Thanks for your advice....I'm currently busy tapping away...I'll make prompt cards and try and avoid my usual flustered beetroot face!

I'm currently writing a paper to give at a conference - in a fifteen minute slot (plus questions) around how many words can I resasonably expect to deliver: 5,000 or so?

Any help...

Was anybody else there? T'was great! I feel all fired up for the next term and have some great pointers as to how present my own work in two weeks time.

Yay! (sooo very tired though....chatting whilst chomping through conference catering - mmmmmm cake - can be a very exhausting process!)

*peels body off sofa, brushing off old Quality Street wrappers and mince pie crumbs* - Back to work...

Conference paper due in two weeks, attending conference next week and a meeting to discuss my literature review the following week. Nowt like a gentle start to the new academic year...

Lycka till i den nyår! (Good Luck in the New Year!)

I plan to dye my hair in late jan in preparation for my trip to Sweden - I'm imagining a blonde tone

*lol*

Of course! I fully plan to last until my viva and then fake some kind of incapacity so I don't have to deliver it, but still pass.

Thanks, y'all!

& Matthew1982: with the right PhD you'll last until the viva....

Congratulations to everybody who has either survived their first term of a PhD or generally just made it through another term!

I have finally finished the draft literature review, and now it just feels weird....there seems to be a dearth of anything to stress about....until...

..oh yeah, I have to write a paper to give next term.

Sigh.

Happy Christmas folks!

Chrisrolinski x

Hmm, mine is a little bit of a mess....but even in my tired state, I can see that some of it is actually, which is comforting somehow. A pity about the rest of the chaff...but they did want a 'draft'.

I'm presenting a short paper in Jan too! So once this lit review is done by the morning, I will be sleeping and then going home for Christmas. Paper writing starts they day after Boxing Day...

Good luck Nimrod81.

Must stay awake - luckily Swedish pop (with headphones on) is keeping me await....for who could fall aleep listening to Kiki Danielsson's Idag och Imorgon?!!

Yeah, writing up is a scary task - but I guess like all things PhD...it is all a huge learning curve!

Juno- thanks for the visualisation tips. I visualise a seminal article in the BSHS...sigh...

Come on Donut - we can do it. I have 2,500 words left and I'm no going to sleep until it is done. Come on...we can do it!

I'm visualising the nice hug I'll get from my boyfriend tmrw when he comes around. I'll be shattered and falling asleep..but it will still be bliss. Donut - you need to change in your byf if he isn't supportive! Hmmm though mine has questioned the expediency of caffeine pills and suggested healthy alternatives.

How very dare he!

x

Don't feel bad kitten - if I was such a good student I wouldn't be struggling to write up 2 days before submission. I think my draft is awful and won't be long enough and it is going to ruin my christmas knowing that when I come back in the New Year it will be picked apart...

Urgh, I don't understand - I've done the reading and I have the notes - why is it taking so long to write the lit review?! I only seem to do a few hundred words in several hours.

Sigh. Swallows another caffeine pill.

Psoriasis! Argh!

Thanks to peoples advice on PhD life, mine has waned and looks nowhere near as bad as it did...but I still have some marks on my torso which after six months are still there. They're not bad..just that if I am stressed or have physically exerted myself (and thus pumped blood into the affected areas)...they go bright red and angry looking. Ewwww

Kitten - I am DOING my literature review yes : a draft of around 6,000 words to be in on Weds.

ARGH! You should see me now sat in the Ryland's gobbling glucose sweets and 'stay awake' pills! Eek!

Sim- I went to Lampeter, 30 miles from Aber - you were the big city for us!!!