Perhaps you mean "pin drive" rather than "pen drive"?

@ the number equation--??????????? I got a randomly strange and large number...but it does not seem to mean anything to me. Then again numbers were never my strong suit...to say the least. What does it mean?

So, I searched amongst the journals in my field, and the highest rating seems to be 0.7!!! Does this seem possible?! So if I am looking at a journal with 0.5--that is actually perhaps a relatively high impact journal?! given the field??? This means what, no one reads or cites the journals in this field? its a tiny field? its scholarship is crap?

I was wondering where all of those pleas to find money and degrees for people had gone. It was inconcievable that they had simply STOPPED! Here they are. Well, whew, I feel better having located them. The Earth and planets are back in balance.

But, its a balance. I have to remember to be interested and supportive of my friends' lives and pursuits, be it their family, their children, their artwork, their career, whatever. I ask about that, and try to make sure that what THEY are doing is no more and no less important than ME when we get together. Indeed, sometimes, its a relief to think about and talk about anything else besides the blooming PhD.

She was right. I stopped putting any energy into friendships that did not value or at least try to understand the importance to me of the PhD and its demands. I got a real "buzz" out of friends who think its great, that are encouraging, and TRY to understand my basic overview of what I am doing, and ask questions, etc. They feed good energy into the whole process. The vampires, the negative ones that suck the energy out of you, are simply not worth dealing with. Why are they negative and unsupportive? I come away with that at some level, they are envious or jealous, and unable to overcome their own selfishness to be supportive of another--and in that case, fail the most basic definition of a friend.

This is such a hard one--friends and your all consuming PhD. One of my good supportive friends ( who is an academic herself) put it simply that you need to be surrounded by people who are supportive, who value you and what you are doing, even if they don't fully "get it", its not a hard stretch to say that if its important to you, that they should value it for that, and if people aren't supportive and understanding, who needs them? They just feed negative energy into an already stressful and short of time situation.

Has anyone seen the BBC article on how to speak in an American accent? Its all to do with the placement of the tongue in the mouth, or somesuch, but there were examples given of how to say the American a such as in bath...or the sound of "L", which I guess is not the same in the UK as in the US, though to be honest its not a difference I have noticed.

I mean...fish sticks!

@Smilodon...finger sticks...yuk...I hated those. I used to sneak them into my napkin when served them as a child and then flush them down the toilet!

Pardon for starting a thread on this, but I cannot find the thread where everyone was talking about the giraffes, and I was mystified...then looking up from some fine and riveting academic reading there were FOUR of the critters staring at my computer! I was startled, and then though, OH YES, its the giraffes that everyone has been talking about! I SEE THEM!

ahhh, I get it. So the higher the number, the greater the impact, the better...though bad on your head, and perhaps the desk!!! That will be an easy way to remember that a high number is GOOD, lots of impact...ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is it Friday yet?

As ever, when it comes to numbers, I am flummoxed. I remember taking a course that discussed journal impact factor numbers, but I do not remember if its better to have a small number or a big number. I have tried to look this up, and all I have found are articles that describe the formulas by which these numbers are calculated, but nothing that seems to interpret the number itself...silly question, but if anyone has an answer, it would be most appreciated.

How many different names are there for a USB stick? I can think of:
USB stick ( British, mainly in usage)
Memory stick ( British, mainly in usage)
Flash drive ( American, mainly, in usage)
Jump drive ( American, mainly, in usage)
Memory pin ( British, mainly, in usage)
Thumb drive ( American, mainly, in usage)

Its a drive in the States and a pin or stick in the UK!

@ Smilodon, that's the spirit--drink the red wine, put a message in the bottle, it might get there. Another option is a sky writer--you know those people in airplanes that write messages in the sky--"Smilodon's Supervisor--RING HER AT ONCE!"

I will check out those other newspaper suggestions. Although thanks to the Daily Mail, I now know what a WAG is.