Interesting indeed.

I'm 37, so older than most people here I guess, and just starting the second year of my full-time PhD. I rent a two-bedroomed flat all to myself (the same situation as before I started my PhD, when I was working full time). The rent's quite high for living on a PhD bursary but I can't imagine sharing somewhere after years of living on my own, I really value my space and the second bedroom is my office where I do a lot of work. My boyfriend lives about three miles away in another flat - he's in negative equity on his mortgage so can't sell up, and his place is way too small for two people (especially as he works from home too), otherwise we'd be living together somewhere big enough for both of us to have an office each!

I try not to think about what other people my age have got. It would be too depressing to think about the fact that I'm going to be 40 when I finish my PhD and won't have a mortgage or any savings at all (more likely, several thousand pounds of debt). I just hope the PhD brings the promised increase in living standards, because 15 years of very badly paid work and always struggling to make ends meet was just plain hard work!

Oh, how awful for you! A very stressful time.

I know it must be really difficult not to worry about the growth they've found, but it's very likely that whatever this is can be dealt with and that you will be absolutely fine. The really difficult thing is handling the stress and worry, especially as you're away from home. Have you got friends/housemates/people close by you can chat to and share your worries with? I would say try not to put pressure on yourself about the work you need to do - be kind to yourself, worrying about things can really wear people down and make it hard to concentrate. I imagine taking a few days off isn't really an option but some time to relax and unwind and do things you enjoy might help get you through the next few days. If you do need to keep working, are there some relatively easy tasks you can assign yourself? Or something a little more enjoyable that you can work on this week, just until you know more where you stand?

Good luck with the appointment on Thursday, fingers crossed for it. And let us know how you're doing, too.

Hello all, hope everyone's okay!

I just spent the last week (well, Tuesday to Friday) in bed with the worst cold I've had in years, so today is the first day back to work properly. Feeling intimidated by how much I need to do, and pathetically useless and behind-schedule with it all. My supervisors want me to move on to working on data collection and now I'm suddenly terrified that I can't do it. Which is silly, I know. Time to shake myself out of this with some manageable tasks that will ease me into the work.

Goal 1 - write up notes from last week's meeting with supervisors (yay, done already this morning so a pat on the back for me)
Goal 2 - email my old boss to ask for names of two people I can approach about using their places as locations for my study
Goal 3 - start thinking through the details of what data I actually need to collect

Goal 2 done, goal 3 done as far as I can face it, but pathetically I've lost all motivation and can't be bothered to work on that any more. I'll read a journal article instead, I think!

Goal 1 achieved, meeting with supervisors done, phew!

Goal 2 - write up notes from supervision meeting
Goal 3 - act on supervisors' comments on draft presentation
Goal 4 - Plan next steps

Supervision meeting at 11 am, so 2 hours to get my draft presentation finished. Yikes!

Gah, I'm making no progress at all with my presentation. I'll never get it done by tomorrow morning. Looks like I'll be making excuses to my supervisors :$ Ah well, I've never been late with anything else so it's not the end of the world if I'm not quite finished.

Still stuck on Goal One, which is now four slides instead of two.

What a horrible, stressful situation for you! What a relief that it was benign - but I agree with everyone else, it's bound to knock you, particularly given the family history, so you need to take some time and not put pressure on yourself. A nice relaxing day to recover some balance seems to be in order. And longer than one day if you feel you need it, too - there's no sense rushing into work through feeling guilty about leaving it and then not being able to focus properly and ending up stressed about that too.

Take care and try to do something nice for yourself xxx

Yum, that sounds lovely - a nice looking recipe. I'm going to make bean and mushroom chilli later (beans are so cheap!!) so this has got me salivating. I tend to use fresh chillis though (they're dead cheap round my way), cooking them with the onion from the start - it never seems to work as well if the heat is added later, in my opinion. Though I'm sure yours will still taste great!

Hope things seem a bit brighter today, Emaa - I think we all need to learn to be kind to ourselves and give ourselves the breaks etc we need.

Today I have to finish writing my first year presentation. Got quite a lot done yesterday but not even started yet today. I had to go food shopping as there was nothing in the flat (and Sainsbury's have started putting their Christmas stock out - yikes!!!)

Goal 1 - summarise lit review in 3 or 4 PowerPoint slides

Blimey, good luck with that Algae!

Star-Shaped, I know the feeling! I suspect I'm just filling time with busy activity rather than making progress at the moment, I just can't seem to get my brain working!

Goal 1 done, goal 2 attempted and abandoned until I've looked more at goal 3.

Congrats on becoming an auntie, Sneaks! It's great having nephews and nieces - I love playing with my sister's kids, then not havign to worry about actually looking after them!

Today I'm easing myself back into work after being in bed with the flu for five days. I need to produce a draft Powerpoiint presentation about my research by Thursday morning but I need to warm my thinking head up before I tackle that!

Goal 1 - Print out new version of RefWorks bibliography
Goal 2 - Highlight main themes covered in the bibliography
Goal 3 - Draft out a structure for the presentation

That'll be enough to go along with. Hopefully I'll have time to achieve more than that as well!

Hey all. I'm a slight little bit tipsy but thought I'd pop in and say - yay! Passed my first year viva and have now officially progressed from MPhil to PhD. Yay! The viva was horrible even with the examiner being lovely and friendly and inviting me back to visit for a cup of bad coffee any time (is it easier if they're nasty people or is that just an impression...?) So now I'm very drunk and not working for a few days. But it cheered me that my examiner thought I was working hard and - in her words - was 'clearly aiming to get somewhere fast' - so I thought I'd share that. Because here we all seem to be serious about our PhDs, and we all seem to work to a similar level of, well, over-workingness (even where we're stressing about how lazy we're being), so I thought good news about one of us being praised would encourage all of us! My examiner and the one of my supervisors who attended my viva were both really happy with my work ('excellent' and 'wonderful' were the adjectives) and I figure if that's true for me it's double for people on here who I know work way harder than me. So. go us, and I'm delighted to have passed!!

Yes, sympathies, it must be really hard to concentrate in that kind of heat. I was quite glad this morning to wake up to filthy grey skies and rain, made it much easier to make myself sit at my desk and get on with some work!

First two goals achieved, now to try to answer the questions I've set myself.

Trying to get back into the work after a few days off - I really should be feeling more urgency than I feel, my first-year viva is tomorrow morning! Haven't done any detailed preparation yet, I just can't make myself worry about it. Not a good thing! So, my goals for today:

1.) Re-read my first year report
2.) Brainstorm a list of questions that might be asked or issues that might be raised
3.) Answer those questions/issues
4.) Think through what my next steps in the research are

Ummmm..... Hopefully all that will put me in a good position for the viva!