wow, rigel, what a story! congratulations to you for your perseverance in spite of all the impossibilities thrown at you!

i especially find that comment by your first advisor, "if i can handle motherhood, why can't you?" tremendously unfair. it shows that combining work and family is not just a gender issue, but very much a "class" problem, too.

which one? you posted "15" twice...

i also use nosespray and eyedrops, the latter homeopatic. the nosespray really sorts out the nose, and the eyedrops are just for feeling better - use them as much as you like.
i heard for some people the eyes are better during hayfever times when they wear contact lenses. others say they can't wear contacts when they have hayfever. you might experiment with that.

ilovebdt,
well if you have EU citizenship, AND the places you have been, overseas, were EU countries (or Switzerland), then it should be alright. (also some other cases)
UKCOSA are very good, they really know the rules. DO NOT believe any university's admissions office if they tell you one thing and UKCOSA tells you different. in my experience UKCOSA was always right.

also the people who decide if you will pay home or overseas fees, i think they are part of admissions. although the university's guidelines state clearly that in my case it is home fees, they classed me as overseas. the "didn't receive" my fee status reconsideration application (it was sent by registered mail, and it WAS delivered and signed for). they brought me to tears, insisting that it's overseas fees, when i was just quoting their own regulations to them. they only relented when i told them UKCOSA had said it would be against the law, and gave them the phone number so that they could call up there and check for themselves.

oh, let me continue the rant!

i think it might be a general thing with admissions offices! at my university, in london, not the north, they really don't want you to call, instead you should go through the web contact form. but i NEVER received answers to even simple questions like "i am bilingual, but grew up and went through education in a non-english-speaking country, do i have to take a TOEFL?" (so in the end i did take the test - cost me lots of money...)

i used to play competitive chess. let me tell you, that's where you'll find the real freaks! compared to that, the people I've met in academia are downright normal...

her, i believe...

to be honest, i think the second year might be my worst. first year i lived of my savings which are now gone. there are quite some funding sources about who will not fund you if you've already started your PhD. so either you get them right from 1st year or not at all. on the other hand there ARE sources for if you are further advanced: fieldwork grants, final year/writing up grants (International/British Federation of University Women), hardship funds... but i think the second year is kind of a hole in the middle.
mostly it is difficult because you have to live NOW, without knowing IF you are going to get any funding from anywhere in the future. so you don't know if it is a short-term problem you are dealing with or if you are going to have to endure this in the long term.

sourapple, i'm only just finishing my first year, so can't say much about how the second is going to be like. i just know that most of my funding applications haven't worked out (some are still open).
yes i will be teaching next year, and i am looking forward to that, but it also means more than 2 full days of work/week, and the money I earn will provide me a few hundred pounds (in total) after fees are paid. also, there were many more applications for teaching jobs than jobs available. so don't count on teaching too much to solve your financial problems. it's a job and as such has its pro's (some money, good for CV) and its cons (significantly less time for your PhD).

hi there

well... i paid for doing my first year, that is, fees plus living costs. i paid this from savings from previous earnings, and all the while in the hope of changing the situation by the time my savings run out, so that i would be paid instead of paying for it.
now, as i wasn't able to secure any funding during this year, i am asking myself just that question: how high exactly is my motivation for doing a PhD? do i still want to go ahead if it means paying every last penny myself? sometimes i think yes, but sometimes i think i must be plain stupid or have a strong masochistic vein to be doing that to myself.

try this:

-copy the table in word (ctrl-c)
- in powerpoint, don't simply click insert or ctrl-v, but rather go throught the menu: grumble my pp at home is in german and I can't for the life of me remember what the thing is called in english - it's the second menu-item from the left, anyway, just after "file"
- then you will find, somewhere near the item "insert" in that menu, a similar item, which will be called something like "insert contents"
- in the menu that opens up, choose "insert microsoft office word document"
this should work, and i believe has the added advantage that the word-document and the powerpoint are then linked, so that if you later change something in the word table, it is automatically also changed in powerpoint.

hm... i usually do my tables in excel, copy-pasting from there to powerpoint works fine. there must be an easier way though.

hey oz, did you really choose this "weapon" or did it kind of come upon you?
or maybe, if it's "so not you", maybe it wasn't, but rather the bump decided to take the reigns for a moment...?