does he often not believe you when you tell him something?

my partner sometimes doesn't believe me until somebody else says the same. but if this happened with important stuff, or after i had reconfirmed that this is actually the truth and that it matters, i'd be seriously put off!

jouri, that would be me. i think if you re-read my comments you'll see that i explicitly acknowledge the learning bit. it's just that you appear to equate anyone who learns=student, and i don't; for me, in my background, the term is reserved for masters and bachelor students. of course i learn. if that makes me a student, fine. but then please, let's also call the lecturers, professors, and most people who work outside of university, students. because they, too, learn. or so i hope for them.
i have no problem with the label itself. so in this country, in contrast to where i'm from, PhD researchers are labeled students. fine. i do have a problem when this goes hand in hand with a devaluation of what we are doing, and our work does not get acknowledged. sometimes i do this myself, sometimes it comes from others.

my word count so far is zero. i'm approaching the end of my second year. i want to start writing this summer.

i'm definitely behind schedule, for various reasons including, but not limited to, some serious procrastination.

i realize that my issues with being/not being a student are culturally specific and maybe to a certain extent just "me". i'd also like to say that my negative associations with being a student have nothing to do with denying that a PhD is a learning experience. obviously i'm learning. obviously i don't know it all. but i think that all researchers should think of themselves as learning. i for one would consider the day on which i stopped learning a sad day indeed. but there are different levels of learning. and in my background, the term student applies specifically to bachelor and master students, not so much to doctoral researchers; that's why it raises complicated associations for me.

i'm a loser, because while all my friends went into jobs after their masters, be it within academia, as doctoral researchers, or outside - i just went on to being a student again. obviously i'm not good enough for anything else.
but as i said, this sort of negative thinking/feeling happens mainly when i'm not doing well anyway. normally i'm quite confident and see "being a student" just as a formality, a label that others attach to me but with which i do not identify much. i'm fairly mature, have held positions of responsibility in the outside world, where i had to make much more important decisions - such as "do i need to fire this guy who is a father of four and really needs this job?" or "do we need to close this branch (and lay off all employees) in order to save the company as a whole?" and so i know that who i am and if i am "good" or not does not depend on the label student or not.

- but i also self-identify as student, at times. again, there are several dimensions. on the one hand, a bit connected to the second option above, it saves me from doubts and insecurities. after all, i'm "just" a student. nobody (except me, perhaps) expects me to do it all right the first time i try, to encounter no problems, to know it all. that can be a huge relief, and is an option which doctoral researchers in my home country often don't have. they are "not students anymore", get paid for their work, so they feel a huge pressure to be better than masters students (whose dissertations are sometimes MPhil/halfway through PhD-level) and to provide the results they are being paid for, without help or any further education.
on the other hand i identify as "just a student" because this feeds nicely into my self-doubts and lacking confidence.

- when others classify me as a student, i feel put down - undervalued. i feel that what i do every day, which is not what a "student" does (in my book), is being put down, not acknowledged, ignored for what it is. not being paid for this work, as i would be elsewhere, but rather having to pay for it, adds insult to injury. at times this makes me angry. i reject the label "student" and get rebellious, pointing out that what we do is work, and should be acknowledged as such. other times i don't have the energy to fight. sometimes i just feel, well if you are going to call me student and judge what i'm doing as "not work" (or "not real research"), then i am most certainly not going to put much effort into it (a sort of destructive, self-sabotaging mindset which i try to avoid, but is sometimes, more often than i like, the easier path to tread and the only alternative to the energy-consuming rebellion/self-distancing from the label).

entrepreneur, are you asking because this is related to your PhD research? if we are your research subjects here, would you kindly let us know?

where i'm from, the term "student" is mostly reserved for bachelor and master students at universities. nobody else, not before nor after that, nor in vocational education, would readily call themselves students. as i feel that doing a PhD is quite something different than studying for a masters, as i think most people here would agree, i was most surprised when i came to the UK and found that a) i was again being classified as a student, and b) none of my fellow PhD-ers took issue with that.
so, for me, identifying as a student basically means identifying as "just a student". that does several things to me and i work it in different ways:

well for me it is a bit strange, your question.

i feel like i'm a sociologist and i was that before i started my PhD and am now and will probably be when i'm finished. it's more of a mindset than strictly up to what exactly i'm currently doing.

i used to be a student. now i'm applying what i learned and gaining further qualifications; i feel i'm a junior researcher. once i have the PhD (or should i say "if"), i will have both a broader and more narrowly specialised knowledge of sociology and will hopefully be decently paid for doing more of what i'm doing now.

it's only when i'm feeling particularly bad, insecure and doubtful that i take refuge in/revert to thinking of myself as a "student". i should hope that this happens less, the further i progress with the PhD, rather than more, as your question implies. or did i totally misunderstand?

i'm planning for 10x3 interviews plus 10 others. that's three consecutive interviews with 10 different people, estimated at 1h each. i have other materials too.
but if i find "saturation" earlier, i'll not do the remaining planned interviews - that is, i'll fight for not having to. just because that's what i initially proposed doesn't mean i have to stick to it if it turns out it doesn't make any sense! (thinks me)

i'm on several subject-specific mailinglists where mainly job ads are posted, so i'm always aware of what kind of jobs are going, and where, and what qualifications (other than the PhD itself) are sought.

what i intend to do post-doc? well first of all i need to get there (ca. 20 months to go...). i'd like to teach, but without any essay-marking please. and i really want to keep doing research. so i will be applying for both post-doc research grants/fellowships, and lecturer positions. if i still feel the same by then.

hi hamaflo,
some funders do exclude students who have already started. others exclude part-time students. but as far as i know, you can apply for full time funding for your second year while you are in your first year.

i definitely applied for funding from ESRC during my first year, for my second - though i was doing FT already. i know some others who didn't just apply, but did indeed get the funding for their 2nd-4th year. if you are thinking of particular funding bodies, you should check their guidelines, maybe call them up to ask.

i think you need to consider: a) what will you do if your applications aren't successful? b) why exactly do you want to start now - you could defer your place and maybe start a year later as a full-time, funded student right from the beginning.

most people i know didn't have their supervisor in the viva. either because he/she didn't want to come or because they were too stressed by the thought.

but i've also heard of cases where the student wanted their supervisor to be there, just to have a more neutral perspective of what actually happened; and to have a friendly face to look at.

but given your not-so-great relations with your sup, i'd think that doesn't make a lot of sense in your case.

alex might do well on the job - he can still be shaped into whatever is needed, and that's obviously the trump he's betting on. but that's just about his only point in favour. i'm amazed at how level-headed helene has staid; thus i think she could do well, too. but both of them are rather boring. claire is unpredictable, bitchy at times, but then, she also livens things up.
for my own company, i think i'd employ helene (out of the four).

i used to like lee. and having little education and all, i thought he was the underdog, and i'm always for the underdog... but now it turns out he can't spell and can't be bothered to use a spell-checker... and can't be bothered to verify exactly what he puts into a CV anyway. so i've discovered my elitist streak - no way would i employ lee!

after lucinda saying that "two years ago she decided it was best to severe ties to her family" i've lost a lot of sympathy for her, too. fine, there might be good reasons for distancing herself from her family. but going on TV and telling everyone about it appears petty, and sensationalist.