Don't worry. I did the same. In fact, because I was feeling bad for not working, I even wrote my dissertation before Christmas and spent the rest of my time correcting it. I was also writing my essays quite fast, because I knew what I wanted to write about.
My flatmate was exactly the opposite. She was in the same course as I were, and she was studying all day and all night. She was always getting extensions for her essays and she had no personal life.....

Ohhh Jojo thank you!!!!
Still in pain..........Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
I am very angry with everything and everyone around me:-(:-(:-s

Before I went to sleep last night I made this fantastic schedule for today: reading a few papers, prepare a first draft for a conference and transcribe 2 interviews. BUT instead I woke up with a terrible toothache (it is Friday the 13th, isn't it???) and I had to visit the dentist and since then I am on pain killers which don't seem to kill my pain!!!!!
So......everything is going to be done tomorrow!!!!

I am doing a PhD in WS (well, sociology + feminism). My research question seems very easy and strainghtforward, BUT it is not!!!!!
I came up with the research question when I started working at a school. The situation that I am researching was (and still is) all around me, so it was not difficult to wonder why.
Maybe you should look at something that is around you and seems "normal" and start question it.

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At my university, the first year report (not for upgrade) is supposed to be handed in in March, that is for P.T. students like me. It is supposed to be 5000-7000 words or the equivalent of it, and can include anything I want that proves that I am doing something.

I plan to include the slides of a presentation I did, my interview schedules, a draft of my lit review and the transcripts of the interviews I will have by then...My supervisors told me that this is more than enough.



But I guess it differs from uni to uni

Well, I wanted to say that my PhD is going extremely well, but for the last months I am trapped into my country's bureaucracy in order to have access to my participants....
But, I am 6 months ahead of my initial schedule and I guess that means that I will have more (relaxed) time for analysis (?????).
Being in my second year of a part-time PhD, and as English is not my first language and I am working full-time, I believe that I am doing well...

Well, during my second master I was always getting low marks from my tutor and much higher marks from the external(s) examiner(s). The same happenned with my dissertation, my tutor gave me 56, the second marker gave me 70 and the third 71!!!!
My biggest mistake was that I didn't complain. My tutor was a bully and one of the worst kinds. He had a huge problem with the fact that I am a non-british woman!!!! He was alway telling me that I am no master-material, that foreigners should not do post-graduate studies etc....
Do whatever you can!!!!!! I think that it is not fair to have such a discrepancy

I really don't know what is happening at other unis. Mine is cool. Everything runs as usual, except from the posters that are all around.
By the way, I had it and it was nothing that important!!! The most annoying thing was that I had to stay inside my house for 7 days....GRRRRRRR

You right click on the reference, you chose the option edit and then you just type the author as you want it.
But ENDNOTE doesn't seem to want this particular reference changed......:-s

I am trying to change the format to a reference and from (X, 2009) do it as X (2009). I right click on it but the edit option is not on. What can I do?
I tried it with other references and worked fine, it doesn't seem to want this changed...

Well, I'd like to contribute to the discussion.
I am from a country where there are NO fees at unis. Despite this, I chose to do my PhD in Britain and pay fees (EU, but compared to my country where there are no fees...). Here, I am at a great uni, with great supervisorS (plural), with access to online resources, counsellors etc.
I guess that if you think that education elsewhere is better, language should not be a barrier! I mean, as it several others have mentioned, many foreign students have problems with English, so why not go to France, or German, or Finland, or somewhere and have language problems there????
Nobody pressured me and nobody pressured everybody else to come here to study. We were free to go anywhere we wanted, but we chose UK. Have you wondered why???
And as far as the judgement of projects and their relativity to British context....Who is going to do that? And if that was happening, would that mean that cancer, special needs, engineering, medicine, media should be "examined" under British lens????

So, I guess we are all saying the same thing, BUT you are insisting on your opinions and do not want to be engaged in a dialogue. You just wanted to say what you had to say.....

10 years later.....Well, hopefully I will be over with my part-time PhD and my mother will have it hung above the fireplace with a nice frame!!!!!
I guess I will be working at the same job I am now, dealing with SEN children, maybe I will be married (IF my boyfriend will have finished his residency by then, as he is a doctor and it is veeeery difficult)....
Academic career???? Why not, although it is very difficult!!!

I am one of the people who love their PhD. I am doing something really exciting, something that seems very easy and common, but (of course) it is not. I have 2 wonderful supervisors and a third new one whom I will meet in a couple of weeks. They are very helpful and understanding (I am based in Greece and sometimes it is difficult for me to be at the university).
I think that if you do what you like and if you do it because you like it, not because you have to do it, then you will be happy!

I think it is common (if not the rule) to do your dissertation over the summer and submit it afterwards. I had to submit mine in October and so did my friends in different unis. Although, the graduation was at December and not summer.
Maybe I am wrong, but I think that this is the case.

When I needed a translation of my Greek degree, in order to enroll in my first master, I went to the British Counsil and they did it for me. Do you have any relatives or friends back in Spain? They could contact British Council in Spain for you and get the papers done...