i'm on my diet so no sunday roasts until xmas day! and even then am going to avoid roasties I think.

I am in quite a small department, they wanted me to teach last year, but I am research council funded so don't have to officially and my sup is quite protective. My phd involves a lot of work with my industrial partner so she tries to make sure that I am not getting loads put on me from all angles. THis also means that she knows how much I have on at any one time, so she knows when I have just been plain lazy! :$

Ok this will probably be my last post for a few days, since I will be going home tomorrow-so yesterday I achieved very little !! lol...read a few bits and pieces but my mind was on christmas pressies (who, what, and for whom!!) rather than work...today I have a million and one things to do including photocopying/printing, then I need to do my christmas shopping, cleaning my apartment to get deposit back!, then of course packing arrgghhhh....
see you in a few days back in UK!!! 8-)

hope you have a good journey! I am same as you, all I can think about is what to get in for xmas, present wrapping and cleaning for parents arrival. Done no work today or yesterday! I can't wait til New Year so I can have some resolutions about my PhD that I will NEVER stick to lol

Thanks Sneaks!! I am packing now and cant get everything in the bag, think I am going to have to dump some of my clothes to "sacrifice" so I can fit in all my books and notes (so geekily pathetic!!)...I'm pretty scared actually cause if I go over the weight allowance I have zero zilch in my bank account as my scholarship hasnt been paid yet, hoping it might go in after midnight!! which means if i have excess baggage I will have to dump my stuff there and then-cannot believe the extortionate prices these people are now charging for extra kgs-something like 50 euros for extra 5kgs!! (so that would be soooo embarassingif i have to start dumping my knickers etc at the check in desk lololol). ooooh thats a point, think I will wear all of my clothes at once to save space in the bag!!! wish me luck for the airport tomorrow, 3 months of stuff in 20 kgs is going to be tight!! lol:p

Had quite a while off - planning on News Years eve/day party and then slob out and then back to work - will update later! How was your xmas Maggie? Are you back in UK for good now?

Good to be back!!" Its been a while...Hi Sneaks!! Hope you had a good New Years!! I arrived back in my Uni town just a few hours before midnight after spending the rest of xmas back with my family. Wasn't in the mood to party this year as my mom has been pretty ill- so I just had a quiet one, with my boyfriend, a lovely sirloin steak and cuppa!!! lol...

anyways, its a new year now and (for the moment) I'm full of optimism and determination for the year ahead!! I'm hoping to begin tomorrow and ease myself in, by thinking about the "bigger picture" in terms of what I have achieved last year and what I need to do this year and where the direction of my project is going generally in terms of my approach and conclusions I am anticipating.

As for today, I'm planning on getting loads of emails done, cleaning my house and sorting out my notes, so that I have no excuses for not getting stuck in tomorrow!!

Happy New Year Everyone!!(up)

happy new year! I went round a friends house last night with a few other people, altho not as many people turned up as they wanted and therefore I was forced to drink their entire wine stash, so feeling worse for ware today - I don't tend to drink at all so when I do I always get hammered - think I drank a whole bottle of wine to myself and 4 glasses of champagne. I am having to go round bfs dads house now so today is kinda written off.

Goals for tomorrow:
- book accomodation for conducting interviews in 2 weeks
- reply to any xmas emails that I hid from over the last few weeks
- plan out timetable for writing my lit review - hand in date = end of jan
- read an article which should help me plan out the lectures I have to give (which WILL be fully planned by Monday!)

So from my goals for today

- book accomodation for conducting interviews in 2 weeks (up)
- reply to any xmas emails that I hid from over the last few weeks (up)
- plan out timetable for writing my lit review - hand in date = end of jan (down)
- read an article which should help me plan out the lectures I have to give (which WILL be fully planned by Monday!) (down) :-(

But I will do the bottom two tomorrow and after being ill most of xmas I am going to start an exerise regime which should make me feel more lively.

Maggie! I know one of your resolutions was to post on here everyday! - I am holding you accountable ;-)

Anways plans for tomorrow are......

- Write feedback reports for people
- Sort out expenses for a conference
- Send my debriefing report out to participants
- Check participants interview times for next week with them
- Follow up on 2 participant emails
- Read a book chapter
- Sort out my method for my next piece of work.

Hmm - lets hope it all gets done. I am having problems getting out of xmas lounging mode and at my desk (mostly cos the sofa is warm and my home office is, although heated generally less comfortable and warm).

