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Hi everyone.

Thank you so much for your replies. I really appreciate them. I can think straight and calm down after reading them. Thanks!

Hahahaha. That is very funny Mak_2011. :-)



I understand and don't feel anything is wrong if the person is really asking out of his/ her curiosity or just would like to ask about my experience to prepare for his/her PhD application. I received many questions including the same ones as I mentioned in my original post from others too (other than this particular friend) and I answered them as best as I could and I didn't feel angry/ intimidated / really uncomfortable by those questions. It was only from this particular friend at that particular time that I felt really uncomfortable. She had actually known most of the answers as I had told her about my situation previously (it was so naive of me thinking that everyone would understand and would offer some motivational words /advice), so why did she need to bring up the same issues again? I just didn't want the same feeling to repeat when I meet her at the conference and considering the situation that I am in at the moment, I might burst into tears in front of her if she provokes me again.
By the way, it is surprising to know that people do say this kind of harsh words to those who are really excellent too. It is not only me or only because of my poor achievement that means.

I have just returned from the conference few days ago, I met her there and she asked me about many things more- what made me think that my supervisor was a good supervisor when I applied for my PhD? Is there anyone in the lab that I can discuss with? When am I expected to graduate? What is the novelty of my research? What do I gain from my internship? How long will my PhD be if I am going to graduate on the date that I mentioned before? Did I take a long time to setup my experimental hardware? What software do I use? bla bla bla... but this time without any judgmental tone :-) and I tried to answer all her questions as best as I could. I also asked her about her projects, grants, teaching experiences, how does she manage between family and work etc. We had a nice chat about our old friends, family and many other things. Another good (or maybe sad) thing about meeting her was she reminded me of the person I was before starting this PhD.
Thankfully everything was fine and most importantly I didn't cry in front of her.

Sorry to hear about your brother, I hope he will get well/ better soon. But I am also happy to know/read about your progress. Well done!(up)

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I will be attending a conference at the end of this month and I have just discovered an old and very competitive friend of mine will be attending it to. During my 1st or 2nd year of PhD, she was questioning me in a teasing way about my PhD and all the choices that I had made regarding it- does it feel really good to study in the country where I am studying now (lets call it as "country C")? Am I really happy to be in "country C"? Is my supervisor really have a wide/ deep knowledge about my topic? Are there really many robots (my research is on robotics) in my lab? How many robots are there in my lab? Why did our another friend graduate earlier than me although he was also studying in "country C"? She even added that, according to the world ranking, "country A", and "country B" publish the highest and second highest number of journal papers respectively, "country C " only falls on the 3rd place. Bla bla bla... That, it feels like she was meaning to say that what I am doing and all my choices are not good enough and are rubbish.
Now, looking at my current situation- lack of support/ guidance from my supervisor, not much progress, only doing about 50% from my initial research plan, still have a large part of my research to finish until the end of this year, feeling lost, no one to discuss about my project with in here, not so many robots existing/ produced in my lab, I do feel lonely / depressed sometimes in here, have been on sleeping pills every now and then, will be presenting a very basic topic in the conference (that I am really suffering) and looking at her situation- having husband, 2 or 3 kids, a good career as a lecturer although she does not have a Phd yet (in my country we can be a lecturer although we don't have a PhD yet), producing many papers every year, became a paper reviewer, won a research grant from the government last year, will be going to pursue her PhD in "country B" soon, I am feeling that may be she is right.:-( Things have not been as well as I have hoped/ expected but I am still ploughing on. :-l I am quite certain that she will ask more judgmental questions when we meet. I don't want to lie nor brag about things that are not really that good, nor reply to her with harsh words, but I also don't want admit that she is right nor look like a hopeless pathetic person who is going to lose her mind :-s. Any advice? Thanks.

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I have read it. It's very useful indeed. Thanks Eska!(up)

Thanks Ginandjazz & Mak_2011! :-)

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Thanks Dunni73, KB & Pjlu... :-)

Thanks Phdbug!(up):-)

Thank u sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much!:-)

Hi,

I really appreciate if anyone could help me to get these papers:

1. "Adaptive Multiple Impedance Control Based on Passivity", http://www.scientific.net/AMM.34-35.265
2. "Robust generalised impedance control of piezo-actuated flexure-based four-bar mechanisms for micro/nano manipulation", http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092442470800472X

Thanks:-)

Just try your best CloverCloud...

Hi Cindrella,

I'm happy that your simulations have worked out already. That's great. (up):-) You've shown that things do get better and one can bounce back after being in a difficult situation. That's very inspiring. :-)

I am still reading more papers/ books as there are still a lot of things that I don't fully understand, therefore I still can't start to formulate my problem/ solution yet. It's difficult because there is no one here that I can ask/ discuss with/ refer to- I feel so lost. But, I have emailed some authors and I am now waiting for their replies. I'm getting more worried because the reading has taken much longer than I planned and I am behind schedule now. Sorry for polluting your thread with this negative post.

Have a nice weekend. :-)(turkey)

I had submitted the revised version of my journal which was under “minor revision” status in the beginning of July. The status during that time was “with editor” (for 1 month) and it had changed to “under revision” since beginning of August. I still haven’t got any reply form the editor until now (about 3 months after submitting). From what I've seen, some papers in that journal are accepted after about 2 months after the submission of the revision. Is this a bad sign? Is it wise/ reasonable to ask about the paper again, but I have already asked twice before and I am afraid that they will reject the paper or change the status to major revision if I ask so many times. Or is it better to just wait for their email? Anyone has any experience on this?

Thanks.

Hi Cindrella :-)

Thank u sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much! :-)

I already PM u my email address.

Thanks again!:-)

Hi:-)

I really appreciate if anyone could help me to get this article:

G. Niemeyer and J. J. E. Slotine, Performance in Adaptive Manipulator Control, International Journal of Robotics Research, 10, pp. 149-161 (1991). :-)

Thanks :-)

Hi! :-)

I'm back after almost 2 weeks of vacation. :-)

Today I have read more papers, but there are still many things that I don't understand. I'll continue this tomorrow.

Don't be sorry /worry about writing any negativity, Cindrella :-) . Everyone has his/her own ups & downs/ high & low times. I was totally hopeless and lost last month- my experiment didn't work despite all the things that I had changed/ modified/ adjusted. Worrying if I would break any parts of my mechanism made me even more stressful at that time. After several efforts/ attempts, in the end I found out that the last reason why my results were not consistent was I didn't tighten one of the screws in my mechanism- it got loose everytime I ran the experiment :p (and of course the other modifications/ adjustments/ changes had also helped in improving the results). It sounds silly but it almost caused me high blood pressure!!! :-s:p.
Just keep on trying and take some rest too- avoid from being burned out.

I really hope I could finish all my simulations and experimental works by the end of this year (T_T) (T_T)...

:-) \(^_^)/