Hey guys

Belated Happy New Year y'all! Glad to see that everyone's still ploughing on determinedly (is that a word?). I thought I'd check back in here after a long holiday-related silence. I treated myself to 2 weeks of doing sweet FA over the holidays and am now trying to get back in the swing of things. Have spent much of the day sorting through the piles of papers and folders around the house and planning my work for the next little while, so that I can start working effectively right from the start. I'm determined to get back to some positivity - and productivity! :p - this year after a terrible slump in both in the last few months. Looking forward to many happy - ahem - hours back on this thread!

Interesting post Cornflower! I regularly get very positive feedback from my supervisors, who seem to think that I'm well on track, making good progress and doing good work. What do I do with this feedback? I walk away and think to myself "Yeah right, they're just saying that for the sake of being nice and keeping my mood up." Something in me simply won't let me believe that they may in fact be telling the truth. I suspect it's the day-to-day trials and tribulations that I experience with my work that make me think that clearly they're talking a load of rubbish, because shouldn't someone who's on track and doing well NOT be having all these daily setbacks and frustrations? Shouldn't I just be cruising along, starting each day with a smile, and finishing it having all my boxes ticked? Your post makes me want to sit down and have another think about this now - what if, despite all the daily frustrations and challenges I am, overall, actually in a perfectly good place? Food for thought... thanks Cornflower! Maybe I can start back in the new year with a more positive outlook on my work. Now that would be nice.

Hi Lindalou

I wish the silence on my part was down to me being busy working!! The reality is that my brain has already started the Christmas countdown and is refusing to engage. I've not got anything of worth done recently at all. I feel thoroughly bad about it as well but I simply can't focus these days, not sure what it is. I'm off for my Christmas break next week so at this point I'm thinking 'let it go, get back to it after your holiday', but not without feeling totally guilty about it at the same time. So now I'm not getting any work done, but not doing anything else productive with my time either. What a carry on! Anyway, I hope you're writing is coming on fine. Sounds like you're making steady progress!

Nope. Never too late Alex! I'm in my second year and galloping my way towards 40. Most of my PhD peers here are in their early to mid 30s. I had been away from academia for 6 years since my Masters which was a little daunting but proved not to be an issue either. If anything then I think being that bit older is an advantage in that you have a little more work and life experience to draw on. I would love to say that it gives you more work discipline but that would be a lie :p

Hi Cornflower

I think you may get further contacting places like charities and the like directly, as even if they don't need more volunteers they may be able to give you details of opportunities that they're aware of among the organisations they liaise with. I'd try popping into a local Bethany shop (or contacting them otherwise) or similar as I'd be surprised if especially homelessness projects weren't wanting volunteers over Christmas for their soup kitchens etc. If you're in the UK you could also try contacting the Big Issue. I once volunteered for their local New Year's Eve 3-day event which they ran to give homeless people shelter, food and a little entertainment over that period which is notorious for a massive increase in suicides, what with staring another year of desperation in the eye and all. It was the most wonderful event I was ever involved with, although it appears to have stopped round my way. Another idea might be to approach local hospices. They may well be running little festivities for those who will be staying with them over that time and may appreciate an extra pair of hands. Or how about the local cat and dog home? Just some ideas. I'd phone round places directly.

Oh, and another idea. Speak with your Uni's international students office. I know people who 'take in' foreign students for Christmas Day where they live too far away to go home over that time and would otherwise be all alone. They always have 2-3 students joining them for Christmas dinner and it makes for a lovely sociable day and you learn something about others' Christmas customs to boot. You could have a few round to yours and have Crimbo festivities together, that way helping all involved!

Anyway, good luck and let us know what you come up with! (tree)

Welcome back Emmaki and hello Batfink!

