Lip gloss with tracksuit bottoms and slippers would be even more rock and roll, probably quite Kate Moss really, though I've not seen any pics of her in that outfit :-)

I've got nice clothes and shiny hair too. And woolly tights under my tracksuit bottoms (not included in the 'nice' category) but I wouldn't go to college like this - my license for scruffiness has limits!! Catalogues are very good for escapism though!

A colleague of mine (arts and humanities, so not your area) dropped her PhD and completed it as an MPhil so she could take time out to have a baby. It was subsequently published as a book, so it wasn't wasted. She remained in academia and continued to research and publish in the same area. She was already established in her career at the time anyway, so it didn't really matter. Quite a few others at my uni with her level of experience don't have PhDs and say they'd never do one now anyway, it's not worth the grief as they're already where they want to be with their working lives. Same with others who have left academia and are working quite happily in the arts. Sounds fair enough to me - why bother if it's not essential?

Tokyorabbit, not silly at all. Sounds a very sensible and PhD-like resolution!

Hope you've got over your panic now - this last bit is so hideously stressful, but we're nearly there and then it will be out of the way FOREVER! :-s

Whether it was wasted or not is a bit relative to me. I haven't churned out the corrected chapters I wanted to over the 'break' which isn't great for the submission sword of Damocles hovering over my head, so maybe I did waste loads of time as far as my PhD goes. On the other hand, I was seriously knackered by Christmas, mentally and physically, and needed a rest, so I've done things a bit more slowly than I'd have liked. That's ok really, as it *should* help me get back into it better now I'm a bit more rested and feeling the onset of sporadic deadline panic again.

As for you Phdbug - a wasted break??!! I seriously don't think so!!!!

Coastman, ramble away! ;-)

I was just moaning as it all seems to take so long. I expect to spend at least a year or so sorting myself out after I complete, getting more relevant experience and decent things published, from what friends who have done PhDs have said. I just wish there were short cuts or I could speed things up a bit!

Liminalplace I entirely agree, it is depressing. I spent time over the New Year looking at a job description and person specification for something that came up a while back, for a fractional SL job that I wasn't in a position to apply for then. The list of essential and desirable experience required wasn't just a PhD and subject specialist knowledge, but at least 3 years teaching experience, a teaching qualification, RAE profile (or potential one), the usual admin/QA/IT/VLE skills and experience, plus the willingness to train as a PhD supervisor. I wonder how it would be humanly possible to tick enough of those boxes while actually trying to do a PhD. I've got a decent chunk of teaching experience now, then someone said "oh, only teaching here? I thought you taught at other unis too..." I just thought, how much time is there to realistically do all these things properly? You just have to do what you can and hope it's enough, and if your face fits at the end of the day at some job interview then whooppeee. It does pile on the pressure though, on top of the usual PhD stuff. I hope it's all worth it in the end.

I made some after my draft was handed in back in December... to pace myself better with my PhD work and try (desperately...) not to be a last-minute person any longer, to minimise any potential submission nightmares next month.

And related to post-doc career opportunities, I suppose...to sort out my clothes - I'm bored with what I've got and could do with a change. Plus I think I'll go to more work-related events and do's. It's not as if they're boring and although I hate the whole idea of 'networking' for some reason, I do need to know what's going on when I emerge from this enforced thesis hibernation.

Actually, there's a thing on the BBC news site about New Year's resolutions being bad for your mental health...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7806776.stm

Teaching in the 2nd year sounds ok, it's not too close to the final deadlines.... do you think you could ask her about it directly? Not about the person who's made the not-nice comments obviously, but say you would really like to get a decent block of teaching experience behind you before you get too near the end of the PhD, as you will want to devote yourself wholeheartedly to that when the time comes. And that teaching seems to be so much about learning it as you go along, so it obviously would be useful for you, then see what she says.

