ive brought some bottles of wine, let me fire the first one into me then il be more in the christmas spirit wally and i shall join u in a christmas dance off! 8-)

extremely rubbish! ever get the feeling ur work isnt as important as theirs, u cant do anything right and even tho u bend over backwards so much ur doing a loop the loop ur still not supportive enough...?? but i digress! situation with the paper is nearly sorted yay! hope ur itchy foot isnt driving u too mad keenbean, ive learned chopsticks are very good for when the itching gets too much! I never went anywhere without one when i broke my wrist, nice!!

mince pies all round... (mince)(mince)(mince)
just need a tin of roses and quality street now....

right there with u girl....i soo badly want to finish on time, but with everything i have to do, 10 months doesnt seem like enough....major grump today, altho not caused by work but stupid boys...pffff

good stuff getting ur reports done sneaks, just the transcriptions and dog now! :) ive just had an email suggesting i send the paper to a diff journal, gutted! i may have to rewrite the damn thing again, feel like firing it in the bin! but i shant, il brush myself off and love on! waiting for my sup to tell me what to do! until then, im generally wasting time reading stuff and not taking it in!

muchos gracias teek! just found about 50 papers i have to read this weekend though so im back off my cloud! :D

Sooooo.....I did it!! after about 10 months of writing, rewriting, rewriting and rewriting some more (9 drafts to be precise..) I have finally submitted my firstest ever paper to a journal! Obviously I'm waiting for inevitable 'this is so crap I can't believe you even submitted it' reply from the journal but I don't care, I'm just so relieved I finally got it done! yay!
I'm sending my goodwill vibes through the forum for you people! (snowman)

no problemmo!! it is a bit sad to think that the next 3 years will be all doom and gloom, but it really wont be! everyone has me too times, but they pass! There seem to be certain rites of passage that you have to go through to do a phd but from what ive seen of people, it does you good in the end and u end up a much better person for it. Whether or not you finish the phd, you'll find out what you're made of, what you are actually, really truly interested in, and what your priorities are in life. There are so many times I've said this is ridiculous, why would anyone want to do this to themselves, but once you get into it you start to get used to the idea and actually enjoy the madness of all the change. You'll very much like a duck out of water for the first while but thats important, you have to toughen up quite a bit to survuve this process and doing a little hard bit a time is better than a whole load of awfulness at once...which will happen at some stage, so time to get practicing! Personally, i have a little post it note stuck on my comouter with the word 'perseverance'...i wrote it ages ago when i was having a hard time, and i realised for the first time, no matter how hard this would be, it's all i wanted to do so best get stuck in! it makes me smile now, to know i've come through all the madness and I'm still standing!

So good luck, you'll get there! (up)

Congratulations DanB!! What a great early Christmas present!! I hope you have a brilliant christmas now and just revel in your new official smartness!! ;-)

sure have a mince pie to celebrate! (mince) (sorry, no champagne icons!!)

Hi Jessebel

I'm in my third year now (gulp) and what you're saying sounds a lot like my very own experiences in first year!  At christmas it was all ok still, I was having good and bad days, but I was close to quitting a number of times in first year. While I'm part of a large research group, my main supervisor isn't an expert in my field although he is amazing at other stuff I need so it's all ok, but I did feel quite isolated research wise, as everyone else was able to talk and discuss their projects and noone had a clue about mine!  Obviously I don't know exactly how you are feeling about things and can't tell you what to do, but I will tell you that for me at least, it did get much better.
Speak to your supervisor and the other lecturers in your department as if you were peers, fair enough they are much more knowledgeable than you but they are smart enough to understand that you are just starting out in the big bad world of academia and you have a lot to learn from them.  For mingling with other students, is there a postgrad society at your uni? Go along to events, even if it's with people who are in totally different subjects, they all know what it's like to have general phd issues, it works well on this forum too!
As for picking the right project, I'm also like you in that I am interested in all sorts of things, that have a general theme if I look hard enough!  I panicked in first year that my project wasn't right for me and it led to a lot of tensions with my sups, which is resolved now thankfully, but it has worked out in my favour. I'm able to think about the project in a different way than someone who has always worked in the project which has led to some pretty neat ideas.  Make the most of your interests, don't feel that because you hve picked a certain topic that that's all you can be passionate about, remember you never know where your phd might take you, and it's best to keep and open mind and an open heart for everything that you do. And everything else will fall into place eventually :-)

eh, you're surely missing the best option of all, which satisfies cravings, bid to be healthy and work ethic...go to the gym now, and eat cake WHILE you do work later...sorted!(gift)

Aww eska, i hope your mood is still onthe up, its crappy when you get days like this. As others have said, try not to let your supervisor get to you, my main supervisor hardly ever talks to me, even when he does his rounds of the office talking to all his students before he leaves to go somewhere, made me feel really crap until i realised that everyone else seems to stay out of his way and he doesnt come to me cos he's already happy enough with what im doing...other supervisor fills our meeting with allusions to how crap i am and my work is, but after 2 years im learning to ignore him :) just remember that ur fab and if anyone is doesnt see that then they just done know u well enough yet!
As for the to move or not to move situation, dont make any decisions until you are in a better frame of mind, and as for family.....good god but they are a nightmare sometimes. I'm having some family issues today that have thrown me right off track, but lots of deep breathing has saved me from breaking things! good luck for the rest of ur day, just concentrate on one thing at a time...and stick on some christmas music! or watch elf, what a brilliant movie!! (tree)

ahhhh the neverending story... :-)

I'd be pretty happy with a luck dragon myself these days! Stupid stuff happening today which is making me super grumpy, and unable to concentrate so bang goes the work plan for the week...pffff

think I shall have myself a hot choc and a mince pie later! yea! (mince)

aww how nice is that! See we aren't procrastinating raelly, we are just assisting with promoting and management of mental health throughout the PhD process!! :D (gift)

no no no, it me! lol!