my "masters" says i am a lizenziata philosophiae. quaint, in latin-ish, isn't it? (for real latin, i would have expected c's instead of z's, but i might be wrong)
but it has a second page which lists the subjects studied (major, 1st minor, 2nd minor) and the dissertation title with overall grades per subject/dissertation.

cheers, piglet! glad to hear the good news. do you think this job will be a step towards where you want to go? once you've got your foot in, it might be easier finding the appropriate next job. or is it already what you want, and you can picture yourself staying there for several years?

hah, soon the shop assistant job will be a thing of the past.

i can totally see how the whole thing gets at you. he's not just trying to obligate you, but also patronizing, and putting your competence in question, in an area where he is in no position at all to judge.
i think one upsetting aspect of it might be that you have a specific image of yourself, which includes certain competencies, and then through such reactions you realize how differently, lacking in competencies, other people apparently perceive you. i find that very distressing when it happens to me, it makes me angry in a helpless, knot-in-the-tummy kind of way. but it helps me to understand why i'm so upset.
rest assured of your competence. this guy seems to like women he perceives as inferior, help-needing. and he doesn't even realize you are not that woman. you don't need to prove anything to him.

me too. fingers crossed.

the people around you seem not to realize what your PhD entails, that it requires serious work. perhaps they see you as a more or less lazy student, who, having no duties all day, might just as well help out here and there and be available for others.
so, you could ask yourself why they have this impression. perhaps you yourself are bringing it across, unconsciously? maybe you tend to devalue your own work. how then should others see the worth of what you are doing? if that is the case, then you could try consciously working on this. if you can really believe that what you are doing is worthwile, and that you deserve some time and space to work on it, it will be much easier asserting this towards others.
sorry if i've over-interpreted.

hi gloogbuagu,
i think you will find that being married to a British citizen will provide you with certain advantages. You might be eligible for home fees and for Research Council funding. It is however not the citizenship alone that will get you this, but the place of residency is important, too.
apart from that, you will have to find out how far your previous degrees are accepted at UK universities.
good luck!

oh ummh... just a note of warning... bourdieu does not have the best of reputations everywhere. i don't agree with everything he says, either. you might encounter quite some resistance if you come up with bourdieu.

but i do like the way he combines empirical research and theoretical thought

maybe have a look at his "reflexive anthropology".

someone posted an excerpt from a PhD book - today, i think - on how not to get a PhD. one of the seven reasons given there for why people don't get a PhD is if they take a new job before they are finished.
that said, how important is that job for you? is it "the perfect job", the thing you have been hoping and aiming for? then i would take it. if you only got your PhD in order to get that job afterwards, it wouldn't matter very much now if you didn't get the PhD but did get the job. if it is more like "well, it's a good job, but..." then you should think about it very carefully. can you discuss the matter with your potential future employers? will they for example give you a month unpaid leave after three month or so, for your last big effort?

so what he rather tries to do, is to use empirical work to think theoretically while at the same time, using theoretical thought to do empirical research. at the end of the day, for bourdieu, dividing theory and empirical work can be a useful analytical construct, but in reality, they are unseparable.

hmmm... maybe you should read some bourdieu. what i like about his work - totally apart from content - is the way he marries empirical work and theory. for him - and i'm trying to copy that - research is not about advancing theories (that would be: you only do empirical work in order to prove/disprove theories). nor is it about describing "reality" without theoretical deliberation (that would be purely empiricist - you only really talk about theory because of conventions). the problem about the latter, according to bourdieu, would be that there is always conceptual work at play, even in what seems purely empirical, at the least in the choice of questions and methods. you just don't make it explicit - which is bad science.

all that said, well, it is a classical approach to research to first read the theory, from the theory devise your questions, formulate hypotheses, based on existing research or pre-studies for example, test your hypotheses, and then see what your results mean for your theory. but this is not the most common approach in all subjects. my own project is apparently (so my supervisor says) empirically driven. it involves going out there, immersing yourself in the muddy reality, and taking it from there - you might be pushed in unanticipated directions. this approach is more often to be found in anthropology, and all ethnographic research.

but if you're really talking about your theoretical approach, well, often it is this that started you off by providing questions. i suppose you do have some research questions in mind. so now, working backwards, you could try to figure out which theoretical background allows you to ask the questions you want to ask.
maybe read what has been written about your topic. are there several theoretical lines? or are they all the same? if they are all the same, you can conveniently just adopt this - or use your own research to further develop this theory. if there are different theories around, chose which one lets you ask your questions best. if there seem to be no theories around, you appear to be studying a "empiricist" subject where theories are considered unimportant. perhaps you can address this in your thesis?

hmm well if you are undecided if you want to be positivist or relativist, then i do think you need to get yourself sorted. but i wouldn't call this as much of a theoretical approach than rather your philosophy of science. that would be in regards to questions like "how do you think "reality", "truth" can be accessed by researchers? is there such a thing as "reality"? do you think you can say something about reality by doing experiments? or do you think you need to interprete what people say, because reality is only ever "perceived reality", perceived by the people you talk to - so there might be millions of realities out there...?

what subject are you in, sixkitten?

the only thing i've written so far is a compulsory end-of-first-year report kind of thing (5000 words). kind of a literature review and outlook on future plans.

i'm sure there are good reasons why you haven't written anything. you must have read a lot or done some serious research work or something. you know, you can't do it all at once, don't let it freak you that others have done more in one area than you!

so life goes on... and this experience has taught me that having some kind of future to look forwards to is essential for my motivation and happiness. i do believe in living in the present, not for the future. but if the present means unhappiness and loneliness, there has got to be something else, in the future, which makes it worthwile. so here i am - now i really want to get back to work. it's such a difference!

thanks all of you out there for listening and sharing and being there.