Oh, that argument about 'worthless' degrees makes me fume. As if limiting access to university by making it too expensive for vast swathes of the population has anything at all to do with making degrees somehow more 'worthwhile'.

The other thing making me fume is all the Facebook status updates where people go on about how layabout students must be too rich and too underworked if they can afford to take a day off to go to London to protest. Yeah, cos it's all just a nice hobby, not about the whole future of education and the opportunities available to people.

Yay, congratulations!!!

Hello everyone.

Goal one of the day was to speak to the lettings agency about my repairs, and about compensation. I now have a provisional date for new radiators to be fitted - next Thursday. Yay! Only one more week of misery. And the lettings agency have offered me £85 compensation for the misery of the last ten weeks, though they're trying to get out of paying for the fridge freezer repairs. What do you think? Is £85 adequate compensation? Feels too little to me, but I might be overreacting because of the frustration of the last few weeks!

Goal two - work on presentation I'm giving next week. I just can't seem to settle to this work but it's got to be done!

Heh, Eska, like it!

I think yesterday shows the level of anger people feel over what's happening in this country at the moment. People are seeing the opportunities available in society rolled right back (and let's remember, most of the students protesting are doing so on behalf of other people!). The tuition fee increase means many people will now no longer feel able to get a university education no matter how academically able or interested they are, or will face debts that will cripple them into the future. And the police tactics at the demonstrations - kettling people and then charging the penned-in crowds on horseback - were only ever going to inflame people's anger. The real shame of it is that the government can use all of this to deflect attention from the real issues - but I don't intend to blame the protesters for that, they're the ones actually standing up for something that's right.

That sounds great, Star-Shaped, a real boost to keep you going.

And hope you feel better soon, Sneaks!

The fridge freezer repair man has been, and says it broke down because it couldn't cope with the cold temperatures in my flat. So I'll be demanding that my lettings agency pays the call-out fee, among other things I'll demand compensation for. Not that I think they'll hand over a penny, but it's another thing to keep pressuring them with. (They say my radiators should be delivered today or tomorrow, but so far no sign of an arrangement for them to actually come round and fit them. So that's now ten weeks of shivering cold...)

Anyway - goal 2 for today is to work on a presentation I'm giving next week. So I will go and work on that, when I can tear myself away from the timesuck that is the internet....

Wally, that link has had me in tears! So funny! May have to re-post it to my facebook page :-)

I don't know if I've seen people using the same paragraphs word for word, but I've definitely seen multiple papers on the same small study or data set that draw out different aspects. My instinct is that it's probably best to re-word, not least because the different focus of the paper would change the emphasis even in sections like previous literature or background, but that it's fine to use the same data and same basic literature etc. But maybe it's different in different disciplines? (I'm social science/psychology cross-disciplinary stuff.)

I'm similar, Sneaks - keep pushing myself even when realistically there's no need. I feel guilty if I'm not reaching for some ridiculous goal - I'm always doing more than one challenging thing at a time (until recently I held down four jobs at once, and when I was doing my Masters degree part-time and working two jobs I also wrote a novel - crazy!) Sometimes I look at people who just do one thing, and have evenings and weekends to themselves with no guilt or worry, and I'm really jealous, but I never seem to manage to order my life that way!

I would love to be a professor one day, but as I'll be about 40 when I finish my PhD I don't know if it's realistic to think I'll get that far. I don't want my research career to be the only thing in my life - I want to relax a bit, but I also want to be able to write novels on the side. And secretly, I know I'm lazy, deep down - I really just want to sit around reading books and watching DVDs and not doing anything more than the minimum just to get by!

I can get it. Send me your email on a PM and I'll send it to you.

Heh, I know how you feel! I went on a general anti-cuts demo through my city three weeks ago and got all fired up, and I really support the protests, but I just feel old and creaky and want the next generation of young enthusiastic idealistic students to do the protesting for me! Wrong, I know, but hey...

Morning all! Another late start for me after a top night out at a gig - really enjoyed it, but just couldn't get out of bed this morning!

Oh well. I have fridge freezer repair person coming this afternoon so I have to do all my washing up and clean the kitchen before he arrives (it's a tiny kitchen! but I've done almost no housework recently due to being ill!) so that's first goal of the day. After that, preparation for a presentation I'm giving next Wednesday.

Slept in this morning, so didn't get to station til 11 am, and didn't make it to campus til 12.30. Ah well. Goals for today:

1.) Get railcard renewal form stamped by graduate office
2.) Go to statistics training course
3.) Take the rest of the day off and go out to exciting gig tonight (yay, The Wedding Present, one of my all-time favourite bands!)

I think I'm taking to heart my supervisors' advice to not work too hard between now and Christmas :-)

Thanks Button! I'm hopeful that they're telling the truth when they say they're just waiting for my new radiators to arrive! And my supervisors did comment that I tend to just keep powering away at the work so maybe I am too hard on myself and need to give myself a little more time off.

Goal 2 done, going to do half an hour of literature searching on a very specific topic, then get home before the trains freeze to a complete halt.

Great advice from people here. I just had a really useful meeting with my supervisors where I told them I was struggling to get back into work (I've been ill for a couple of weeks) and they basically told me not to try too hard between now and Christmas, and to take a proper break where I do no work at all over Christmas. The old cliche is true - a PhD is a marathon not a sprint. I'm feeling loads better about things after that conversation (and my supervisors are such lovely people! I'm very lucky...) I think just setting small, manageable targets is the best way forward, rather than being overwhelmed and paralysed by how much there is to do.

I love my PhD too, even though I'm going through a temporary period where I'm finding it hard to make progress. These boards are great because they do help me realise that everything I feel about my progress and every struggle is completely normal. And yes, that does mean a lot of the threads here are people having problems, but there are also the supportive ones like the One Goal thread which I find just helps with motivation and day-to-day keeping going. But it's great to say every so often that a PhD is a great thing to do - and way way way better than any job I've ever done!