Our branch of kwick fit is very good, they never do anything unnecessary, several times I've been in to get things checked out because I thought they might need attention and they have come back and said there was nothing needed at present, and they have often done minor things without charge, like mending a slow puncture. 12 isn't old for a car nowadays, they should last much longer than that! I always get mine serviced though, they are too difficult to do yourself now - at least they are for me. and at the moment I haven't the time to spare doing something that takes me hours and a mechanic 10mins ...there is always the one nut that you can't get undone :$

I have absolute trust that my supervisor would never use any my work in any way without my consent.

once upon a time, in the dim and distant past, you could do a lot of car servicing yourself, I have in my time taken engines apart and put them back together again, it used to be just like meccano really, I've changed brake pads etc. and done loads of minor bits, but now you open the bonnet and you wish you hadn't bothered! There isn't a lot you can do without the diagnostic kit so you have to use a garage. Older cars tend to be better in this respect, and should be cheaper to service since they don't need the sophistication of computer diagnostics. I would never sell on an iffy car to anyone other than a garage, you will feel guilty, a garage should know what they are buying so if they don't it is down to them, otherwise it is just mean.:$

I would say it depends upon why you think it is showing its age, Older cars are not necessarily bad, they just may not look as pretty. They are also less of a target for joy-riders - there is no kudos in bragging about pinching an ancient old mini for example! I've had many cars older than that with no real trouble - but it might depend upon your confidence in the car, if it starts OK, drives OK doesn't appear to be leaking its life blood fluids I would hang on to it and get it serviced. Not sure if you know a good garage, but kwikfit seem to be doing a good deal at the moment

i agree with the others, it doesn't have to be an earth shattering eureka making thing - but it does have to have some degree of uniqueness. My research in drawing on ideas from many different areas, and is far away from the traditional teacher - pupil approach to research in my area. This is considered exciting and original by my prof, so who am I to argue with that? I suggest you start with ideas on post-its or similar, or use mind mapping techniques so that you can rearrange your thoughts easily to get some order to your plan, this will help you see where your proposal shows the unique quality required, and you can use the list already posted here to help you with this. Incidentally if you have a brilliant idea now, get something down before you start any festivities - even if they are just jottings on a bit of paper, sometimes these ideas need to be captured before they disappear into the ether forever :-)

thanks for that. I'm not sure if it wasn't just a coincidence, as there are many addresses in my address book, but that was the only reply, the re:re:re bit might mean it was nothing, but I never opened it to see! I've got firewall, and a virus scanner as well as the package, so I am presuming that at the moment it is OK, if not I will download another one to supercede the one I have. It's like lots of things these days, they take your money during the good times, and don't wan't to know if you need anything. They have suggested I use a download from their site to check for problems, so I may do that too. don't you just love it when you are ready to work, and something else intervenes :$

Last week, one of the teachers that worked at our school sent out a 'do not open any e-mails from me, I have a virus ' (as the title)message so I didn't open any of her e-mails or any that looked like they could be from the same source - the ones with the silly titles that you always get. anyway today I received something from someone in my address book that looked like it could be a reply to one of the silly messages warning me of the problem, I didn't open it. So to be on the safe side I used the help on my virus checker to see why I wasn't being protected. No real answer, just a request for payment so that a 'specialist technician' could look at my computer remotely to see if there was a problem or not. I declined this offer as it was almost as expensive as getting a new ? better virus checker. So, should I get this done or not? I've not had any messages about an attack or anything, which presumably would have popped up? Should I get a different virus package? I'm a bit cross, I was supposed to be working and now I'm not :-( :-s

not sure I deserve that!:$ all I do is choose the heading from the 'body, heading 1, heading2' bit, but I leave the style as the one designated. if you do this when you get to the final bit you can decide what you want to use for said heading - 1,2, etc., that is bold, italic etc, and it should change all the headings styles you have assigned to that . if I were you I would have a 'dummy run' at it, take part of a chapter and save it as something else, choose one of the headings from the drop down box for the headings in your piece, save it and do the same for another bit, giving it a different name. Then set up a master doc, add these two dummy documents and then see if the headings change if you alter the style of the heading in the drop down box so that means:
you choose heading 1 which is italic size 12 say
for each heading in your document tell word that heading 1 is what you want to use
set up the master document
change the style of heading 1 and check it changes all the headings
if it does, then the system will work on any number of additions.
you can actually change the headings before you start using it, if you know what you want to use, but this makes sure it will work if you change your mind -
(you do have to go through any chapters/material you have already produced, and make sure you use the 'heading ... ' for each heading, it won't change ones that you haven't told it about.)

