Yes, where is Wickid?!! Hope her arm is healing well.

I've got my cuppa...

Don't despair Matthew, they'll be plenty of projects advertised yet, we have a studentship for next Oct and are yet to advertise (actually, it's a pharmacology field, you might be interested!)

Yes, there may well be 7 one hour poster sessions at your conference but I think it's highly unlikely that you will be expected to be at your poster for more than one of them.

You will find that there is a specified time (usually 30 mins to an hour, depending on size of conference) where you should stand by your poster, you certainly won't be expected to loiter by it for the duration of the conference. In fact, again, if it's a big conference, you will likely be told to take your poster down after your presentation slot because other posters will be going up in the same place.

People will usually make it obvious if they want to talk to you about your research. Just try to make yourself approachable (smile etc) and enjoy it. It's a good way to meet like-minded researchers and make some good contacts. Good luck!

Don't have any stats or a reference but I was told at a pre-viva workshop that, by far, the most common scenario is a pass with minor corrections.

I'm the same i.e. can often produce best work between 10pm and 1am ish. I've been like that since my A-levels (age 16). I'm also a night-owl and feel pretty alert then. But also, I think because the rest of the household are in bed, I can concentrate without any distractions.

Have you considered a research degree as your next move? If you want a research career, it's likely to be the next logical step for you.

Do not even think about submitting a paper with your supervisors name listed as an author without his approval. This could land you in big trouble. One, it's dishonest as by your own admission your supervisor has not contributed to this paper and two, that aside, it's not the done thing to submit work attributed to someone if they have not consented to the submission. In fact, you will usually have to agree to a statement that all authors agree to the submission and vouch for the validity of the work, which clearly you will be unable to do.

The best misunderstanding is when you finish or are close to finishing your PhD and people constantly ask 'so what are you going to do next?' and then look totally confused when you explain you're going to be doing the job you've been training to do i.e research

Yes, I think it's important to show that you have responded to the results of your pilot and improved your questionnaire accordingly. This will be interesting stuff to an examiner wanting to see how thorough your methodology was so do make the most of a chance to demonstrate this, good luck!

I had a similar issue in that I developed a lab assay, used it on one clinical study, modified it, used it for another clinical study, modified it again, used it for a 3rd clinical study. I wrote this up (Methods chapter) chronologically. Wouldn't you describe your questionnaire design in your methods chapter (questionnaire 1, subsequent development, questionnaire 2) and just have the questionnaire results in the results chapter?

NB I'm a quantitative researcher and have never dabbled with qualitative questionnaire type data so you might not want to listen to me on this one

Nobody does (or should do!) a PhD for the money. Nobody works in academia for the money and certainly not for the job security. I'm not saying it's right (I'd not turn down the offer of a payrise or a longer contract) but that's (currently) how it is. Things are getting better, after all, a 12K tax free bursary can be lived on reasonably easily (just a shame that post-doc/lecturer salaries did not increase too!). What we can do as current PhD students/Post-docs etc is make sure that prospective PhD students venture into a PhD with their eyes wide open i.e. they know what is expected of them and know that 3 (plus) years down the line there is no guarantee of a job and that if they want to stay in academia, they'll not be getting rich anytime soon!

Our lab was 29oC today...and it's only April!!! NB that's a flushed from heat smiley, not an embarrassed one on this occasion!

What's the frame size of your current bike Juno? Always best to try the bike for size before you buy but a rough guide for the frame size required (for a mountain bike) is your inside leg measurement (in inches) minus 14.