It seems like I have been reading so much over 3 weeks but at the same time I feel that I still haven't really got anywhere near a decent research topic, so in that respect I feel like I haven't read enough and should be trying harder (feels physically impossible though!). For those who have just started their PhD's in the past 3 weeks, how many hours a day are you spending on work?
These past few days my ideas either go round and round in circles or I come up with the same dead-ends and my mind totally blocks. I am suffering a huge mind block on the theoretical concepts and just feeling generally bogged down - to think this is only a few weeks in!! Yet again I feel like forgetting the whole thing :(

I'm in my second year (Humanities) but I just wanted to point out that it took me until the Christmas holidays to have a decent thesis topic and a feasible thesis plan, after having read quite a lot of both primary and secondary sources. So you shouldn't be worried if after 3 weeks *the* topic hasn't appeared yet.

Hi nimrod81 - I appreciate it's not going to pop into my head after 3 weeks of reading, my concern is more centered around the fact that all the other new PhD students seem to have something definite to answer when asked "so what are you doing yours on??", Whereas I just stutter and flounder for a good while and feel/look stupid... then tell myself that I really have no clue what the answer to that is. So in those respects, I suppose my point is that I wonder whether I should have at least some 'clearer' ideas of what I am doing.