Having just thrown a massive tantrum and various items of stationery, cried some crocodile tears and sworn profusely - before you tut disapprovingly, I'm at home today, not in the office! :-) - I am once more returning to goal 1, the evidence of which my computer has just decided to let evaporate into thin air. Two hours of work just gone. Disappeared. The perfect fuel for my already low motivation and enthusiasm these days. I just want to curl up into a little ball right now and go into hibernation, in the hope that all's magically well when I wake up :-(

Morning all! It's only 9.20am but I'm already in procrastination mode which is super scary as I've got TONS to do. (Probably the reason why I'm procrastinating!) So, there's nothing for it, I will need to commit myself to some goals this morning to get moving:

Goal 1. Prep info for sup meeting
Goal 2. Phone study participants

That'll do for now :-) Good luck everyone with their work today!

Happy to report that the hangover is starting to subside, although the stomach is still a little delicate. I really should know better at my age!

Well, the meeting I came rushing back for turned out to be a complete waste of time as the other person hadn't actually done what they were meant to do in prep for it. :-s Now for a final little goal before I need to head off for some field work.

Goal 4. Back up computer and write time plan for weekend work

I'm an INFJ, which according to the blurb makes me rare and part of fewer than 3% of the population. At last I can honestly claim that I'm special in some way! :p Seemingly I also possess 'strong personal charisma'. Well I never. Scarily though the blurb does describe me extremely accurately. Not sure what to do with this information now but as a means of procrastination this test gets full marks from me! ;-)

Hi Skig!

I'm here, even though I'm not meant to be. Have just realised that the meeting I thought was at 11am is actually at 1pm, so there's me rushing back to the office for 11am, unhelpfully interrupting my participant recruitment in the process. I am such an idiot, so I am! Anyway, this means I have an unexpected window of desk time now which must be filled with some productivity! So, my goals for this are:

Goal 1. Make strong cup of tea to speed up hangover recovery :$
Goal 2. Action email query
Goal 3. Make list of work to do over the weekend
Goal 4. Make some notes for meeting at 1pm (NOT 11am - durrrr..!)

Morning everyone

I've successfully run the gauntlet of picketers trying to keep me out of the building and am back at my desk for the morning with all sorts of grand plans. Batfink, I salute you for making an active move to keep away from the internet and being successful at it to boot! The internet really is a curse when you're easily distracted - like me!

Goals for the morning:

Goal 1. Update to do list
Goal 2. Copy a couple of pages from book
Goal 3. Tidy up interview transcripts
Goal 4. Run preliminary data analysis
Goal 5. Return library book

Good luck everyone with their goals today!

Oh, looks like I'm only conversing with myself today :-) Never mind, jotting down my goals here does help so I'll carry on regardless. After spending much of the day on goal 2, now a few smaller ones to kid me into thinking I'm actually moving forward:

Goal 3. Post info sheet
Goal 4. Update field diary
Goal 5. Respond to email enquiry

Sorry to hear that you've not been well Batfink! I hope you're getting back on track now though and feeling much better. As if PhD life wasn't challenging enough on its own!

I'm back on here today because I've seriously got to get some stuff done today and despite working with daily 'to do' lists anyway this thread does help to keep me on the straight and narrow so much more! Funny really how that works. I'm sure there's a PhD topic in there... :p

Anyways, must get my skates on!

Goal 1. Track down info for someone then email them back
Goal 2. Summarise main themes from recent interviews

Does anyone have any insight into how much 'ownership' of a PhD topic the student can expect if you work on a pre-determined project? I've been having discussions with some of my peers here and none of us are sure how it's meant to work as our supervisors all treat the situation very differently, i.e. some supervisors pretty much claim ownership of all the data the student generates and expect to feature in any publications linked to the project purely because it started with their idea (which seems a little opportunistic), while other supervisors have completely passed all ownership to the student (which seems overly generous). Is it purely down to how your sup wants to play it or are there actually 'rules' for this sort of thing? Anyone know?

Morning all!

I'm determined to make some inroads into, well, everything today. Anyone else feel that they are constantly a million miles away from being on top of their workload? :-(

The main aim of today is transcribing. Groan. So nothing like warming up a bit with a couple of mytomatos before breakfast time.

Goal 1. Transcribe for 2 mytomatos' worth. GO!