Mendeley all the way sneaks. It's so simple, and Refowrks is so bad it should be banned and then burned. If you register online you can access your account that way, it will automatically sync accounts when you move from one computer to another, and cos it's free you can set it up on loads of computers. I love Mendeley :-x

MA-HOOSIVE CONGRATULATIONS Sue!! Oh my gosh I'm so so pleased for you finally getting submitted, how wonderful! What a massive weight off your shoulders, I can imagine how good it must feel. Although, like the others, I'm so so sorry about your wee dog, life just won't give you a break will it? I hope she's not in too much pain or anything, at least now that you are done you will have much more time to just sit with her and help her through it, like she's stuck by you. Dogs are amazing. Just make sure you give yourself plenty of down time to come to terms with everything over the next few months, it's been a crazy time for you and it will probably all just hit you one big whallop when you are starting to feel relaxed. But definitely try to get some celebrations in about your submission, it's really a massive achievement, and a total inspiration to me, so thank you for that!!

And don't leave us on PGF too long, we'll miss you!! (gift)(gift)(gift) - have loads of presents cos there's STILL no champagne icon jobbie, mods?!!!

Hi Stachi, yes it's grand for correlation tables, that's what I needed it for initially actually! :)

Wow, I've missed a lot here!

First off Sue, I'm so so sorry to hear about your dad passing away, I hope things are starting to settle for you a bit now, just take whatever time you need when you need it. But secondly, yay that you are so close to submission! Having the main part of the thesis done is a great feeling, you can start to see a little light at the end of the tunnel and it's just non-thinking stuff mostly from here on in, so bloody well done girl! I will try my best to get a little breakfast drink in with you so just let me know which morning it is and I'll see if I can get Skype up and running or something! I'll also try my best to get my remaining corrections done this week too, or at leastthe brunt of it so I can have a mini celebration with you!
As for everyone else, AL and Monte, you are both my white flags that keep reminding me that it will end, somehow so thank you for that! Enjoy your holiday AL and your little cat sounds really sweet! Can't wait until I'm able to get myself a pet, a nice bouncy dog perhaps!!

Hi Satchi
I had this problem too, but my supervisor suggested I just get round it by putting <0.01 in, so all the decimal places are the same and it avoids having to use the exponential notation, which I hate seeing in tables.

Ah please don't use coal, think sustainability folks! I'm sure you can get grants and stuff to insulate your home if it's a certain age, all the eco-grants might still be around if David Cameron hasn't got his grubby mitts on them yet...

For heat, I'd say fingerless mittens, with hand warmers inside them to keep your hands warm when you are working, typing with cold hands is a nightmare. Clothing wise, I do a bit of scuba diving, and the undersuits for underneath drysuits are amazing. Like sleeping bags with arms and legs. I have several diving friends who have been known to wear theirs inside for heat when the gas/oil runs out. The undersuits are great with some thermal longjohns as a bottom layer, a thin fleece top or two, and fleecy/warm leggings, then the undersuit on top. I wear thick hiking socks to keep my feel warm, and that combined with a hat and fingerless mittens should have you sweating! You can buy one on ebay for cheap enough, get a big enough size to allow layering underneath though!

ahhh....sometimes i think it should be ok to slap these people, I'm sure any well educated judge who knows what a PhD is would understand.
Friday night I was out at a fancy dinner thing, and my uncle was there, who knows all about how my 2nd sup gave me extra corrections the day before submission, meaning that I had to miss that date and rearrange the viva etc, spent 2 days crying about it etc - he asked me how my "composition" was going and why hadn't I finished it yet, sure it's only a few thousand words...I know he was trying to be funny but I almost burst into tears right there.
As for living back at home and meeting old friends I haven't seen in ages, if I get asked once more when my course finishes and what job I want to do when I'm finished I'll crack.

well done Eska! I'm so fed up with the whole thing that I'm finding it hard to like any of my work, but I'm so pleased you are getting there and enjoying it! :)

Good luck for your viva prep Alpacalover, and try not to get too stressed out with your typos, I think it's inevitable that somethings will get through. Plus you were really massively pushed for time at the end so hopefully your examiners will appreciate that. At this stage, just focus on the content and your argument and proving to your examiners why your typos don't matter cos you are actually a proper scientist with a good thesis!

Thanks Sue! As for the virtual party, if I ever get this nightmare finished, I'll be quite happy to drink champagne all day long, so I can start in for breakfast if that suits! :-) Hope everything is going ok at your end!

Think it's a great idea, nowhere near enough experience or opportunities available for this kind of thing. (up)

Science communication sounds better to me, as the course would cover commuication to stakeholders, academics, industry, media, politicians etc as well as the general public, which is what the second title implies.

