hey little star - now you are a big star!! he he. Congratulations and well done x have a good future.

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Hi Sneaks and Jepsonclough, Thank you for your advice and comments I used it directly in my form, highlighting the skills you mentioned Sneaks, particularly. I'm ok with it - I actually quite enjoy writing these statements sometimes, I had PMT and having to think about why I am wonderful and read it all back to myself - did me the world of good! Anyhow, it's all in the lap of HE gods now so I have my fingers crossed and say thank you again for your helpful comments. xx

Whhehehhaaaayyyyyyy! WELL DONE WAL (up)8-)(snowman)

sounds fishy to me, as you say - what do you have to gain? You have a supervisor already. She is not qualified to make any useful comments on your writing anyhow.

serves the fool right!

Hi all, I am applying for another post and would approeciate any thoughts you have on a particular issue. I have tried to contact my supervisor, but he is not available and the deadline is Friday, so I'm hoping you may have some pearls of wisdom.

They are asking for someone with a Ph.D. I do not have one yet, I'm about half way through, but I do have all the other criteria they are looking for, including a lot of rare and very specialised stuff. So I rang the HOD there and she said their reasons for wanting someone who already has a Ph.D is because she has seen colleagues really struggle to finish and hold down the job, she says they and their Ph.D tend to suffer and she didn't want that to happen to anyone else. She also said that I should think about how I would manage my time etc when in the post and that if I made a convincing case as to how I would do that in my application form then they would still consider me, she also said my skills and experience are rare and valuable.

I would love to work for the department, it is in sympathy with the way I teach my subject, my research, my previous background and it has a great reputation (that woudl make a nice change for me in terms of teaching). It would also include research and teaching in the two main specialist areas that I love: my great passions, shall we say, and it's not always possible to find that. So! Apparently, according to the HOD, lecturers at her department have 10-12 contact hours per week, one day for meetings and one day for income generating research - I would have to do my Ph.D on top of this. Do you have any insight into ways in which this would be made more feasible? Like could I write my Ph.D as a series of articles, thereby doing the two things at the same time to an extent? Do you think this is possible?

I am 2.5 years into my Ph.D, but I could study for another 4.5 years if I needed to - I transfered after the first year so have a year which my supervisor says could be added or removed. I am actually about half way through the work.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Esk X

I think you're being very childish Wally...

HHhhm, I'm guessing your interviews ahve not been at hectic, overstretched teaching unis where the bright students get really p'd off because the modules are so badly organised and the content can be very poor. Stay where you are - it's not fun!

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I raised it, becausee I am very proud of it - she is a credit to her institution now and is being entered for writing competitions - even though she is a practice base student, we are meeting for coffee soon. I think the admin team would have pee'd their pants if I'd suggested some kind of meet involving them, they are far too busy and possibly thought I was shirkig my own responsibilities, this happened at a very hectic teaching university. I've used this example in a previous interview with no problem, it's my star story on conflict resolution! I guess in future I will lie and say I spoke to her instead - it was not actually possible, but this white lie may satisfy the panel's box ticking needs...

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Yeah Sneaks and Nadia, I know - very confusing tosh, it seems to me. But I do believe he would say something like 'I'm a rule breaker' in an interview, just the same as he'd spring feedback on me because he'd bumped into me in the student canteen. I did wonder if his real surname was Brent, and I'm sure I saw him doing that wiggly arm dance thing as he disappeared into the staff room...

The general policy about meeting students face to face makes sense, and my initial message was to instigate a meeting; however, I did end up having quite an email discussion with the student because she made some very heavy accusations about me in her response, and tbh when things lke that are recorded it really is best to deal with it in a way that is recorded for the sake of one's own back. Plus I couldn't have this kind of carry on during a seminar. The email discussion worked though because she is now exemplary, she got 80% for her asssignments and is a great contributor - we are on very good terms.

Thanks Sneaks and Nadia for your nice comments. My lovely HOD said I should always speak face to face with students otherwise I'd be creating a barrier, but that just isn't always possible, or desirable/productive - especially if the student is aggressive.

He also said I needed to get a phrase which summed up my philosophy/theory on how I deal with conflict resolution - he said he was a 'rule breaker' - whatever that means. I can't see myself doing that, far to pretentious and rigid.

Hi folks, I had an interview for a post I'd be doing the work for for a couple of months this semster. I didn't get it, that was tough, but ok: they can choose who they want, but I'm finding some of the feedback difficult to settle.

