you hit spell check for the very well crafted e mail you have worked on for an hour and the very unstable email system evaporates the entire email, rather than checking the spelling....leaving you to start anew!

No question but to replace it. That is the risk you assume when you borrow a book. I won't lend books to anyone anymore, having had very bad experiences where people ruin the books, or have lost them, and not offered to replace them. These have been good friends, as well, and certainly people from whom I expected more. Based on a few of these, I simply do not lend anything anymore--no matter what--and tell people the reason is based on bad experiences.

I am not familiar with your field, but I think generally speaking the US holds a UK PhD in high regard. There is a certain "sparkle" to a foreign degree in the US.

The PhD is just the time/space where it is happening, but the same passage might occur for the first time in a new job out of uni or leaving home and not attending uni. The first time you look over the edge (of life) and realise you are on your own it can be daunting--terrifying even. You are more or less dependent on YOURSELF to a large degree--! in every sense of the word dependent ( emotionally, financially, etc).

I am glad I am doing the PhD as a mature student. I think it would have been a much different experience had I done it years ago. ( for one thing the legal instruments I am studying would not have existed! ) but that aside, having experienced the working world, marriage, divorce, failed pregnancy, the sudden widowhood of a friend, all the ups and downs that life brings with it, brings a different perspective to the PhD process. Its hard. Its manageable.

I sometimes wonder how much of the PhD angst people suffer is related to their passage through life to adulthood. Many people starting PhDs have moved into them straight from undergraduate degrees, and have not had the experience of managing on their own in a fulltime job, independent of parental financial support, etc. The PhD then is the first experience of being tossed out of the nest, and the struggles to self motivate, to establish new boundaries in new relationships with supervisors and PhD student peers is all part of that bigger passage of life.

I am divorced and now single by choice as I head through the PhD. This is a very very individualised choice, and not one that is recommended ( or not) for anyone else. YMMV. Having endured a relationship break up at the start of the PhD, having struggled to balance the PhD and work, and now relocated into the country of my uni, I have decided that I simply want to put my head down, do the remainder of the PhD, and let that be my focus. I have worked too hard to get to here. I do not want the emotional highs and lows of a new relationship in a new country as I enter the PhD home stretch. Am I putting anything on hold? It does not feel that way. Rather, it feels that I am focused on a goal I have pursued for a long time and setting the path to it in the way best to ensure its finish. However, if I met a wonderful person today, I would not preclude them from my life! Its just not something I am looking for at the moment.

The PhD is hardly the most stressful thing your marriage will encounter. The first year of marriage is said to be the hardest--it is when you are making so many adjustments--even if and perhaps especially so if you have lived together prior to being married. Not saying this is the case here, but sometimes people marry because they feel it is the time--due to their age, parental or societal pressure, etc...that at 25 or 27 or 32 or whatever people assign themselves the task of being married--and then search for a partner, rather than doing it the other way round.

The decision to get married/be in a longterm partnership is a very individual one--or rather between two individuals, and what works for one couple may not be the case for another. I think Smilodon is right, you cannot simply put your life on hold, because life is what is happening to you nevertheless. If this feels like the time to marry, and you have a like minded partner, then do it--after giving due thought to all that marriage brings with it.

http://www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/archive/oldnews5/dreaminterpretation.htm

found this website that has dream interpretation symbols...art means ideals, a railway station, birth, a train, a journey...a pub, social contact.

could this dream have been about my PhD after all? what is a PhD if not ideas and ideals--the birth of ideas/ideals, a journey in the mind...where the pub symbol fits in I don't know, but the arrival at the art museum/train station by train could be a dream metaphor for...starting a PhD? starting a new phase of the PhD?

This is when opera is handy--esp. the kind with shrill sopranos that break glass. You could share this with your neighbour, and they might get the idea...You tube has great opera clips if you haven't got any opera on hand yourself...

@pam
I had the strangest dream last night, I can only remember pieces of it, despite waking up and trying to remember it. I would be very interested to hear an intepretation...

I took a train to a large station that was part train station, part art museum, in the Greek Revival style that you see in the federal buildings in Washington DC. The setting was def not UK in style, but perhaps part DC, part Chicago art museum. I was supposed to meet friends at the station, but when I did not find them, I texted them. They had gone to an Irish pub while waiting for my train. I met them outside of the station at a vendor's selling hotdogs. I felt sort of lost, forlorn and abandoned as I tried to find them and waited for them to turn up, which they eventually did.

I am very very tired--but I put this down to working too hard without a sufficient break---and am trying to ease back a bit where I can, by working less hours in the day, revising my plan of work for the day/week, and recognising my own limits! Dreams--I dream vividly, but seldom remember them upon waking, or for more than a few fleeting seconds but then they are gone.

I think that works for me in keeping strictly to time is knowing where I am in my presentation relative to my overall time as I go. That way, I know if I am on pace, comfortably ahead, or if I need to move along more quickly to finish appropriately and without leaving out or racing through critical pieces. I think that PP or overhead slides help with this, as you can calculate the rough minutes per slide, against the total. I try to mark the 5, 10 and 15 minute marks on slides of a 20 minute presentation, and can gauge yourself accordingly. I think this is harder to do if you read a paper...in fact I don't know how you would do it. By "ad-libbing" the presentation to some extent, rather than reading, you can adjust your timing as needed, in a way you cannot if you are reading.

I think its always a challenge to know where to pitch your papers and presentations, i.e. what level of knowledge to assume. It probably depends if this is a specialised v. a general conference. Brief explanations of key concepts are probably helpful in any event, just so that everyone is on the same page.

hi blueberry thanks for asking. In the end they are staying at least for now where they are in the US with family members. I will have to re-evaluate that in a few months time.