The trout recipes started in a thread where someone was wanting to know what a "mouth breather" was, so I tried to help by explanining it was a particular sort of trout...and just for way of demonstration on the interest in trout, put up a few recipes. The conversation turned to thoughts of world wide culinary hegemony--and whether the trout was part of that plot---along with many other related issues!

Hunger won out over the need to hear from the next four days and the pain from my foot injury ( plantar faciatis..something like that, which if you have ever had, OUCH! its painful!!! ). Maslow's hierarchy of needs indeed, and I had a long trek up to the fridge of Bleak Towers, which yielded up some bread. I could not stand the noise and went outside again, back down all the stairs...finally the alarms went silent and the lifts began to work, and all was well again and peaceful at Bleak Towers. And we all lived happily ever after. The end.

It seemed that some entity besides the fire brigade had to come and turn off the alarm...??? which only took an ear shattering hour or more to happen. The lifts also were stalled and no idea how long those would take to come back into service. Given that I was bone weary and hungry, after hovering around the outside of Bleak Towers, but verifying it was OK to re-enter, I made the long trek up the stairs--I live several floors up, encountering on the way, people taking refuge from the alarm sound in the stair well.

Well, no, actually, I have yet to try to cook a trout in Bleak Towers! But Bleak Towers did provide an amazing experience in how lifts do not work after the fire alarm goes off, one spring evening as I returned from a day of studying and research at the university. I was met by the sight of the fire brigade pulling away, clusters of people standing around outside of Bleak Towers, and the incessant wail of an alarm.

Although these do sort of make me imagine Elmer Fudd reading aloud on how to prepare a fish!

http://atlanticsalmonanglers.com/geeklog/staticpages/index.php?page=20070802120854246

Actually, these appear to be historic trout recipes! Sort of interesting, anyway, to see the old language and cooking methods. I wonder if you could do a PhD in trout recipes through the ages.

I am trying to recapture that sailing away in a hot air ballon free feeling that I had with my PhD. Yes, I recognise the need for discipline, that certain rules exist, etc, but even operating within those, I used to have a feeling of wonderful anticipation about what I was learning. Now I am trying to reorder my focus on my topic to bring that back, and think about what ***I** think is essential to say, and not neccesarily retrod the already worn out ground on certain debates, topics, points of view in the literature.

My real love is in prose writing of short stories ( though I find that a really really challenging format!) or even aspirations of a novel, and occassionally poetry. I have aspirations of doing a poetry anthology in the next year or so ( in and amidst the PhD! ) even if I just do some kind of very limited self publishing. I just like to write and see where it takes me. I am not at all linear in this ( or really any kind of writing, at least in the beginning stages) and find it sort of like climbing into a hot air ballon and sailing off into the blue yonder, not sure where you are going, but certain the journey will be fun and an adventure.

For me these are wonderful, because I am doing a small bit of poetry and prose writing again, I get to meet and socialise with people who are from all walks of life, I can be free to express myself, to explore, to feel artistic and creative, freed, if you will from the shackles of the dullness of academic pendantry. On the other hand, the academic experience has served me well in that I am not bothered on a personal level when getting my work critiqued in the group, and can offer technical editing suggestions when people want those with a high degree of comfort and confidence.

I have very recently attended some meetings of local writers' groups--people who write poetry, prose, other kinds of creative writing, along with newspaper journalist type of writing and other kind of professional writing/writers--albeit none of its academic writing. This is so wonderful for me, because my first love of writing is creative writing, poetry and prose, and too many years of academic writing has meant I felt like that well was dried up, that I would never get back to it, that it was a thing of the past.

Further, you might suggest to your supervisor that you cannot do good work under those conditions. How badly do they want you to finish your PhD v. conform to some arbitary idea of control? Are you stuck at this university or even with this particular department? Can you ask for a transfer of supervisor, or department? Is it feasible to find another university that promotes good working conditions and is supportive of students and their needs in accomplishing the PhD over petty tyranny?

If people were making noise and bothering me, I would also ask them to please be quiet, because they WERE bothering me. Its like being on the quiet car of a train. If you have to make noise, go elsewhere, so you do not disturb the people that are around you. I would have no qualms insisting on a quiet shared workspace. Those who had a problem with that, well, how are they going to defend a position of being noisy and disruptive?!!

Perhaps its just a cultural difference, but I am positively taken aback at the thought that the use of earplugs could be seen as rude??!!!! The rudeness is in people making so much noise that they have driven their colleague to consider having to use earplugs to be able to work. The rudeness is the noise and lack of consideration of others need to work, NOT in doing what is necessary to get your PhD work done.

No one should be an apologist for doing what they need to be able to get their work done, and I would be tempted to point out to colleagues that I had been forced to resort to ear plugs due to their incessant rude noise.

You do not for instance see pods of professors hanging out, with ringing phones, tea parties, gossip, etc, as they write their next great tome of academic work. Rather, they seem to get hived off to spacious and quiet caverns. If they are not expected to work in a noisy pit, why should a PhD student be expected to be able to do this? Obviously, its a detrimental work environment--and if anyone says its not, ask them to try to be productive within it. Ask your supervisor to swap offices, for, oh say three years or so.

I personally would have a (polite) fit about the noise levels. You are there to work. If people need to take phone calls, listen to music without earphones, etc, then they should do it somewhere else. They can put their mobile phones on vibrate. Wear earplugs and who cares if it seems rude--again, you are there to WORK, its not a pub or a social club. I would ask people to be quiet, as they were disturbing me. If none of that worked, I would complain to my supervisor, and insist that I need a place to work that is not a constant din of noise.