Hi frequentflyer,

I've never heard of an exam like this either but I'd agree with Treeoflife. I find exercise really helpful during stressful periods, and I'd probably also recommend a hot bath or reading a good (non-PhD related!) book before bed to help you get some decent sleep this week. I hope you're feeling okay today and best of luck for this week!

Tulip

Hi All,

Thanks so much for the messages - it gave me a real boost to come back here and read them all! We've spoken about the situation a bit more this weekend and at the moment it looks like he'll be staying in his current job for a couple of months and after that he might revisit the idea of moving back to his parents' and we'll do the long distance thing for the rest of the PhD.

Pjlu, satchi and frequentflyer - I think you guys are right about the distance not necessarily being a bad thing. If it does turn out that way, I'll remember your comments about being able to just get on with work in the time that we're apart, and it could be an even bigger incentive to finish the PhD as soon as possible.

Fled - thanks for taking the time to post. I take on board your comment about priorities, and in this case the PhD will always be my number one priority (if it wasn't I'd have no problem just walking away, but there's no part of me that will do that). However I don't think there's anything wrong with also prioritising health and relationships, although ultimately the PhD comes first, especially towards the end.

Milwaukiedave and ApolloBuilt - thanks for the posts. Indeed hopefully only a year and a half to submission (at least thats the aim!) so I'll definitely hang in there. I'd been feeling rubbish all week, not only for this reason but also some issues with experiments failing and supervisor being a pain etc. so your comments were a real help.

metabanalysis - your post made me laugh! Indeed having him take over the cooking and cleaning will make a very nice change! Roll on being finished and earning more money :)

Hope everyone has a good week! And thanks again, it's really meant a lot!

Cheers,
Tulip

Hi frequentflyer and satchi,

Thanks for your kind comments, I really appreciate them. Frequentflyer, I'm sorry to hear of your relationship troubles recently. I saw your recent post and I'm glad to hear you guys are doing a bit better now. I hope you manage to find a happy medium soon and work something out - how are things going now? Regarding communication, I have to coax any information out of my boyfriend and quite often he'll have been thinking about things for weeks before he'll tell me, especially when it's to do with his job or being unhappy where we are. I think I'd like something in the middle where he'll talk to me voluntarily instead of bottling things up. He's agreed to try to talk to me more often so we'll see I guess.

Satchi, I think you're right - it's the job and the place we live in that's making my boyfriend unhappy, but I feel like the PhD is indirectly to blame because it's the reason that we both can't leave the city we're living in at the moment.

To be honest, I'm feeling pretty low today because we had a chat about everything this morning, and my boyfriend mentioned that he's considering moving back to his parents' place (which is about 300 miles away) to work with his dad for a while. It would mean going back to being long distance for about a year and a half while I finish the PhD. Although it's not the relationship that is the problem, I'm worried that being apart could cause problems for us further down the line, but yet there is no part of me that wants to quit the PhD (and he wouldn't want me to quit anyway). I don't know what to think really, we've agreed to talk properly tonight or tomorrow about it so I'll keep you guys posted.

Thanks again!
Tulip

A quick warning - this post is a bit of a rant! Just thought I'd have a bit of a vent since everyone on here tends to be so lovely.

My partner of 4 years relocated with me when I started my PhD and we moved in together. This was nearly two and a half years ago and for all this time he's been stuck in a full time job that he hates just to make sure we can pay our bills/rent. I'm funded for my PhD so he doesn't have to pay towards that, but essentially he works in a job he hates to support me through the PhD and never complains about it. The problem is that he works nights/weekends and we barely see each other, and he works stupidly long hours so he's always run down, catches every bug under the sun and recently has been generally miserable. I hate seeing him like this and I'm doing my best to make things better - I try to keep on top of PhD work so that I can finish in reasonable time, try to keep on top of housework and cooking etc. so that he can just relax and job hunt on his days off. I keep thinking that maybe it's where we live and if we can relocate after I finish the PhD maybe we can move somewhere for him to find a job that he enjoys.

When I try to speak to family/friends about it, I tend to get the 'at least he has a job...' and 'don't worry, things will get better...' cliches, and I know people mean well but sometimes it drives me mad!! I'm so frustrated because I feel like the PhD is holding us back and I just want us both to have jobs that mean we can actually see each other. Anyway, I know things can always be worse but just needed to get that off my chest I think!

Apologies for a bit rant and thanks for reading!

Cheers,
Tulip

Thanks Ian! You were right, the paper's now been submitted with my name listed as co-author - it must just be the big cynic in me that was questioning whether they would keep me listed on the paper! I responded to say thanks and to keep my institutional affiliation listed as the old university. And once it's accepted I'll definitely be adding it to the old CV :)

Thanks again!

Hi guys,

I too am in final year, funding runs out in October as well and I'm very glad to hear of other people in the same boat! Realistically I won't be able to submit until around March, I've got loads of experiments still to do and data to analyse from experiments that have been finished. I'll most likely be in the lab until the funding runs out, so I'm hoping to get bits written as I go.

I'm a bit ashamed to say this but I don't even have a complete literature review, just bits of writing here and there and draft figures of my results so far. How are you guys managing to juggle writing with data collection etc.? Or will you write up once the data is all ready to go? It's really good to hear from others at the same stage!

Tulip

Hi TreeofLife and lemon juice,

Thanks very much for your replies. I sent off an email just saying thank you as I mentioned and the first author seemed happy enough. Fingers crossed now that the paper gets accepted without too much hassle :) really appreciate the comments as I didn't want to sound rude or inexperienced when contacting the department!

Cheers,
Tulip

Hi everyone,

I just found out today I'm being named on a paper for some work I did during my masters (around 3 years ago). It'll be my first paper that I'm co-author on so I'm delighted! :) But I do have a couple of questions for people who have more experience in getting their work published...

