- exercise - get the blood flowing so you feel more refreshed for the day.
- Try reading AND writing at the same time so you aren't just staring at text.
- don't eat huge stodgy meals and then sit in the warm library - recipe for sleepy time.
- have regular breaks and go and get fresh air

Hows everyone doing?

I am actually getting married this year - GULP! no sprogs on the horizon tho - definately after my PhD!

my bf and I have a mortgage, we are both on rubbish PhD stipends and we bought the house when we were 19! - way to do it is get a guarantor - his mum just says she can cover our mortgage if we can't, but in 6 years, we haven't missed a payment, although have to say her hubby is super rich so they can afford their million pound house mortgage and our lil 3 bed one as well

Just think of the school reunion - "actually it's Dr Bobby" haha that is my entire motivation! sad I know. Also I have found that a lot of my 'friends' - lets call them acquaintances, from school have got kids but they are all called 'jordan' or 'Mercedes' and live entirely off the dole - I'm such a snob HAHAHA :p

Hope your write up is going well A116. Stats went ok - I am actually loving the SPSS and wishing I could do more quantitative work at the mo! Spent today staring at the TV and eating choc - better luck tomorrow I hope!

my uni is in central london and I work there a lot - I live two hours away - no excuses! Seriously though, if you end up living on the end of the wrong tube line, it could take you as long to get in as it would to come from outside of london.

hmm my friends are renting rooms in houses, in bad areas for £7-800 a month. I HATE LONDON. Have you thought about living 20/30 mins out - takes you just as long to get to where you wanna be in london. How about Bromley?

Hmm, no did not manage to finish the chapter section - just sat there with RSI in my wrists after clutching the mouse all day with no inspiration - then gave up. But did get some work done for my meeting today, which went well. Have teaching tomorrow - hope to finish the chapter section and write a very brief proposal for a study over the weekend. I feel soooo busy at the mo!

Well done with the stats! That's what I'm teaching tomorrow - but not brainy!!!

Where the heck are the others?? MAAAGGGGGGGGIE!???

Could you set up a webcam monitoring your work?

Meeting is tomorrow so fingers crossed, but I already know they won't want to help me :-(

data collection this morning in the form on interviews and then finishing off my chapter section, then I'm going to plan the other sections, then take the evening off hopefully as I feel like my brain has been drained of all vocabulary and knowledge!

I'd just take it with a pinch of salt. Maybe the other woman's work is amazing, but then maybe her kids are ignored and maybe her marriage has fallen apart behind closed doors - who is to tell!?

Just remember that this is not an academic thing, its a human thing, and you would be sorely mistaken if you think this kind of thing doesn't happen in every office across the country on a daily basis.

She is probably jealous that you are a lot younger, so it can go both ways.

hmm maybe motivational was the wrong word - I really meant that it means you can track your progress against others. Not thats its bad if you fall behind, its just good to know, so you are not in your own little bubble.

I wouldn't rely on peer review for stats advice. It depends which peers it gets sent to. I had a recent article that was reviewed by someone clearly obsessed with one particular technique and obviously had no idea about the field we were actually looking at - I was tagging on to my sups publication, so she knows what she's on about!

Basically you can end up getting reviewed by 2 people who love e.g. factor analysis and another who loves structural equational modelling and get slated by one or all of them.