i always try these things out first, same as when I'm getting it to do anything involving maths, I always try it out with numbers that I can work out before I use it with something more complicated. computers know if you just leave it to them you know :-)

make a list of everything you have to do, divided into the chapters, set yourself up a spreadsheet in excel, put the months across the top, highlighting what you consider to be the milestone points, then insert the items down the side, you can then decide when you will do what, you could break it down to weeks if you want. filling in anything you know about to make it more accurate for your work. Use colour, to make it easy to read. When you get going, you need to make sure what you have done so far will fit into your overall plan. Firstly I would make sure your ref list is up to date (obviously) but also accurate for your discipline. Make sure you have all the full stops etc where they should be, and for anything you have already written, make sure you have all the refs in your list. If you are using a master document to house everything, make sure all your headings etc in any chapter your write are using the right headings format - that is pick a heading, say heading two and use this to define all your headings that you want to be the same, that way you can change the lot to any style you want and they will all change, its probably a good idea to do this anyway, it saves a lot of time, and you don't miss a heading. The best thing is that you can move stuff around if you need to do so, it is very flexible.  You need to be prepared for unexpected events, I guess you can do it, although with everything else you are doing I don't think it will be easy, it may also depend upon how much background reading you will need to do to jsutify your findings etc.

We had a guy come in to speak to us about the viva not so long ago. some of the more unusual things he said were:
he flicks through the whole thing, (like a magazine, i.e. starting at the back, thumb on the pages kind of thing)  to get a feel for the thesis, this apparently gives him an idea of the final outcome
he checks the number of refs to see if there are enough, their dates, to see how much recent stuff there is etc., and makes some kind of chart from this
he then checks the refs against the number of times that ref is quoted
he goes online to see what is available that hasn't been referenced, so he can ask why
then he looks at the abstract, then the beginnings and endings of chapters
then he reads it
Oh and he also said he reads the acknowledgements very carefully

I'm not sure how typical this is, but something I am going to keep in mind although he isn't in my field

I would say it depends upon the size tray of goodies you have prepared to sutain you through the process, and how many you have to eat per script :$:-)

consider it to be thinking time! a lot of my time is 'thinking' at the moment..thinking about all the books I have to read...about all the journal articles I printed off when uni arranged access to a large number of usually unavailable journals for a few weeks which I still ahve to deal with...for all the other cuttings I've still to read... still I have the holidays coming up soon, which is when I hope to crack on with these tasks, at least that's the theory anyway :-)

as others have said, this incident will soon be lost in the mists of time. don't worry about it (your a student, and can be forgiven because of that). My worst experience was when we took a friend out to celebrate her birthday, she got drunk and a bit upset about her boyfriend not being there. Pub was halfway down the - very steep -hill, and we lived at the top. She came out of the pub and turned down the hill and it took three of us to get her turned in the right direction (To cries of ' I'm alright, I'm not drunk', but she so was :-() it was like trying to move a lorry. anyway back at the flat she vomited all over her bed, which we had to change obviously, but our very keen-eared landlady lived downstairs and disapproved of 'noises' from the flat at night :$, trying to get the sheets etc. washed was a bit of a nightmare. It was a long time before we let her forget that one, but you were nowhere near that bad. Pretend nothing happened and I expect others will do the same. Incidentally no truly cultured person would dream of commenting on the lack of culture exibited by another - that would be a very uncultured thing to do!

i also use endnote just as a storage system as it doesn't fit the way I need to write my refs - I know I can alter it, but can't be bothered :$. I have ref list in word, which I add things to as I go along and which I have stored in about 3 different places, plus a hard copy of the refs. The endnote place is good if you need to write a list for publication where they require a slightly different format, for example I store full names in endnote in case that is needed instead if just the surname and initial. One thing I would say though is get those refs written now, it takes longer than you think!

This is indeed a lot of angst at the wrong time, but take a sec to think things through. you have a set of things you need to think about, so do what you have done so far and use whatever method you have applied to your chapters - lists, charts, mapping or whatever, and collect the info about each bit. for example, the job, what you could do, sources of help etc, at least then you will have some points to work on. Then consider your pattern of work. If you need time to think about what you are writing, change tack and do another task, like the proposal you have to write. the displacement activity will probably help you think through what you have to write next, so you will be working on both tasks together. :-). to have a plan, however skeletal, should make it feel like at least you know where you need to go, even if you don't know how to get there yet, plus if you get a bit of inspiration for one of the areas, you can jot it down somewhere handy and deal with it when you next need a break from the task in hand. you will get through this, believe in yourself. 
(soothing noises coming your way!)