Hey Olivia, looks like we are having the same sort of day as my answers are the same as yours! Great links but not so great that I am trying to write a section on methodology to e-mail to my supervisor tomorrow, and anything else I can find to do I am doing - including these quizzes. I am being 'challenged to the core' but my 'mind is sharp' so I can do it.

I started off well today, wholemeal toast with marmite, then a roll with turkey and watercress, spinach and rocket. I have just had my afternoon snack of one weetabix, organic natural yoghurt and blackberries (instead of the bounty bar I really fancied). Then my Dad suggests we have Chinese take-away for tea! It would be rude not to accept his offer. However I am going to have king prawns and baby sweetcorn with boiled rice which I hope is fairly healthy. I do like a take away and when I socialise with friends we usually go for a (cheap) meal, which usually means pub food ie chips and burgers or pizzas. Maybe it would be helpful if people have any tips on how to enjoy eating out or take away but still trying to keep healthy.
My tip is money-saving as well. Instead of getting take-away pizza, make your own. Buy a base and cover it with veggies, and a little low fat mozzerella.

I bought a load of weightwatchers ready meals today! I have just moved 150 miles from uni so am staying with my Dad three days during the week so I can go in to teach and see my supervisor etc. I thought it would be a good opportunity to eat less and get more exercise. The plan was I would travel up by train and have to walk from the station to uni and then from the station to my Dad's. I would have healthy soup in the Vegetarian Cafe for lunch then a low-cal ready meal with extra veg or salad for tea. Then when I am back home at the weekends I can maybe eat bit more nice stuff and have a few wines as well. However, the train times are too complicated, I need to bring loads of stuff with me and the fares seem to have gone up so I will be using my car. I will try to make time to start running again though. So I would like to join this thread and hope we can all support each other.

My mum had cancer about five years ago and we thought she had beaten it but last year the week after I started my PhD she was diagnosed with secondary cancer and we nursed her at home for three months. I didn't take time off but just worked when I could. I was doing a lot of reading so managed to keep going. I think it helped that I had something else to concentrate on. After she died, I didn't really think about having time off but maybe I should have taken some time but I just wanted to keep going with my PhD as I know my mum would have wanted me to. Everybody deals with bereavement differently and you need to do what is right for you. I suppose if you are studying away from your family you will want to spend time with them but I managed to spend a lot of time with my dad and sister because I was at uni locally.
I'm sure others who have been through a bereavement will agree with me that any time you need to talk on this forum we will be here to listen and give any advice or comforting words if we can do anything to help.

My PhD is part of a research project in the English Department but I am am registered with the Art History and Visual Studies Dept and my first supervisor is in that dept. I come from an English background so most of the people I know are from that department. I'm working on medieval sources and there are hardly any medieval people in art history but a large medieval dept in English. I feel I have nothing in common with most of the art history bods as I have no background in that discipline. So although I see my supervisor I do tend to socialise and meet day to day with English dept colleagues. I like the idea of being interdisciplinary as I don't really feel that I have a specific dept. I hang around with medievalists and we are usually out on a limb anyway!! The advantage of being linked with two departments is that I am teaching English this semester and Art History next semester. I am hoping this will be beneficial for my future career.

What people plan to do and what they will actually do could be very different! I plan to get a wonderful lectureship teaching my specialism in the university of my choice with a massive salary and lots of funding to do more research. But I will probably end up temping as a secretary - something I hoped I had put behind me after finishing my masters! (Nothing wrong with being a secretary per se but not want I want to do).

The reason I was asking is that there is a new course starting in Semester 2 which would be ideal for me to teach as it is very relevant to my research and interests. My supervisor who is co-ordinating it has said she will be happy for me to be a tutor and can confirm this when they have numbers - she already has one tutor and will need two if there is a good take-up which she expects. However there is no guarantee of this. I have been offered teaching on another course which I will take as I need some teaching next semester but I was wondering what I would do if this other position came up as well. The first one is 2 hours teaching a week (plus prep etc) and the second one would be the same, so officially it would be less than 6 hours a week.

How many hours a week do people teach for as GTAs and does anybody teach more than one course at a time?

It's the first holiday I have had for years and the first week off I have had since I started my PhD nearly two years ago! I needed it!

