I didn't manage to apply in time for residence halls for my first year and ended up living in a flat with undergraduate students. I had quite a hard time because they were either too shy or rude and they didn't ever say hello when they saw me, organizing the cleaning was a disaster... For this year (my 2nd year) I've chosen to live in a residence hall - as Shani has pointed out it's much less hassle and until now I've found it okay (it's a PG only hall, which definitively helps, and quite small, only 15 people or so). The only negative thing are some rules and bureaucray - for example fire alarm tests, visits of the Student Accommodation Office to our rooms to see if everything's clean and tidy, etc.

I'm in my second year (Humanities) but I just wanted to point out that it took me until the Christmas holidays to have a decent thesis topic and a feasible thesis plan, after having read quite a lot of both primary and secondary sources. So you shouldn't be worried if after 3 weeks *the* topic hasn't appeared yet.

Kerosen - I did a 4-month course of Italian as part of my degree before going to Italy, then in the months before moving there I tried to read a lot in Italian by myself - it was not difficult for me because the languages are so similar but it helped me in acquiring some vocabulary. Then in Italy I joined a course at University of 4 hours a week (in a large group) but I don´t think this was really useful, I only came to speak and write the language by practicing it every day. Hopefully your institution will organize Portuguese courses for foreign students for free or for a low fee, and also specific courses in academic writing in Portuguese when you've acquired a higher level. Good luck.

Is your first language a romance language (ie Spanish, Italian, French) or at least can you speak a romance language fluently? If so, I would say it can be done, with lots of effort though. I'm Spanish and I studied for 1 year in Italy, without having studied much Italian previously, and at the end of the year I managed to do my oral and written exams in Italian. If you can't speak any other romance languages - how much time do you have till you read your thesis? 3 years, which is the usual length of a British PhD, doesn't seem a lot of time to me - specially considering that you have to achieve a level of the language comparable to that of an educated native speaker of Portuguese.

If you university is unable to give you any hint, maybe the Higher Education Academy will be able to help you: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ .
I'm teaching this year and I have to attend a Teaching Certificate organized by my university which is compulsory for every PhD student who has teaching duties - it's a bit of a pain now as it leaves me less time for my PhD but I'm happy to do it because I'll have one less thing to worry about when job hunting starts.

I think it depends a lot on your disciplines. Apparently in most sciences it's fairly normal to finish your PhD with several publications, some (or most) of them as co-author, whereas in the Humanities it's not so frequent to find co-authored papers and finishing the PhD with 3 publications in peer-reviewed journals is already a quite sensible achievement I think (and many people don't publish anything in any case).
That said, I'm on the verge of officially finishing my first year (I started on 12th October 2006) and have already secured 2 publications in peer-reviewed (although not really "top") journals, plus I've been to 3 graduate conferences and a "proper" conference (I'm in the Humanities). For this year I plan to pace down a bit as the first year was complete madness.

I tend to assign every piece of reading to one of the chapters of my thesis and read it whenever I'm working on that particular chapter. But then it's not so rigid and some readings fit into more than 1 chapter, or I discover new readings after I've been working on the chapter they should belong to etc.

As for the working hours: I'm in the Humanities and I don't have to be at my department for a fixed number of hours every day, so I can just choose to work at any time and then work on my PhD in the evenings or weekends or whenever I'm not busy. Then it depends on the position: the note-taking or clerical duties tend to be more during the day, while the library positions can require you to work in the evenings or weekends, etc.

At my Uni there are a number of positions which are mainly or exclusively for postgraduates: note-taking for students with disabilities (I'm starting with this tomorrow, and among the student positions within my university this is the one with the best rates of pay, except for tutoring/marking), library assistants, exam invigilators (limited to May-June though), various clerical positions (administrative assistant and so on), etc. Just look out for job ads when you're on campus, or in your Uni's webpage as these positions tend to be filled at the beginning of the academic year.

Funny, I had to write my first year report in May when I was only 8 months into my PhD.
We were supposed to write around 500 words which is really not enough, but basically as Corinne said: I described which material I had been looking at naming a few examples and how did it fit within my dissertation plan. I also referred to the material I had written and presentations I had given.

Funny, I had to write my first year report in May when I was only 8 months into my PhD.

In my uni there's a continuation fee for EU/Home students and International students alike. It's about 300 pounds, but better ask your uni.

"Other PhD students that I know are considered better, only have more industry experience prior to starting PhD, better conections, are more outgoing and pushy. I just don't feel like they are essentially more capable or talented than me but I know that they are perceived as if they are. That is very depressing."

Well it happens all the time and in every aspect of life. Sometimes it is just a matter of marketing oneself better. Sad but true.

Hi,
In the UK after you submit your thesis it is typically read by an internal examiner (i.e. someone at your university but not involved with your research) and an external one. Then you have to meet them in the viva voce examination (which is usually referred as "viva") so that they can ask you questions about your work, see how well you defend your thesis... and at the end of this examination that's when you get your result (pass, minor corrections, major corrections, whatever).

I'm sorry to hear about it - your external sounds incredibly prejudiced to me.
I infer from your messages that your supervisors have been supportive and tried to help you? Well, this is already something very positive.
Good luck with everything.