Personally I like dark backgrounds. I like the way figures, pictures and graphs stand out as a white square. That said I rarely walk out of a talk and think - I liked the background colour.

ps marmite is lovely. Why not try it spread on your slippers?

I havn't eaten meat for 17 years and fish for 15. I'm in no way anaemic (or at least I pass the test whenever I give blood) and do not have flakey nails. (don't know on the B12 thing, how do you test it? all i know is I'm very rarely ill)

I do eat cheese, and a lot of leafy veg, some beans and other pulses but not a great deal. I don't think you really need red meat, and don't think you'll become anaemic if cutting down. (unless prone to anaemia maybe? I know my mum was anaemic for years despite eating red meat)

I was flicking through this post thinking about how I was going to reply on it the other day but hadn't got round to it. Then I found a post by me! Are memory problems linked to PhDs?!

I definitely find it unnatural going through a presentation on my own. What I find helps is getting other people to sit through as practice run (or two). it helps to see what bits aren't comprehensible etc.

Good luck with the presentation though. Hope it goes well.

I'm Catalin Bond, (or at least my cat was!) My PhD is somewhere between medicine, neuropsychology and imaging, and I'm just about coming to the end of my first year. SO far I don't feel like I've got much done
I've 27 but I still get IDed at least once a week when buying alcohol!

Also you could try Manchester. It has a Neuroscience and Aphasia Research Unit within the school of psychology. PLus it's a great city too.

there's a guy here doing a PhD in his 60s too.
Personally I'm glad I took some time between UG and PhD (started last oct at 26) I see lots of posts about how skint people are and i'm glad i managed to work/clear off my over draft/ save some money before I started. Also it has helped my confidence and helped me decide what i wanted to do. I guess the negatives are it's harder to go back after some time off studying.

Despite having said early I thought you needed an odds ratio, I think Jewel is right.

All you can really say is given someone had a need, they were x% likely to have that need met (or x/y where x is the number who had need met and y is the total number of people who had a need)

(I hope this is what you're saying Jewel, I really don't want to confuse this thread further. If it is not then I'll bow out!)

So you are interested in the following probability ...
Pr( Service meets need GIVEN Service User has a need )


It sounds like you need to calculate odds ratios.

i think this is being over analyled a bit to much and it could mean anything.

It seems highly unlikely the academic deliberately sent that email, and as you've picked the other uni and don't have to work with them, then Id move on and forget about it.

I play a lot of games of scrabble on facebook. It's normally open in another browser so on my breaks I go and have a look if my opponents have had their turns yet.

It can vary.

I had 8 PhD interviews, these ranged from one person - the potential supervisor - to a whole panel including people from the funding body (this was funded by a charity)

The average over the 8 interviews was 2 people, and only one interview ever included the head of department on the panel.

I like this thread, it gives me hope. I'm only in first year but procrastinating steadily! I'm (fairly) confident i'll get into it and finish in 3 years, but in many ways can't see that happening.

it's easy for excersize to fall from the priorities when you have loads of other things to do. I've found entering some sort of challenge - 5K run, 10K swimathon, bike ride whatever you might enjoy is a sure fire way to force yourself into the gym when all you want to do is go home.

Weekend walks are definitely a good idea especially now the weather is better. It's a great way to socialise if you have friends who like walking, or a great way to clear your head after sitting in front of a computer all week.