The HOD gave me some inpromtu feedback, even though I'd asked him too hold off until I'd finished teaching for the day, when he bumped into me in the canteen (a conversation which was, rarther humiliatingly, interrupted by one of my - now ex - students). And one of the things he said that is still playing on my mind is that I'd done really badly on the topic of conflict resolution because I'd relied entirely on instinct and presumed the students were doing something without evidence, he said that, although we all do that, it's best not to say so in an interview. But I didn't say that! I said they were behaving a certan way and was very definite about it - I said nothing about instinct so now I 'm worried that I'm giving people the wrong idea innadvertently. In actual fact I have SEEN them doing it a couple of times. Also he said I was wrong to have emailed a difficult student because I was creating a barrier between myself and them, and that I should always get them together as a group - but I have no other way of getting messages across because I don't see them, and the email was asking her to meet me - plus t wasn't a group problem. I suspect very strongly it's one of those stitch ups, the candidate who got it has another .5 there and has been around for a while. Also we had one of those scenarios where all the candidates have to sit together for hours on end staring ito eachother's eyes, and guess what - the winning candidate went first so didn't have to endure that... whereas I went last and was stuck with someone fishing about and being competitive, going 'oh I know somene who is doing your exact topic up in Edinburgh - oh dear' which was a complete lie. BBbbbbllluuuurrrgh.

if you've got this far then thanks for reading - any thoughts would be appreciated.

Christmas Eve on neutral ground with my parents - hopefully a very expensive restaurant that my dad will pay for, then Christmas day spent between two friends' houses, probably quite boozy and then a good old walk home I hope. 2 possible extended family gatherings soon after boxing day, I may go to one. I may also get some PhD work done tadaaaahhhhhhh! Haven't done any since late September when my manic multi-city teaching schedule kicked in. Oh, and the ubiquitous mound of marking, but at least this year I'll be better paid for it due to some hefty negotiations in one of my departments. And some sales shopping, or at least browsing - I'll begin stalking likely lookking items in time for the mid-Feb winter sale bonanza period.

Oh!Also: it pays to have you T3 AND T4 checked. Often they only check for T4 forgetting that althug we carry less T3 it is a much more powerful hormone - it's the supercharger. I can't produce my own so need more synthetic T4. Also make sure they looked at you TSH levels.

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Hey KB! Really sorry to hear you've been through this. I too have had thyroid difficulties - I now have no thyroid gland whatsoever (I had it removed back in 2006) so can't really think of it that way any more - mine's more of a thyroxine problem! I also had too fight every step of the way in order to feel normal, and I still get GPs raising their eyebrows at my 200mg per day dose, they say things like 'that's an awful lot, you shouldn't be on more than 100'... even though I have no gland so I produce zero myself.

Doctors in the UK appear to have a very odd attitude to the problem and seem to hate giving out thyroxine for some reason - it's as if we are all thyroxine addicts and they're trying to wean us off, many of my extended family have had the same problem. I know doctors in France told my friend - who lives there - that they tailor the dose according to the way the patient feels, and in Australia my friend self-medicates because they recognise it is a condition which is in continual flux. The UK criteria for what is 'normal' is also out of synch with, and lower than, what is considered acceptable in many European countries and in America. I ended up self medicating after a GP suggested I might be suffering from depression and talked about putting me on Prozac - which I think is a pretty dangerous thing to be taking if you do not actually suffer from depression. My doctors only believed I need more thyroxine when the supposed depression - and horrendous PMT etc suddenly lifted the day after I moved myself up to 200mg per day from 175mg (which I also had to fight for, they wanted me on 150! I'd have been comatose by now). I am now convinced there are many people on mental health wards who are actually suffering from undiagnosed thyroide problems.

Yes, complain, but you may also want to change your consultant, get a second opinion. But you do have to fight, it took me a few years after my operation and I also had to really struggle for things like blood tests: I had an intollerance to Carbimazole which they give you for hyperthyroidism and this GP told me to stop being silly about having a sore throaght - an indicator that my immune system was dangerously low - he refused my a blood test until I threaten to stand in the reception area and inform all who would listen how incompetent he was and why. Hyperthyroidism makes you do things lake that, unfortunately, as you know hypothyroidism has the opposite effect, but you still must stand you ground. Good luck and let us know how you get on. xxx you are certainly not alone... my aunt struggled for a decade to have her condition recognised at all, then again for the right dose.

Oh also, there are two different systems for testing and some people show as under/over on one and not the other - swapping is what finally got my aunt her medication.