nadia, i don't have a source, unfortunately. so i can't tell for sure. i always assumed that it was more of "per person" than per flight.

however, any such sums are necessarily quite complicated if you're going to be precise. because you could always ask - if you didn't get on the plane, would it still fly? yes... so it makes no difference if you get on it or not. but if x people would not fly anymore, lots of planes would be half-empty, and airlines would, for economic reasons, reduce flights in the timetables. so it would make a difference. so how much difference does it actually make? what is YOUR footprint for taking that flight? no simple answer here...

ah ah! i definitely need to watch the episode tonight!

my favourite contender so far has been lucinda, but i doubt she'll win.

ha! finally michael is gone. i want to see that, will watch it tonight on bbc iplayer.

probably surallan doesn't know what he is looking for himself. i mean, apart from real top-level staff, he's probably not employed anyone in ages. he's got HR for that. usually, by the time candidates reach the "final" interview, they've been vetted for all necessary qualifications and personality characteristics. the final interview is really just about finding out if you "click" with each other. but of course in this case, the candidates weren't selected strictly according to their qualifications, but mostly according to which of them, bundled together in a house, would make the most amusing TV show.
so, in fact, i believe surallan is not "hiring&firing" according to qualifications, but rather: he fires whoever he dislikes most. the person who he dislikes least will get the job. simple as that...
who will win? i have a hunch that it will be lee.

i don't really know anything about this, but it occured to me that it might be an idea to take some Open University courses? as the OU works in modules, if you could take some final year physics degree modules - you would have good guidance on what you need to know, and even if you don't get the full degree, if you pass those modules, that would be highly legitimated knowledge.

or, i don't know if this happens in the sciences as well, perhaps there is the option of a diploma? diplomas are usually one-year courses for people who already hold a degree but want to continue in a different discipline. it assumes that you know how to study but don't know the discipline-specific stuff. if you get the diploma, it's about equivalent to a degree and qualifies you for masters courses. but then, if you can get into a masters directly, maybe there isn't much point to it.

goooooooood luck tomorrow!

and i think the best "preparation" is to do exactly what you feel like. if you feel like watching britain's got talent, do that. if in the middle of it you suddenly get the urge to go read that paper on the stack there, do it! don't tell yourself "but i must relax now" nor "but i must prep now".

go go go! and pleeeeeease do let us all know how it went!

now i have things that are nearly as good. in my research centre, we meet twice in three weeks for either "roundtables" or reading groups, and weekly for coffee, which is great for informal small-talk. some of us go out for coffee or lunch whenever we feel like it. outside of the centre, there are some PhD students who go out for drinks about once in two months - we always say we want to go more often but it just doesn't work out. i've also been involved with a topic-related project group of PhD students which has been just fantastic: as it's all self-organised, we tend to just hang around after the "work" and chat and moan and complain and celebrate. and as it is topic-related, people actually do always turn up. we meet once a month. best thing to have happened to me at this uni so far!

i had two such support groups for my master's. (which took forever; two groups as the first one died when everyone apart from me had graduated; started a second one then, from which i was indeed the first to graduate) we used to meet about once/month at someone's home, would eat dinner, and then each one of us got a "slot" to talk about whatever was troubling her at the moment. sometimes it was hard, academic problems; sometimes issues with procrastination; sometimes personal stuff like sick relatives or relationship issues. it was up to you. that meant that it was a quite closed, intimate group, we trusted each other with really personal stuff; can't do that when it's just an open invitation to anyone who wants to come along.

go, jojo, go!

and report back when you've done those three hours!

i've realised that this project, and the workshop and the possible book, have been completely blocking me. otherwise, things are going really well. i've finally started on my fieldwork and am not caught up in teaching anymore. i've been invited to a conference, all paid for, where all the important people in my field are going to be. but because i was constantly worrying about this project, i was not able to make progress with anything else... it has been having a negative effect on my whole life. so i've decided not to let it anymore. ha.

thanks for all your advice, lara. well i've had another two days of panic, tears and, well, panic. but i'm sorting it out now. i've managed to come up with an idea of some contribution to that book that might actually work; unlike what i've been going with so far. i've discussed it with my supervisor who i saw today and was very helpful. so what i'm doing next is, i'm writing to the PI and explaining that i don't have a draft and why. and that i do have an idea but was simply not able to get it as ready as expected. and that i will be happy to talk about that idea at the workshop.
then, following my supervisor's advice, i will not push for the book to actually happen - unless the workshop turns out to be great and everyone, including me, becomes enthusiastic. she said if i have misgivings about the book from the start, i should not volunteer to work on it, even if it means the book will never become real.

i also feel i've done very little this year - for my PhD, anyway. did plenty of other stuff (teaching, working on unrelated projects, funding applications, moved house internationally, etc.). then when finally i didn't have so many other things distracting me anymore, i slumped.

anti-procrastination tipps thread would be very welcome. that should be a sticky thread!

a friend of mine has a dream to do just that: open a house where people who need to write can go. you'd get a plain room, access to a garden, a communal kitchen/dining area, and lots and lots of different places to write (desk, bed, armchair, hammock, blanket in garden, places with views, places with nothing to distract you, ...)
if only she'd already made this real!

i would categorize a-c as methods (obviously informed by your methodology). d however is part of the methodology, where methodology encompasses not only your beliefs about how we can know anything, but also your thoughts about what kind of knowledge do you want to achieve.
bauer in this article however uses methodology simply as the sum of methods. that makes a certain sense, too, as any one of his "dimensions" could be called an individual method, but won't achieve anything: you'd have a lot of data but no analysis, for example; so only by adding a method of analysis to a method of data elicitation can you reach a full methodology.

martin bauer, in "qualitative researching with text, image and sound" (2000) says that any "research design" encompasses four dimensions: a) the design principle, such as case study, sample survey, experiment, etc. b) a method of data elicitation such as interviewing, questionnaire, collection of documents. c) data analysis, e.g. statistical modelling, content analysis, coding, indexing, discourse analysis, ... and d) knowledge interests, he gives three: control and prediction; consensus building; emancipation and empowerment.

my take on this is that methodology is kind of "the theory behind your methods" and methods are the concrete, practical steps you take. your methodology would normally inform your methods. so if your "theory" is that it is impossible to capture "truth" but rather you are interested in "representations", and these representations are lodged in people's minds rather than in natural phenomena, you would use methods directed towards finding out HOW people think, rather than WHAT they say. rather than asking them questions with the intent of them "telling you the truth, telling you what you need to know".
so you would ask different interview questions and use different sampling and use different analysis methods. that's the methods part then - informed by your methodology.

sheena, using multiple word documents should not be a problem as long as you use one endnote library only. as soon as you use several endnote libraries, you will almost certainly run into trouble. i have never had endnote problems yet. but i have helped many other people clear their's up. each and every time it happened because they used multiple endnote libraries.

when you join all your word documents into one at the end, it would probably be advisable
a) to have a backup
b) to do it in "unformatted" state. that is when you see those funny {} tags rather than the proper references. to unformat a document, simply press alt-4; then alt-3 to reformat the joined document.