Are the students she's asked to teach on her courses also her own PhD students, or someone else's? I know in my uni teaching opportunities are quite limited, and end up being spread amongst a very small number of students - there's no way all the research students could teach without taking jobs away from long-standing hourly paid lecturers - is that possible in your place? Allocating teaching is a bit politically sensitive at my college, so some PhD students do lose out.

I guess I'm trying to think of reasons so you don't get more fed up with this situation, but I admit I worried when I turned down teaching for last term in case someone else nipped in and offered a new course on my PhD topic, so I couldn't go back and do it next year after I finish my PhD. In the end, I realised that if someone else did take over my slot there wasn't anything I could do, it's just the competitive internal politics of the place, but at least I'd have finished my PhD ok and there should be other teaching opportunities either there or elsewhere, as lecturers come and go all the time.

It's quite difficult trying to get all the things on your CV you think you need for a decent job in the future, all at the same time you're trying to do your research. I was looking at mine this morning and it depressed me slightly, so I went back to my PhD work, at least that's in my hands at present!

======= Date Modified 01 Jan 2009 14:03:20 =======
What stage of your PhD are you at? My supervisor advised me against teaching in my writing-up year, as it took up too much time and it took me ages to get back into my research after a long stint of teaching - basically, each autumn was practically a write-off for any serious PhD work. Could this be a valid reason for your situation? In my case, I had to weigh up the pros and cons - valuable teaching experience and money versus the detrimental effect on my PhD in time spent elsewhere.

Don't listen to the person who's making those comments, teaching can be learnt and improved on over years. Some people I work with say they are still learning and improving even after doing it for several decades and they are definitely not crap lecturers, they're well respected by both staff and students. Your PhD is the most important thing now and teaching is secondary to that. Also, unless you've got absolutely zero teaching experience on your CV and this year was going to be essential for starting you off, would one year doing no teaching make much difference in the longer term?

======= Date Modified 31 Dec 2008 11:00:14 =======
Hi Meera,

You shouldn't be too ashamed to log on to this forum, you know - it's probably the only place where everyone would understand if you're going through a not-very-productive phase. Though sometimes it feels like everyone on here is churning out the work and being ultra-disciplined, but it's just as likely they're going through peaks and troughs too, as it seems to be part of the PhD process for a lot of people, if one is honest with oneself. That's one reason I've gone off this thread a bit, as I don't particularly like writing what I haven't done each day as it makes me feel a bit pathetic, public shame obviously doesn't work for me lol! It's good to keep in touch about progress I think, however small it seems.

I know I've got really far with my work now, but I'm still finding it really hard to keep motivating myself every day, which occasionally freaks me out a bit as time is severely limited. I've got to the point where I'm not going to do anything if it's not essential, ie just go to work, do PhD stuff and various domestic things, otherwise unless it takes no longer than a few hours and can fit in ok as a so-called PhD break it's likely to make me feel anxious, I've realised. I was supposed to be going down to my brother's this week, but the amount of work I haven't done looked a bit pathetic when I checked my timetables I'd made before xmas, so I've cancelled that - I wouldn't be very good company anyway at the moment, and I'd booked a chunk of annual leave to get the bulk of my corrections done so I mustn't waste that time, everything will be harder when I'm back at work. Luckily, work is also more sociable than this PhD hibernation too, which is a bonus! I don't think I could do PhD stuff completely full-time and long-term, far too isolating and cut off from 'normal' life for me.

I know what you mean about teaching being strenuous though, it does take up so much time and energy. It filled up my mind as well as my actual timetable and became quite all-encompassing. I realised that my PhD work just slipped into the background when I had a heavy term's teaching. I decided not to expect to do any serious writing in those periods, as there just wasn't the continuity of time available and not to pretend I could meet big writing deadlines, because I couldn't! I just did smallish, achievable things, like write an abstract for a conference CFP, visit an archive for a few days, just little but necessary things that could be crossed off the list of work that had to be done. I agreed it with my supervisor. It takes more of an effort to get back into your PhD afterwards, but then there's no teaching interruptions, so it's ok when you get started.

