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Same here really. My work is cross-disciplinary too, but it's very applied. It can be long-winded to explain where my expertise is. How I describe it depends on who I'm talking to - for some people it's 'applied environmental psychology', for others it's 'building energy studies from a psychological perspective', for others I give a one-sentence description of my topic. Luckily there's quite a lot of cross-disciplinary work taking place in my field so it's an accepted approach. The jobs I'm applying for are all cross-disciplinary too, but I look for a social science or psychology element. And I really don't consider myself an expert in anything apart from my own little section of the Venn diagram of all the disciplines looking at my topic!

On edit: cross-disciplinary? Inter-discplinary? Trans-disciplinary? It's all of them really! As so much work is these days (and that's where the interesting stuff seems to be, in my field anyway!)

Nobody else around today? Oh well, hope you having good days whatever you're up to!

Just finished reworking my lit review chapter. Tired now, but I'm behind schedule so need to push on. I'd like to get the work on the methodology chapter planned out before the end of the day.

Ouch, I hope your ankle is okay, Emmaki!

I had a really productive day yesterday, although I am a little behind the nominal schedule in my mind to meet next week's deadline. Oh well, I'm just going to keep plugging away at it, and hopefully the next few days will be as productive as yesterday!

Goals for today:
1.) Go swimming - DONE
2.) Finish reworking of lit review chapter
3.) Plan work to be done on methodology chapter (and start if I have time)
4.) Sort out expenses claim from conference

Sounds like you had a busy week last week Natassia! And Emmaki, hope you get lots done after work.

I've restructured my lit review chapter so now have to go through and make sure the sections flow and link properly, lose a couple of thousand words, and see if there is any recently-read literature that I still need to add in. I might not manage all of that today, but if I can get a good way into it I'll be happy.

Morning all!

Sounds like we're all doing well at pushing ahead, however slow it feels.

I agree about the job rejection, they had good reason and the feedback was lovely, gives me confidence that I will find a job soon.

Today, I'm going through my lit review and looking at what needs restructuring and what needs adding since I last worked on it, about a year ago! I'm hoping it'll be fairly quick though, as I have a review paper (unpublished!!) that I wrote for a journal so I can lift whole chunks out of that.

Good luck everyone with the work today!

Hello all!

Glad you've had good news, Button, that's always nice. And I hate using my parents' computer too, very slow and set up weirdly and I always have my Dad interrupting me just when I'm taking a quick break on Facebook! Luckily I'm not there very often.

Anyway - I had my job interview on Thursday and didn't get the job. Again. But this time I felt the interview went really well, and when they rejected me they sent a really lovely email full of praise and suggesting I apply for future jobs with them. Basically, as I suspected the problem was I'm in a slightly different discipline, and they've already set the methodological stuff on their study. Oh well, it was a good experience, and I did get close to getting the job, so I don't feel too battered by the rejection!

Back to work today after taking the entire weekend off (lazy!!). I have ten days to get my thesis into a decent enough shape to send to my supervisors - it won't be finished, but I want it to be as good as I can get it. Goals for today:
1.) Go swimming - DONE
2.) Reply to emails - DONE
3.) Send follow-up emails after conference
4.) Write research problem section of chapter one
5.) Look at what needs doing to lit review chapter

Hi all, hope you're all having a productive day!

Skig, a chilled day sounds like just the thing! And Linda, I agree about paper copies for proofing, it's the only way to go. My eyes just seem to skip over mistakes on the screeen.

Thanks both of you for best wishes for the interview! I've been preparing today, and I'm sure it'll go okay. I'm not very hopeful of getting the job, though; it's not really my discipline although it is my field of interest. We'll see, it'll be good interview experience at least!

Anyway, apart from writing up notes after a meeting with my supervisors this morning, I've mainly been focusing on job interview preparation today. I need to write a page about my research problem for my background chapter and I think that could be a useful thing for my preparation so Im going to focus on that for now. I also want to write a little statement about my methodology, which will be useful for the interview and for when I look at rewriting that chapter in a few days' time.

Hello everyone. Really pleased to see lots of new people here to help keep us all going!

