Morning Dunni! Morning anyone else out there!

Hope your tedious job is over soon, Dunni! It's 11.11 and I've not really started yet. But that's because I have already achieved in other life goals:

Goal 1: send a rejection email with kind feedback to the guy who didn't get the conducting job with my choir - done!
Goal 2: sort out the grades for the 20 scripts I marked over the last week in advance of our moderation meeting this afternoon - done!

So now:

Goal 3: get more coffee
Goal 4: return to the seminal textbook I was reading before I decided to do the read-a-book-in-a-day to beat the inter-library loan date the other day

I do think it sounds like you're in the 'rabbit hole of despair' or the 'pit of despond', as my Graduate Development Team like to term the second year dip. On the plus side, that means you'll come out of it again, so keep plodding on - sounds like you're doing all the right things.

And I wonder if it's worth mentioning to your supervisor that you didn't find the comment particularly motivating and whether they meant more or less by it...

Good luck.

ahem, I also exchanged virtual chocolate cake (lovely though it was) for real Maltesers. They are the lighter way to enjoy chocolate so I don't feel too bad, since I also got in an hour-long Pilates class today!

I'm only in my first year and theoretically, I'm a part timer, so think my submission is set for Oct 2016 at the moment (OMG - I try not to think about it like that very often!). I'm trying to crack on quicker than that, though, and am considering changing registration to full-time if and when me and my sup think I can definitely submit in a shorter timescale. We'll see!

I finished the book by 4pm! It was a very easy read in all fairness! Another goal needed for Wednesday's PhD day but moderating and thinking about next semester's lecturing tomorrow.

September sounds brilliant to me, Ady! Good for you for getting your sup's agreement on that. Everyone feels so far ahead of me on this but I do find it useful so will keep coming here... even if it depresses me.

And chuck us a bit of your chocolate cake when you're done...!

I'm on page 53 of 110, so I'm doing quite well on my principal goal. Finish by 5pm?

Listening to Palestrina on Spotify is helping, as the geese and ducks on campus are going crazy today for some unapparent reason!

Phew!

Morning Batfink and welcome Ballman!

Right, I am on a bit of a mission. I've got a book (it's only 110 pages long) due back to the library (inter-library loan so no extensions allowed) on 27th. And I've not started it yet, and it's incredibly pertinent for me so my goals for today, Wednesday and Thursday are to make sure I've read it and made enough notes on it that I won't need to inter-library loan it again!

Goal 1: get coffee - done
Goal 2: check all social networking sites to clear my mind - done
Goal 3: read the thing!

Nice one Cate and Indoctorate.

I tried to make it but as predicted, things were a bit crazy - had two long meetings and four MA supervision tutorials today so didn't get home til late grrr.

Well done on what you achieved decision-wise, though. I look forward to the wiki page link and the del.icio.us site details (it really is the best option for us, so we must just pray someone sees the light and rescues it from yahoo!) and will link from my blog for definite.

Good stuff, guys!

Hi

Being from an English as a Foreign Language teaching background, I do know a few people who've taught out in the Middle East. If you're a woman kind of under 40 ish, you may find it more challenging - it would be a huge change in lifestyle, which you essentially have no choice about. Most of the British females I know who've gone out there have either been older (which seems to be easier on the respect front) or who've got involved in a relationship there, which has clearly then defined the rest of their life.

However, that to one side (I wouldn't go but many have), the money is extremely good!

Oh, and do bear in mind that it can frequently get to 50 degrees during the summer in SA. My SA students tell me how much they love England for its temperate climate!

I'll try and get there for 7pm Wednesday, although this week is CRAZY for me...!

I don't think I'm the right person (not being particularly IT whizzy) but I do know that delicious may not be the best site, despite being the best site... This is because it's a yahoo site and there's some concern that it's under threat at the moment. So it may be best to go for one of the other alternatives - pinboard is one but it costs... mmm.

Maybe del.icio.us is fine for now but we'd need to know it may not be a forever site.

This is a great idea Cate - keep it going!
I love that visual PhD thing - saw it a couple of months ago and then lost it again so good to have the link!

My own little PhD blog is here too: http://clarabellephd.wordpress.com/
but I also read these two and enjoy them:
http://trialsandtribsofaphd.blogspot.com/
http://100thousandwords.wordpress.com/

I'm really liking Zotero at the moment, Cate. Zotero is a Firefox extension, so if you're an Internet Explorer type then it's not for you! It's very easy to download and, of course, free! It sits as part of your web browser (sits in the bottom right hand corner of your web browser screen and you get full screen when you click on it. You can import directly from most electronic journals and JStor etc. and can link to existing pdfs you have too.

You can use it in offline mode too but of course it won't sync to the zotero site during that time. That's the other thing I like about it - it's like having another back up as you have an online account at the zotero web site.

In terms of finding stuff, you can tag each article/ book with a series of tags and it has a powerful search tool too. Note-taking is good in the program too - you get a fully editable window and can write one long note (I've certainly not hit a limit yet) or any number of separate notes attached to the same article/book.

Doing a endnote like Cite as You Write is also well set up in Zotero - and there's a useful forum with what looks like a very personalised service for any trouble-shooting. The only negative is that it's not set up to work with Word for Mac 2010 yet but I'm sure it will be soon, so I'm going back to Word for Mac 2008 for a bit til they sort that.

Hope that review (as well as the rest on this thread) helps you make the right decision, Chococake and Cate!

I also totally know where you are coming from. I'm repeatedly getting impostor syndrome and it's pretty debilitating. I presented at a conference in November and was very aware that the audience really knew their stuff. In the end, though, so do you . This means that your audience will be interested in your topic (which is much better than at a more general conference where some people are pretty unengaged with what you might have to say). You'll probably find that you'll have people hanging on your every word, especially since you say it's all a new area, and they'll have lots of interesting and useful comments. You'll also probably run out of time on the discussion section like happened to me, which really surprised me as I'd lost track of time once I finished talking, which must mean I was enjoying myself! I'm sure this will happen to you and you'll forgot about feeling like an impostor.

Is that enough of a slap?! ;-)

Wow, if this is what feminism is, I don't want anything to do with it! How sad for your supervisor, I think she sounds somewhat lonely and frustrated and I agree that there seems to be some jealousy going on here. It's a real shame she can't share in your happiness but it's certainly her problem and not yours.

Anyway, congratulations Keenbean! It's really exciting news, although I am intrigued about the delay, like Sneaks. Surely once you've had the chat and found the ring you're essentially engaged. Is it just that you can't announce for three weeks?