Thanks glowworm! Sorry to hear you're having a less productive day - just remember the day is still young! I was sick this morning so only started working at 11.30, but the thing that keeps me calm is reminding myself that the day is young and there's always time to get something done. Any progress is a step in the right direction. We can both still have a productive day :) hope you have a better afternoon! (And I should follow my own advice and get started too...).

Good luck to everyone working today!

Hi GrumpyMule and everyone else too!

I'd like to join this thread too if that's okay - I think I need some accountability at the moment! Things are a bit up and down with my supervisor lately, he swings from saying he thinks everything is going reasonably well to telling me my writing is crap and I won't be ready to submit on time, not great for motivation! But I need to crack on and make progress and you guys are always very supportive so hopefully this thread will really help.

So my goals for today are:
1. Finish experiment that I started yesterday
2. A chunk of my literature review (I'll aim for around 500 words to start with)

Hopefully then I'll start to feel like I'm making progress again - how is everyone else doing?

Tulip

No problem at all - I''ve sent these over now so if you haven't got them let me know.

Tulip

Hey silverlining,

I can access pdfs for both of these - pm me an email address and I'll send them over :)

Tulip

PS sorry I spelt your name wrong glowworm - it would appear my head is still all over the place today!

Hey guys,

How is everyone doing? GM that's great that your supervisor is happy, hopefully that'll keep you motivated when things get tricky. I hope all is okay on the family front. And glowworm that's great you're close to working on the full draft, I can't wait to be in that position!

I had a really awful meeting with my supervisor on Friday, where he decided to slag off my writing, saying it isn't good enough and is taking too long to get up to a submittable standard, even though previously he said things were going well. And to top it off, he now wants a new batch of experiments for the thesis and wants the results of these plus an entire draft of the thesis ready for the beginning of July!! So I'm still annoyed and completely overwhelmed - he's always been great at destroying my motivation. Anyway, sorry for the rant, I know we're supposed to motivate each other here, I'm just really irritated. I hope everyone else is having a good start to the week and is happy with their progress.

Tulip

Welcome to the forum! I work in a small department with very few PhD students so I've found being able to come here for a bit of interaction with others in the same boat has been very helpful. Good luck with your studies!

Hey guys,

Hope you both had a lovely Easter break (if you were taking time off) - I took Fri-Sun off to spend time with mine and my partner's families and felt really guilty, but I feel much better for a break. Glowworm - great to have you on board! I'm very envious of you being so close to submission because I want this to be over now! And GrumpyMule, hope you manage to get your literature review finished before your meeting, I'll keep my fingers crossed it goes well.

I've still got quite a lot to do - I have two chapters to write from scratch, one of which I'm still doing experiments for, and half drafted literature review and methods chapters to finish. So goal for today is to finish a section of my literature review and then start notes/figures for my next results chapter. Hope you guys are having a productive day! :)

Tulip

Hey GM,

Hope you had a lovely weekend and well deserved break! That's great you broke the 1000 word mark on Thurs :) November is still a while away so I'll keep my fingers crossed it will be doable for you.

I've had a busy few days getting my third results chapter redrafted to send to supervisor tomorrow but it's ended up being a last minute rush. I've written almost 1500 words today so it's been productive, but now I need to spend tonight finishing a couple of sections and putting together some tables. I'm in my write up year now, I was lucky and got an extension so my funding ran out at the end of Feb and now living off savings and my long-suffering boyfriend until Sept. My final deadline is end of Sept but I'm hoping to submit end of August (fingers crossed!). It feels very tight too but unfortunately it has to be done somehow (and it feels very real writing it on here for some reason...). We will get there eventually - hope you're having a good day!

Tulip

Hey GrumpyMule,

Hope you had a good day writing yesterday and made it to 900 words! It sounds like you're very organised, when do you have to submit if you don't mind me asking?

I spent the last couple of days revising my results chapter and got it handed in to my supervisor yesterday, so I'm happy with that. Also made a start on the next results chapter revisions - I have two more results chapters to revise by Easter so that I can have a nice break!! (And hopefully half a thesis by then!)

