======= Date Modified 22 Oct 2009 10:07:09 =======
OMG: the films I'm looking at are about the thoughts of a depressed and drifting lecturer who is slowly being pushed out of his teaching career by cuts, a he ponders the state of run down London and England in the 90s, and then eventually cracks up... well, I'll try and stay motivated. I do want a good permanent job out of this and I really, really hope it happens. I will defo speak to my sup about all this, I think it's something we all need to be aware of so thanks for bringing it to the for WJ. Right, will stop procrastinating now, and get on.

Hi Ardelia, Sorry to hear you are going through such a tough tim with your sup, ad sorry to hear about your mother. I hope she is getting better.

In my experience - of a psychotic MA professor and a PhD sup who was starting to sho signs of this kind of behaviour, they do this as a way of covering their own failings; they do not stop; and this could take you right under, robbing you of confidence, good referecnes and yur own development if you hang around. These peopel usually have ways of wriggling out of any discplinary action or requests for better behaviour from you or their managers: that's probably why she's slagging you off in an email, doing what she can to discredit you.

I say: get looking for a new supervisor now ,and get out as soon as possible, for the sake of your sanity and career.

Good luck.

p.s. I don't think you should have rushed back for a meeting after your mother's health crisis. Sometimes work should be way back on our priorities - your sup probably loved that you did though, they love it when you're vulnerable. I have people like this in my family so I know their nast tricks. Next time, just stay away, you have the right.

Hey Walmin - I don't have people to survey; I'm Film Studies. What I mean is that I just take a long time to do things generally with regard to my PhD: that's my natural talent! For example, this morning I'm sifting through a couple of intellectually dense, and emotionally hard gong, Patrick Keiller movies to look for elements which are useful to my argument and I'm dragging my heals because it's so heavy, although when I do it my chapter outline will be straight forward. I also have some workmen coming round to fix my doors, and my life seems to be full of such interferences.

It's really comforting to me to know that I'm in the majority in feeling my work is so so at the moment.

Thanks for that BHC. Hmmm this has been on my mind a lot in the last few days. I think school teaching or going back to fashion, being a business woman, making and selling like I used to, which I know well, and which I ran away to academia in order to escape; but even then it would mean building something up from scratch... again, and business is always a risk. School teaching at private schools seems to be pretty competitive now too - I know I can't work in an office. I think most things are tricky these days, a bloke I know who works in IT was unemployed for over a year, I don't know exactly how many posts he applied for, but I know he was looking for all that time.

Hi Walminski, thanks for the personal mention, but I don't have the participants issue, I'm just slow! I seem to have a natural talent for it.

Hi Walminski, thanks for this thread, it is really interesting to see how everyone elsethinks they are doing. I'm almost 18 months in, part-time, and have had a swap of institution and supervisor - my first supervisor was rubbish as well, so I feel the frst year was a bit of a waste of time.


I think I am doing 'so so'. My conceptual framework and planing are vastly improved as is my wrting and the direction of my reading, but I'm going soooo slowly. I'm still writing a version of a thesis outline which will be approximately 6500 words long after about 6- 8 weeks. I hope to finish the forst draft of it today or tomorrow. Then there'll be re-drafting, then finally I will get to talk to sup about it and all the other bits and bobs on my mind. I don't have my upgrade, hopefully, fingers crossed etc that will come soon. I also still have a considerable amount of key reading to do.

Beer is such a good idea!

======= Date Modified 20 Oct 2009 22:25:46 =======
Hi everyone,



I just ground to a hault brainwise after trying to convert a stutter to a flow since about 8pm. However, I wrote 600 words of the appox 1200 in need for this chapter outline, so that's ok. Tomorrow I have various appointments during the day, but will get some viewing and writing in, maybe early in the morning and defo in the evening.

Oh! and good luck with the stomach pains Lara.

Hi Hih,

I'd go for part-time if I were you: it won't be mentioned on your certificate; in my experience you can go full time for the last year or two (but you'll need to check that with your uni); it's much cheaper so if cash is an issue it makes sense; and you can use any extra time with your institution very fruitfully, for example, writing articles with the assistance of your supervisor, applyng for posts (ditto), and perhaps organising a funded conference or seminar (ditto).

Sorry, but I can't bring myself to do your questionnaire, it feels too much like work admin and I'm freeeee now. But good luck anyway!

Hi Lara, thank you for your kind words and good luck today it soooooo close now! I'm feeling better now, although still generally down. However! Now that I have returned from my ridiculous teaching job, I am going to do some work and achieve something for me, me, me.

Today I will

1. Write the first draft of my third, and final, case study chapter outline.

Right, the kettle's boiled, and I'm going to get my decaffinated psychological pick me up, and put a big warm sweater on: then it's full steam ahead.

You can get housing benefit

Hi Lara,

That's great that your examiners were so helpful  and that you are making swift progress, you'll be finished in no time now!

