Well done AmyP! Despite the anti-climax, it's still an enormous achievement. Hope you are able to enjoy the occasion soon. (up)

I wish you the very best of luck. You seem to have everything under control. Your plan of getting it all done early and relaxing in the evening is a winner. Despite your feelings, you seem extremely well-prepared! Remember all your hard work - of course you deserve to be here!

Good luck again (up)(up)

Hahaha, I noticed the advert too. When I saw the first 'error', I thought "I won't be using your service thank you very much", but as soon as I saw the second I was pretty certain that the poor grammar and spelling is intentional. Poor advertisers- I bet they were very pleased with themselves and their oh-so-clever little banner too! :-)

I second this. I have been the world's worst procrastinator (I mean REALLY bad, to a devastating extent) brought on by perfectionism and my debilitating fear of all the flaws my work will have. I know your post isn't about procrastination at all, but this is an important lesson that I have absolutely had to learn to get anything done. Seems like yours is another situation in which "the perfect is the enemy of the good".

I hear ya! :-(



Haha :-)

Just wanna be clear - I didn't mean to imply what you said about the living-with-undergrads situation was unhelpful (although, I unavoidably did :$). Like I said- I agree it's not ideal. Just saying- it does no good to assume it will be three years of hell. :-)

Go get em tiger :-)

Try to remember that you've earned the authority to give that seminar (and it wasn't easy, right?). You have valuable things to teach them, and they're not out to get you. They'll automatically assume you're qualified (which you are) so TRY to relax a little. In terms of academia, you're their superior so there really is no need to be scared of them. Remember first impressions are all important, so plan for a very strong start - try to fake confidence for literally a few minutes, they'll think you're amazing, and it it'll all flow from there.

I'm wasting my time of course - it's normal to be nervous. But just think, in 24 hours you will have done it, and you will not be as nervous (if at all) next time.

Good luck (up)

Whilst the latter part is most certainly true, it may not be helpful to consider your living situation 'dire' at this early stage. Of course, it's not ideal, but see how it goes first. I don't know if your undergrad years lived up to the typical student stereotype but mine certainly didn't (though I didn't live in halls) and many of my friends (who did live in halls) were lovely, hard-working and considerate students. It's early days and they're likely to be excited at the prospect of student nights out and feeling flush with their loan installments, but living with them might not be as traumatic as you anticipate. They'll get use to you as a PhD student, they'll soon realise the relative unimportance of A level results (I laughed at that bit), and they'll probably do a lot of growing up over the coming months. Perhaps your doubts about whether you've chosen the right uni and subject are encouraging you to seek out other negatives? It is probably normal to feel isolated at first - you're in a completely unfamiliar situation with new people. Try to be more positive- with all this change, I doubt you need the stress.

Best of luck (up)

Stop worrying immediately. Though I'm sure that's not entirely possible. It's been three weeks - the chances are you weren't caught, and even if you were, worrying about it isn't going to help one jot. The chances of you receiving a £2500 fine are probably (though I've not investigated it) very slim; this is likely to be the worst case scenario, and probably applies to incidents of really irresponsible and dangerous driving (i.e. reversing without good reason, reversing a far distance, repeat offenders (assuming such idiots exist), causing an accident etc).

I'm sure a lot of people would not know that reversing on the hard shoulder can carry such penalties. I certainly didn't - even though I would try to avoid doing it, as I'm sure you did. But you did what you judged to be safest at the time and nobody was hurt so don't beat yourself up.

Best of luck. Fingers crossed nothing will come of it.

You wanted to continue the friendship on a "lighter lever"? What do you mean? Some friendships are closer than others, and some, as you say, naturally become more distant or closer as time goes on. But to not only make a decision to back away from a friendship, but to make a suggestion to that effect, seems strange to me. The feelings of rejection you suffered when your friend abruptly... er 'dumped' you are understandable, but those feelings and 'old times sake' aside, how much does this relationship mean to you - have you missed her? Do you think you are good for each other? (Just to be clear: I'm not suggesting that you aren't.) I'm sure this lady has many good qualities, but does she add value to your life?

P.S. Correctly-used semicolons rock ;-)

Haha I love a bit of sarcasm :-).

Seriously though Heba, you've not given us much to discuss/answer.

Hahahahaha... that's funny. I'm not surprised they didn't notice though; even with the inverted commas, when I first read it, I asked myself 'what's so wrong with public meetings'!

Oh, that's pretty crappy. I know that I can't apply to the ESRC for funding through my institution (also post '92) - I understood that that was a problem with my institution - not my MRes, but to be honest I didn't really look into it as (luckily) the ESRC aren't the most obvious source of funding for my area, so perhaps that's what my sup meant when she mentioned it.

I think your 'get-on-with-it' attitude is the right one (well, what choice do you have?). I know delays and setbacks are annoying and frustrating but it seems the path runs smooth for very few of us. It's just a matter of keeping at it without losing too much sanity along the way.

I've come up against the snobbery associated with "ex-poly's", and it is frustrating, but (whether you personally believe that your institution is actually inferior or not) don't allow it to make YOU feel inferior. Ultimately, how well you do is up to you, not your institution, and you obviously believe you are capable (or else why would you bother). I laugh at those who consider me inferior on account of my institution - I suddenly develop this horrendously immodest expectation that I'll prove myself against them whether they sneer or not :-)

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I agree - it's so difficult to understand what they mean. Presumably they mean competitive compared to industry standard. Well, at least that's what they hope to communicate. In reality it means they'd prefer not to say... so what does that communicate? I've inquired about jobs claiming to offer a competitive salary before, and it's been as little as 13k. The only way forward is to ring them and ask them straight. (Anonymously though- going straight for the cash is not likely to impress prospective employers - unless you can be bothered asking a whole bunch of other questions first, before you even know if it's worthwhile.)

Are you certain it's the MA that isn't verified? I'm no expert but I would've thought that it's the institution that isn't verified for funding, in which case if you were to apply for a PhD at an institution that is verified, the ESRC would still recognize your MA qualification.