Good luck with getting everything done you need to tonight, Lara. Hope you manage to get a good night's sleep after. :-)

Wish I had your resolve, but alas I'm knackered and need to be up early to go into my uni tomorrow. Good luck with getting your work done, Lara, and night night to everyone.

I think backing your work up online is a good idea. I recommend you check out idrive-e - it can back up anything you want on your computer (folders or individual files) at the click of a button, or you can automate the back-up of your work either constantly (it saves the older versions of your files too) or at a set time each day. If a back-up fails, it actually send you an e-mail telling you so. Unfortunately, you only get 2 gig of back-up space for free, which is ok unless you're doing a data intensive PhD with, say, a lot of audio files or that modelling stuff that Sylvester mentions. If you're willing to pay about £2-50 a month you can have storage for 150 gigs of data, which is what I do. I've had no problems with it so far and it certainly gives me piece of mind to know that every bit of work I do on my computer is constantly backed up to the last minute.

By the way, I'm not an agent for them or anything!

Hi Chrisrolinski, I will. I have my first interim assessment on the horizon, am working really hard on gaining ethical approval for my data collection and have to start preparing for some weekly workshops I have next semester. The outlook feels so grim at the mo. I get butterflies when I think about just what I have to achieve in such a short space of time - meh! Oh, congrats on that paper for publication you have in the pipeline!

Hiya Lara :-) Good luck with that discussion. And please remember what it says on the cover of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: DON'T PANIC! :-)

Although I make no particular effort to distinguish myself from the students (a good lot of them are actually quite a bit older than me), I haven't had any problems so far. They know that they really need to pay attention if they want to do well in their assignments and exams (which I stress to them) and if they miss what I say I make no attempt to repeat myself. It was quite funny last year. They actually sent me their assignments and pally e-mails saying, "please can you tell me if this looks ok?" and "what such and such statistical test would you recommend?". I told them to go an whistle in the nicest way possible. Other than that I've had no problems from students with how I dress. I may wear a suit one day before (if!) my PhD finishes - it might make me feel super professional and it'll have a certain novelty value.

Read a copy of How to Get a PhD by Morris and Pugh, so you know what to expect and so forth. I have discovered that you can download a pdf copy for free from here: http://www.2shared.com/file/3904435/ee23ecb5/How_to_Get_a_PhD_4th_Edition.html

I'm probably not the best person to give advice, but I wear a hoodie, pair of old jeans, either a t-shirt or some random top and a pair of old trainers. I do medical stuff and statistics for first and second years though, so I don't suppose you need to be too trendy. I suppose with art history students things may be different. In fact, a mate of mine graduated in art history at Man Met a couple of a few years ago and he said that all the students spent a considerable amount of time in the pubs - along with some of the lecturers! So dress could be important...?

Don't let the bxstards grind you down! If you think you can see light at the end of the tunnel, don't believe it for a second. It's just some shxt holding a torch and a stack of work for you to do.

Hello, BB. As far as I'm aware NUDIST is a much older iteration of what is now NVIVO 8. I am using NVIVO 8 to analyse qualitative interviews and I find it quite straightforward to use. I partly learned how to use it by attending a course at my university. However, I didn't find the course particularly helpful and so, really, I've learned how to use it with a couple of training books and some spare time - that's the best way in my opinion really. There's also a really helpful tutorial featured in the programme. There are alternative you can consider, such as Atlas.ti, also.
Have a look at the NVIVO qualitative project book, by Pat Bazely and Lynn Richards, if you'd like to learn how to use it. It doesn't take that long. Hope I'm not going off at a stance now, but the biggest danger with using software like NVIVO is that it is easy to lose your methodological approach and just do things the NVIVO way - pure atheoretical content analysis (that may be what you want though).

Oh no, that is bad news. I wonder what his epitaph will be? In a world where there are no more good movie voice-overs for trailers, in a world where most of the movies are crappy sequels anyway, and in a world where is costs a fortune to watch a movie at the cinema, one man sits with a chewing gum in his gob and a glass of water in the ultimate battle of good (motivation) versus evil (laziness).

I'm far from vain but yes it does. I've got a crap overgrown hair, wear cheap deodorant (things with odd names like Man Musk, Man Power and Twilight Passion), dress in crap TJ Hughes T-shirts and knitted jumpers and have a waist so wide, from being so over-weight, that I look like I wear a tyre around my midriff. Oh, and I'm also getting a hunch back from crouching over all day long. And to cap it all off, I have stress induced acne, so I have a face like a cheese and tomato pizza. :-(

Should have gone to the bookies!

Never thought I'd get into Big Brother, but actually rather have :$ For anyone who is interested and cares to mention, who do you think is going tonight with the two evictions? I think it'll be Mo and Cat, personally.