What's the etiquette for this type of thing? I'm not based in that department anymore so I received an email sent to all co-authors with the final draft of the paper, asking for comments. I don't have any comments to add, so should I just send an email to say thank you for the authorship and that the paper looks great, etc.? I don't want to just ignore the email in case they then don't put my name on the paper!

Also, I didn't have the best relationship with my supervisor from that university so is there any chance he could try to take my name off the paper before it is published? I know that I contributed to this work and the data is in my masters thesis, but even still I'm a bit concerned because I've heard of these things happening in lots of departments. Hopefully I'm worrying unnecessarily, but I thought I'd ask for comments anyway. Any advice would be very much appreciated!

Thanks in advance :)
Tulip

Hi Lolly,

Sorry to hear about your diagnosis, I hope you're okay! I too have a chronic illness, one that can lead to many complications and is exacerbated by stress. I'm in my third year of a science Phd and the first couple of years were very tough because I didn't take any leave of absence (in hindsight I probably should have). At the time, my medication hadn't been working and I was ill most of the time, so my work really suffered and my supervisor was not very supportive at all! However, once I got my medication sorted and started to feel better, I was able to crack on with PhD work and get results.

Your health is so much more important than a PhD and you can't work to your full capacity when you're unwell. I still struggle to juggle both the PhD and the chronic condition, I have days where I think I need to prioritise my work, and then days where I think I need to take it a bit easier and look after my health... it's difficult but not impossible to manage both. However, if going part time would be the best option for your health and you have one supervisor on board, I would definitely consider it! And I second the first poster's suggestion of counselling, I found my Uni counselling services were great for helping me accept my diagnosis.

If you can please think about your health - there is life after the PhD and we need to be well for it!! :) If you want to chat or just vent anonymously PM me.

Tulip

Sent! Let me know if you have problems opening the file :) Tulip

Hi Rina,

I've sent you a PM incase you still need this article.

Tulip

Hi,

I realise this has been done before but I couldn't find any recent ones to join - I know there's the accountability partners thread for people who are finishing up, but I still have about 18months to 2 years left and need to find some motivation at the moment! Anyone else interested in holding each other accountable? I'm hoping to use this to help me see that I am actually making progress and anyone else (at any stage of the process) is more than welcome to join! :)

So this week I'm hoping to get a new batch of cell lines in culture and plan the next couple of weeks' worth of experiments. I've also got some figures to put together for my 1st and 2nd results chapters so that I can continue drafting these while I do the experiments for them.

Good luck with work this week everyone!

Hi wowzers, thanks very much for your reply!

I had a chat with my supervisor and I'm feeling happier that the experiments won't go on forever and there are certain things I'm trying to prove (or disprove if that turns out to be the case!), so hopefully I can wrap up the experiments without them dragging on forever. I also took a short break recently so I've come back to work with a sense of perspective (I was feeling pretty emotional at the time of this post a couple of months back!).

I appreciate you taking the time to reply - although it took me a while to reply to this, it was so helpful to have a calm logical response at the time and it really helped me get my head around everything that was going on. How are things going with your PhD? Am I right in thinking you started relatively recently? Hope everything is going well! x

Hi,

I'm a couple of months into my third year of what will realistically be a four year PhD. The project I applied for was in an area that was relevant to my Masters research and it looked like a fantastic project. Anyway, as soon as I started, my supervisor changed the area of work to fit with some experiments that he wanted for a side project, which included different techniques that didn't fit with the research the lab is set up for, and as a result I've had a series of problems getting the techniques to work.

All along, my supervisor kept promising that I would be able to incorporate this work into my thesis along with the research I really wanted to carry out (they are very loosely connected if a broad thesis title is used). So now I'm in my third year, too far in to walk away, and my supervisor now tells me that I won't be able to start this interesting project that I originally applied for at all, and he wants to change my thesis title to match this side project of his.

The problem is that I find his side project work incredibly boring!! I only continued through years 1 and 2 because of the hope of being involved in the project I was so interested in to start with. Don't get me wrong, I realise projects change and evolve over time, but I have to be honest here, I feel a bit cheated! Plus the side project is follow up work from another student so the chances of me getting a first author paper at any point is looking very slim. Any advice on how to change my thinking to try and find this new project interesting?

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

Apologies for a bit of a depressing thread that I'm sure has come up time and time again - I think I just need to vent or maybe have a friendly kick up the bum! :)

I'm about to start my third year (science PhD) and the last couple of weeks my motivation is through the floor! Things had been going relatively well, my experiments hadn't been working too well but my supervisor and I had come up with ways to write it all into my thesis anyway, so I was feeling much happier about everything. But more recently, I've had problems with contaminated cell lines which delay me by a couple of weeks each time it happens, and it just feels like the next year will fly by, my funding will run out and I'll have nothing to show for my three years in the lab. A few other things have happened too, e.g. meetings with rude colleagues who were delighted to hear my experiments were failing and saying things like 'oh will you finish on time?' with a massive grin on their face! Anyway... I just feel like I'm at the end of my tether, but I'm aware that hiding at home instead of going into the lab is getting me nowhere, and I definitely don't want to quit. I just want to feel a bit more positive so that I can get back to being (or trying to be!) productive.

I've tried talking things over with my partner but he doesn't have much time to talk with his long work hours, and my family are less than understanding of the whole thing. If I complain about a bad day, they tell me to quit and get a 'real job' - not helpful! What's more is that this is making me anxious all the time, I'm even having weird nightmares most nights and wake up feeling really panicky!

Anyway, sorry again for a long ranting post - thanks for reading, and any thoughts would be great!

Tulip