Hope you have a productive day too :)

Tulip

Hi GrumpyMule,

I'd like to join this thread too - I've had a horribly unproductive day yesterday so I need to turn things around today. My goal is to finish revisions to my third results chapter today, ready to send to my supervisor tomorrow for feedback.

1200 words in a day is very impressive! I'm lucky if I can reach 1000 on a good day. Hope you have another productive day GM!

And congratulations BlackTrinity and Wanderingbit! It's very motivating to hear of others who've made it to the end of the process.

Cheers,
Tulip

Hi,

I would say be cautious when deciding whether or not to tell your supervisor. It might be worth weighing up whether they seem like an open minded type of person or not. I speak from experience - I don't have a mental health problem but I do have a chronic condition that I decided to be honest with my supervisor about. It was a huge mistake, because he is quite an ignorant person when it comes to health problems, and since day 1 has treated me very differently from the other students, and even excluded me from work for publications because he believed I was 'too ill' to take on extra work. In hindsight I should have kept it to myself.

I'm not saying your supervisor will do the same, and IntoTheSpiral has made some very good points. I completely agree that there shouldn't be a stigma around depression or any other ilness, mental health related or otherwise. But sadly some professors (and indeed some people in all professions) will be ignorant and may not be very sympathetic. I think you should think carefully about whether you believe your supervisor will be supportive or not, because whatever you decide, it's important to make things as easy as possible for yourself during your PhD. Good luck!

Tulip

Hi JaBa,

This sounds quite unpleasant, sorry to hear of your troubles. It sounds very similar to a group of students/staff in my lab when I first started my PhD. I found that putting my head down and focussing on my work, and keeping a good working relationship with my supervisor was the only way forward. Also I noticed that as time went on and some of these students moved on, the friendships suddenly weren't as solid looking as I thought previously, and it turned out that other staff realised that they were gossips who didn't work as hard, but just turned a blind eye for some reason. Anyway, hopefully this will be the case in your situation where some of these people will move on/get other jobs, etc. I would advise just making sure to keep a good relationship with your supervisor where possible and keep your eye on the prize! I hope things get better for you.

Hi guys, thank you for the replies.

DrCorinne - the grant is funded by a charity and was awarded to my supervisor, but as far as I'm aware the consumable and stipend pots are separate, which would mean we would need permission from the sponsor to use the money from either pot for a different reason. If that's the case I get the impression my supervisor wouldn't want to approach the sponsor, so I'm unsure what would happen. But also I didn't want to approach my supervisor about this incase it came across that I'm trying to get more money and that I'm not appreciative of the extension I already received.

kikothedog - I have some other consumable money left that will cover the costs of my remaining experiments and instrument use, and there is a lot more money in that pot than I will probably need to finish up, which is why I thought I'd ask about the stipend money. But I guess thinking about it, my supervisor applied for and was awarded the grant initially, so I guess ultimately it's up to him to decide how it's used. I thought I'd ask anyway!

Thanks for your replies!
Tulip

My PhD grant is due to run out soon (I'm in fourth year now, I was given an extension so my stipend is about to come to an end) and I've just found out there is some money left in the stipend pot for my grant, equating to about 2 months' stipend...the problem is that my supervisor has asked the finance department if he can use it for consumable money. So I'm wondering, can he do that? Or do I have a leg to stand on to speak to finance myself and ask whether it can be used as stipend for me? I don't know how this usually works and whether this is very cheeky of me, or whether it's cheeky of him to try to use stipend money for his own costs. Equally I don't want to annoy him, I need his help with reading drafts and organising my viva, and he can be quite a difficult person to deal with even when he's in a good mood!

However, he knows I have another six months of full time work to finish experiments and write up, so a bit of extra stipend money would be very useful for me. Sorry for the ramble, does anyone have any thoughts on this situation? Should I say something or just let it go?

Thanks,
Tulip