I don't understandd the choices

I loved this but suspect that in social science / qualitative where results aren't presented in tables but are part of the discussion, we can't do it in a week.

I did write my MA Dissertation (24,000 words) (Geography) in less than a month while 8-9 months pregnant - bascially my pre-birth maternity leave was spent doing 15-18 hour days at the computer - trouble is I now think (know) how much I can get done in how short a space of time...

The other thing which is cheap to do yourself (and I found relaxing) is the flowers - I wasn't brave enough to do my bouquets but I did (with a friend) flowers for the church and reception and buttonholes for every guest.  I got married in November and flowers at that time of year are even more expensive than usual. We went to a flower market (we lived in London at the time so it was easy) and bought about £120 - £150 of flowers (we had to borrow buckets for the neighbours we had so many).  I got oasis and the dishes for it to go in, and the other bits and pieces (wire, tape ribbon etc) from a florist supply shop (but nowadays you can get that on the web).

We did 12 table centre pieces (with big fat candles), big arrangements for the top table, pew ends, two big arrangements (one for the entrance one for the alter), button holes for 120 guests - all for about £250 in total.  I reckon from a florist it would have been over £2000 pounds. It was a nice thing to do as it occupied me in the two days before the wedding - you just need to have friends to rope in to help (or if you are getting married in a church ask the ladies who do the church flowers to do them - they will be much cheaper than a florist).

One of our ushers made the cake as a wedding present (but we had to get it iced) - another option i to look in supermarkets M&S (& I am sure others) do wedding cakes which just need assembling and decorating with some flowers if you want a traditional type.  One of my dad's friends has an old car (cream 1953 rolls) so we used that to take me to church. We didn't have an evening do as I'm not really into discos - our wedding finished about 9.30pm.

Enjoy the organising - I loved it - all my project management skills put to far more interesting use!

Hi
I was (I suppose technically I still am) a CIMA qualified accountant but left 6 years ago after 16 years as I had been unable to make the move from finance to general management and then I decided I wanted to be an academic.  I would think that if you can do the project management course then that coupled with your finance qualification would stand you in good stead. As has been said a lot of project managers / engineers etc have no idea about finances (my husband, also an accountant, used to have a display in his office with pictures of what £10, £20, £50, £250k would buy as he got sick of engineers saying "it's only...") so you would be combine two very important areas.

As far as going into the family business is concerned - it depends where you are - if you are in a Mediterranean country then there will be no problem, if however you are in the Uk I would make sure that you get plenty of experience in another company before you join - Brits don't take kindly to bosses children (I speak with some experience - I decided not to joint the family firm for that reason) - again your accounting qualification and the project management course will help and if you can get some experience to go with them so much the better. 

If you do the project management course you can always keep your hand in with the accounting by doing interim/temp work in the holidays which would help if funding is an issue (and if there is a finance component on the Project management course you'll probably get exempt - I did when I did my MSc)

Good Luck

Just wrote a really long message and lost it as I was spell checking :-( this is a cut down version I am afraid.

What's the style of dress - if it's a clingy vampy type (what my husband calls a pulling dress based on what I was wearing when he chatted me up) I'd go for the maroon and silver - if it's a bit more subtle then the silver and pink.

I vaguely remember reading something about either strong eyes or strong lips but not both. I tend to go for grey eyes and very red lipstick with black but it depends on your colouring - if you are pale with red hair you would go for something more subtle than if you have a more Mediterranean colouring. With the gold dress I'd go for browns, creams, pinky brown etc - lipstick could be quite dark brown / maroon if you are dark or more neutral if you are fairer.

The other thing to think of is what will the lighting be like where you are going – if it is bright light then you need to go for a more subtle look otherwise it can look too OTT – on the other hand if it is quite dark then go for stronger colours.

The other option is to go into a shop and ask for advice - you don't have to buy anything to get a quick makeup done. My friend always gets us hand massages and glass of champagne at Jo Malone in Harvey Nicks and I have NEVER bought anything.

What’s the occasion?

Oh well in that case I'm not sure I want to enter!:p

Can I find out what the prize is before I decide whether to enter or not :-)

Didn't really have a PhD interview as I am self funding and did my MSc at the same uni.  But I've had plenty of job interviews (and conducted them as well when I was in industry). As far as strengths are concerned try to match them to the requirement of the post. 

