Sylevester said: "That said, I came out of the supermarket today with a bottle of milk and said to myself as I walked down the street "well, that's the milk bought then"."

That actually made me laugh out loud in the computer room!

chris - could you not mention it to them now? Perhaps set the wheels in motion. Granted it's three years and I understand about possibly not being with him then, but you might be with someone else if not him.
Give them a chance to think about it and see how serious you are about your relationship.
I want all the people who supported me through it to be there, that's mostly my folks and my bloke

I'm a definite "if I pass" person, and I always get people saying the whole "oh, but you'll be fine, off course you'll pass!" when really they have no idea how much of an 'if' it actually is!
Certainly not false modesty here.
Luckily, good friends and family don't give me the usual gumph and will actually listen to my fears without dismissing them.

Sorry, who's - not who'se. *tut*

Yeah, I'll be going to mine - assuming that I pass that is.
I went to both my undergrad and my masters ceremonies. In both cases I had friends that didn't because they didn't like the idea of all the pomp and ceremony.
I really like all of that, I think it marks an important achievement in my life and it is a chance for my parents to sit there and be proud. If they weren't going to attend my undergrad and MA ceremonies I prob wouldn't have gone, but I'll do my PhD one for definate - no matter who'se there.

Talking to myself

^^^
What Otto said. I'm reluctant to say too much about my research because I quite like being anonymous. Not too frightened about my sup. looking on here though, not really his thing LOL.

I'm in Linguistics. Might leave it at that if you don't mind

Good luck fluffy monster.
My viva is still a little way off but I've been worried about it since the beginning.
The things that people have said to me that help are that you have written your thesis, no one knows it better than you and the content within. You have spent 3+ years working on it and it is all your work. If anyone could talk about it it's you.
Hopefully, your supervisor would not have let you get to the viva stage if s/he didn't think you could pass it.

The loneliness does, yes.
My uni and department are quite small and I'm the only PhD working in my area. We don't get offices here so it's a case of either sitting in the library or in the postgrad computer room which should be friendly but isn't really. Petty things like leaving windows open and talking on mobiles makes it difficult to make friends.
I also live in a different town to my uni and work from home which is very isolating.
Know how you feel... especially today

Sorry, not "me", but "we" LOL!

I've always gone down the passive voice route because I've been unsure on this matter as well. I've not heard anything against it so far - is it perhaps a matter of which field "one" is in?

Mind you, reading recent texts I've seen "I" a couple of times, or if it is written by more than one author "me".

Bit of a puzzle really.

Understandable to want a rant.

But also sounds like you've gotten what you want out of the situation so that's ok.

If you don't want anything more to do with the people you are communicating with then it's all good, no?

Bit frustrating to have it end that way, but hey ho.

Oh well now I just have feelings of desperate inadequacy and inferiority.

golfpro I am utterly devastated by what you have said. I don't know what to do with myself!

I think I'm going to give up my PhD, even though I'm in my 4th year and just a few months from submitting.
It just all seems so pointless now that someone who I've never heard of in an unspecified field has said I'm not worth bothering with since I didn't get a distinction in my MA.

WOE!


LMAO.

Depends on the job.
Some industries consider a PhD "career suicide". But if you want to be a uni lecturer it is pretty useful