What's wrong with undergrads (excluding Freshers....who are just nuts)?

Assuming you're on a standard academic year (i.e. you started in October) could you try becoming a subwarden? It cuts your costs significantly and could mean you don't have to get an actual job (it's more a passive role in my experience) but it does kinda tie you into a thing until next June. Other than that, have you tried having a poke around your department?

I was hoping there was some sort of alcohol emoticon, but I guess not.

Well done! Have a sprout (sprout)!

Have you tried increasing your routine exercise? I live about 4 miles away from Uni and have a bus pass that gets me around, but in an effort to lead a more healthy lifestyle I've started walking half of it (the pretty, not quite-so-major-road-side part), then catching the bus. I have also occassionally walked the full way, but I kinda feel that's not balancing work with exercise/transport properly. Maybe it's not going to lose you a lot of weight straight off, but it should keep weight off in the long-run.....plus walking is good for the soul.

I worked on the ontology and epistomology part of my methodology for about half an hour today.....that is all.

I should really be producing a huge mass of words, but I find myself researching other things and not actually writing.

I think that being thought of as useless until you produce something economically tangible is the cross that all PhD students who aren't in the uber-funded subjects have to bear.

It's not all bad, at least he understood. I'm still trying to explain to my grandma, grandad and aunt what a PhD is. I think it's easier if I just say I'm unemployed.

I have no idea where I read it, but I did recently read something along the lines of

"Indeed, entire academic careers have been made out of translating well-known ideas from one field into another."

I wish I knew where I got that from. I get the feeling it was something to do with the resource curse, but I can't be sure. Anyhow, the point remains.

Hmm, maybe I've just wasted more time on the internet than other people. It's also a lot easier to find people who are deluded narcissitic self-publicists (obvoiusly.) I've googled myself, apparently an 1970s Italian b-movie director adopted my name because he thought it sounded American.

Jeebus Christ, I wasn't recommending people go searching for people on the forum, but that they search for themselves. You'd be surprised at what you can find and what trails you've left across the internet. If you want to keep your anonymity then I suggest you look yourself up and see what you've left behind and what you can clean up. Did you even bother to have a look?

They are also, as I originally said, good for finding out about people you don't like. I uncovered a shit load of nepotism around a guy who stole my friend's work for a publication.

And it's hardly a secret. Spock is quite famous.

If anyone fancies actually finding out about people there are people search engines like pipl or spock that can find people according to usernames/actual names/e-mail addresses. I've managed to find quite a lot of information about people I don't like (following the Jedi code, I only use my powers for good.)


Try searching for yourself....then feel more paranoid!

Anyone feeling they're spending too long on this forum at the moment? Just can't get out of the (tree)(turkey)(mince)(snowman) feeling. Anyhow, my supervisor just gave me an Endnote library of relevant stuff, so I promise to have read 10 journal articles from it by Friday.

1 down at the moment.

Jinkim: The McDonald's vouchers could be a free (to you) Christmas present to a person with a young family?

Sneaks: The £600 cooker could be a free (to you) Christmas present to a board member who's spent about 12 of his last 48 hours in the kitchen cursing the shitness of the cooker.....