the question i really hate of late is 'what are you gonna be doing after your PhD?' In September when i started off i was so ambitious, energetic and I had the future all mapped out. Then come the first term, I just got by. All the hard work, the loneliness of being away from home for more than a year, the solitary confinement of phd life, the scary seminars i had to take....and now the pressure to keep up with all this stuff and publish soon....my goal right now is just to get by each week. i feel tired at the thot of the great cycle with the supervisor meetings and the fear of not making it past my first year. I'm I the only one who doesn't know what to say when people ask me to talk about my research and future plans?

Don't worry Jojo, you're not alone. It is very difficult to feel much certainty or security when you're in research. I'm not very clear what to say to the "What are you going to do after your PhD?" question either, as there are so many issues affecting it. I'm not keen to leave the city I'm in now, having gone through the house-buying process. Believe it or not, taking each week at a time is probably the best thing you can do to avoid feeling overwhelmed by it all. Everything you're feeling is normal. It'll all fall into place, you'll see.