As far as weaknesses are concerned - I usually try to make them positive if I can - so things like never knowing when to giving up. The other option is to give a weakness but then say what you have done / are doing to address it - so I have had interviews for lecturing jobs where the feedback was that I didn't have a PhD - at the next interview (at the same uni) I told them exactly what I had done to address it (start my PhD) - feedback then was (again) I was a very close second but the other person had more peer reviewed publications.  When they had another job advertised I didn't apply as it was too soon to have closed the gap but I did send an e-mail to the head of school saying why I wasn't applying but I was still interested and if they didn't get a suitable candidate etc etc.

Try not to shoot yourself in the foot as far as weaknesses are concerned. I have some notes from the last job I applied for and this is what I had prepared -
Passion for subject has at times overwhelmed people but have worked on reigning that in
Big picture focus means I have to work harder at detail

Good Luck

I don't know what you field is but in mine (Geography - social science end - and tourism) it is fairly normal to write an abstract before you have even done the research - in fact my head of department told me that there is an art in writing enough detail that you get accepted but not enough that you are stuck with a topic if you want to change it.
I generally write abstracts and if accepted write the presentation and/or the paper.  If you think that the journal is too good for your paper then can you present it as work in progress and then submit to another journal when it is finished?

My brother is a champion complainer and is always getting £10 vouchers for things (which only cost him about 50p) - I really like the idea of using procrastination time profitably though - great idea.

Thanks for the reply
To be honest my biggest concnern is that I want my supervisor to know that the problem questiosn were nothing to do with me - maybe I will send the external an e-mail saying I have dealt wth comments on my questions (with specifics) and have passed the others on to colleagues.

Congratulations - having only just started (part-time) I can't imagine getting to where you are

Help I need advice. I work at University A and have jsut started my PhD at University B. Lead supervisor at university B is one of our external examiners at Uni A (and in his final year). Part of my job is to liaise with external examiners and as part of this I had to send draft exam papers to my supervisor. His comments have just come back and they are REALLY harsh. The letter is addressed to me but obviously the comments are specific to various members of staff who set the different questions. I can cope with criticism of my questions not having numbers next to them and odd comments about model answers including statements that are superfluous, but there are some really harsh comments (the word unacceptable is used twice (relating to lack of model answers), he proposes one question be dropped or replaced and another be reconsidered). So here is my dilemma - all the comments relate to colleagues and most of them to the head of department (who may well say "stuff him"). I feel that I need to let my supervisor know that the problem questions are nothing to do with me - but how do I do it.

I have sent my colleagues (one of who is away on fieldwork and the HoD has been tied up all week in some uni stuff) an e-mail outlining the changes needed and have said that I haven't gone back to the external but given the nature of the comments (and my relationship with him) I feel I need to.


Any advice?

Thanks for the reminder - I go through phases of being really obsessive and then other times (usually when I am on a roll and actually achieving more when I forget.
I do get regular reminders though in that at least once a month an undergrad comes and asks for an extension because their laptop is broke, data stick corrupted etc etc

(Best one I heard was a couple of weeks ago when a third year told me he had left his laptop on the roof of his car and had driven 6 miles - needless to say it wasn't on the roof when he got home (but he did find it and apart from a broken screen it works fine) - he wasn't asking for an extension - just sharing how dumb he had been with the rest of the class)

As others have said a lot depends on what is on the slides - if it is just text then probably a couple of minutes per slide is a minimum but if you are using images then you can get through a lot in a few minutes.  As a geographer I use lots of images in presentations (and classes) - students in particular groan when it is 5.30 on a Friday evening and we still have 35 slides to get through (but for this "graveyard and then some slot" there are loads of images) - we always manage to get through them.

When I worked in industry someone told me that you should never have more words on a slide than you would have on a t-shirt (but I a=old enough to remember those lipsmackin... pepsi t-shirts)

And just to entertain you - have you seen the Abraham Lincoln powerpoint - kind puts things in perspective and reminds us it's what we say that is important not the powerpoint - for those who haven't seen it here it is

http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/