I tend to work from home mostly, as we are not given postgrad working space at uni and I find it hard to work in the libray. Anyway, I have recently moved and my neighbours are driving me insane. They are always shouting at their kids, then of course their kids scream and cry (this goes on intermittently all day long) and their TV is extremely loud all day, they also slam every door in the house.
I have already asked them politely if they could be quieter as I work from home and they claimed that they weren't noisy because their kids are at school (what!?)! Not particularly keen on approaching them again... am I being overly fussy here?? (the shouting & screaming starts about 6.30am and wakes me up, then stops at about 8/9pm).

thanks for all your suggestions everyone! I was thinking of either emailing our subject librarian or doing what sylvester suggested and emailing the person directly as I have found their uni webpage and it all looks pretty promising! If I have no luck in those places, I will post it up and see if anyone is kind enough..

I am so annoyed... I found a really useful set of articles and my university hasn't subscribed to the full access so I can only get the tempting abstracts... RAGH! They don't hold copies in the library either. This always happens!!!!

excuse my ignorance, but what exactly is the poster presentation - is it where individuals who don't give papers present their research to everyone? Do you have lots in one room sort of thing?

Hi SillyBilly - I guess you can't go wrong with smart/casual, that's the sort of thing I was thinking of. I just have this image of old men in tweed (oh my god, I KNOW that's not even representative, so why am I thinking it??!) and I actually look very young (or so I'm told, because I get ID'd buying paracetamol - seriously) so I feel like I will stick out so much..

I am really really nervous about an upcoming conference, even though I am not presenting! It is my first one and I have absolutely no idea what to expect (or who to expect!), I am also going alone.
I find it very hard to socialise with new people and I am really worried that I will just spend the whole time alone and too scared to speak to anyone - this is partly due to the fact I am hugely unconfident in talking about my work, and partly because I am also quite shy! Infact, I have no idea what sort of conversations people have and how formal these events can be. Might sound a silly question, but do people at conference just talk about academia? How sociable are such events? And also, what happens at the presentations and do people take notes etc? I'm sorry, these are really ridiculous questions but it would put my mind at rest if I knew!
The prospect of having to be surrounded with no-one but academics for a few days seriously doesn't thrill me right now!

It's a funny thing in that your health is very important and you don't want to burn yourself out and you can't work with feeling like that etc. and yet you can't go too far the other way either. Maybe your body is trying to tell you that you have earned yourself a break!
Oh, by the way, I'm not working, I've been messing around on the internet for the past 2 and a half hours! Think I may call it a night and try to sleep!
Good night! Hope you have a good day tomorrow and start to feel a bit more positive about things

If you do decide to go out or whatever, try not to feel guilty for doing so as that sort of thing eats me up and then I end up feeling even worse about going out and getting a change of scenery!
To me there is huge difference between relaxing from the PhD and relaxing-but-feeling-guilty-about-relaxing, if you know what I mean. Heh, it's late!

Hi fellow insomniac! Snap! I am having lots of days like this lately... to answer how I deal with them, well, there isn't really a straight forward answer but I guess I just try to get as far away from the PhD as possible (not literally but sometimes that helps too ;)) to clear my head (that VERY hard sometimes, I know) and then try to go back into it afresh. I've also found talking to someone about it helps lots too. Other than that, I guess I cope somehow because I'm still here - a sucker for punishment.
Where are you from originally, Jouri?

p.s. I have come from the other direction - from those waxing philosophical into broader social science!

I think my MA equipped me to some extent for this PhD - it was different to the area of my first degree and so I had to do some quick learning! However, I think the way it was run did contribute some skills towards what I'm doing now (organisation, research, presentation wise & subject wise etc.). It was also the first time I learnt with students who had a true interest in the subject matter (as opposed to some of the undergrads I knew) and that was amazing. The MA was the educational experience I most contribute to my still being here!!

Hi Olivia - interesting question! At secondary school I was quite average but it was a grammar school which specialised in maths and science - the two things I am worst at!!Needless to say, they didn't really nurture the pupils who preferred the arts and humanities. I felt hugely inadequate at the start of my undergrad degree as I didn't do the a-levels that fully equipped me for the subject matter, however, as time went on and I read more and got more interested I did get a lot out of my first degree. Saying that, I did all learning off my own back as my degree programme was very badly run and fellow undergrads wouldn't do the expected amount of work (as chrisrolinski also noted!) which lead to poor quality seminars etc.

I don't blame you, I am asking everyone for PhD related books for my birthday because I can't afford to buy them! Unfortunatley the list just gets longer!
Can't wait to have to take that book back to the library.... NOT!

Hey Olivia, I got that sage book and it's really useful for qualitative methods so I would like to say thanks for the suggestion! Although it was a monster hardback to carry home after a long day

Hi Xeno - I think what your sup did was really off, they of all people should know what it's like and the immense pressure you feel under. I think you are doing the right thing, it's something I'm trying to work towards doing too I'm sure your sup would rather you were happy and healthy and doing the PhD instead of working yourself into misery!