Thanks... but I don't think it sent properly :-(

Hi, thank you all for the replies, the support is great as ever and means a lot. I will try to reply to all the points that have been made. I've also just had a PM from a company offering to write up my thesis for me, I don't think I'm at that stage yet though! :-)

Like some of you have said - I think it is a really good idea that my university has a clear monitoring system for PhD students. It does feel like we are constantly being scrutinised sometimes, but it certainly ensures a consistently good quality of supervision. In my department anyway, I haven't heard of any major complaints (except for the frequent harshness of the academic who led my panel...hopefully I won't have too much to do with her though). I am the sort of person who likes to know where they stand, and I think most people are like that, so the monitoring processes are useful for that. I like to be in contact with my supervisors and know what is going on.

But at the same time I think they can make you nervous, I am a worrier anyway and so these exacerbate that. But I would definitely worry more if I never had any contact with my supervisors and was left alone. My main concern in my original post was that I'd be made to quit my PhD and be offered a chance of an MPhil instead, but I am more reassured that that *probably* won't happen. I am just scared because one of my supervisors hasn't replied to an email I sent her about a writing course last week, and the admin assistant hasn't sent me an ethics form that I requested last week - but they could be entirely unrelated. I hope that is just me overthinking things.

One week to go until my supervision, I will keep you all updated.

Thanks again, Nxx

Firstly sorry I haven't been around much recently to use my tomato accountability thread and reply to my thread about seminar tutoring, will get back into it!

I've been so stressed with my PhD over the last week, I have a feeling that I am just not good enough, and my supervisors are probably thinking the same although they haven't said anything...yet. Waiting for next week's supervision.

I'm eight months in now so I can't say I still need to settle in or anything like that, and I feel like I'm lagging behind. At my university we have to have a Research Plan Approval (RPA) meeting after five months, which is basically a panel meeting to review a research plan (like an extended proposal), to ensure that it is methodologically sound and viable. According my supervisor who came in with me to take notes, my meeting was difficult and the questions were like those that would be asked in a viva. Fortunately she said she was really pleased with how I handled them, however ultimately I didn't get through the RPA as the panel wanted me to make significant alterations.

I did those and submitted the second proposal six weeks later, then didn't hear anything for a while. My supervisors said that they were really pleased with my proposal and that it was really encouraging. I got on with preparing to start my literature review as my supervisors were both away over the summer. I emailed them last week to arrange a supervision and they said that they'd had a meeting with the previous panel about my second proposal and it had been agreed that it still needed work. I was gutted as I had worked so hard on the corrections and thought that it was much better. They did say that there was some good writing and that the improvements I had to make were quite usual at this stage, but i just feel so deflated. They are now doing a bit of editing for me before my supervision next week, which makes me feel awful, like as soon as I see it I'll mess it up.

I'm so nervous about next week's supervision as I keep worrying that they'll tell me I'm not up to the challenge of a PhD and have a go at me, for want of a better expression. I feel like I've failed them. I really enjoy my project and a lot of other academics within the university are interested in it as well, but I just don't feel good enough any more.

Sorry for the long post and I hope that it makes sense, any advice during this tough time is appreciated. Nx

I know what you mean, I have a quick look on a few of the news websites at the beginning of each day and it's rare that I think much about the stories after that but I've been finding myself getting increasingly upset about them. The death of Amy Winehouse really saddened me, I know she was an addict but it was still a shocking tragedy. I was out in Camden that evening though and nothing was especially different, don't think I was that near her house though. Poor girl.

Another one that has really chilled me was the story about the 16 year old boy who murdered his girlfriend in the forest in Wales. God knows what is going through his head but he doesn't appear to be remorseful at all. It's tragic for her and her family, but can't help feeling sorry for him, and more his family as well. It is a strange and awful event.

Maybe have a look at the trashy celebrity gossip to cheer yourself up a bit as well!

Morning all - I got 9 tomatoes done yesterday, not as many as some of you but a respectable number I think! Aiming for the same today - I have to go to work from 3-8 but hopefully it will be quiet so I'll be able to get on with some work.

Well done everyone for yesterday! :-)

This is my procrastination thread of the day... I start teaching an introductory first year seminar in October this year. I'm really looking forward to it and I'm flattered that my supervisors offered it to me. I'm used to doing private tuition but I know that teaching a class is going to be much more of a challenge.

I'm really interested in hearing your experiences of seminar teaching, good and bad, and some advice might be helpful as well!

Thanks, Natassia x

My list isn't that long at the moment because I don't have any data at this early stage, but here is is: (Interesting thread!)
Mendeley for referencing, also making notes quickly from PDFs - will probably transfer these to OneNote though
PDF-viewer for PDFs
Word 2010 for writing
Trying to get into OneNote - like the look of it so far
Occasionally MindGenius for brainstorming but to be honest I prefer to do this by hand.
Google calendar (if this counts) for my diary and task lists
Dropbox for back-up

Hi Sneaks - I've done quite a lot on discourse analysis (and conducted discourse analysis) but not yet in my PhD - what type(s) are you using? If you PM me your internal's name I should be able to email you some papers or help you out a bit more - I have quite a lot of material on the subject.

Hi sunflower - I hope you've had a good holiday. Are you doing qualitative or quantitative research? If you're doing qualitative, I can recommend these books:

Flick, U. 2009. An Introduction to Qualitative Research.

Willig, C. 2001. Introducing Qualitative Research in Psychology: Adventures in Theory and Method.

I might be able to help you a bit more when i know what you're doing! Did you go on any research methods courses?

Nx

As you can see I'm getting into using lots of organisational software, have read about another PhDer (Pixie?) using OneNote and seen that I have it with Windows 2010 - looks good but does anyone have any tips? What do you all use it for?

Thanks, Nx

10 days - eeek! Well done so far though, and hang in there!

I find that when I am stressed about something I need more sleep as well, being on anti-depressants doesn't seem to help either. I think that Delta is right, it is because your brain is working more during the day.

I think you just need to listen to your body and sleep for as long as you want to. It sounds like it isn't stopping you from getting the work done either - it isn't healthy to do all-nighters with no sleep and it sounds like you're doing just fine!

Nx

I do that on my Google calendar - I put in how many tomatoes I do each day and use Google tasks - so that is something I guess.

I love a bit of Blondie - makes me want to reach for the peroxide again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWhkbDMISl8&feature=relmfu

As does No Doubt (Gwen Stefani):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvuVFHTvdaY

I have 'stayfocused' as well and think it is great, it really works for me, more than Leechblock did when I was on firefox. I do like the focus booster app and downloaded it today, but I like the fact that Mytomatoes allows you to keep a daily record of what you have done. Is there an option for that on focus booster at all?

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This is one of my favourite songs from my era, don't know why but it is catchy and the video is quite good, the glorious Spice Girls:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ro0FW9Qt-4&ob=av2e

I will be back with more...