Quit work to do PhD fulltime
Do fieldwork staying in nice hotels and flying first class instead of camping (yes really)
Move out of my house so it could be gutted and remodelled (get rid of the lovely 1980s avocado batthroom as a start) including an aga
Usual new cars, holidays etc for nearest and dearest
Some scholarships at all the unis i have studied at (four so far) plus my old school and my children's school or maybe major library donation
Maybe endow a chair somewhere
An iphone cos everyone I know has one

And my absolute luxury have freshly laundered 100% cotton bedding fresh every day (and someone to change the beds)

Great question for first day of teaching :-)

You need to check university regulations but I am pretty sure that if you don't submit you will get nothing - one what basis could they give you an MPhil? You have to submit to get anything (and don't forget that MPhil is not the only alternative - people (though it is rare) do fail outright).

You need to focus and find the time to do it at weekends and evenings (what do you do with this time) - it's what those of us studying part time do all the time. It is hard but you need to prioritise this otehrwise you won't get there.

It really annoys me (and I know that is pretty petty) that all these people who are still wet behind the ears saying is twenty whatever too old to do a PhD. I so want to slap them around the face with a wet fish (maybe we could get an icon for that!)

I don't know much about them but would take a look at the banks' websites or phone up to ask.

Sadly I haven't found a cure for naughty labradors (mine is too lazy to chew mail). I've used arnica when he had a very bad (three times weekly trips to the vet for three weeks for dressing etc becuase it couldn't be stitched) cut. Arnica ias great for reducing dleeding (including bruises) - eitehr topically or orally. (I first came across this through ante natal classes where there were a number of homeopathic remedies recommended to promote healing after the birth). The remedy that totally convinced me though was chamomilla (available as teething granules) which totally sorted the teething pain of both my children. And for the sceptics among you my husband gave soem to a colleague for his baby who had been screaming in pain on and off for three nights. Within half an hour of the colleague giveing them to him (not knowing if or how quickly it would work) we got a phone call thanking us for saving his sanity becuase teh baby was setteld for the first time in days.

I use it before presentations, interviews etc and find it does help. I'm a great believer in homeopathic remedies. I thik they actually work as I ahve used homeopathic remedies on my children when they were babies, other people's children and my dog.

and on a bit of a tangent - i never know what to put about my accountancy qualification - because I couldn't' justify the membership fees I let my membership lapse when I became and academic so technically I am not a qualified accountant but if I say I am an ex-accountant then that conjures up thoughts of being stuck off (which is not quite the idea I want to give).  I tend to say I qualified as an accountant and leave it at that.

If you are part qualfied becuase you have not yet finished then that is a completely different story. I would put it in but give a date for compeltion then people won't assume you have given up :-)

I'm 44 and started my part-time PhD in December.  I live with my husband, 2 children (and the obligatory labrador) in our "forever house". We moved out of London 9 years ago and bought a farmhouse in the country (up north) - hence the labrador!  Wouldn't leave it ever (even if I win the lottery -I'd just redo bathrooms, kitchen, carpets which re all very dated). I travel 20 miles (each way) to my PhD university (not very often as I am in social sciences) and 50 miles each way to the uni I work in.  Because I live in the country I have to drive - public transport is so crap that if I want to get to work for 9am by public transport I have to leave by 6.30 THE NIGHT BEFORE!

I'm lucky in that I had a well paid career (which I gave up for academia) so got on the property ladder then and managed to benefit from London property boom in the late 90s.

I wouldn't worry about it being 6 years since you left uni - that is not long in most people's lifetimes. I went back to do my MA more than 10 years after graduating (haivng qualified as an accountant in the meantime) and then when I did my MSc 7 years after that the course director (who I got on very well with) had died just after we completed. I rang the universty registry up asked for advice and they were really helpful. The uni will have records and to be honest personal stuff in references is less important than grades etc. If you are applying for a taght postgrad then I would have thought a 2.2 will be fine (and you have demonstrated interest by taking the short course) - less sure if you are looking for a PhD place.

I wouldn't major on the part qualified accountant - if I saw that on an application I would want to know why you haven't qualified (too hard for you, no sticking power etc). (Sorry!)

I'd focus in your personal statement on how you will balance working and studying and why you are interested in the course.

Not sure what subject you are n but I think in most universities if you are self funding then your age will not be a barrier to applying. I'm nearly 45 and started my part-time PhD at the end of last year. I am doing it a university in the North of England. I know of lots of other mature PhDers. I would approach universities and supervisors and see what they say.

A request for book reviews came out on a subject mailing list and as I had already read one of them and it is so directly related to my PhD I volunteered to review it. The publisher' s free copy book has now arrived (AND I had already bought it when it first came out!) and so I have 4 weeks to write a review.

And I don't know where to start. Obviously I need to reread the book but then what. I've downloaded some book reviews from the journal to get an idea of what they look for but now I am panicking.

It's further complicated by the fact that I met the editors at a conference and they were really nice and helpful to me (and at least one of them is a potential external for my PhD as it is such a small field)

Conference papers can be written by multiple authors - you don't usually get both authors presenting though. Have a look at the guidance for presenters to see what it says (if anything) about multiple authored papers - usually it is just somethign along the lines of "at least one author must present"

Don't worry about it being very early in your research to be presenting at a conference - I submitted an abstract three weeks after I registered and presented it at an international conference onlyfourmonths after I started my part time PhD. The networking opportunities offered by the conference were invaluable in shaping my thinking.

Go for it (either with the other person or alone)

Thought I would start a new thread about the poem I posted on the banner thread so that other people might see it.

It's called Owed to a Spelling Chequer and is by Dr Jerrold H. Zar of Northern Illinois University

I have a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye cannot sea

When eye strike a quay to right a word
I weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait away

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two late
And eye can put the error rite
Its rarely, rarely grate

I’ve run this poem threw it
I’m shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect in it’s weigh
MY CHEQUER TOLLED ME SEW!


and there is a longer version available at http://www.dyslexic.com/articlecontent.asp?CAT=Dyslexia%20Information&slug=171&title=Crazy%20English%20and%20Dyslexia#owed

Can't take the credit for the poem a (non academic) friend of my brother's posted it on facebook and I stole it (I'm sure he didn't write it either.) I'm going to use it with my first years to prove the error of relying on just the spellchecker.