I haven't done any work. I did have a fantastic night on Saturday, truly brilliant and not too much of a hangover on Sunday. However the family nightmare/trauma returned and I've just been totally knocked out; I haven't been able too do any work yesterday or this morning as I'd planned. I went, with my parents, to my sister's grave yesterday and found a 5foot by 3 foot, and 3 1/2 foot deep, slate obilisque was lying across it. It's in a wildlife burial ground and wildlife was her thing so we'd planned to have her plot as a wild flower garden. The obilsque was made as a seat to go next to a tree my cousin planted and is inscribed from him to her, even though they didn't know eachother very well - the names of myself, her daughter or her parents are not on it, and there is no room on her plot for anything else. My mum and dad knew this was going to happen, but didn't warn me before I saw it, they are also refusing to have our names added to the stone. Needless to say, I have been devastated. Especially so as my parents and her daughter are now saying they very much want the obilisque to stay, as it is, o the plot, so I really have no choice but to 'get used to the idea' as my dad so sensitively barged at me. I told them how much it meant to me to lose this space to remember my sister, but my dad just said I shouldn't feel that way, that I didn't really feel that way and was just making a point against my cousin and his family, I should stop being silly, and there was no way they were going to change their minds, no matter what I sad my feeling are. I'm bloody 40 for god's sake!!! Various Christmas horrors also resurfaced. If my dad wasn't helping with my fees, right now, I'd just ditch him and be free, I've had enough.


So, that's my weekend giving myself plenty of TLC right now and hoping the students won't be able to tell from my bulging eyes that I've been crying for ever. Hopefully, this, together with the warning from Christmas future about our employment prospects hasn't totally deprerssed everyone this morning

======= Date Modified 19 Oct 2009 10:30:03 =======
Hi wj, Thanks for passing on your experiences, scary as they are. This is something I've thought about quite a lot, and I would like to have broader options, but am not sure how my PhD would help me in another career; possibly teaching in a prvate school? I'm doing Film Studies, so can't see that there would be much industry demand for that. I've tried to stay positive - my supervisor has an excellent record with his PhD students, about 75% of his graduates (there are about 18 of them) are in permanent academic posts, but, as you say things are getting harder.

I will defo have that chat with my supervisor.


I'd be really interested to know what kind of back up plans other people have, or what people think could be available.



btw! I know a public day school with an excellent rep which always seems to be looking for Classics teachers, there really is shortage.

Hi Lara, I've had a change of mind, and have decided to just go out and have the time of my life and s*d all the consequences and the budget. Weheyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!

Good luck with your corrections, I reckon, judging by your progress with paragraphs, you'll have them done in no time. 8-)

Yeah Lara, that's brilliant, well done; the end cannot be far off now.


I'm taking it easy, I wasn't well on Thursday and Friday, so have only finished my re-draft of a chapter outline and done a bit of reading - but still need to do some more; I haven't started the last chapter outline yet.

Today I'm watching vacuous movies on TV, going out to pick up my friend's birthday present, and then maybe do a bit of writing, but mostly just spending the day not worrying. I'm just soooo tired! I need to rest. I've vowed not to drink tonight because it will take me days to recover and I can do without that. So that's probably the most important thing to account to you today: I'm not drinking tonight!

======= Date Modified 17 Oct 2009 12:53:38 =======
Hi Sue,

Your post has made me realise that there is another way of life! Luckily most of my frends understand, and are encouraging, they're mostly arty types, and all of them have either made, or are still making, big sacrifces to get where they want to be, and they know how right this is for me. My closest buddy in this is an artist and she makes me feel fortunate because my chances of a decent wage and regular life style are higher than hers - although she thinks what I'm doing is harder than her work (although who can really tell about that?). Our shared pov status also means we arrage to do things like walking in the park, watching DVDs or going to Orange cinema nights - we share a friend who is just setting up a photography business and is also poor, so I guess that makes me lucky. However! I still feel left out and deprived in a bigger sense, for example, I'm celebrating another friend's birthday tonight with a meal and clubbing and it's going to mean me spending a RIDICULOUS proportion of my monthly budget, but I can't miss it; and I can't go on days out and holidays with my rich friends (that's how I think of them, although they're not really). I don't mind so much about clothes and food, I always seem to manage that - but I'd just like to have enough money, or more than enough so I can feel secure and plan ahead, have some savings, and more freedom about where I live. I get worried that I'm getting used to this pauper lifestyle, and becoming accepting of it when I deserve better.



One of my friendships has ended recently, because she just didn't get why I was doing this, and kept talking down to me about me being an eternal student - not having a full time job and being poor - making snide comments etc. I'm glad though, sometimes people you think of as friends should not really be in your life.



I would love to have somewhere other than my living room to work, liesure and work are blurred in my life; I can't wait until I have an office or a study in my home. So, yes, I feel the same way, but this is temporary, and one day we will have a good wage and an office! Then we will probably be totally overworked academics snowed under with admin and looking back at this time as the good old days - without even a forum to cheer us up! Well I try and think that, and too make the most of the comparative freedom I have.