Hi Keenbean, I hope you are finding the solution is coming a bit easier to you now. I must say I have to agree with Eska here, no point being a fantastic acdemic if you have no marbles. I think that given your past history and the fact that this woman is getting to you so much, aside from jobs and the sense of responsibility you feel to her for taking you on in the first place, if working with her is really affecting your mental health, then it's not the right place for you. If she is repeatedly blowing up and then apologising to you, it's obvious she knows she is behaving wrongly, and it's not right for you to be on the receiving end, but if she keeps doing it, then she'll never stop.
If you think you can handle it then fair enough, it is a great position to be in knowing you have a good chance of obtaining funding to research exactly what you want, so I understand your reluctance to leave. Maybe if you go to her and tell her you've been having doubts that you can stay on due to her mood swings, perhaps she will rethink her actions? Don't go in saying you're going to walk out unless she wises up, just say that you would love to stay on, but you will have to seriously consider it, given the kind of working relationship you have.

Good luck Emmaki! It is a lot of work, but you can do it. Just do a rough draft of the outline at the start, and you can build on it over time before the next meeting, just jot down any ideas you get. Before you know it you'll have a decent outline, and you can still modify it at the end to suit your thesis better, it's only an outline. For your lit review, just break it down into little sections, and write a bit at a time on each section. I found it can be quite helpful to vary your writing over different sections, it helps you stay interesting and not get bogged down in too many minute details in just one section. Plus you'll find yourself with quite a bulky chapter in no time, which always helps the motivation!

Hi everyone, thanks for the support :-) I'm only back on this now, couldn't face it before.

Things are kind of ok at the moment actually, it's all turned out alright, mainly due to my main sup stepping up and realising how bad the situation was. Wally, sorry if my post wasn't clear before, I could hardly see for tears as I was typing, but it was my 2nd sup who emailed the day before submission to say i should postpone, my main sup was ok with the thesis and for me to submit on time. However, it was him who had been 'hinting' at me postponing before, my 2nd sup just kind of shrugged and said 'humph, whatever' when we talked about it before. I agree that it's an absolute disgrace that this was allowedt to happen, although my 2nd sup has a bit of a habit of doing this kind of thing. I thought I had done my best to get him sorted though so I wouldn't be in this situation, I gave them all a timetable of when to expect chapters in January and busted my ass trying to stick with it. My main sup said if any corrections came too late just to ignore them as it would make me miss my deadline etc. But the way my 2nd sup worded his email implied it was a major problem with the thesis that result in resubmission at best. When I asked him for a meeting on Friday to find out what it was though, he said we didn't need a meeting as it was just specific comments in the paper that needed changed i.e not major problems, but small things that I could have submitted with. I was devestated, as I could have submitted after all. and Rick, I would have been ok with being told a month ago to submit later, but being told the day before was just horrible.

Anywhoo, after finding this out, my main sup emailed me apologising, saying he though he had let me down and he was sorry. He has arranged an extra bit of reserach work for me to give me a bit of money for the next few months, and said he would contact my examiners to let them know about the postponement - I hope this means he will tell them that it's not me missing my deadline but due to last minute corrections from a crappy sup, I don't want it going against me.

So I'm feeling a bit better, still gutted that I'm still not submitted, but at least this way I'll have time to go over the thesis again and be more confident going into the viva. Silver lining and all that.

And Sue, I hope your job interview went ok in the end, sounded like a scary process!! It's all experience though, you'll be well sorted for future interviews, and if it's for you it won't pass you. But good luck for hearing back from them! xx

Well, I didn't think it was possible for this to happen, but then, it's PhD land, when travelling through the seven fires of hell, there is no limit to the utter crapness that can be bestowed upon us....

Today was the penultimate hand in day. I had my 4/5 hours sleep that I've been living on for the past God knows how long, got up early, started cracking on with my references so I can hand in tomorrow. Hand in was meant to be next week, but then I found out it had to be tomorrow by my main sup. So I've been flat out, to the point where my mum is threatening to put a sleeping tablet in my tea. At lunchtime, I finished the first draft of my refs, and allowed myself a small smile. It's nearly over. One more day of misery and I'm free. Then at 2pm, my 2nd sup emails to say that he thinks I should postpone my viva, and hand in a month later as he still hadn't got me data that I've been waiting 5 months for, and that there were really too many corrections that remained for me to do and I would be lucky to get them done in the time allocated after the viva if I handed in now.
Cue a whole pile of emails back and forth trying to work out what the hell was going on, a teary phone call to my main sup who said he had apparently been 'hinting' at me to hand in later - by hinting, I asked him directly a month ago if I should postpone the viva and he said 'it's up to you'...worst hint ever I think.
Finally pulled myself together, decided to postpone if my corrections were that bad, I don't want to do the viva and have my thesis torn to shreds after all. Emailed my 2nd sup to tell him, and received a reply saying that it was the best thing to do, but he didn't need to meet with me to discuss corrections, as they were just specifics, comments - i.e. formatting, spelling, units changes. Thing I could have submitted with.

So now, I have lost most of the day, have absolutely no chance of submitting on time and have to wait, all cos my supervisor decided to tell me the day before submission that I have too many corrections. And the best bit - he hasn't even read the chapters yet. I had to send them to him again.

I'm so so unbelievably gutted, I've spent months telling myself just until September, just another month, just another week, just another few days...and now I'm submitting in another month or two, however long it takes for my sup to read the last 4 chapters and get corrections back. Cannot even believe it.

Sorry for the down post, just feels so unfair.