I'm back from my conference in Helsinki (got back on Sun but spent yesterday catching up on emails and doing odd jobs, so back to work today). The conference was great - my presentation went really well, I got lots of discussion in the session and then lots of people came up to me throughout the conference to say how much they'd enjoyed it and to discuss links with their research. It was just what I needed really, reminding me that I do have something worthwhile to say!

Yesterday I got invited for a job interview, this Thursday, so now I have to dash around trying to prepare for that as well as get on with the draft thesis ready to hand that in in three weeks. Yikes, nowhere near enough time! First set of goals for today:
1.) Write breakdown of main points in each thesis chapter
2.) Research and write missing paragraphs for Background chapter

Oh, good luck Natassia! Hope it goes well - and for what it's worth, these things are very very rarely as bad as we imagine in advance, so do try to relax, and be kind to yourself afterwards.

Hello all

Benyaya, your description of your day sounded delightful.

I'm just getting ready for Helsinki tomorrow now. Come onto campus to print off handouts for my presentation, and also maps and reservation details for the trip. Excited now. I really should do some actual work on my thesis, but I'll probably leave it until I'm back and just allow myself to have a good break from it. So, I'll see you all next week!

Hello everyone! My internet connection's playing up and keeps crashing this page, so I haven't managed to read back to see what you've all been up to this week - hope it's all gone well!

I had my job interview on Tuesday, and didn't get the job :-( I'm disappointed, but the way they were talking in the interview about the role made it pretty clear from the start that I wasn't the person they were looking for. Oh well, the interview was a useful experience, both for future job applications and as a mini practice viva! Lots to think about. And at least I don't have to start that job on 1st October and somehow complete my PhD in my 'spare' time!

Off to Helsinki for a conference on Tuesday, so this week I've just been preparing for that. More of the same today and over the weekend.

Hope it's all going well for everyone!

Wow, Button, you're flying today, and yesterday too. Congrats!

I've just got to campus, I just missed the early train and then the next train and the bus were both just unreasonably slow so it's taken me forever to get here. But I'm feeling more positive about work today than I was yesterday (helped by my supervisors emailing me my annual report, which is full of glowing praise and no concerns!)

Plan for today:
1.) Sort out conclusions slide for conference presentation, and look for places to reduce presentation length
2.) Prepare an answer for the question I have to discuss at Tuesday's job interview
3.) Prepare to discuss thesis structure with supervisors in this afternoon's meeting
4.) Go to meeting and write up notes afterwards (then go to the pub!!)

Ooh well done Button, and hope your husband's okay Linda.

I started work late today because I had to go and get my hair cut this morning, and do some shopping while I was out, and then shout at the electric/gas suppliers for being idiots with my bill (I started out friendly but when they said 'oh sorry, we said it would take 28 days to sort and that was two months ago but it might take another 40 days' I got a lot more forceful - not that it did much good).

Anyway, I seem to be making very little progress on work. I did draft out my conference presentation yesterday so my main task for today is to add the missing info to that, tighten it up and rehearse it for timings. And to continue preparing for Tuesday's job interview.

Welcome back Lindalou! And Chococake too!

Hope everyone is making good progress today.

I've been swimming this morning and am feeling both invigorated and bloomin knackered, so we'll see how the day goes! My two tasks for the day are:
1.) Get a rough version of my conference presentation assembled
2.) Go through things suggested by my supervisor to prepare for Tuesday's job interview

Well done with finishing the journal article, Skig. And it's hardly surprising that you're feeling so tired, do take it (relatively) easy, your health is far more important than your PhD!

I'm starting to feel a little panicked about how much I have to do in the next two weeks. My brain feels very fuzzy and unfocused and I feel like I need to be sharp and making clever decisions that I'm just not capable of. Oh well, I'm sure it'll all come right, and the deadline for the thesis that I have coming up is not set in stone, after all.

Tasks for today:
1.) Admin bits - printing stuff off, sending a few emails (am half way through this at the moment)
2.) Prepare for this afternoon's meeting with supervisor
3.) Plan the structure for writing up my current data analysis
4.) Start planning conference presentation