Hi all!

Yes i've finally finished it! It's far from perfect but I hope she'll accept it as a peace offering. I'm now going to sleep..... Thank you for being supportive. xx

Haha, it's just nice to hear that other people are in the same boat. I mean, I know they are, but it's still nice ;)

I've asked my boyfriend to read what I've done so far - it should help. I'm at the editing/tailoring stage now, which I find almost more difficult to concentrate for as after a day a writing you can't look at your work objectively anymore!

Anyone else doing an all-nighter? I have to hand in my latest chapter to my supervisor tomorrow. I've been working like a madwoman the last five days (why I couldn't do this progressively is beyond me...).

Sadly my brain now refuses to work, I've been surfing the web for the last two hours. If only I could knuckle down I could be finished in a few hours. Halp!

I know, right? Argh, I'm just not very good at dealing with aggressive people but I guess you live and learn. Hopefully this will teach me to stand my ground in a way that will be useful academically...!

I have quite a long break before I see them next so there's time, thankfully, for a clean start.

Well, first of all I got the date wrong. I study in a different country to my uni and I must have count the weeks of term wrong, so that I missed the day I was supposed to give my lecture.... So everything has been rescheduled, and for that initial lecture they must have been sitting there getting increasingly angry at my non-appearance... (can't blame them)

As for the lecture, I tried my best to be friendly and make the difficult concepts easy etc, but at the end of the lecture, one student rather angrily asked me why I hadn't just recorded the lecture.

It's just quite frustrating when you try very hard to be friendly and feel this wave of apathy/anger in your direction :S Still, I have four seminars and a lecture with them to look forward to!

Well it was a bit of a disaster, I think my students hate me :S

It depends completely on your university, department etc of course, but for French there are quite a few affiliated organizations such as http://www.sfs.ac.uk/ that offer funding towards conference costs etc. There must be equivalents for your area of research?

This is true but you can get funding if you know where to look :D

Hey! I'm also doing my Phd at a distance, in another country in fact, for personal reasons (immigration laws changed in GB so my bf couldn't afford to stay there). Is there a uni in the town you're in, or closer than the one you're doing your phd at? If so, you should check if they have any talks/conferences coming up, especially if it's something in your department. I'd suggest applying to do conferences and/or attending them is a great way to meet people in your field (plus good for the ol' CV).

Have you tried it? I'm finding it quite helpful. You concentrate on a task for 25 minutes then take a 5 minute break, after 5 sessions you take a longer break... There's an iphone ap for it but a simple timer will do just as well...

Oh Zoraxe, I was totally the red queen in my first year too! And my second, and my third ;)

It does get easier I promise. You are lucky to have supervisors on your back, I had that too in my 1st year but was left at large the next two years and suddenly had to self-motivate, but it's important to do so. I admire you coping with teaching and doing your research at the same time, they're both very time consuming!

Goodness, thank you so much for that detailed reply Olivia! I shall bear all these points in mind as I re-draft this lecture! I'm terrible at improvising, especially when public speaking, so I'm a bit nervous about just having notes but it's true that being read to for an hour is rather unpleasant so I'll try to practice!

I have to give a 1 hour lecture in a few days to some first year students and could really do with some advice (there seems to be nothing online)! At the moment, despite doing far too much research and work I only have enough to fill half an hour. How do you fill time up? Is it best to write notes rather than sentences? How do you structure a lecture? Any tips gratefully received....

Two out of three goals done! Wrote 800 words so exceeded my expectations.

Ok, so my goal for today is:
-write at least 500 words
-Finish an article proposal
-Collect a guide of cool stuff to do in Paris for my incoming visitors (let's face it, that'll be the funnest thing to do)