I have just spent a lovely week in France after having quite a stressful few months. I didn't take any work with me and managed to relax. I thought I would come back refreshed but I feel unmotivated and overwhelmed by everything. I have to write a conference paper for the weekend but didn't manage to get much done before the holiday so have a big job ahead of me. I have seen a full-time job advertised which appeals to me and am considering applying but it's not as if I really want to quit my PhD. Maybe once the semester starts properly next week and I start teaching and interacting with people again I will get my motivation back. I know lots of you have had similar periods so I'm hoping some encouraging words might spur me on again. I've also started panicking that in Jan I will be starting my third year and I feel like I haven't done anything major yet.

How would you explain to your supervisor that you have done no work for 40 days as you expected the world to end but as it hasn't you have a lot of catching up to do!

If I remember correctly you are at the same uni as me in the north. I was a GTA for art history last semester and the last thing I was worried about was what I was wearing - I was more concerned that I didn't know anything about the subject as I was previously in the English department! Which course are you teaching? One of my friends is teaching an art history course for the first time this semester at the same uni and she wears hippy-style clothes. You need to wear something that you feel comfortable in and won't detract from what you are there for. If you are happy in jeans and a t-shirt, just adapt that a bit and maybe wear some casual but a bit smarter trousers with a smarter top. To be honest I don't think the students will really be that bothered. You are the teaching assistant and they will respect your authority - I was quite suprprised how much they listened to my every word and expected me to know everything and be the expert (I think I managed to fool most of them!). Good luck with it anyway. I'm teaching Medieval English this semester but back to art history next year so if you want any other advice let me know through the forum or send a private e-mail. Hey, I just remembered I was asking for advice on teaching last year as I was terrified but I got through it, actually enjoyed it and now feel confident to offer advice to others - it's the whole learning process of a PhD.

I'm in the humanities and failed my science o level but I am watching the BBC coverage of the LHC experiment and am finding it fascinating. I got up early to watch - initially because I was worried the world might end but it's really interesting. I just wondered if there were any physicists out there and what your views were on the whole thing.

She does not work in academia and does not have a masters never mind a PhD. There was some concern from the AHRC about my supervision while my main supervisor was on sabbatical. If this other woman had continued to be my supervisor I would have complained but as my proper supervisor has now returned I am not going to say anything official. However, it is obvious that there are areas in my first year that I am now having to catch up on because she was a bad supervisor. But the upshot of the recent problems on the review panel is that my I had a meeting with my supervisor to discuss how the panel went and she basically voiced her opinion on this other woman that she was not used to dealing with students because she was inexperienced and she seemed to expect all my work to be perfect at this stage and completely finished rather than drafts to work on. She also said as far as she was concerned I was a perfectly good PhD student at the level she would expect at the half way stage. I did not need to go into any more detail about how I felt about the panel member as my supervisor obviously knew what this woman was like and had the same opinion as me. She reassured me completely but we both accepted that I will have to go through her interrogation at every panel but I only have to deal with her for about three more hours out of the rest of my PhD so I won't worry too much. Thanks for all the advice everybody.

Hi there, I'm an 'older' PhD student - I was 40 when I started last year. I think the wooliness of dates is quite common, but as long as you find out what induction activities are compulsory and how and when to enrol, I don't think you need worry about everything. You don't need to be there to start lectures at a particular time as on taught courses.

As far as the socialising goes, unless you really want to go to these initial events, again I would not worry. I think generally, it is the younger students who might get involved in these (sorry to generalise but I'm using my experience on this). Unlike undergraduate life, doing a PhD is quite lonely and you will probably socialise with a small group of friends that you make as you go along. I did my masters at the same university so had made friends through that, but rather than attend pre-organised social events at the beginning of term, I met people through my course, at conferences and seminars etc. Most of the people I know are my age, but there are some younger students in our 'gang'! Everybody has commitments - doing the PhD being the major one, but others include children, cats, part-time jobs etc, so you will be in the same boat as everyone else. Once you have settled in and met people in your department I think you'll find the social side of things will come naturally, so I'd say there is no need to force it at the beginning of term. Hope all this is of help. By the way, I love Bath, I started a first degree there in the 1980s but never finished, and although my PhD is up north, I am moving to Bristol today to live with my partner, but I hope to visit Bath regularly.