Husband and so are loving it but as I hate football I am getting lots of PhD stuff done

I had my performance review with my boss and everyting is great (better than I thought) and he has given me a new angle on a bit of research which will improve the paper
I've had a swim
I'm going out tonight with my husband

and best of all I don't feel guilty about not doing ANY PhD stuff today

It looks to me like you want to quit and this is giving you the excuse.

As someone who embarked on a part-time PhD (while working full time) a month before her 44th birthday and after 16 years in a completely different career I do find all these "will I be too old at 27, 32, 108, whenever"? posting tiresome.

Have you tried to get an industrial research position with your research skills as they are - do you actually need the Phd? Could you get a research job and carry on with PhD part-time? Like lots of people here I know loads of people who completely changed well into their research but I also know more people who never completed.

I'm a woman and I'm afraid I am offended by the "joke" - as someone else has said it would have to be a REALLY good friend to get away with it (and in the context of banter with others who were all equally good friends).

Would you have dismissed it as oversenitivity if there had been racist or homophobic underpinnings to the "joke"? Probably not so why is is acceptable to make abussive comments to women? It's an "off the cuff" joke but they are often the ones that betray your real underlying beliefs. I'm with the woman - not acceptable, end of.

Mirroring your body langauge.

Also just think about what you do when you are flirting!

My husband (who is a Chartered Accountant) said that the pay scales will be frozen so you should get your increment but it's the cost of living rise which is frozen.

Hey that's great. Hang in there is will soon be finished.

I sorted out a load of undergraduate exam results mistakes (not mine) so my head of Department is happy with me.
I rang a really top academic in our field (Top 3) about being an external examiner and suggested meeting up when he said he was attending a conference I am going to in September (this was the biggest achievement as I HATE calling people)
I wrote another 250 words of a paper so am now at 1700.
I went for a swim.
I did some food shopping and got some good bargains for the freezer.

To get on most PGCEs you need to have some experience working with children / young people.  I always advise my students who want to go down this route that is they don't have this they should do some voluntary work eg helping in a school, helping with scouts / guides / youth group. Teacher Training is very competitive and this year two of my students who will make great teachers and have experience of coaching youth sports teams managed to get interviews but didn't get places (it was something like 60 interviews for 20 places).  I would recommend that you try to get some experience before you apply. Applications usually have to be in before Christmas for the following September so if you were hoping to start this September you will probably be out of luck.

I took ten years off between UG and first masters (but I did do professional qualifications during that time), then another 6 years between my MA and MSc (working and having babies). Have taken 5 years between MSc and starting (part-time) PhD (working and trying to find a subject that interested me). I would echo that it is beneficial to spend some time away from education as it gives you a broader perspective on the world.

Err why wouldn't you go for it - It's a great opportunity and hopefully this has helped you put the stresses over the conference behind you. Having published papers before PhD is completed proves that your work is of publishable quality and working with a more experienced researcher will open more doors for you.

I'd echo what other people have said - usually when you show up and register there will be someone you can talk to - sometimes (depending on how big the conference is) there will be someone who can help you with loading your powerpoint.  If it's a big conference with several parallel sessions then you might find people moving between rooms mid session. In big sessions you might sit at the front on a panel but in smaller sessions you might just sit near the front.

Good Luck and enjoy it - make the most of the opportunities of networking.

Another thought - although the paper might be distracting you from your thesis there is a big advantage in having papers published before PhD is completed as it does prove that your work is publishable.

I'm part time PhD student and social sciences so don't have the lab thing to contend with. I'm not sure about supervision though - I get no "supervision" from my supervisors - what I do get is feedback on things I have written or presented and occassionally suggestions but that's what I expect. It is after all MY PhD I came up with the area, the aims, the methodology and so on. I'm not sure what else people expect (or get) as far as supervision is concerned. If I was getting messages on even a weekly basis I would feel that that was interferring but maybe in sciences where the supervisor has defined the research they need to be more involved.

Does your university have a writing centre?  They can help with things like structure and some have special services for students who do not have English as their first language. At the uni where I work we even have someone who will help staff with academic writing so these services are not just for undergrads. 

A friend sent me the powerpoints from a presentation she went to about writing for PhD students which suggested breaking it down into smaller chunks (using mind maps) and then doing them one at a time - it helps not to see it as 80,000 (or however many) words. I use that method with any writing (I've been putting off writing a paper - 4-6,000 words) and once I broke it down I did 728 in a few hours so now I know I can do it by looking at each bit as a few hundred words.