My supervisor is having an 'off' time at the moment. We are supposed to meet up every six weeks or so, according to the timetable set by the university, and this has to be officially noted in order to get onto the next stage, but I haven't seen him since just before the Christmas hols! I know he has a lot of other things on and I'm going to give him one more week to get back to me before I try him again. The trouble is although the next bit of work hasn't to be submitted until July, because of the meeting dates of the committees I really need to get it in by April, but without the other bits in place this is going to be hard.. Still I will see how it goes, it is harder being part time because I'm not at uni when he is around during the week, and because I work in education the uni hols are when I'm on holiday so he isn't around then either. They never think about this aspect for education part time students, just make the rules and assume they will be OK for everyone.

Should we all hide round the corner just in case??. I'm a bit like that today, weather is good, and I should be out doing some gardening - I sneaked out there this morning and cut the grass , just a quick trim mind, not the edges or anything. It took me an hour or so, but now I'm thinking that I should have been working...and now I'm on here and still not doing anything, well I'm correcting something before I send it to my supervisor, but I feel I should be doing MORE and I feel a bit guilty that I'm not. Oh well, maybe I'll get going after another cup of tea

Are you trying to find a ready made project, or are you thinking of putting in a proposal and then trying to get funding? If you find a department you like, try e-mailing the prof and ask if they could have an interest in this area. It looks to me as though you could have an overlap between biology and computing, as I think there is some use of computer modelling in that, so your idea might fit as an extension in that area maybe? Have you put in a search to find people interested in your area? You could then look at where they are and if they are active in research and see if they have any vacancies or projects about to start. anyway thats the way I would start to look. you could find someone who would supervise you, and then try to get funding on the basis that you have a place on offer.

My advice would be to do some basic background research into what a particular uni will offer you both in terms of your progress within the course and afterwards. Find out if their vision is your vision, and what the outside world thinks of their students. - I know Yale has a reputation for some things, but you have to be happy there too, three years is a long time to be wishing you had chosen somewhere else. Check how well the supervisors are respected, check on their work and see if you could work with them remember that they need you too!

As a family we have been veggie for a long time, but I just can't stand soya milk. I have dutifully bought all the other types, rice,oat etc. but they are equally bad. Wish I could find something that we liked. In desperation I did try the cereal with fruit juice that was advocated by someone, but it was truly the worst thing I have ever ever had - they are fine apart, but together, ugh!. The thing I find odd though is the way most of the veggie dishes in books etc. are brown. That and the fact it is hard to go out to eat as you can never be sure that the veggie stuff is cooked away from the rest, and my youngest daughter won't eat it if it contains mushrooms or tomato,which rules out a lot of dishes

Motivation - I think what I hope to say is firstly worth saying and secondly may make some people sit up and take notice about the way education is going. Will it get me through - I hope so!!

a lot of people do seem to get this,the librarians here do it too - if you can spare the time it could be useful to you later, the one thing it might give you straight away is a bit of help with planning and confidence in delivering your material, and it will look quite good on a cv

the one I am on is much more fixed, proposal in 4-8 months after registration, transfer to PhD after a year - 2years part time, when you have to have 2 chapters ready, then finished thing 3-3.5 years or up to 6-6.5 if part time. The first bit is where I'm at at the moment, altohugh I'm waiting on my supervisor to get back with info onthe ethics bit which I have sent. The thing is I virtually had to complete this stage before I could even register - area is a bit, no, very, controversial so they needed not the usual 2 sides, but 18 pages of information, and a rewording so they didn't quite get what the thing would really be about

did you not keep any backup samples? what did the lab say, did they not keep any of the original sample , sorry if it isn't the sort of thing that you can keep parts of, I know sometimes the whole thing is used, but it isn't always the case. I hope you have been on to them and asked for an explanation - and a pint of their blood as a reward - not suggesting you are a vampire or anything- but you should get something for causing so much hassle.

the stuff in the drying room without waking said person who had powers to lock us out, but that is another story. it must have been about 2a.m. when we had finished by which time said girl was fast asleep. We were all going round like zombies the next day, she was all sweetness and light and full of the joys of spring having received big bunch of flowers from boyfriend who had phoned to say he got the date wrong, and she never asked how her bedlinen had ended up in the laundry room

i remember such thing from my student days, probably the most memorable was the time we took one girl out on her birthday, she was upset about her boyfirend not phoning or something, but managed to down several pints of some local brew.The pub was halfway down a hill, and our place was at the top, so which way did she turn? Yes, down the hill, stopping her was like trying to stop a train, no joke! We eventually managed to get her up the hill and into our room, put her to bed, and she vomited over everything, YUK we obviously wanted to wash the sheets etc, but had only a small washing machine and it was above the warden's - or should i say ogre's flat. so we were there washing the stuff very quietly, well you try tell ing a machine to work quietly, and then we had to tiptoe downstairs to hang

The thing is that the situation really affected me and made me keep several potential husbands at arms length so to all those people who do anything but face the fact that they need to divorce I would say that you have to think of the potential harm of whatever action you decide to take and choose whichever is the least harmful to not only yourselves, but to anyone else involved.

i always said that if my husband as unfaithful, then he would be out, no messing, luckily he never was (as far as I know of course!!!). however the reason i said that was because my parents should have divorced, my mum wouldn't do it, so they remained 'separated'. I must admit I never understood why - he lived next door to us with another lady and it was really hard for me being stuck in the middle, my two brothers were much older than me, by 20 -yes, 20 - and 16 years, so were long gone by this time. Recently my daughter has been looking at our family tree, which has some very interesting characters in it, and I have realised that I may have misjudged the situation and it was my mum who was at fault, although I can never check this now as both are dead. It would explain a lot though.

Keep everything, but make sure you have note of the note, if you see what I mean. I've got stuff filed away that I used ages ago, but some of it I've forgotten about until I've been searching for something else- or occasionally I've come across the article again and printed out another copy .

Thanks for that information, I will be spending the next week entering stuff so at least I will have it all in one place. I will take your advice about just using one library, as that seems most sensible since it will all end up in one place anyway. It is really great to have people on tap who actually know what it can do - I'll most probably be back with more questions soon