I'm peering at tiny 18th century newsheet type. So tiny, so headache inducing!

I would go to the conference, I am sure your grandma would have been proud of you, and then when you get back you can go and visit her grave and tell her all about it. I'm sure your relatives would understand. Best wishes.

Yes, but the AHRC last paid me on Dec 15th - so it has been ages!!! I am living off lentils, pasta - and my all time favourite, air.

I am broke until the AHRC pay me on April 1st, so no Easter Fun for me

Seriously though, I will probably just kick around, enjoy the quiet - maybe go for a walk...

I meet every six months with both my supervisors and the third academic advisor from a related field within the same university. They form the 'panel' which then read a lengthy report (c8,000 -10,000) I give them about my research to date and then they provide feedback, criticism, avenues for research and then fill in university documentation about whether my progress has been satisfactory etc.

I find them scary, and my last one was dire - but this one has left my happy and motivated!

I have monthly supervisoons - and then longer panel meetings every six months. It is at these that more critical comments about the research are made and my last one was a total disaster, I was told my work would struggle to meet PhD standard.

The one I just had was so much better. I got lots of encouraging comments and critical feedback to work on. Best of all I can carry on and start writing chapters now. I feel so much better now I know I have improved.

Thanks for your comments people.

I feel like crying and running away - a highly adult response!

I'm not sure whether they will ask me to leave, and I have no idea how good the work I submitted is. I mean, it is better than the last panel work - but then that was awful, so anything would be better. I hope it is something.

I can't help but cry and worry about my PhD, and try not to burden my boyfriend with all this -especially since he starts his in september.

I think it is something in the 20% region for the AHRC. The exact figues will be on their website. But it shifts between 20% and 22% (ish) over the past few years.

*expletive*

I had been wondering how the recession will affect me, and I have finally realised. In a year and a half there is now way humanities departments are going to have the extra cash to hire on staff....

sigh

Antyhing less than a frock coat and a perriwig is slumming it, in my opinion.

22 hours.

fresh tofu is nice, but fairly expensive for a student budget.

I would always be incredulous at undergrad when others had failed to do the bar minimum seminar readings, yet alone anything else.

I don't think that my education has prepared me that well for my PhD. I am having plug my linguistic gaps by learning two languages (of which only one I really enjoy) at this stage, which is depressing in an office of able and fluent bilingual students.

I guess I am pleased with some of the use I can put my wide reading to today, but when all is said, I do worry that my pretty mediocre education and abilities will never really engender a good PhD..

I went to a very average British secondary school and because contemporary secondary school is essentially 'crowd control' I had to stay after school to do work that had been either deleted by other students in lessons - or to get help from teachers whose energies in class were spent on the rowdy kids. I had to read widely then, and whilst at university (undergraduate)to try and squeeze more 'value' out of my education.

I am so nervous that I can't concentrate, just want to sleep under the duvet, and can't bear to read through the work I wrote for the panel!