Hope you get back into it soon anyway! I must now make another coffee and get on with it myself, I suppose... sigh....

Thank you for posting this, Tractorgirl! I will try to remember it when my time comes. The idea of discussing your own research for 3 and a half hours sounds a bit daunting. Or does time fly by?? I was told by one of my supervisors that some people enjoy this aspect of the viva, as it's the only time they get to talk about their work in such depth with people who have actually read it. I feel mildly sceptical about that at the moment, but will reserve judgement.

Oh, and well done again on passing it, and good luck with whatever you do next! (up)

======= Date Modified 30 Dec 2008 10:28:00 =======
Hi Janey, I'm not in the same area as you, but I don't understand why you can't ask your supervisor about all this? If the past 2 months have been wasted through no fault of yours, then surely it'll show up in your fieldwork results when you're back at uni, if all your research is documented properly? Your supervisor will know about it then and might want to know why you didn't contact him/her for advice. It might be better to ask for advice now than continue floundering on your own, especially if you're funded.

EDIT - a good reason for asking for help now is that if you have to re-jig whatever questions you're investigating, you need to make the best use of the time you've got left, and your supervisor is the best person to help, that's what they're for.

======= Date Modified 29 Dec 2008 10:36:03 =======
Hello all on this thread!

Tokyorabbit ~ that's great news about you getting engaged over Xmas, congratulations! And on your fellowship too - that's a nice incentive to wrap up the PhD, not that having a normal life again isn't an incentive too of course, lol!

I know what you mean about an 'original and interesting' thesis possibly being a drawback in the viva, I've been thinking about that too. My 3 examiners are all from different disciplines to my supervisors and I (5 disciplines between us, though the same topic....), so I'm having the odd paranoid thought that maybe there's something intrinsically flawed with my whole project that we haven't thought of. Silly really, as I trust my supervisors and I just need to make my methodology chapter really robust. Must keep thinking about this 'good energy' (!!!) that's supposedly surrounding my thesis right now and get on with it!

Good luck with the conclusion. I did the same as you, but got good feedback from both supervisors - concise was ok it seems, better than woffling on to pad it out, it answered my original research questions and didn't make any grandiose claims.

Lara ~ sounds like you've had a good and well deserved break, I would do exactly the same if I'd just submitted, I'm sure! Missspacey and Ju-ju's comments seem really good advice, not that I've been in that situation yet. Do you reckon you're agonising over it too much at the moment, as you haven't got a set date yet? I wonder how much notice they'll give you - if it's at least a month then that sounds enough - is it enough time, people who have got through their vivas? Nice to see you back on here anyway! :-)

I guess I'd better get on with renumbering all my 100-odd images for my new chapter order, and so then I can get on with the re-writing bits of my corrections. God it's so tedious.... oh well, it's got to be done so I'll crack on with it. :-s As supervisor no.1 said, I must steel myself for the final push and it will all be worth it.... ooh, I do hope so....

I've changed what I've done quite a bit over the last year. I started off with endnotes but found it irritating to have to keep flipping back and forward to read them. I prefer the way footnotes are more immediate when you're reading something, it doesn't seem to interrupt the flow of reading as much as endnotes do. I converted them to footnotes which reads better on the whole (I think!), but Word did odd things with the longer ones when there were several on the same page, shoving them onto the next page which was slightly messy, but on balance it's an improvement. I have also moved a lot of detail from my writing to an appendix, as it was too much background info for the section it was in and was peripheral to the argument, as you've mentioned, and it seems to work better now. Why don't you wait to see how long your footnotes turn out to be, then you can move them to an appendix if it seems better nearer submission? You might even chop stuff out completely in the end, everything changes so much!

Well, I hope you get your book contract soon and that it opens up more opportunities for you. It sounds like you're still interested in your subject, and if that's the case, it's admirable that you haven't given up on academia completely, considering the amount of time and energy invested in doing a PhD and the disappointing way things have worked out. There seem to be so many different influences on what happens to you after completion that you'd never dream of when you embark on a PhD...