Long time ago, I conducted four group interviews, every for two hours (can you imagine how hard it was to find and to persuade around 40 people to come to the interview and they were no "convinient" undergrads) and recorded in dictophone and lost the bag with all the tapes........:( no data, no study, no paper:((

write a letter to your annoying supervisor (but dont send it), take nice long bath, listen to good music, have drink and think about nice things, maybe it will help

Following Jewel's advice- print out a photo of this professor and perforate it with pen (knife), etc. and put his name on the list of people you are not going to talk to when you will be famous;)

leave it, pointing out his un-professionalism will make thing only worse because you are much lower in the pecking order than him.


Just write back very formally how sorry you are that you had to decline such a great oppotunity (bla, bla, bla) because of (serious) personal circumstances.

BUT keep his email (and your emails to him) in save place, just in case.

as a person with first degree in educational and developmental psychology, I would say that children till age of 11-12 could have difficulties to fill in their asnwers without help, i.e. you need one-to-one contact, where you ask them questions and record asnwers yourself. In addition, questions you will ask to childen and somebdoy with univ degree definitely will be diferently formulated. because, if you ask a question that an 8yrs old understands to somebody with BA, they will think you think that they have intelctual development difficulties. either you find a creative approach how to design surveys for all groups so that they understand& can fill them in & dont feel offended OR as you said- need three slightly different questionnaires studying the same phenomenon, just questions are phrased according to the understanding of the group.

set deadlines til what she should sort things out and make clear what consequences will be if she doesnt, and stick to that.

How about talking to her about this situation and suggesting.... (what you want- that she moves out; her boyfriend pays bills; they buy their own toilet paper etc)?

I was ready to kill my neighbour tonight. He was cooking at 3am in kitchen which is next to my bedroom, grrrr....If he will do it one more time, I will talk to him.

Sorry to hear about your troubles, sound like a very depressing situation. Do you have anybody who understands what you are doing in your PhD with whom you could discuss your situation in less formal atmosphere?
And talk to your relatives and/or friends or professional (maybe you have counselling service in your university) about how you feel, you need lots of support but to get it one needs to ask.
hope you will be better soon.

leave them, if they dont want to do work proporly and in a very good quality, that is their problem. Spend more time with those who are more than keen to learn (and there are plenty of them in University). Dont waste your time on those who wont appreciate your effort;)

I wote for "How to get a PhD..." and "Unwritten rules...". Of course, one can use trial and error methods to find out averything about unwrittent rules of life in academia but these books will save quite a lot of time and pain:)

I dont think that Zara wanted to be snobish...it is a big difference whether somebody for working class or somebdy from upper class background says "Oh, no I wouldnt want such a life as..... (factory workers, etc).". For those, who came from working class background it means "Thanks God, I escaped that life"( and we know what we are talking about because we have experienced how it is when your parents work physicially extremely hard but never have enough money for basic needs; how it is when they come home and are so exchausted that they dont have time for anything else and how basically trapped in their class they are, how it is when somebody in your family losses his/her job ). So it is not snobbish towards other people, it is just relief that our lives probably will be in some aspects better that our parents lives. But it also comes together with estrangement from your background that Zara was talking about. And sometimes we feel pitty that not everybody has a courage (and opportunity, and means, and talent) to get a better life (if they want it of course).

in fact congratulations mc2006, it is nice to hear that for somebody doing Phd is a nice experience- that is an ideal universities (and all of us) should strive for:))

congratulations, you made us to feel guilty now:) was it your purpose?

What2DoNext

Do they think that Dr. means a doctor, i.e. medical doctor;))) or you are doing PhD in Medicine (in this case, cant blaim them:)?

Zara, your experiences sounds so familiar:)) I am the only one from my class who has got higher education and the first in my family who will have PhD; so my family members, relatives, friends and not to talk about people in my home village think I am some kind of deviant:) And as one can espect, they do not understand what it is about, especially when I complain that it is so hard, I am depressed or not motivated...PhD in this case is really only for us ourselves:)Sometimes it makes me feel very mch like outsider. But I dont regret, in University we can meet people who do understand and who are similar:))