicken crossed the road, why the boy threw the clock out the window, and what is big and red and eats rocks...intellectual curiousity of course!

Without these pondering thought provoking questions, we would have no academia, no science. Gravity would have gone undiscovered and we would be left floating through space...unless of course you prefer the Flying Spaghetti Monster to evolution!!!

For those people who post looking for funding, university information and so forth, there be in fact be a service that provides what they are looking for. I just ran across a website for a service called Across the Pond.

Are we allowed to ask on here ( and if not, please pardon the question)? But how many people are doing law PhDs??? Seems like a few? What is the general area of law you are covering in the PhD research?

I have some pre PhD publications--so I think dependent upon the audience you seek and the topic, it is possible to get publications early in PhD work, if you are so inclined. American law journals are not as heavy into theory as European ones, at least in my estimation, so those might be a good target. I still think a great route in is to look for a symposium on your topic, which will publish accepted papers. Then you can both present and be published.

This question still bothers me...this is a PhD forum with some obviously bright people.

So what do you think--from a theoretical/scientific standpoint of course!

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Which, it being breakfast time in Americaland, reminds me of the Simon and Garfunkel song about a chicken and egg breakfast plate--the Mother and Child Reunion! Really. I cannot stomach eggs after that.