Hey Sneaks!! It took some time to find the accoutnability thread since we havent posted in so long!! Its really been a bad start to the year not posting in so long eh??!!! I'm sure it's because we have made this one of our new years resolutions- which are always doomed to fail!! I'm sure if we hadn't put it as a resolution it would have been fine!!

Anyways how are you? and how is the work going! Lets bring accountability back!!! As for me, work has been going ok, been in the department everyday for 9am!! Though there was a lot of catching up and gossiping going on last week, which meant I didn't manage to write on this thread as too many people looking over my shoulder lol and also I felt guilty since I didnt have too much work to report on because of all the gossiping!! Though I suppose I'm glad that I have gotten back into the routine of getting up early, so thats good!

So goal for today: Finish the book I had been trying to read last week and then analyse the summary I have written. From this produce a piece of written work of the conclusions I can see from it that relates to my reasearch.

I WILL be back later tonight to report back!!:p

Hi all!

Does anyone mind if I join in and play?

I guess I should give a little back story. My background is in Psychology (health) but I am doing my PhD in a Medical School. Not that unusual but not without it's issues. I am in my 16th month of my PhD so just a little under half way. I WILL be handing in my thesis on 30th September 2010. Last year I a needs assessment with took the form of three studies. I have analysed one of these (interviews/fgs with patients), next week will start some quantitative analysis from the needs assessment and still need to harass my GPs about the final set of fgs for this. I am doing a big exploratory study which, fingers crossed, starts in two weeks. This will last for a year.

I have upgrade issues - not yet upgraded and my panel have recently asked for, basically, my literature review chapter. Now I want to make it very long just so they have to wade through it.

So, short term goals. I am trying to write a chapter (which will defo be a very first draft) for the results of my interviews/fgs with patients.

Today - I am writing introductions/summarys for each theme from my results so that tomorrow I can finish my draft of the discussion and conclusion. The deadline for the chapter is Wednesday or Thursday. Hoping for Wednesday.

Hope everyone is having a productive day.

A

Hey A116!! Great to have you here! The more the merrier!! Sounds like your making great progress!! Did you manage to achieve your goals today then??
(BTW what does your name mean- anything significant??!!).

Anyways I am pleased to report that I achieved my goals today (though I was still gossiping a little, but I have told the other phd students they must tell me to be quiet from now on-can you tell I'm a chatterbox??!!). Also I had a bit of a crisis midway through the day where I got a bit scared about how quickly the time is passing and how soon it is now to sept 2010 and how it all seems like I have no idea where I am going in terms of the thesis- but I managed to calm myself down by writing a list of the questions/objectives for each chapter and how will (hopefully!) all tie together as a whole in terms of what I am specifically hoping to achieve for my final conclusions. So i think that has helped me to remember where I am going in terms of the 'bigger' picture as the chapter I am working on at the moment is particularly difficult for me since its heavily reliant on economics which i am not an expert in!! So by looking at the end goal I suppose it has helped me to stop worrying as I see the end in sight!!! Anyways see you tomorrow, Im gonna settle down to watch masterchef now!!! p.s How are you getting on Sneaks?? (I'm afraid that my not posting on this thread last week wasn't very helpful to your progress in terms of accountability-sorry!)

Morning people! So I arrived early today only to find my computer had crashed and after trying to fix it for the past hour have now settled on the spare one in the room till mine gets fixed...so not a promising start to the day, but I'm sure it can only get better now!!

goals for today: to think very carefully about the questions I am seeking to answer in my next two chapters before I begin writing them, and then to begin putting together a document summarising the various economic studies/findings relating to these chapters- including recommendations-which I will then use as a basis for applying the law later in the chapter- planning on working on this document now for the next few days, and hoping to make a good start on it today!!

see ya later!:-x

Hi All,

First day being accountable and...I failed! Whoops. Monday is jogging day (when I say jogging I mean about 2 mins of vague fastish movement and about 10 mins of walking...repeat til home!) - I empathise with the whole "doing a phd makes you ugly thread" - so I had to leave at five then was exhausted. Anyhoo, got all but three summaries done so, plan for today, finish the summaries, write my discussion, go to supervision. Tomorrow is conclusion and final check day. Thursday is hand in day. Super!

My name...hmm...it's to do with my location within my department. Don't want to give away too much!

Good luck for today. It's great that you really want to understand in your head exactly what your questions are. Too often I start writing and then realise I haven't defined things enough.

A